Johnny Lee lay in bed, smelling the sweet scent of maple-cured bacon coming from the kitchen. He rolled to the side of the bed facing the wall. He ran his fingers through his hair that was wild from rolling in his sleep. The sound of footsteps grew louder as they neared his door.

"Come on, buddy, breakfast is ready," his older sister Amelia said.

Johnny turned his head quickly and gave her a sly smile.

"I'm coming, I'm coming," he jokingly sighed.

He hopped out of bed, slipped into his slippers, and met her in the hall. They descended the stairs together as the scent of bacon grew stronger.

"Did you know it's physically impossible for a pig to look up to the sky?" He asked Amelia.

"No, I didn't," She replied.

"Well, it's true," he shrugged.

"You're such a smartie, Johnny Lee," she smiled at him.

"Last one there eats rotten eggs," their brother Jed came storming down the stairs. 

When they were at the second to the last step, he tried sliding through Johnny and Amelia to get a lead. It would have worked had he not been born broader than any baby on Earth. He's been broad his whole life and yet he still thinks he can fit in tiny spaces.

"Oww," Johnny yelled as he tumbled down.

"Ope, sorry," Jed said.

He quickly picked himself up and ran to the table. Amelia pulled herself together and then helped Johnny up.

"We won't really have to eat rotten eggs, right?" Johnny asked.

"Don't worry, I'll let you beat me," Amelia winked.

Johnny smiled yet again and followed the maple scent to the kitchen. As he sat at the table, his mother placed a plate of peanut butter banana pancakes and 4 slabs of bacon. His mouth watered instantly. Johnny scanned the table for his maple syrup, but couldn't find it.

"Umm, mom?" He asked.

"What sweetie?" She replied.

"Where's the syrup?"

"No syrup today."

"What do you mean?"

"We won't be having any syrup today."

"How come?" He asked.

"I've decided we are going to be healthier. We can't do that if we pour pure sugar on our breakfast every morning," She replied.

"Is this a joke?" He asked.

"No."

"Why?"

"Why is it not a joke?" His mother asked.

"No, why are we doing this?" He practically screamed. There is no way their family, you know, a family that eats syrup every day, would no longer buy syrup.

"Do not use that tone with me, or I will tell your father," she said sternly.

Johnny swallowed his tongue and stared at his plate. This was his future. His forever. Pancakes with no syrup on it. It was torture. Child welfare would have a field day with this. But he loved his mother far too much to turn her in, not even for maple syrup.

Johnny ate his breakfast slowly. The pancakes were dry, as was to be expected. His brother and sister remained silent during his row with his mother. They were just used to this. Every few months or so, their mother would go on a health kick and take away their syrup. Johnny was used to it, and yet it still stung every time. Probably because he was never ready for it. His mother never gave warning signs. If she did, Johnny would notice.

It was Amelia's day to do the dishes, so after breakfast, Johnny ran upstairs alone to start planning. 
After the last syrup ban, Johnny came up with a plan. Not just any plan, the plan. The maple syrup raid. He was mostly prepared. The planning was done with all the details on a folder on his computer. All he needed to do was map it out and tell his siblings.

He grabbed his whiteboard stand and started mapping frantically.

"What's going on?" he heard Amelia say from the hallway.

"I think mom broke Johnny," Jed replied.

Johnny stopped for just a second to turn to his siblings.

"Two seconds and I will show you both," he said.

"Show us what?" Amelia asked.

"The plan," he replied

"What plan?" Jed asked as he finally stepped into Johnny's room.

Johnny stopped what he was doing completely, turned to face his siblings, and smirked.

"The maple syrup snatch," Johnny confidently proclaimed.

Both siblings broke out in laughter, and Johnny Lee was outraged. He worked on this plan for months. He made it foolproof. They hadn't even looked at it yet.

He gave them both a staredown, stomped his foot, and turned while mumbling under his breath. One couldn't really hear what he said, but it had something to do with his siblings not being smart enough to understand the genius of it.

"Oh come on, buddy," Jed said.

"Yea, we were just messing around, we want to hear about it," Amelia said.

"Nope, too late," Johnny said. "Besides, you wouldn't get it."

"Yea, yea, we get it. You're the genius," Jed said.

"Don't," Amelia said.

"Don't what? Mock him more about the name 'Maple Syrup Snatch?'" Jed asked.

"It's a good name," Johnny shouted.

"It's a nice name Johnny," Amelia said.

"The Sap Snatch would be better," Jed said.

Johnny Lee went to yell but stopped as he thought further about it. And darn, that was a better name. How did his brother think of that so quickly? Oh well, it didn't really matter. Johnny came up with the plan, and that is where the real genius lies. He decided his brother wasn't worth his breath and turned back to his mapping.

"Come on, kid, tell us what you need us to do," Jed said as he walked in the room and squeezed Johnny's shoulder. Amelia was a step behind.

Johnny spent the next hour telling his siblings his plan. Jed and Amelia would have been ready after 15 minutes, but Johnny wanted to make sure they 100 percent knew every last detail. When he was finally done explaining, all three siblings loaded into Jed's pickup and drove to the edge of town. They left the truck near the pond's edge, hoping that if anyone saw it, they would assume it was a group ice fishing and think nothing further. 

From the side of the road, they put their snowshoes on and made their way through the woods. It was a long trip in its entirety, but it didn't have to be. There were plenty of maple syrup farms closer to their home, it's just, Johnny really liked them. There was only one farm owner that Johnny wouldn't feel guilty stealing from, and that was Mr. Melky.

Mr. Melky was a popular man around town. That happens when you have a faucet of syrup flowing from your hands. Johnny didn’t like him. Bad news followed him. Like the time Ms. Zinc's cat drowned in a syrup barrel. The barrel's that are tightly sealed and in a locked shed. Or the time his biggest competitors stores were broken into and dumped in the snow right after they had an argument. They made as much maple taffy with it as they could, but it was still a loss. There were too many things that couldn’t be coincidence. Johnny Lee was good at math, and things surrounding Mr. Melky didn't add up.

The snow was thick in the woods making it difficult to travel even with snowshoes. But the snow wasn't the hardest part of the journey, it was his siblings. Jed could not stay focused for a second and Amelia wasn’t much better. She was always supporting Johnny in all of his plans, and she had lots of nice things to say to him, but when it came down to it, she couldn't care less. So while Johnny Lee was the youngest kid in this journey, he was also the most mature. And now he was stuck wrangling two toddlers while walking through deep snow in the woods on the way to a war with the Sap King. All Johnny Lee could do was hope that he could be successful and have something to show for it. Mr. Melky was going to finally pay for the imagined slights he made against their town. And Johnny would have a store of syrup to last him until summer.

Every farm they passed, Jed complained. He didn't care who they stole from, he just wanted it to be over. The syrup didn't interest him since he was staying in shape for hockey. He only came because he didn’t trust Amelia driving his truck.

 After they passed the fifth farm, Jed had had enough. They still had one more farm to pass before they would be at Mr. Melky's. Boredom was the worst thing that could happen right now. Jed became careless when he was bored.

Johnny Lee braced himself. He knew it was only a matter of time before his brother exploded. He wouldn't angry explode. For them, it was different than that. Their family was superhumans belonging to the Psyner race. They could throw powerful balls of energy called dracs from their body. Except for Johnny Lee, of course, he wouldn't get his powers until he was thirteen. But Jed and Amelia were seventeen and fourteen, respectively. Their veins were charged with electromagnetic energy, fueled by their emotions. And Jed's strongest emotion was boredom.

Jed started throwing dracs slowly. First, he hit a tree. It left a small piece of charred bark. Then he lightly tossed a drac a few feet in the air, melting the snow on impact. After that, he started throwing rapidly. At first, he threw overhand like in baseball but later started swinging his arm in a circular motion and throwing underhand.

Johnny Lee started to worry. He was really good at worrying. Especially when his brother was careless with his drac throwing. They weren't allowed to use their powers in front of humans. Jed didn't even bother to check their surroundings. It was dangerous. Johnny Lee was about to let him know when a loud voice rang through the forest.

"Who's out there," Mr. Melky said from his front steps.

Johnny Lee was disappointed in himself for not realizing they had already approached Mr. Melky's farm. He didn't see his giant "Sap King" sign. Luckily, he was right by a giant maple tree. He tucked behind it, out of sight from Mr. Melky. Jed and Amelia were not as smart. They started sprinting. Or at least they tried to sprint. Sprinting isn't really possible in snowshoes.

Mr. Melky caught up to them quickly. He yelled, calling them hooligans. Johnny Lee's siblings never mentioned he was there. Not even while Mr. Melky continued yelling and pulled them into his truck. Johnny Lee didn't peek around the large tree trunk until he heard the truck peel out of the driveway.
He walked around the large tree and walked to the house. Then he kept walking, grabbed his bucket, and filled it up at one of the maple spouts. As the sweet sap poured in his bucket, he stood tall, put his hands on his hips, and smiled. He executed his plan perfectly. He could always count on Jed getting them caught. Only this time, Johnny Lee would not be with them. He was too smart for that.
After his bucket was full, he started on the long journey back home. It was a long trip since he wouldn't have a ride from the fishing hole. It was dark by the time he made it home.


Johnny Lee snuck into the house and up the stairs to his bedroom. He slipped the bucket of syrup in his closet and hid it with a pile of clothes and books. It was late, and Johnny Lee was tired. He put his pj's on and went right to bed. Sleep didn't come quickly. He heard his family making a fuss, but he didn't care. He heard his door open, and his mom happily exclaim that Johnny Lee was already in bed. A few minutes later, he saw the crack of light come in the room as his brother and sister peeked to make sure it was true.

The next morning Johnny Lee followed the smell of bacon to the kitchen by himself. With a big stack of pancakes in front of him, he drizzled syrup from a small canister onto them. Amelia walked in and smirked.

"Ah Johnny Lee, you found some leftover syrup," she said with a suspicious smile.

"Yea, I found some," Johnny Lee replied.

Their mother looked at him and threw up her hands. "I don't even want to know where you found that."

"What a kid," Jed said with a laugh and sat in the nook next to Johnny Lee.

Their mother walked back to the kitchen to finish cooking breakfast.

"So, how did you end up with some syrup?" Jed asked.

"I always have a plan B," Johnny Lee said without looking at his siblings. He was still too angry with them, giving up on the plan.

"Plan B got you enough to last a week. That's not that bad," Jed patted him on the back.

"Yep," Johnny Lee said as he took another big bite of the sweet sap. 

As it went down, a big smile warmed his face. Johnny Lee knew what no one else did. That every week from now until school, he would have found another small container of syrup. No one needs to know that it is coming from the tub of syrup sitting in his closet upstairs. That was the best part of the plan. To make sure Plan B always happened. He had a tough time sharing, especially sharing with his siblings that didn't put in near as much work as she did.