Once upon a time, in a magical kingdom where lollipops sprout like weeds from cracks in the sidewalk and rainbows lead to pots of gold, Lincoln Loud liked going to school. He did well enough in all of his subjects that he didn't stress over them and he got along with everyone. In kindergarten and first grade, a few kids picked on him, but they had long since given up and moved on. There was the occasional mean-spirted joke about his white hair on the playground and a rare spitball shot at the back of his neck in third period English, but hey, that goes with the territory. Middle schoolers are little jerks. A few days ago, Lincoln's guts were gurgling after lunch and he wound up running to the bathroom during history. He specifically chose that time because most other kids would be in class. He was in there for a while, though, and when class change came, the hall flooded with kids. Someone came into the bathroom, and Lincoln's heart dropped because he already knew. Sure enough, the newcomer skidded to a halt and sang out, "YO, SOMEONE'S TAKING A SHIT!"
They say that kids are cruel and for once, they're 100 percent right. Why, Lincoln didn't know. Maybe it has something to do with their underdeveloped brains leading to a withered and malformed empathy gland. Maybe kids were just savages who hadn't been fully inducted into the mass delusion of civility in which adults live. What were kids, Lincoln pondered, but human beings in their purest form? They were selfish, megalomaniacal, and fed on the suffering of others. They only changed as they grew, because as they grew, they became more and more indoctrinated into a socially acceptable mold. They learned, rather than instinctively felt, empathy and selflessness. Basically, they were peer pressured into being a certain way. Maybe that sounded edgy or something, but at its core, Lincoln believed it to be a possibility. All of the virtues society holds up are passed down from one person to another like a family heirloom. If you don't pass them on, what do you get? A complete savage who doesn't give a single care about anyone else. Someone who's rude, selfish, insensitive, and brutish.
Someone like Ronnie Anne Santiago.
Before Ronnie Anne turned up at Royal Woods Elementary last year like a stray cat infested with rabies, Lincoln loved school, despite kids being cruel to each other. No one was especially cruel to him so he accepted cruelty as a part of life. But then Ronnie Anne came and all of that changed in the twinkling of an eye. What was it that attracted her to him? What was it that made her want to bully him? He didn't know and honestly, after a lot of soul searching and self-doubts, he didn't care. Make no mistake about it, Ronnie Anne picked on lots of people (she called Poppa Wheelie "Poppa Fatass" and Rusty "Krusty" after Krusty the Clown), but for some perverse reason, Lincoln was her favorite target. With him, it went beyond verbal taunts and insults and verged on outright abuse. She gave him wedgies, slapped the back of his neck, filled his locker with gumballs so that when he opened it, they cascaded out in a multicolor flood, and pulled other evil pranks on him. She stuck a sandwich down the back of his pants, poured White-Out in his milk, and shot him with rubber band guns that hurt ten times worse than the real thing. She stuck out her foot and tripped him, slapped a KICK ME sign on his back, and yanked down his shorts down in gym class; luckily he wore tightie whities. If he had boxers on, they would have come down too.
In a matter of weeks, Ronnie Anne had made Lincoln's life a living hell and turned him into a twitching, paranoid mess. He scurried through the halls like a mouse rushing across a field, wary of predators, and every morning he cowered under the covers praying for school to be canceled. He suddenly took sick a lot and even skipped school on occasion. His parents found out and he lied about it because, honestly, he was ashamed of himself for being bullied...especially by a girl.
Look, Lincoln respected women and all, his shame didn't come from the fact that he thought girls were lesser or not capable of being giant bullies or anything, it came from the fact that other people thought that sort of thing. They would think less of him for being bullied by a girl, or they wouldn't take it seriously because "oh, she's a girl, it's not a big deal." Sexism comes from both sides and Lincoln would wind up caught in the crossfire if he told. Some people would question his masculinity and others would pull the "ur a cis-het male, it's not a big deal if a girl bullies you, you're being dramatic and trying to play the victim."
Lincoln was young and not all that well-versed in the ways of the world, but even he could see that society was girl-centric. Girls' body issues were treated with care and seriousness, but no one cared about boys. Girls were allowed to speak openly about their feelings, but boys were attacked and shut down over their feelings. If a woman was raped, it was taken seriously and the suspect was considered guilty until proven innocent; if a man was raped, people pointed and laughed. No one had jokes about women being raped, but everyone knew a couple good prison rape jokes and had no qualms whatsoever about busting them out. Lincoln hated to articulate this because it sounded like something an incel would say (an incel being, apparently, anyone who doesn't blindly respect women no matter what) but it's how things were. If he were to accuse Ronnie Anne of bullying, people would treat it as a joke.
Then there were his sisters
God, his sisters.
Lincoln came from a big, close-knit family. They fussed, they fought, they pushed, they shoved, but at the end of it all, they always managed to hug and make up. Lincoln's older sisters taught and guided him, they gave him advice and helped him when he needed it. All of them had his back and he had theirs. His relationship with his sisters was perhaps a little closer than average, but he loved them. Even so, they had a really bad habit of meddling in his affairs and making things even worse for him. One time he sprained his ankle and they forced him to use a wheelchair for a month. Another time, he lightly burned himself on the stove and Lisa made him hold his hand in ice cold water for hours. By the time she let him take it out, his skin was pruuny and his bones hurt. He came this close to developing frostbite.
He could come up with a thousand more examples, but you get the point. He hid serious things from them because they'd just get involved and things would go sideways for him. For that reason, he didn't want them to know anything about Ronnie Anne Santiago. The day she rigged an ink bomb in his locker that covered him in black liquid when he opened the door, he showered in the locker room. When she cut his cowlick off from behind, he glued cotton to his head so no one would notice. Being bullied was bad enough, he didn't need his sisters adding onto it.
But then it happened.
Ronnie Anne shoved a sloppy joe down the front of his jeans and slapped a chewed up piece of gum into his hair. In the bathroom, he dug handfuls of cold hamburger meat out of his crotch and decided that he was going to give Ronnie Anne a good talking to. A small, primeval part of him wanted to throw down the gauntlet and challenge her to an exploding ring deathmatch like the one that made AEW the laughingstock of the wrestling community, but he was bigger than that. It was the year 2021 and he was an intelligent, civilized man. Violence should only be employed in self-defense or in defense of the weak, never as a first resort. Sure, there were times he wanted to grab someone by the throat first quarter and choke them to the point of death, but he was able to control his impulses, and that's what sets us apart from the animals, is it not?
He stripped out of his underwear and, naked from the waist down, washed them in the toilet the best he could. He couldn't get the red stains out so he finally dropped them onto the floor and pushed them behind the toilet with his foot. He cleaned out the inside of his pants with wads of toilet paper, flushed them, and took a moment to reflect on how much he hated Ronnie Anne. Hate was such a strong word but you need strong words to express strong emotions, and his emotions toward her were stronger than the deathgrip Andrew Cuomo put on pretty young interns. He envisioned himself hitting her with a Chuck Norris style roundhouse and smiled savagely. Take that, Ronnie Anne. How does it feel to be the victim? Huh? HOW DOES IT FEEL TO LOSE ALL YOUR TEETH?
Taking a deep breath, he forced those thoughts away and centered himself just like Lori had taught him. It was a yoga trick but it actually worked. When he was calmer, he left the stall and went to the sink. His eyes went to the mirror...and to the pink wad of gum in his hair. He had been so focused on the sloppy joe in his ass that he completely forgot about the gum.
He sighed.
Gum, he had always heard, was almost impossible to get out of your hair. He found out that that wasn't hyperbole, it was the truth. He tried pulling, tugging, digging, and yanking.
Nothing happened.
The bell rang and he was forced to give up. For the rest of the day, students and teachers alike commented on his "new hairdo" and his face burned with shame. At one point, he crossed paths with Ronnie Anne in the hall and she grinned maliciously. "Nice hat," she said. She then punched him so hard in the shoulder that she left a bruise.
Lincoln told her that he wanted her to come over to his house for a talk and she agreed. On the walk home, he told Clyde his plan, and Clyde winced. "Not a good idea, buddy. You should just leave it alone."
"I can't," Lincoln said. "I can't stand this anymore. Every day she does this to me and it's driving me crazy. There's nothing I can do, nowhere I can turn." He sighed. "I feel so alone."
Clyde patted him on the back. "It's okay. When I feel alone, I just think of all the people who love and care about me. You have waaay more people like that than I do."
Yeah, great, that didn't keep him from being mercilessly bullied, though.
Because his sisters were more neurotic than the gang on Seinfeld, Lincoln did his best to hide the gum in his hair, terrified of what would happen if they uncovered it. He went to the fridge in search of the peanut butter but it was empty. Why did they even keep the peanut butter in the fridge in the first place? That was one of those quirks that you have but never really think about. Most people that Lincoln knew kept their peanut butter in the pantry or in a cabinet, his family was the only ones who put it in the fridge. Other people probably did it too, but now that he thought about it, it was kind of weird.
That wasn't the hot issue right now. He needed to get this gum out of his hair and fast; if his sisters saw, he'd be swept up into an EF-5 sisternado, battered, and then tossed aside like a rag doll. He made it upstairs and was just about to cut it out when the door burst open and who should walk in but the very last people in the world he wanted to see. Lori was like, "What's literally in your hair?" Luan made a pun, Lucy said sigh, Lily shit herself, and Lana went Booga booga I like Hot Wheels.
Dang it.
The jig was up.
"Who did this to ya, Linc?" Lynn asked. She shuffled her feet and threw punches at the air, one two, one two. "I'll whip their asses. I'll shove my foot down their throat. I'll offend them like my name is Max Caster." She hit the air with an uppercut that spun her around and sent her to her ass.
"What's his name?" Lola demanded. "I'll claw his eyes out for messing with my brother."
"It's nobody," Lincoln asked. "I did this myself. It was an accident."
Lisa made a judgmental noise in the back of her throat. "I am quite aware that you are of subpar intelligence when compared to myself, Lincoln, but even a relative dullard would be hard pressed to accidentally get gum in their hair. A third party did this and we wish to know who they are so that we may thoroughly punish them."
They crowded around him; if he didn't say something, they would turn into a Class 5 Hurricane of smothering concern, righteous indignation, and directionless bloodlust.
So Lincoln told them.
"It's a girl."
For a moment they all looked at him...then they started dancing around and squeeing. Lincoln arched his brow in confusion and wondered what they were celebrating over. He expected them to laugh at him for letting a girl bully him, but instead, they were acting like he just won the billion dollar jackpot from a gas station scratch ticket. "Uh...okay?"
Lori grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him so hard that he nearly lost his footing. "Do you know what this means, Lincoln?"
"That I should tell a teacher?"
"No, you idiot, it means she likes you!"
Lincoln blinked. "Likes me? She hates me! She put gum in my hair! She shoved a manwich up my butt! She punched me in the stomach and made me puke!"
Of course, as expected, Lori completely ignored him. "Of course she likes you, doofus. There's literally no other reason for a girl to pick on a boy."
Lincoln opened his mouth to speak but Lori cut him off. "No. Other. Reason."
Maybe it was the confidence in her voice, maybe it was the excitement on the others' faces, but he began to wonder. Ten girls can't be wrong, can they? They knew the female heart and brain far, far better than he. They were all different people with different personalities and different outlooks, yet they were all united by this one simple assertion: She likes you. If ten clashing personalities can agree on something, it must be right.
Ronnie Anne liked him.
Did he like her, though?
Well...I mean...she was kind of cute, and her smile was nice...but she'd been really mean to him and that was a hard thing to overlook. This wasn't just a couple insults here and there, this was a systemic campaign of bullying that drove Lincoln to the edge of sanity. She tortured and tormented him, making every second of every day a literal waking hell. Up to this very moment, he had looked on her with a mixture of fear and loathing (we can't stop here, this is Ronnie Anne Country), liking her would be doing a complete 180 and he didn't think he could quite pull that off.
Though she was a girl with a crush. She could be forgiven for being kind of psychotic, right?
"You really think she likes me?"
Lola waved her hand. "Trust me, she likes you."
To make a long, needless story short, Lincoln's sisters gave him a full makeover so that he would be fresh and fly for Ronnie Anne when she came over for their powwow. When he spotted her coming up the walk, he sprayed some minty freshness into his mouth and shot Lori a finger gun. "Which me luck."
"You got this, bro," Luna said.
"Go Lincoln," Lynn said and pumped her fist.
Feeling ten feet tall and dead sexy because a girl liked him, Lincoln strutted out to meet Ronnie Anne. Hands shoved into the front pockets of her purple hoodie, Ronnie Anne lifted her brow. "I'm here, what do you wanna talk about, lame-o? You giving me all your lunch money?"
"I know your game, RA," he smirked.
"What?"
"You want me."
Ronnie Anne blinked. "Uh...excuse me?"
"Don't fight it, Ronnie Anne. You have my attention...and my affection."
Doing what his sisters told him to, Lincoln leaned in and stole a kiss. Since it was their first time, he held off on the tongue. The moment his lips touched Ronnie Anne's, she jumped back and began to gag. Lincoln smiled. She was shy and didn't want -
Her fist crashed into his eye and dazzling white light burst across his vision. His knees turned to water and he spilled to the ground. Ronnie Anne stood over him with her hands balled into fists and her shoulders rising and falling. "You freaking pervert." She reared back her leg and kicked him in the sternum, knocking the wind from his lungs. He gasped and sucked in a sharp intake of air. "Touch me again and you're dead," she said.
Shoving her hands into her pockets, she spun on her heels in an angry swish of black ponytail and stalked off. Lincoln lay crumpled on the ground like a worm, sucking great gulps of air, then got weakly to his hands and knees. Fire swept through his midsection and his head swam; he felt like he was going to pass out, but instead he opened his mouth and issued a long, acidic string of stomach bile. Tears welled in his eyes and he for a second he thought he was going to shit himself.
On his feet, he staggered up the walkway, stopping to lean against the porch railing. Inside, his sisters were clustered around the door in a big semi-circle. "So?" Lori asked excitedly. "How did it...why do you have a black eye?"
Lincoln launched into an epic tard rage. If it were typed (like, say, in a fan fiction) it would be in all caps and bold. "BECAUSE OF YOU! SHE PUNCHED ME IN THE FACE AND KICKED ME BECAUSE YOU TOLD ME TO SEXUALLY ASSAULT HER!"
Lori flinched. "I...told you no such thing. I said kiss her."
"I DID AND SHE WHIPPED MY ASS OVER IT! YOU GUYS DON'T KNOW SHIT, YOU MAKE EVERYTHING WORSE!"
He shoulder checked Lucy and stormed up the stairs. He wheeled around, bent at the waist, and screamed at the top of his lungs: "STAY OUT OF MY LIFE!"
In his room, he slammed the door and threw himself facedown on the bed. He was humiliated and felt like he was two inches tall.
The next day, Ronnie Anne picked on him extra hard. She called him a pervert and a pedo, she told everyone he groped her butt and trtied to drag her into his "sex dungeon," she made kissy faces at him, she even told the guidance counciler that she felt "unsafe" around him and that he "created a toxic learning environment." He was called to the principal's office and grilled about what happened, the adults judging him with their eyes (especially the women). They found him guilty and banished him to the Special Ed class to keep him separated from Ronnie Anne and the other girls. Later, he found out that Cristina spoke up and accused him of being a "creep" and of taking pictures of her without her consent. Because of that, he was branded a predator and all the other kids believed Cristina and Ronnie Anne's rumors that he grabbed them between their legs and tried to shove his tongues into their mouths .
His life was ruined.
If Lincoln hated school before, he despised it now. His classmates drooled and pooped on themselves and all of the work was first grade level. He didn't get to go out for recess or see any of his friends and it took a lot of begging and pleading just for the principal to let him have lunch in the cafeteria with the other kids. All through this, Ronnie Anne continued to bully him. He told his sisters that she was still messing with him, but they acted exactly the way he expected them to. They treated it like a big joke and wouldn't take him seriously. To them, the idea of a girl being able to bully a boy was preposterous. Lori told him he was being "a drama queen" and Luan cracked jokes at his expense.
Alone.
He was totally alone. His sisters wouldn't listen, the school wouldn't listen, no one believed him or gave hi, the benefit of the doubt. They took Ronnie Anne's word for what happened because he was a boy and she was a girl and they scoffed at the idea that maybe, just maybe, someone with a vagina can be a piece of shit.
Why wasn't anyone listening to him? Why didn't they care?
He hated them, all of them. They didn't care if he lived or died so he wouldn't care if he live or die. Over the coming weeks, hatred blossomed and took root in his soul. He withdrew from his sisters, stopped hanging out with his friends, and started skipping school. His routine was sweet and simple: He would walk with the others to school but take a shortcut that Lisa, Lana, Lola, and Lucy were too afraid to traverse. Instead of going to the school, he would double back and go home, where he'd play video games and read comic books all day. His mom eventually found out and grounded him. She asked him why he did it and he made up some excuse. He didn't tell her because she would just laugh at him too.
A week later, he was waiting in line in the cafeteria when Ronnie Anne walked up behind him and pulled his ear. "What's up, lame-o?" she asked.
Lincoln sighed. "Will you go away?"
"Nope," she said, "I don't wanna." She sucked her finger, got it nice and wet, and jammed it into his ear so hard that she almost punctured his brain. He pulled away from her and she let out a hateful laugh.
"Cut it out," Lincoln said.
"You gonna make me?" she asked mockingly.
Lincoln's face turned brought red and his hands closed into shaking fists. His nostrils flared and his teeth grinded lightly together. His shoulders rose and fell as he took a series of deep breaths and adrenaline surged through his body. He was this close to knocking Ronnie Anne out; he could see himself doing it, could feel his knuckles splitting her lips and busting her teeth, could hear her pitiful cries as she lay on the floor in a spreading pool of her own blood. He almost did it, God help him he almost did it. Instead he forced himself to turn around and face forward again. He wouldn't plow a girl in her nose, even if she really, really deserved it. He refused to stoop down to her level. How could he ever live with himself? He didn't know if he could 'so he wouldn't even try it. Maybe that made him weak, maybe it made him a soyboy or something, but he couldn't, wouldn't.
Just then, a kid passed by holding a tray.
On it was a sloppy joe.
Ronnie Anne snatched the sandwich from the tray and, before Lincoln could stop her, she shoved it down the back of his pants. Hot burger slop oozed down the backs of his legs and one soggy bun stuck in between his butt cheeks. Ronnie Anne uttered that hateful goddamn laugh of hers and Lincoln, at long last, lost it. He spun around and shot out his arms, shoving her so hard that he lost her balance. Her eyes widened in fear and her mouth opened in a perfect O of surprise, then she landed hard on her ass, a breathless oof knocking from her lungs. She looked up at him in utter shock and it was all he could do to keep from kicking her teeth down her stupid throat. "LEAVE ME ALONE, YOU FUCKING BUCK-TOOTH BITCH!"
The entire cafeteria fell silent and turned to look at him. Ronnie Anne's features screwed up like she was about to cry and tears flooded her eyes. She got to her feet, peeled her lips back from her teeth, and called him a bastard. She hurried off, and everyone turned to watch her leave.
Then they turned back to Lincoln.
It was so quiet in the lunch room that you could hear a pin drop. Lincoln's face tinged red with shame and he turned around to hide his shame. The line eventually moved forward and Lincoln went with it. He grabbed his tray, made his way through the cafeteria, and sat with Clyde, Stella, and Girl Jordan, all of whom looked at him with the wariness of small children around a strange and potentially vicious dog. "You okay, Linc?" Girl Jordan asked.
No, he wasn't. Now that the adrenaline had begun to recede from his system, he was flush and shaky. He took a deep breath through his nose and tried to play it off. "I'm fine," he said, trying to keep his voice steady and largely succeeding. "She just really pissed me off. I've had it with her shit."
"I don't blame you," Stella said.
"How are your sisters going to react?" Clyde asked.
Lincoln groaned. He hadn't even thought of that. Royal Woods Middle was a small school and word of mouth travelled fast. There was no way on earth that his sisters wouldn't hear about what happened, and you know how they are. They'd be on him like Chris Chan on his mom.
Ugh.
After lunch, Lincoln went to his next class. As the other kids busied themselves with making macaroni art, Lincoln thought of Ronnie Anne. There was a small, weak part of him that regretted what he did, but it was drowned out by the savage satisfaction of having put her in her place. He tried everything else, shoving her down and cussing her out was the only option left to him. What else could he have done? Some people don't respond to anything but force and Ronnie Anne Santiago was one of those people.
Still, maybe he went too far.
No, he didn't. She got what she had coming to her. In fact, she was lucky that he didn't really hurt her. He could easily have rained a furious flurry of punches down on her ugly face, but he held himself back.
You're welcome, Ronnie Anne.
In gym class, his grade combined with Lucy's; because special ed was so small, it often had to tag along with other classes. During free time, she came up to him. "What happened?" she asked. "I heard you broke Ronnie Anne's jaw."
Lincoln's heart dropped. "Is that what they're saying?"
"Yeah," Lucy said. "You went up to her for no reason and hit her. What's wrong with you, Lincoln?"
"I didn;t -"
"If I had a heart, it would be breaking. I thought you were better than that."
Not giving him a chance to reply, she turned and walked away. She wasn't the last person to do that either. Over the course of the afternoon, a dozen people made comments to Lincoln or called out things like "woman beater." A grou p of older boys surrounded him and shoved into a bank of lockers; if a teacher hadn't come along, they probably would have kicked him to death. At the end of the day, he dragged himself down the hall, head hung and tears brimming in his eyes. Everyone was treating him like even more of a monster than usual and he felt more sad and alone than ever.
Lucy, Lola, Lana, and Lisa made it worse.
They formed a circle around him and battered him with questions and condemnations as they made their way toward the bus. Each accusation and castigation hit Lincoln like a bullet and he sagged lower and lower until his face was almost dragging on the ground. Before the could make it to the bus, Lola said. "Look, Mom's here."
Lincoln's head snapped up so fast his neck nearly broke. Vanzilla sat in the parking lot like a tomb, its flanks spackled with rust and its windows coated in a thick layer of grime that reflected the sun like a black hole. Lincoln squinted and could just make out the silhouette of his mother sitting behind the wheel, back perfectly straight and profile knife-sharp.
Uh-oh.
"Busted," Lola sang gleefully.
She and the others laughed and Lincoln sighed.
Time to face the music.
They crossed the parking lot in a group and Lincoln tried to hide himself. When he went to climb in through the back door, however, Mom stopped him. "Sit up here," she said, "we need to talk."
Lana, Lola, Lucy, and Lisa all went oooo.
Sitting in the passenger seat next to his mother, Lincoln pulled the seatbelt across his lap and stared ahead, too afraid to look at her. He felt like a man sitting in the electric chair and waiting for the first jolt to hit. Mom backed out of the parking space, swung the van around, and guided it to the exit, stopping to let a gang of fourth graders pass. The girls were quiet for once; they didn't want to interrupt the show. "I got a call from a restaurant downtown," Mom said. "Bobby and Lori got into a huge fight and tore the place to pieces. It had to do with you and someone named Ronnie Anne. She's been bullying you?"
Lincoln blinked. Lori and Bobby got into a fight over him and Ronnie Anne? Why? How did they even know about her? He hadn't mentioned her to anyone. It was only later that he would find out Ronnie Anne and Bobby were brother and sister.
"Lincoln?" Mom pressed. "What happened?"
For a long time, Lincoln was quiet, bracing himself for whatever was to come. "She's been bullying me," he finally said.
He told Mom everything, and the atmosphere in the van seemed to change. "I couldn't tell anyone because no one would take me seriously. They'd all make fun of me even harder."
In the back, his sisters exchanged uncertain glances. For the first time, they were beginning to realize the extent of the bullying Lincoln suffered at the hands of Ronnie Anne.
He told Mom about what happened the day Ronnie Anne put gum in his hair...how Lori and all the others assumed that Ronnie Anne liked him and told him to proceed as such - andMom muttered a curse under her breath. She shot daggers into the rearview mirror and tightened her grip on the wheel. "When we get home, we need to have a talk."
Now it was their turn to look worried.
At home, Mom parked the van in the driveway and cut the engine. It ticked as it cooled; it was the only sound and Lincoln chafed at the terrible silence. "Am I in trouble?" he asked.
Mom prodded the inside of her bottom lip with her tongue and considered his question for almost a full minute. "I'm not upset at you for reacting the way you did," she said. "I am upset that you didn't come to me or your father. We've told you that you can come to us about anything. We wouldn't have laughed at you. We would have taken you seriously." She sighed. "We'll talk about this later. For right now, just go to your room."
Lincoln nodded and rushed off. Inside, Lynn, Luan, and Luna sat on the couch. They looked up when he came in and Luna batted her eyelashes. "Hey, killer~"
"Heard you kicked someone's ass," Lynn said. "It was a girl, yeah, but that's a start. Good job."
Lincoln ignored them and climbed the stairs. At the top, he looked around to make sure Lori wasn't there. He didn't understand why she and Bobby had gotten into a huge fight over him and Ronnie Anne but he was sure that what he did to Ronnie Anne at school today was the cause of it. That meant that Lori would be angry with him. He didn't see her so he darted into his room, closing the door behind him. He went to his bed and dropped on, his face burying in the mattress. He took a deep, wathery breath and rolled onto his side. He hugged his knees to his chest and stared at the wall. Maybe Lori would be mad at him, maybe what he did would cause problems for himself at home and at school, but he didn't care. Ronnie Anne deserved it.
Downstairs, Rita gathered all of the girls on the couch and stood in the middle of the living room with her arms crossed over her chest. Lori, Leni, and the others shifted uncomfortably in their seats and looked anxious. "Lori, what happened?" she asked.
Lori told her the story of hers and Bobby's big blowout. When she was finished, Rita asked, "What's this about you telling Lincoln a girl bullying him means she likes him?"
"It literally does," Lori said.
Rita's eyes blazed. "No, it doesn't, Lori. This girl has been spreading nasty lies about him, calling him names, and picking on him, and hitting him. No one does that."
Lori blinked. "I-I didn't know it was that bad."
"Well, it is and you very likely made it worse."
Now all of the girls looked ashamed.
"I didn't mean to," Lori said.
Already, Lori was thinking of how she would make it up to Lincoln.
That night, Lincoln skipped dinner and stayed in his room to delay the inevitable confrontation with Lori. He knew it had to happen eventually but he wanted to put it off for as long as he could. He didn't know when it would happen or what would come of it, but he knew that there would be hell to pay.
After dinner, Mom came in and sat on the edge of the bed. She laid her hand on his leg and fixed him with a wounded look. "I'm sorry, Mom," he said earnestly.
"It's not your fault," she said after a moment. "It's ours for not being more involved and knowing what's going on in your life. And for not making you comfortable enough to come to us."
Lincoln sighed. "I didn't mean it like that, it's just...no one takes it seriously when something's happening to a boy. Everyone acts like we can't be victims, only bad guys."
A sad frown touched Mom's lips and she let out a deep breath. "I know, honey, and I'm sorry, but your father and I will never judge you. We love you and we want you to be happy. If you have a problem, any problem, you need to come to us and let us know about it so that we can help you."
"I will," Lincoln said. "Am I punished?"
"No," Mom said, "you're not punished."
Oh, thank God. He was afraid he would be grounded and not allowed to play video games or something. Another horrible possibility occurred to him and he swallowed around a cold lump in his throat. "Is Lori mad at me?"
Mom smiled. "I don't think so, honey. She feels bad for giving you garbage advice."
Well, that was good.
Mom left shortly thereafter and Lincoln tried to lose himself in a comic but his concentration was shot; he would have to read and reread a panel over and over again just to comprehend what was on the page. At just past eight, a light knock came at the door and he called out for whoever it was to come in. The knob turned and Lola poked her head hesitantly in. "Hey, Linc," she said guardedly. She sounded like she was afraid he would bite her head off. "Can you come to Lori's room, please?"
Lincoln sighed. Here it was. "Okay," he said. He sat up, swung his legs over the side, and sat up. He got to his feet, stood up, and followed Lola into the hallway. The house was eerily quiet for eight o clock in the evening and Lincoln figured that was because all of his sisters were in Lori's room. Often, Lori would call sibling meetings in her bedroom for whatever reason. Ninety nine percent of the time, these meetings involved everyone, but occasionally one or more sibling would be excluded as needed. One time, the meeting was about Lola's tattling, so Lola wasn't invited. Another meeting was about Lynn aggressively slapping everyone's butts and saying "Good game," after every little thing, so Lynn wasn't involved. Lincoln had been disallowed from a few such meetings in his eleven years, and this was apparently one of them.
Lola went ahead of him and opened the door. She went in and, with a deep breath, he followed.
Inside, his sisters were all sitting around the room waiting for him. Leni sat at her vanity, Lucy and Lynn perched on the edge of Leni's bed, Luan and Luna sat on the floor, and Lily crawled around and laughed as though this were nothing more than a fun party. Lori herself was standing in the middle of the room. "Hey, Linc," she said and offered a disarming smile. Mom said that Lori wasn't mad at him and she didn't look mad but he wasn't entirely at ease. Not until his sisters gave him a group hug and apologized for giving him shitty advice. "I feel really bad, Linc," Lori confided in him. "I didn't know it was that bad. I thought she was just kind of teasing you but Mom said she's been outright bullying you."
"She's right," Lincoln said, "she has been."
"I'm sorry," Lori repeated. She sank to the edge of the bed and let out a long sigh. "When I was younger I had a crush on a boy and I didn't know how to tell him, so I picked on him. A couple other girls I know did the same thing so that was the first thing that came to mind, that she had a crush on you. I didn't think it was that serious and it's my fault."
"Why did you and Bobby get into an argument over it?" Lincoln asked.
"Ronnie Anne is Bobby's little sister."
That development took Lincoln by surprise. "She is?" he asked. "You never told me that. Why didn't you tell me that?"
"Because you never mentioned her name."
Oh.
Wait...no, he didn't mention her name, did she?
"Whoops," he said, "my mistake."
Lori proceeded to tell him what had happened. Earlier that day, Lori and Bobby met at a fancy smancy French restaurant in downtown Royal Woods to celebrate their three and a half month anniversary. When Lori got there, Bobby looked agitated. As soon as she sat down, he started asking her about Lincoln . "I need to talk to him," he said.
Okay, that was strange. Bobby had never even met Lincoln. "Why?" she asked.
"My sister called me earlier. She said he called her a bunch of hurtful names and shoved her down."
Lori giggled. She couldn't help it. "Lincoln? No, he would never do something like that."
"Yes he did," Bobby snapped, "Ronnie Anne wouldn't lie like that. You're always making excuses for your siblings and talking about them like they're angels."
That comment rubbed Lori the wrong way. "Excuse me?"
"I'm tired of it. Your siblings are trash."
That led to a screaming match in the middle of the restaurant. Finally, Lori got up and threw a drink in his face. He got up and came at her, but she kicked him in the shin. They wrestled back and forth, knocking into tables and breaking things, until a team of burly, mean-looking ex cons working in the kitchen came out amd broke them up. "We're fucking through," Lori called as the disihwasher, Nazi prison tattoos and all, dragged her away. He kicked the side door open and literally heaved her into an alleyway like a bag of garbage. "Fuck outta here, bitch," he said.
Bobby, meanwhile, was tossed onto the sidewalk and attacked with a flurry of kicks and punches, the sous chef, the baker, and the kitchen manager all taking out the frustrations of the day on their helpless and hapless victim.
Getting to her feet, Lori dusted herself off and walked home. Little did she know that one of the waitresses was a friend of Mom's and gave her number to the manager, who promptly called her.
"And that's what happened," Lori said, wrapping her story up. "Bobby was a fucking jerk and attacked my family. Then I find out from Mom that his little sister's a psycho who gets off on hurting people."
Lincoln couldn't help feeling responsible for hers and Bobby's break up. "I'm sorry," he said. "I never meant for all of this to happen."
"It's not your fault, Linc," Luan said.
"Yeah," Lynn added, "you did the right thing. I would have beaten her black and blue. And I still might." She punched her open palm with her fist. "I'll whip Bobby's scrawny ass while I'm at it. No one messes with my family."
Lori held up her hand. "No. This is enough of a mess as is, we don't need to make it worse for ourselves."
"Alright," Lynn said, "but if she keeps it up, I'm gonna bust her."
The older girl opened her mouth, but then closed it again. "Okay," she said, "deal." She turned to Lincoln and lowered her head in a display of contrition. "I'm really sorry, Lincoln. This is all my fault. I should have known better." She uttered a harsh laugh. "I guess I'm not as good at giving advice as I thought I was." She took Lincoln's hand and squeezed it. "But I'm going to make it up to you, I promise."
"You don't have -" he started, but she cut him off.
"Yes, I do. And it starts tomorrow."
Was that a good thing? Was it bad? Lincoln's sisters could overreact and take things too far sometimes. That's what started this whole situation in the first place. He wanted to speak out and voice his concerns, but it struck him as ungrateful, so he shut up. They wanted to do something nice for him, surely it couldn't go too wrong.
Right?
Saturday morning, Lincoln woke to the heavenly smell of pancakes. He went downstairs and found Lori in the kitchen. "I'm making your favorite breakfast," she said. "Any extra requests?"
Lincoln sniffed the air and then shook his head.
While she finished up, he sat at the table with a glass of orange juice and read from a comic book that he found outside his door that morning with a bow on the front. He didn't know who got ir for him. Luna, maybe, or Leni.
By the time Lori was finished, the others had come downstairs and sat at the table with Lincoln. Lori passed out the plates and sat down just as a knock came at the front door. Sighing, Lori got up, crossed through the living room, and opened it. Bobby, dressed in jeans and a button up shirt, stood on the step with a box of chocolates in one hand and a teddy bear in the other. "Hey, b -"
"Fuck off," Lori said and slammed the door. She turned around but stopped when Bobby began to cry and sob. He wept, begged, and scratched at the door until everyone was in the living room, drawn by his sad Mexican sounds. Lori rolled her eyes and ripped the door open. "You got five minutes, Bobby," she said.
Sniffling, Bobby got up from his knees. "That's all I need."
He motioned to a car parked at the curb and Ronnie Anne got out. The moment Lincoln saw her, he unconsciously hunched his shoulders like that Spongebob caveman meme. She came up the walk with her head down and her hands in her pockets. She and her brother both came in. "I'm so sorry for everything I said, Lori," Bobby said. "It was wrong of me and I was a real idiot."
"Yeah, you were," Lori said and crossed her arms. "I guess the past few days have really gotten to you."
"He's literally been crying and whining since you guys broke up," Ronnie Anne said. She hesitated. "I, uh, I told him and my mom the truth about me bullying Lincoln."
"Why?" Lynn asked.
"Yeah," Luna added, "not cool, bro."
"You hurt Lincy's feelings really bad," Leni said.
Blushing, Ronnie Anne shrugged. "I kinda...well…like him."
The girls all squealed like a pack of pigs and Lori cleared her throat, silencing them.
"I got us a reservation at a fancy restaurant across town," Bobby said. "For all of us. You, me, Lincoln, and Ronnie Anne. To make up for what I did. Please forgive me."
For a moment, she mulled over his proposition and then turned around to walk away. Bobby slumped his shoulders in misery but then Lori spun around and swept him into a hug. "I forgive you," she said, "I missed you so much, boo-boo bear."
"Can we have a moment with Ronnie Anne?" Lynn asked.
Lori waved them on, and Lynn, Luna, Leni, and Luan took Ronnie Anne away. What were they going to do to her? Lincoln didn't know, but he was surprised to find himself hoping itt wasn't too gruesome.
She liked him, after all.
Lincoln grinned to himself. He knew all along. Honest.
He went upstairs to change and began to whistle.
In the backyard, Ronnie Anne faced Lincoln's sisters. Lynn put her hands on her own hips and said, "We figured you had a crush on him."
"We thought we were wrong but we were right," Luna said.
Ronnie Anne sighed. "Yeah," she said. "I do like,:"
"Cool," Lynn said. Without warning, she snatched Ronnie Anne by the front of her hoodie and dragged the little Hispanc into her face. "But if you hurt our brother ever again, we're gonna hurt you."
Ronnie Anne nodded.
She wouldn't hurt Lincoln. Now that it was all out in the open, she wanted to, uh, not hurt him.
Lynn shoved her away. "Now run along and have fun on your date."'
'
Ronnie Anne smiled nervously.
That's exactly what she planned to do.