Lincoln Loud found gum on his white hair when he woke up. It made the pillow stick to the side of his head, like someone had glued it there. He tried to figure out how it happened until he remembered he had been chewing gum yesterday, and forgot to spit it out before he went to bed. It must have fallen out of his mouth and somehow got to his hair. He searched his drawer for a pair of scissors to cut the piece out, leaving an obviously badly cut spot on the side of his head. Lincoln didn't have a mirror in his room, but he knew his hair looked bad. Without dwelling on it too much, he grabbed his orange polo and rushed to the bathroom before any of his sisters had the chance.
Just as Lincoln stepped out of his room he slipped on one of Lynn's skateboards, stumbling and falling until he fell through the bathroom door, where his only orange polo for the day fell in the toilet.
Leni heard the loud crash, and her little brother screaming, from her room. "Linky, are you okay?" she asked, seeing her only brother lying on the floor near the toilet.
"No," he moaned. "I slipped on a skateboard, and now my only shirt for the day is in the toilet. Now I don't have anything to wear."
Leni was sure she heard Lincoln call Lynn stupid under his breath, but she didn't think about it too much. He was so visibly upset that she took pity on him. Suddenly, Leni had an idea. Out of the kindness of her heart she allowed Lincoln to borrow one of her old shirts. Lincoln tried to protest, but she already stepped away to find another shirt for him. Not a second later she returned with an aquamarine t-shirt that was clearly too tight for him, exposing his bellybutton. At the center was a design of a golden heart that sparkled.
"There you go, Linky! I knew it will fit you," she said happily.
Lincoln looked at himself in the mirror. His attempts to cut his hair left less than desirable results, and he's wearing a girl's shirt. He forced a smile up, weakly saying "Thank you" to Leni. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her feelings. Lincoln could have asked Lynn if he can borrow a shirt, but he didn't want to smell like month-old dirty laundry all day.
"Today can't get any worse than this," he said to himself.
Unfortunately for him it did. As he entered the kitchen, Lincoln's appearance caused his sisters to burst into a fit of laughter. From his badly cut hair to the girly shirt, he looked ridiculous. The temperature on his cheeks rose, too embarrassed to take a seat at the table. His mother and father, Rita and Lynn Sr., took noticed and were greatly concerned.
"Lincoln, what happened to your hair?" Rita asked.
"And why are you wearing Leni's shirt?" Lynn Sr. added.
"I found gum in my hair and I tried to cut it out," Lincoln said to his mother. He turned to his father and said, "I slipped on Lynn's skateboards on my way to the bathroom, and my shirt fell in the toilet!"
"How did your shirt fell in the toilet?" asked Rita.
Not even Lincoln knew the answer to that question. Lynn Sr. reprimanded his daughter for leaving her sports gear lying around the house. Lynn shrugged. "Sorry, I forgot. I can't remember to put away everything," she said. "Besides, Stinkoln's okay… aside from the haircut," she joked.
"Well, it was nice of Leni to lend you one of her shirts," said Rita.
Lincoln rolled his eyes and sat at the table to have a bowl of cereal. He tried to forget about his troubles. Maybe if there is enough before they fill in Vanzilla, Lincoln can go in the attic and find another old shirt to wear.
While he thought, Lana found something out of her cereal box. It was a toy wrapped in plastic. She unwrapped it, revealing to be a pair of cool-looking sunglasses with a small red button on one of the lenses. She tried them on, pressed the red button, and her vision through the glasses became technologically-advanced (for a cereal box toy, anyway). "Cool," she said astonishingly.
Lincoln looked over to see what Lana was so impressed about. To his horror he witnessed his little sister wearing the Junior Super-Spy Sunglasses; a toy complete with x-ray vision, night vision, and sensory detection. A prize he's been desperately trying to find and win, along with his best friend Clyde McBride, so they can be spies together. Not believing this ordeal to be true he shoved his hand inside his box of cereal, hoping and praying there were another pair of sunglasses. Nothing. He looked over to Lana once more, too busy enjoying her morning's catch to notice how much her older brother was in despair. "It's not fair," he whispered to himself.
"Life itself isn't fair," sighed Lucy, who seemed to have super-hearing.
"Alright everyone, in the car," Rita called out.
There goes Lincoln's chance to find another shirt in the attic. The eleven Loud children quickly finished their breakfast and husselled into Vanzilla. Lincoln hoped to get the window seat, but it was never the case no matter how hard he tried, especially on a day like this. He had to sit in the middle between Lori and Lisa. Lincoln didn't mind sitting next to Lisa most of the time, despite her audibly listing the ways their family could die or get seriously injured in a car accident. But when it came to Lori, that was something entirely different. He couldn't help but watch his older sister text with growing anxiety.
"Hey, Lori?" said Lincoln.
"What is it?" she answered, not bothering to look at him.
As politely as he can he said, "You mind if you can text later?"
"And why would I want to do that?" she said, frustration growing in her tone.
"Do you remember what happened last time you were text on your phone and the car was moving?"
Lori let out an annoyed groan, offended by his remark. "Listen, that only happened one time! One time!" she retorted. "And I said I was sorry! Besides, we're not on a road trip, we're just going to school, which is literally a seven minute drive! Now if you'll excuse me I'm wasting very important texting time by talking to you!"
Lincoln shook his head. Typical Lori, he thought to himself. No matter how much she insisted there was nothing wrong with her, she always got car sick, and it always happens whenever she text on her phone. Also, Lori was wrong. She throw up in Vanzilla twice. Royal Woods Elementary wasn't too far down the road. Lincoln tuned out Lisa's rambling and prayed Lori will not vomit all over the van or on himself.
Sadly his prayers were not answered that morning. A moment later Lori fingers stop moving over the keypad; she covered her mouth with her free hand. She can feel something definitely nasty coming up. Seeing the sickly and frantic look on her face made Lincoln's blood go ice cold. She tried to roll down the window, realizing too late she sat next to the one that wouldn't open. In a desperate move Lincoln begged his mother to pull over, but it was too late.
There was no doubt today was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
Lincoln couldn't decide what was worse - finding himself still wearing Leni's old shirt that was much too tight, or having said shirt covered in vomit stains Rita tried to clean. It didn't matter at that point, because as soon as Lincoln stepped out of Vanzilla, he was met with more fits of laughter from the student body of Royal Woods Elementary School. "Nice shirt, Loud!" a boy called out. "Watch out for the fashion police!" a girl jeered. "Why do you smell like throw up?" another child asked.
He found himself surrounded by the teasing children. This was worse than that underwear nightmare he had weeks ago. Lincoln ran to the other side of the building took the side entrance inside. There wasn't many people inside, but he needed to find a hiding place quickly. He discovered the gymnasium was just down the hall, which means the boys locker room wasn't too far. It was a good thing, too, which meant a much-needed shower to rid himself of the stench of vomit. After the shower he searched the lost and found basket for a new shirt. He found a gray short-sleeve shirt with a horizontal blue stripe. It wasn't his style, but it will have to do.
Lincoln entered Mrs. Johnson's class just as the bell rang, quickly taking his seat next to his Clyde, his best friend. Clyde opened his mouth to greet the boy with the white hair, only to do a double-take at his new shirt.
"What's with the new shirt? Trying different styles again?" he asked.
"I had a long and horrible morning," Lincoln sighed. It was short and to the point. He remained silent after his answer, and Clyde didn't want to push him for an explanation. He figured Lincoln will talk about it when he's ready.
Right before Mrs. Johnson began her class Principal Huggins made an announcement to remind everyone that certain individuals must follow the school dress code. Although he didn't mention him by name, Lincoln knew Huggins was referring to him, and so did everyone else. He just wanted to disappear.
The class began; Mrs. Johnson pulled down the map of the solar system and began her lecture on astronomy. But because of the horrific events of the morning, Lincoln wasn't in a good mood to concentrate. He noticed the small picture of Mars on the map, so he tuned out his teacher's voice and imagining himself enjoying solitude on the Red Planet, away from everything and everyone, like Doctor Manhattan from Watchmen. Of course, Mrs. Johnson gave him the evil eye for not paying attention, which caused most of the class to chuckle and snicker at his expense.
As the day dragged on nothing seemed to get any better for Lincoln. His art teacher chastised him for the using colors that were "not creative enough." The smartest girl in his math class embarrassed him by correcting a problem on the chalkboard he made, one that had too many decimals to figure out. During gym he received blisters on the palm of his hands by accidentally losing his grip on the rope while climbing, leading him to slide down fast and on his rump. Coach Pacowski attempted to give him credit for his efforts, only to inadvertently humiliate him some more. Later, when tried to get a drink of water from the fountain, it haywired and splashed between his legs, making it look like he wet himself. As one can imagine, the kids and most of the teachers got a good laugh at it.
It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day indeed.
But if there is one part of the day Lincoln looked forward to, it was lunch. Fresh slices of pepperoni pizza is being served today, and he couldn't wait to get a slice. Just like at home when he raced against his sisters to be the first one to the television, he raced against other students to be the first in line, although the hall monitor gave him a ticket for speeding.
All Lincoln on his mind was pizza. However, he quickly slapped the breaks on his feet, finding himself in a long line that stretched from the serving area to across the wall. Everyone wanted pizza today, it seems. Oh no, was all Lincoln could think. What if he didn't get his slice in time? A moment later the line started to move, and he told himself not to panic. Lincoln waited for what felt like an eternity until he sighed with relief when he grabbed his lunch tray. Finally he's next in line, his mouth watery and taste buds yearning for that sweet pizza.
"Sorry kid, we're fresh out," the lunch lady said. The big smile on Lincoln put on deflated like a balloon losing air. The lunch lady then carried a huge bucket, scooped up some brown abomination and slapped it on his tray.
"What is this?" he said.
The lunch lady shrugged.
Lincoln navigated his way through the cafeteria, growing jealous by watching all the other kids enjoying their slices of pizza. He found the table his friends were sitting, his frustration increasing upon seeing pizza on their trays. His friends greeted him, but didn't respond, too upset that yet again things weren't going his way. He grabbed a fork and poked at the brown pile of slop the lunch lady scooped for him.
It moved.
He forced the whole tray into a trash bin next to their table, and sat with arms folded across his chest, a fierce look of bitterness etched on his face. His friends didn't say anything, but all of them knew Lincoln was in a bad mood.
"Gee, Linc. Are you okay?" Rusty asked nervously.
Lincoln let out a deep sight, covered his face with his hands. "I'm having the worst day of my life," he said. He explained his troubles to his friends; everything from finding gum in hair, his only orange polo falling in the toilet, having to wear Leni's shirt for half the morning, being vomited on by Lori, a day's worth of humiliation conga in each of the classes. "And I didn't get any pizza, and it's not even the end of the day yet!" he finished. "It's like God picked me to be His cosmic plaything for the day for no reason!"
"Aw gosh darn, Lincoln. I'm sorry to hear about all that," said Liam.
"Yeah, it looks like you got a really bad case of Murphy's Law," added Rusty.
Lincoln looked at Rusty for a moment. "I don't know what that is."
"You know - Murphy's Law - anything that can go wrong will go wrong. It's named after a boy named Alexander Murphy, who used to be a student here a long time ago, and bad things always happened to him everyday. Some people say he was born with bad luck."
"I'm not sure about all of that," Clyde said. He wrapped his arm around Lincoln, pulling him in for a brotherly embrace. "Cheer up, buddy. No matter how bad things get, it can't possibly get any worse." He wish Clyde hadn't said that. Whenever someone says "It can't possibly get any worse than this," usually it does.
Lincoln knew Clyde had jinx it, because the bad day would not end, not even if he begged to whatever higher power decided to torment him. He got pushed into the mud during recess by a bigger kid, although the kid in question wasn't looking where he was going. The other kids still found it funny. In Mrs. Johnson's homeroom class she paired everyone for a group project, but he wasn't paired with Clyde. Instead he got paired with a lazy kid who made jokes all day and did none of the work, which irritated Lincoln; so much so that he yelled at him, calling the boy "a worthless idiot" at the top of his lungs, and threaten to turn him into a human pretzel. Mrs. Johnson made Lincoln stay after school to write the same sentence on the chalkboard and clean the erasures.
And was also during that moment Lincoln discovered he sounded exactly like Lori.
Mrs. Johnson let him go when his one hour after school punishment was up, although she stopped him before he headed out the door. "You've been acting very strange today, Lincoln. Is everything okay?" she asked. Despite making him stay in school for another hour, she was still concerned for his well-being.
"Let's just say I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning," Lincoln sighed. He heard that phrase before. He had no idea what it meant. How does one wake up on the wrong side of the bed?
The white-haired boy had to walk home that day, but his house was only a few blocks and ten minutes from Royal Woods Elementary. He didn't mind the walk. At least the street was quiet.
Suddenly, a car zoomed by over a huge puddle of water on the street, which splashed all over Lincoln. He was soaking wet from top to bottom. Lincoln looked up at the bright blue sky, saying "Really?" in a very loud voice. "You can't even give me a break on my walk home?" He didn't know who he was yelling at. He finally arrived at 1216 Franklin Avenue. His day at school might have been a bust, but he hoped he can have the last part of the day to himself without a single unfortunate happenstance.
His sister Lynn became the first one to see him. She was going to ask what took him so long to get home until he saw how soaking wet he looked, causing her to smirk and chuckle until she exploded into full laughter.
"Wow Stinkoln, what happened? Did you slipped and fell in the toilet again?" she joked.
Lincoln groaned and shoved Lynn out of his way, and marched upstairs to the bathroom to dry himself. He looked at his reflection in the mirror. The bags under his eyes were noticeable; he looked tired and confused. This whole miserable day had taken the energy out of him. He didn't even want to watch television or read his favorite comic books, or talk to his friends or spend time with his sisters. Lincoln wanted to lie in bed forever. He slowly walked to his room, stripped himself of clothes until he was in his underwear and lay face down on the pillow.
Today has been a completely terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
Someone knocked on his door. "Leave me alone," Lincoln said. His voice was held a tone of weakness and defeat, muffled by his face on the pillow.
There was another knock on the door, followed by Lincoln's name being said by his father. Lincoln let out an exasperated sighed. No doubt they heard that he had been kept after school. He reached for the doorknob and prepared for whatever grounding he is going to recieve. However, once he pulled the door open, he didn't find any threatening look on his parents' faces. Instead they looked worried for him.
"Hey kiddo, we heard you were kept after school. Is everything alright?" asked Lynn Sr.
"I got in trouble for yelling at another kid," Lincoln explained. "But it wasn't my fault. Mrs. Johnson paired me with him for a class assignment, but he was being lazy and annoying and doing none of the work! It really got to me! Plus, I was already having a really rotten day, so I… I took out my frustration on him." He let out another defeated sigh. "I'm sorry."
Lynn and Rita joined Lincoln on his bed. They can tell today hasn't been going well for their only son. He looked tired and defeated, and he hasn't been his usual self since this morning. Plus he did an incredible amount of sighing today, something Lucy would be impressed at. Lynn told his son to tell about his bad day, and he did; from the moment he found gum in his hair to a car splashing water all over him. He had to admit talking about it made him feel better, but he was still bummed out about everything.
"Jeez Louise, Lincoln. It seems to me you had a bad case of Murphy's Law from what you've described," he dad said.
"That's what Rusty said," muttered Lincoln.
"The important thing is that it's over, and you don't have to worry about it anymore," Rita added.
"What if it's not over? What if tomorrow I keep having a day like this?"
"Well son, here's a thing about bad days - they only last for a day," Lynn said. "Everyone has bad days. I have them, your mother has them, even your sisters have them. It's part of life. But that doesn't mean they last forever."
"And we have bad days so we can appreciate the good days more when they arrive," said Rita. "Like how we look forward to sunny days after having rainy days."
The talk did its job of making Lincoln feel better, albeit at a slow pace. The day was just wasn't his day, but his parents were right. Everyone has them, but they don't last forever. He thanked his parents for their words of encouragement and comfort, but he really needed some rest. "I had a long day," he told them.
Rita kissed him on his cheek. "Get some rest, and I promise tomorrow will be better," she said. His parents left the room, and Lincoln curled on top of his bed. The weight and pressure from the terrible, horrible day was leaving him, and he already felt at ease. A good rest was exactly what he need.
Later, someone knocked on his door. "It's Lori. I have something for you."
He honestly didn't feel like talking to her, still peeved she had yet to apologize to Lincoln for not heeding his warning about her car sickness. He climbed off the bed and opened the door. Lori carried a basket full of laundry that has been cleaned recently, among them being his orange polo shirts. "These are for you. I ran them through the wash," she said. "It's my way of saying… sorry for throwing up all over you."
"Thanks," Lincoln said. This happens all of the time. One moment Lori does something that makes him very upset, and then next she apologizes and does something nice for him, which made him feel awkward for getting mad at her. Lori said nothing else, only giving him a friendly nod and smile before closing the door. Lincoln unfolded his newly-clean orange polos, content with how soft they felt to the touch and how pleasant they smelled. He hung them up and returned to his nap, then dreamed about the really good day he hope will arrive soon.