Starting with Kenny's POV first cause he's my favourite.


It's been a month since the New Kid showed up on that weekend to join us in Humans versus Elves, and though he came to become another endearingly messed up member of South Park's redneck community, I still don't know his name. Sometimes I doubt he even had one. He's a total mystery. Not only that, you could ask around and you'd think the New Kid was three different people. Cartman would say he's a backstabbing douchebag who hits him all the time. Kyle would say he's a gender-confused tomboy with chronic flatulence. Stan would say he's a misunderstood sociopath with kleptomania. Butter would say he's a friend.

None of them were wrong. Not entirely at least.

So the New Kid stopped by my place today. I'd say he broke in, but everyone knew the McCormicks couldn't afford a lock, which wasn't really a problem as it'd be a stupid thief to break into our place hoping to find anything of value. When I left my room to see if there was anything edible in the fridge since I checked it ten minutes ago (still nothing but expired milk and wasabi paste) I found him trying to fix the TV. The busted old thing had stopped working since Dad threw a beer bottle at it and my folks didn't have the dough to get a new one. But the New Kid wasn't having any of it.

So when I saw him, there he was trying to get the cracked screen to show something other than a spastic sea of static by bending over and spinning round and round and round with his pants around his ankles and an alien antenna sticking out of his butthole.

I'd ask him how he'd got that thing in the first place, but I doubt I'd get any kind of straight answer from him.

Naturally, when the New Kid gave up, the TV was still broken and he was throwing up on the floor from motion sickness.

I wasn't angry though. He brought takeaway with him from Shitty Wok. I knew because when I went to check the fridge, I found Karen already opening the Styrofoam boxes on the table and digging into the prawn chips and spring rolls and noodles and shrimp with lobster sauce!

When you've been living on nothing but frozen waffles and expired milk for a week, you'd see that shit as a fucking banquet in itself. My sister Karen was gulping down that chow like a Muslim who just made it through Ramadan. Hell, I was getting a case of rabies with my salivating, just like the dogs that sometimes turn up dead near our house.

I forgot right then that the New Kid was technically trespassing, flew into a nearby rickety stool and ripped open the chopstick packets. I never knew how to split them properly, and I ended up snapping them unevenly. But fuck it nothing was going to ruin my good mood tonight.

My good mood was almost ruined the moment I bit down on the chicken.

It was barely warm. Lukewarm. Fuck, why luke?

But of course it was. Shitty Wok's all the way on the other side of town. It must have taken half an hour for the New Kid to walk all the here from there while lugging the goods. Still, it's shrimp. Dipped in lobster sauce. And lukewarm was still better than cold.

It was after two minutes of ravenous eating when I remembered that the New Kid was there in my house. I went over back to the living room to see if he was still there and found him passed out on the floor in a pool of his own vomit.

I sighed and took him to the bathroom to get cleaned up, thinking that if I was lucky I could explain the regurgitated contents of New Kid's stomach as the remains one of Dad's many, previous drunken episodes. Dad wouldn't remember to the contrary and to Mum they all looked the same. Luckily my folks managed to pay the utility bills last month so the water was working for once and we didn't have to live like we were kids in Africa.

The New Kid woke up to the sound of the running tap as I was pulling off his pants, reached the conclusion that he was about to be molested, and cracked open my skull by smashing my head against the sink.

Yeah. What a dick.

When I woke up, he had cleaned us both up as best as he could, sent Karen off to bed, and had left me on the couch. I found him trying to fix the microwave by kicking it – yes, it's broken too – so he could reheat the leftovers and I told him we should head on to the guest room (garage) next door and try to use the methheads' lab. I don't know where they got the Bunsen burner and all the other test tubes and shit for it but it didn't take much to suspect they scavenged or stole them. Place wasn't as cool as The Krystal Ship though. Now that was the shit.

We snuck in with the spare key, got found out and kicked out and to make it worse they stole the food too. Could have been worse though. They could have been on the pipe when they'd found us, and might have roughed us up. You'd think that dying as much as I have would make me fearless to that kind of stuff. You'd be wrong. Pain still hurt no matter how many times it hurt before. It only grew just a little fainter. Not enough for it to be ignored, but enough that one could be resigned to it, and pissed because that it happened to be the case.

So when that plan went tits-up, I and the New Kid got to walking along the train tracks just outside the house, chilling in the cold air and kicking over old soda cans and whatever we came across. At one point, a train passed by the both of us, wailing loud enough that we both covered our ears and stumbled as far away as we could. It was so long (hah!) that it took an entire minute for it to disappear into the distance. The New Kid decided to shout: "Choo-choo asshole!" at the top of his lungs right then, among other obscenities.

After that, I asked him why he decided to speak right then and there.

"Just seemed right at the time," he said with a shrug. "Wanted to let off some steam."

"You know you can talk more."

"Yeah? Why do you always wear that parka of yours when no-one can even hear your voice?"

My turn to shrug. "Fuck if I know." I jerked a thumb back towards the direction of the town. "Come on, lemme walk you back home and help you up the window. We got school tomorrow."

The New Kid groaned aloud as he caught up with me. "What even do we learn about there?"

"Beats me. But I'll tell you one new thing I've learned today." I put the New Kid in a headlock. "Next time you puke in my house, you're dead."

"Dude, did you just steal Kyle's line?"

"Nah not really. But I won't tell him if you don't."

And off we went to break into another house.