Lana Loud loved two things in the world. One was fixing things, and the other was gross stuff: The bitter, throat-pinching taste of worm guts; the smell of hot poo in the morning; being covered from head to toe in muck, scum, and filth; picking her butt and sniffing her finger - then surreptitiously putting it in her mouth (if she tasted doo doo, she knew it was time for a bath); and her favorite thing of all...eating grody stuff out of the trash. Have you ever had pre chewed gum? She had, and the previous owner's saliva made it sooo much better. What about half-eaten hot dogs covered in spoiled milk? That was a rare delicacy, but when she found it, ooooh, mama.
Her favorite place in the world was the Royal County Dump on Route 17, just outside of town: It was to her what the mall was to her older sister Leni, what the comic book store was to her brother Lincoln, what...you get the idea. She could spend hours roaming the maze-like heaps, inhaling the sweet scent of garbage rotting in the summer sun and rummaging through piles of junk and dirty diapers. If there was really a heaven like her Sunday school teacher said, it was here, on one thousand acres.
Today, June 16, she slipped through a girl sized hole in the fence (that she maaaay have made herself with a pair of bolt cutters) and scurried between towering walls of waste at a crouch - the guy who ran the place had already kicked her out three times, and she was certain that her fourth strike would be her last...he'd either kill and eat her or call the cops. She didn't know which scared her more, winding up on Steve's table like a Thanksgiving turkey, or explaining to her mom and dad why they needed to come down to the police station and bail her out. Luna got arrested once for getting drunk with her friends, and she was grounded forever: Seriously, like six months. Lana wasn't like Lucy or Lincoln, both of whom loved being indoors, she needed fresh air and fresh mud. The feeling of it squishing between her toes and covering her naked body, as though she were one of the animals she collected from the street and the schoolyard, was awesome, and if she got caged up, she'd go crazy. Uh-uh. No thank you.
At the end of a row, she dropped to her knees and looked at the frog sticking out of her chest pocket. "We gotta be real quiet, buddy; if Steve finds us, our ass is grass." She said the last part in a low, serious whisper, her eyes widening: That was so that Hopps understood the gravity of their situation.
He croaked his agreement.
"Good," she said and leaned forward to look around the corner: Steve's Airstream trailer sat against the wood fence separating the dump from the Royal River, silver and cylindrical like a bullet. A broken patio set stood to one side of the door, and Steve's battered Ford was parked nearby. Damn. She was hoping he wasn't around.
When the driver side door opened, she shrank back and flattened herself against a piece of rusted metal shoved deep into the ground. Steve got out and took a drag from a cigarette. A tall, lanky man with greasy black hair pulled back into a ponytail, he wore dark gray overalls tattered and covered in dirt, and muddy work boots. He scratched his butt and let out a long belch; maybe it was her imagination, but she thought she could smell his body odor from here, like an oniony gas station chili dog. He might not like her very much, but she thought he was the coolest dude ever and she wanted to be just like him when she grew up. She could see herself now roaming the dump from sunup to sundown, sifting through mountains of refuse and ripping open bags to finish off moldy slices of pizza and rotten fruit, then at night the fragrance of trash would lull her gently to sleep: Ahhh, that's the life. Did this guy realize how good he had it?
He dropped his cigarette and ground it under his heel, then started around the front of the truck as the passenger door swung open. A short, fat black woman in fishnet stockings and a leopard print mini skirt climbed out, the sun glistening on the back of her neck like it was a pack of Ballpark Franks. Yes! Fate was on her side: She didn't know who that woman was, but every time she came over, Steve was too preoccupied to walk his usual beat, which meant she didn't have to worry about ducking him. Not for the first time she wondered what they did in there. Whatever it was, it made the trailer rock so violently it looked like it was going to fall over. It also produced a lot of grunting and moaning. Exercising? Lynn sounded like that when she was doing calisthenics, only she didn't scream "Oh, Jesus!" and "I'm cumming!"
Steve laid his hand on the woman's shoulder. "You gonna give me a discount this time?"
The woman threw up her hand and pulled away. "Why you gotta be so cheap? You know I got six kids to feed."
She went up the step and inside with a shake of the head. Steve watched her for a moment, his posture angry, then followed, pulling the door closed behind him.
Grinning, Lana looked down at Hopps. "The dump is ours."
On her feet, she darted across, scurried along a mound of trash, and turned left into a corridor made up by other mounds so high they blotted out the sun and cast the path in cool and perpetual shadows. She fell into a slow, steady pace, her head turning back and forth as she scanned the ground for something good. Last week, she found a bunch of medical waste and spent nearly an hour kicking a decomposing kidney around like a soccer ball until a rat the size of a small dog shot out of a burrow, snatched it between its teeth, and ran off. She loved dump rats. She brought one home one time but it got loose and bit Dad on the ankle; he said if she ever did it again he wouldn't let her have any pets, so that was a bust. *Kicks dirt*
At an intersection, she turned right: Piles of twisted metal, refrigerators, ovens, car parts, and building materials lined the way. The overpowering stench of raw sewage found her nose, and it crinkled. "Oh, gross. Where's that coming from?" She stopped and looked around, spotting a cracked septic tank oozing brown slime. "Oh, wow," she said appreciatively. She went over and examined it like an archaeologist might a relic from a dead civilization. "This baby's gotta be at least fifty years old." Hopps looked up at her and tilted his head curiously. "Five whole decades of poop and pee." She shivered in delight.
She wasn't in the mood for that, though, she wanted something else...something…
Well, she didn't know, but she would when she saw it. Patting the tank, she went on, looking here, there, and everywhere like a kid in a candy store.
She turned a corner, and something crinkled under the sole of her shoe. She stepped back and glanced down: A torn, soggy, and dog-earned magazine with a woman on the cover: She wore tight booty shorts and a sports bra: She touched one finger to her chin and looked at the reader like Oops. Lana stooped down, picked it up, and read the title: It was a word she had never seen before, and she squinted her eyes as she tried to sound it out. "Huuuu-ssssst-lerrrrr. Who-stil-er. Hm. That's a strange name for a magazine." She opened it, and froze at what she saw: A naked man with his thing in his hand and a woman on her knees looking at it cross-eyed. "Whoa," she drew, her eyes lingering on the guy's wiener. It was big and veiny and suddenly she was feeling a strange tingle between her legs that she had only ever felt when Lincoln came out into the hall in just his undies.
Hopps croaked; he, too, was staring at the picture.
"That's nothing like Lincoln's," Lana marveled. She knew because when you live with ten siblings, you're bound to see their bodies whether you want to or not. Lincoln's thing was small, pink, and hairless, dangling there like the limp body of a dead mole rat. This one didn't dangle, it stood tall and proud like a ship's mast, the head tinged purple and the slit thingie on top leaking clear fluid.
A ripple went through Lana's stomach, and her heart began to race. She swallowed, but her mouth was dry. She looked around, saw a tin can filled with rain water, and took a deep drink; the dead bodies of bugs tickled her throat on the way down.
Sitting, she crossed her legs and rested her back against the crumpled door of a sedan. Hopps leapt out of her pocket and landed on her knee, where he leaned over to get a better look at the page. She flipped it, and the woman was licking the guy's thingamabob while looking up at the man with the kind of eyes she sometimes saw her mother give her father.
She licked her lips and looked at Hopps. "That's gross," she said, "putting a boy's thing in your mouth." She turned back to the magazine. "I like it." She turned the page, and the woman's face was covered in drippy white slime, her mouth open and long rivers dribbling down her lips and chin like snot. Only it wasn't snot: It was thicker and whiter, and from the look on the woman's face, it tasted much, much better.
"Wow," Lana breathed. She felt really funny: Her skin was flushed like she was running a fever and her stomach fluttered; her thing felt squishy and swollen, and when she shifted her weight, her inner thigh touched it and sent a quiver racing through her body. She wasn't aware that she was breathing heavy, or that a ribbon of drool coursed down her chin; her eyes were glued to the man's thing, and to the white stuff leaking from his tip. She wondered what it felt like...and what it tasted like. Probably sweaty and nasty.
In other words: Delicious.
She shifted again, and something wet smeared across the inside of her leg. Frowning, she slipped one hand into her overalls, plastered her tongue to her upper lip as she reached, then touched her thing: It was really hot and something wet and sticky blotted her fingertips. Huh. Did she piss on herself? She pulled her hand back and held it up: Her fingers shimmered in an stray shaft of sunlight. What the? She brought them to her nose and sniffed, but smelled only the normal dank muskiness she was used to. She lifted them to her mouth and swiped her tongue across her index finger.
It was kind of metallic, definitely not pee.
Hopps watched her curiously.
"I-I think we should go," she said nervously.
Seeming to nod, Hopps jumped back into her pocket and she got to her feet, rolled the magazine up, and stuck it into her back pocket. She took a step and winced at the tacky sensation between her legs.
As she left the dump, Lana Loud was confused, excited, and kind of grossed out.
All in all, her trip was a success.
Lincoln Loud's day started off bad: He woke himself by rolling off of his bed and whacking his head on the edge of the nightstand - giving himself a ugly purple bruise in the process - then, when he tried to pull himself up, it tipped over and his clock busted him in the mouth. I oughta get back in bed and stay there, he thought as he lie flat on his back, his mouth pooling with blood. Today is canceled.
That might have been an option any other day, but today was not just another day: He was going to meet Ronnie Anne at the arcade, and after six months of dating, he was finally going to make his move, finally going to do to her what he'd been wanting to do since he first met her.
Yup.
He was going to hold her hand.
Excitement blossomed in his chest, and he staggered to his feet with a smile. All of his hard work was going to pay off at last: He'd spent months building up the courage to do this, and nothing, read nothing, was going to stop him.
At his dresser, he took out a pair of jeans and slid them on, then his shirt. "I'm very nervous," he said to no one (taking out loud helped him think and work through his many, many issues). "Part of me wants to back down - again - but I really like Ronnie Anne, and I think it's time I take things to the next level." He sat on the edge of his bed and pulled on his socks. "Holding a girl's hand is a big deal, and I'm so scared she'll say no that I'm shaking." He uttered a sharp, humorless laugh; it was true, his hands trembled like his name was Michael J. Fox and his stomach was tied in a knot The Flying Dutchman would be proud of. He didn't think he could take it if Ronnie Anne rejected him - he'd probably break down and cry like he did when he asked Cristina out and she called him a 'freak.'
But, like his sister Lynn always said, no pain, no gain, and the risk is worth the reward. The risk was having his fragile heart shattered into a million pieces, but the reward was slipping his fingers through Ronnie Anne's and mixing his palm sweat with hers. He threw back his head and let out a long, trembling moan. "I can't wait. I just hope she's ready for this."
The door slammed open, and he jumped, a tiny cry escaping his lips. Lori furrowed her brow and looked around. "Are you literally talking to yourself again?"
Talking to himself was therapeutic, but his family didn't look at it that way; they thought it meant he was crazy. "N-No," he said and smiled sheepishly. "I was...uh...practicing for a play. That's it."
Lori squinted her eyes and jabbed a finger at him, which made him cringe. "I'm watching you, Norman Bates."
With that, she withdrew and pulled the door with her.
Lincoln let out a deep breath and sagged his shoulders. How could he put it? His sisters were total bitches. Except for Leni. And Lucy. And Lana. The rest were horrible. They beat him up, took his things without asking, made fun of him, pulled mean pranks on him, and ordered him around like a slave. Yesterday, Lori had him clean her room, then Lola drafted him to play tea party with her...or I'm telling Dad you look at porn.
That happened one time! And it was an accident! He clicked on a link, and a window popped up: Two men doing...things...to a woman, awful things, disrespectful things. Of course, Lola chose that precise moment to walk behind him. *Gasp* Lincoln! I can't believe this!
Playing tea party with Lola was the least of yesterday's hit parade: Lynn drilled a football at the back of his head while he was walking down the hall, then Luan dumped a bucket full of ice cold water on him while he was down. Wet's up, Linc? Water you doing down there? She stuck out her hand to help him up, and when he took it, a jolt of pain shot up his arm. When he finally got to his feet, Lynn yanked his pants down, and Luna appeared from nowhere with her guitar to serenade him with an impromptu song.
He's got small balls
He's got small balls
They're the smallest
Balls of them all!
They could be so evil sometimes. They had their good moments - helping him, being there for him, looking out for him - but they were few and far between. He really couldn't complain since they did it to each other too, but being the only boy among a giant pack of girls, he already felt like an outsider, so when they ganged up on him, it hurt even worse.
Sigh.
That was a worry for another day, though; Ronnie Anne and the arcade awaited.
In the hall, Luna, Lola, Leni, Luan, and Lori waited in line for the bathroom. He fell in behind Lori and stretched. Maybe if he was really smooth, Ronnie Anne would let him kiss her on the cheek.
That thought made him blush furiously.
"What's the matter, Linc?" Lynn asked and slapped him hard on the back. "Digging the way Lori smells?"
Lincoln's eyes widened in horror. "N-No! I-I…"
"Listen to him stammer, girls," Luna said, "he totally was."
"I swear!"
Lori looked over her shoulder and flicked her eyes from the tips of his toes to the tippy top of his cowlick, a sneer of disgust crossing her lips. "Even if you weren't my brother, I would never." She shook her head and turned away.
He started to speak, to plead with them to not think he was a pervert, but his words turned into a cry of pain when Lynn grounded her knuckles into his scalp. "I would," she said, "but only outta pity since no one else will."
"Stop!" Lincoln cried and pulled away from her grasp.
"Lincoln," Lori sighed, "it is too early for your little girly screams. If you need a tampon, there're some in my top drawer."
"I don't need a tampon!"
See the kind of stuff he put up with?
Thankfully he was spared a roast session at the table: It was Lily's turn to catch that heat. "She drinks her bottle like a total slut," Lori commented. Lily sat in her highchair at the head of the table, her bottle in her mouth. Lincoln sat between Lynn and Luan, and winced. Sorry, sis, welcome to the Loud house.
"It's your breakfast, honey," Lola said, "not your boyfriend."
Lily sat her bottle on the tray and glared at the beauty queen.
"That tuft of hair on her head makes the perfect handle," Lynn said.
Everyone laughed cruelly except for Lincoln, Leni, and Lana. Lucy wasn't around - she liked to eat after everyone else was done because she was too sensitive to endure their constant mocking.
He would have spoken up, but he didn't want to make himself a target. At least Lily was part of the girls' club and not condemned to stand forever outside looking in.
"Practicing for daycare?" Lori asked and leaned over, her face hovering inches from Lily's "The boys are gonna love you."
Lily's face darkened. "Poo poo," she said, her voice low and dangerous.
Lori sat up straight and grinned evilly. "Just don't come home pregnant."
"You little thot," Lola added.
Okay, this was going too far. Lincoln opened his mouth to tell them to leave her alone, but Lily struck, throwing her bottle at Lori. It hit her in the chest, and the top flew off; milk splattered the front of her shirt. Crying out, she jumped roughly to her feet, her chair tipping backwards and falling over. "Literally what the hell?" she screamed. "We were just playing with you!"
Lily crossed her arms and whipped her head away.
More laughter. "Gee, Lori," Luna said, "that milk looks really good on you."
"It's totes this season," Leni said, and it was clear from her tone that she wasn't making fun of Lori, she was just trying to be encouraging.
Growling, Lori stalked off to change, and that was that. Whew. Many more of these and Lincoln was going to pull his hair out.
After breakfast, he went upstairs and tried to lose himself in a comic while he waited to leave, but his mind kept going back to Ronnie Anne: Her hair like midnight, her eyes bright as starlight, the sound of her voice the sweetest music. He drew a deep, dreamy sigh and sat the comic aside. "I think she might be the one," he said aloud, "I can totally see myself marrying her and having kids."
He realized then that he wanted that so bad he could cry.
Well...today was the first step in that direction.
As long as she said yes.
After what seemed like forever, noon rolled around, and it was time to go. He put on extra deodorant, popped a breath mint into his mouth, and left, walking toward the arcade with his hands in his pockets and his head held high. He looked more confident than he felt. Much, much more confident. His stomach ached, his heart slammed, and every muscle in his body quivered. By the time he got there twenty minutes later, he was a wreck, and close to backing out, but he dug deep, found the courage he needed, and went inside, ready to hold the hand of the girl he loved.
The arcade was dark and dank, like a cave, and it took a moment for his sun dazzled eyes to adjust: He looked around, but didn't see her anywhere. Maybe she was running late.
He started toward the snack bar to get something to drink while he waited, but paused when he caught a flash of movement from the corner of his eye. He turned, and his heart came to a crashing halt: Ronnie Anne stood next to Pac-Man, her back to him.
And she wasn't alone.
Lincoln blinked, but the horrible sight remained: Poppa Wheelie pressed against the machine, his hands clutching Ronnie Anne's butt and their lips locked together, her hands rubbing him vigorously through his pants.
No.
T-This wasn't happening.
Hot, stinging tears filled Lincoln's eyes, and deep inside, his soul withered and died. Poppa Wheelie broke the kiss and pressed his cheek to hers: His and Lincoln's eyes locked, and he grinned...then lashed her earlobe with his tongue, making her shiver in delight.
Breaking down, Lincoln turned and ran, stumbling on the steps to the door, slamming through, sobbing and weak, dropping to his knees in the parking lot. Holding her hand, kissing her, staring deeply into her eyes, their wedding, their happy family...gone...all gone.
Lincoln wept.
Bitterly.