STR2D3PO: I made a mistake in the first story and had to retcon.

Lincoln Velazquest stood before the bulletin board outside the gymnasium on a warm spring day, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his drab gray army style coat. His white hair was swept back from his forehead like James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause and his orange polo shirt was tucked into his jeans. He carried a comb in his back pocket and sometimes chewed on a toothpick ala Razor Ramon, the only wrestler Dad talked about that Lincoln actually liked. Razor also went by the name Scott Hall. These days, he was old and slow and the only matches he fought were against his own alcoholism. The last time they locked up, Soctt lost so big he wound up lying in the middle of the ring at some podunk indie show so drunk he couldn't even get up. If you think I'm lying, search YouTube, you'll find the video. It's pure cringe and when Lincoln was feeling bad after a colossal failure, he'd watch it until he felt better about himself. Hey, at least I'm not Scott Holic.

He called Scott Hall that once in front of Dad, and after calling Lincoln an "insensitive little punk" he grounded him. He was so mad that he grounded Johnny too because he half-smiled when Lincoln said it.

Despite trashing him, Lincoln liked Scott Hall. He also liked James Dean. His grandma, who was a kid in the fifties when Dean was big, freaking loved him and every time he and Johnny went over to her house, she made them watch all of his movies with her. Luckily, he only made three before he Paul Walker'd his way into that great big sock hop in the sky. Lincoln wasn't too big on his movies, but he really liked his style. He was saving his allowance for a leather jacket and was seriously considering buying one of those switchblades you see in the movies. You know, the one where you press a button but instead of a blade, a comb pops out.

Anyway, it was a mild spring afternoon and Lincoln stared up at the board, his brow furrowed in concentration. Chattering kids all crowded around and jostled for position like a bunch of stooges trying to all get through a doorway at once. Someone bumped into Lincoln and he clenched his jaw. Alright, accidents happen -

Something jabbed him in the back and he whipped around, fist balled in anticipation of delivering a crushing blow. Stella jumped back, eyes wide with alarm, and Lincoln relaxed. "Sorry," he said, "I thought you were someone else."

A look of confusion crossed her face. "Who?"

Lincoln shrugged. "I dunno. A bully?"

Stella's shrugged one shoulder. "What's up?" she asked and nodded at the board.

"The club list," Lincoln said.

Stella's eyes widened. "Oh, it's out? Awesome."

At the beginning of the semester, Principal Bodner announced the formation of a dozen after school clubs in addition to the nine pre existing ones. Lincoln was already a member of the chess club and not interested in joining another until he found out that these new clubs would count as extra credit. If you were doing poorly in a class, you could join one and bring your grade up a little. That was a real godsend because he was so close to flunking English he could squint and see the faint outline of a big, red F staring him down like a hate-filled ghost. You killed me, brah, now I'm coming for you.

Joining one of the new clubs was a no-brainer, but there was a problem: You didn't get to choose which one you joined. If you wanted, you submitted your name and they put them all in giant hat or something. Lincoln had been on the edge of his seat waiting for this list and when he heard whispered rumors it had been posted, his heart jumped into his chest. He was hoping they put him in cooking. I mean, think about it: Not only is cooking easy (he did it all the time at home), but you also get to eat free food. Win-win-win.

"I wonder which one I got into," Stella mused. She craned her neck left and right to see, then brightened. "Cooking. Just the one I wanted. Which one are you in?"

"I dunno," Lincoln said, "I don't see my -"

Someone shouldered him out of the way, and he bumped into Stella. Alright, whoever did that was getting their butt whipped. He turned, and Johnny was there, scanning the board with his arms crossed over his chest. He wore a jacket much like Lincoln's and a paper bag with a pair of goggles strapped to his forehead like an extra set of eyes. He did that to be different from everyone else, and while Lincoln respected indivuality, it looked really dumb sometimes, especially when Johnny did something to annoy him.

Like now.

"Watch it, baghead," Lincoln said and hit Johnny's shoulder with the heel of his palm.

Johnny staggered to the side and shot Lincoln a dirty look. "What's your problem, Grease?"

He called Lincoln that after the movie. When Lincoln debuted his new look, Johnny laughed and said You look just like that loser from Grease. Lincoln hated being called that; it was the worst possible insult he could think of because Grease sucked. "You," Lincoln said, "you knocked me out of the way like a punk."

"You shouldn't just be standing here then," Johnny said and hit Lincoln in the shoulder. Pain streaked down Lincoln's arm.

Oh, it was on.

Before he could attack, though, Mr. Lewis, the gym teacher, walked by. He spared them a sour glance, and they both flashed their biggest, most innocent smiles. Nothing to see here, sir. He slowed, but decided he didn't care and kept going.

"Good going," Johnny said and turned back to the board, "you almost got us in trouble."

Lincoln almost snapped back, but stopped himself. He could bicker with Johnny later. Right now he wanted to find out which club he was in. "Come on, art," Johnny said, "I love me some art."

"I want cooking," Lincoln said. He searched for his name and finally found it just as Johnny found his.

Their faces both fell.

"Cooking?" Johnny asked distastefully.

Indeed, his name was under the COOKING header.

Lincoln's was under ART.

"Darn it," Lincoln said and threw his head back.

"I don't wanna cook," Johnny said and slumped his shoulders. "Cooking's for losers." He glanced at Lincoln. "No offense."

Lincoln was too distraught to care about Johnny's dumb insult. Art? ART? Art was fine and all, but it wasn't cooking. With art, you have to do assignments and stuff and you don't get nom them down when they're done.

LAME.

Drawing a heavy sigh, he hung his head and dragged himself away, his feet as heavy as his heart. He caught a flicker of movement in his periphery and looked over to see Johnny right beside him in the exact same posture: Head down, desolate face, looking for all the world like someone killed his hopes and dreams.

"Guys?" Stella called after them. There was a note of uncertainty in her voice.

"Ugh." Lincoln and Johnny said in unison.

She hesitated, then lifted a tentative wave. "Okay, I guess I'll see you tomorrow."

In the front lobby, Lincoln and Johnny parted ways, both too preoccupied by their own grief to bid the other farewell; Johnny pushed through the door and started home, and Lincoln went to Room 235, where the chess club met once a week for an hour following the final bell. Most weeks, the members paired off and played a game or two or talked or goofed off. Sometimes, though, the Club President, a fat sixth grader named Lester, arranged for a speaker to come and talk about the game. Last month, he somehow got Jim Horton, the former Chess America All-Star and Jeopardy champion whose sixteen day winning streak netted him almost two million dollars.

Before going in, Lincoln stopped at the bathroom and sat in the far stall for a few minutes with his regrets. He took a gamble and he lost, now he was stuck going to some stupid art club three nights a week.

Any other time, this kind of thing wouldn't faze him, but he really had his heart set on taking that cooking course. He was going to make nachos and pizza and all sorts of other stuff. Instead, he was going to fingerpaint or something. Yay him.

Sighing, he forced himself to his feet and got to Room 235 just as the very last bell of the day resounded through the empty corridors like the midnight cry of a banshee on an Irish moor. The only other person around was that creepy, smelly janitor with the cow skull headband: He swept dirt from beneath the trophy case next to the doors leading into the cafeteria and muttered to himself that his life was BS.

A large, circular table dominated the middle of the room. To the right, a row of computers lined the walls, and on the left, a desk sat before a blackboard on which someone had drawn a crude chalk version of Principal Bodner complete with sharp teeth and stink lines.

Everyone was clustered around the table and shooting the breeze when Lincoln walked in. There were six members counting him: Lester, the President; Sheldon, a scrawny nerd who claimed to be named after the guy from The Big Bang Theory; Gaylord, who was so fat his butt spilled over the edges of his chair like melted butter; Payton, the weeb with coal black skin (he was from Nigeria); and, to Lincoln's continued surprise, Lucy Loud.

Small, slight, and pale with straight black hair that covered her eyes, Lucy somehow fit in with the chess geeks while at the same time sticking out like a sore thumb. She was the treasurer of the Young Mortician's Club before they kicked her out for being too weird; she apparently brought in a dead cat she found on the way to school one day. Word on the street was she used it as a puppet and made it dance while she beatboxed for all she was worth. She claimed that was a "malicious lie spread by my former friend Haiku" and Lincoln believed her. She was a little...uh...extra, but she wasn't a freak. He lived right across the street from her and because he often stared out his bedroom window with a pair of binoculars, hoping to catch a glimpse of Luan, he knew she wasn't like that. One time, he watched this girl pick up a baby bird with a broken wing with the care of a woman holding the world in her hands and nurse it back to health. You really expect him to believe she shoved her hand up a dead cat's butt and sang "Mammy" while making it tapdance? Uh-uh.

It was a dirty rumor and nothing else. What he didn't understand was why Haiku would say something like that. Lucy wouldn't tell him what happened between them and when he asked Lynn, she punched him on the shoulder and told him to mind his own business.

The only open chair was between Payton and Lucy. Lincoln dropped into it, drew a burdened breath, and let it out in a wheezing rush. He flopped his head back and stared up at the fluorescent light overhead. Take me now, Lord Jesus.

Something hard hit him in the side and drove the air from his lungs. He lifted his head, and Lucy stared fixedly up at him, her face as blank (and white) as a sheet of paper. He couldn't see her eyes, but he could feel her gaze boring into him, subtly peeling away the layers of his skin and searching his soul like a million brushing fingers. A lump formed in his throat and his heartbeat sped up, pounding like a metal drummer's kit during a coked-up encore of the band's hardest hit.

Maybe he was wrong about her. Maybe she wasn't the kind, gentle girl he took her for. Maybe she wasn't misunderstood, maybe she was a cold-blooded puppeteer of dead things and she was trying to figure out the best way to remove his skin. She could -

"Is Johnny with you?" she asked.

All at once, it made sense. Lucy and her younger sisters all had major crushes on Johnny and wouldn't leave the poor guy alone. Lucy wrote strange second person love poetry and left it in the mailbox for him, and one time Lana released her favorite Frog Hopps into his and Lincoln's bedroom as a sign of her affections. Oh, and who could forget the time Lisa concoct a love potion and fed it into Lincoln and Johnn's air vents? It was supposed to make Johnny fall hopelessly in love with her, but it wound up making everyone in the house launch into a frenzy of dance that lasted nearly six hours: Lincoln tangoed with his father up and down the stairs until his feet practically fell off.

"No, he went home.'

Lucy sucked a little intake of breath. "Sigh."

All though the meeting, Lincoln was preoccupied with tomorrow, his first day of art club. He and Lucy played three games in a row and he lost every single one. "You're off today," Lucy oh so helpfully pointed out.

"I know," Lincoln sighed. He lived across the street from the Loud girls and had been dragged into many of their misadventures...he knew them well and genuinely liked them...but he wouldn't say he was particularly close with any of them. He found himself opening up to Lucy anyway. "I wanted to join the cooking club but they put me in the art club instead and I don't wanna do art. I wanna cook. Cooking rules."

Lucy favored him with a look that could have been anything from pallid to wan. "I agree. Luckily, I got into the cooking club. But I like art too. Why don't you like art?"

"I just don't," Lincoln said with a dismissive shrug. "Art's okay but it's not what I want to do and I don't even wanna be in there. Johnny gets to cook and I have to -"

Lucy stiffened. "Johnny's in the cooking club?"

"Yeah, he -"

Lucy's mouth twisted into a love drunk squiggle and a pink blush touched her cheeks, blazing scarlet on creamy white. She let out a hazy sigh, fisted her hands to her breast, and smiled. She actually freaking smiled. Not a lot, but just enough that Lincoln was shaken for the rest of the afternoon. At home, he and Johnny sat across the kitchen table from their parents and tried not to laugh at their father's get up. Today, apparently, was an important date in the career of Hulk Hogan, one of Dad's favorite wrestlers. In celebration, he was dressed in a pair of red and yellow tights, a yellow tank top with HULKAMANIA across the chest in red, and a red and yellow bandana. He also wore a fake goatee and sunglasses, a plastic WWF heavyweight championship belt tossed casually over one shoulder. Mom pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head. "I can't believe you wore that to work," she said.

"Let me tell you somethin', brother," Dad said in his best Hulk Hogan, and Lincoln cringed. "Hulkamania doesn't take a day off, brother. It's 24/7 in your head and in your house. Hulkamania's not a costume, brother, it's a way of life and I'm livin' life to the fullest, brother."

Lincoln bit down on the insides of his cheeks to keep from saying something, and Johnny clamped his lower lip between his teeth. Lincoln could see an epic roast brewing in his brother's eyes and almost lost his composure because he knew it would be good. Johnny was the roast master; he always had the perfect joke, insult, or put down on hand, and he lobbed them like a pitcher lobs home run balls.

Dad took a lot of things seriously (like himself) but none more serious than pro wrestling. A couple months back, some fat slob named Jim Cornette (Lincoln gathered that he was something important in the business) made a racist remark while calling a match, and Dad was beside himself with fury. Okay, Lincoln was half black (though he looked as white as Lucy) so you can pretty much guess where he stood on anti-black racism, but this Cornette guy was a straight redneck from Kentucky who'd been in the business for, like, fifty years. And Dad was surprised that he'd make a racist joke about someone being so fast that they were the only person in the world who could strap a bucket of chicken to his back and make it through Ethiopia? Like, Lincoln would be shocked if he wasn't a racist.

His father, on the other hand, was caught completely off guard. Imagine this: A grown man downright seething on Facebook for three days straight because some nobody commentator said something racist (and got fired the next day) and all of his friends, family, and coworkers telling him to calm down. His brother, Lincoln and Johnny's Uncle Lamont, told him him That's what you get for having white heroes. A bunch of cousins, aunts, and uncles agreed, and Dad wigged out even harder. YOUR JUST AS BAD AS HE IS! He deleted his account right there and refused to talk to any of his family until they apologized for "hating on white people." Lincoln thought the real reason was shame: He realized he made an ass of himself and was too humiliated to show his face.

Then again..look at how he's dressed.

Mom sighed.

After clearing the table and washing the dishes, Lincoln and Johnny went upstairs. They fought over who got to take a shower first, they fought over the primo spot in front of the sink when it came time to brush their teeth, they even fought over who had to set the alarm clock. In the darkness, they lay in their respective beds, neither sleepy, and neither looking forward to tomorrow. "I'm not looking forward to tomorrow," Johnny said.

"Yeah?" Lincoln replied. "Neither am I."

Johnny blew a dismissive raspberry. "What are you talking about? You have art. The best club there is."

Rolling onto his side, Lincoln fixed his brother with a withering look. A spill of harsh orange light from a streetlamp outside revealed his profile in fuzzy and indistinct lines. "That's easy to say when you get to go cook tomorrow."

"Cooking sucks, though."

"No, it doesn't."

"It really does, bro," Johnny said. "Art's where it's at. I legit envy you."

Lincoln sighed and stretched out on his back again. "I envy you."

Falling asleep was hard that night, and when he finally sank into oblivion, Lincoln dreamed. Esals and framed paintings chased him through an avante-garde hellscape full of melting clocks, screaming aliens, and sly Mona Lisas smiling down at him from the void as though they knew something he didn't...something, something without which he would be rent limb from limb.

And all the while, Johnny got to cook and eat good food.

Darn you...darn you to heck, Johnny!


The next afternoon, Lincoln sat in his final class of the day and stared anxiously out the window. Warm, spring rain drizzled from the leaden sky and soaked the green athletic field. He turned away, ran his fingers through his hair, and took a deep breath in an effort to calm his rising nerves. In just a few minutes the bell would ring and he would be forced into a class where he didn't want to be to waste time he could spend better elsewhere, like playing video games. Nervous energy surged through him and he trembled and twitched like a high tension wire. The air was hot and stale, the walls pressing against him like the arms of a vise. He tapped his pencil restively on the desk and tried to focus on something else. It wasn't really that bad, he told himself. It wasn't, he knew that, but still.

When the bell finally clanged, he waited for everyone to get up and shuffle out before grabbing his things and getting to his feet. Mrs. Johnson sat behind her desk with her nose buried in a paperback with a shirtless blonde hunk on the cover. Oh, shoot, whaddup, Fabio? Lincoln only knew who that was because his mom had a bunch of romance paperbacks stowed away in the attic next to Dad's old wrestling stuff. He read one called Confederate Desire about the CIvil War. It was pretty cool how Atlanta burned up and the one guy got his foot ripped off by a cannonball, but the romance stuff was kind of awkward, especially when they took their clothes off.

He skipped that chapter.

In the hall, he weaved through crowds of kids, made it to his locker, and opened it. He stuffed his things inside, closed it, and sagged his shoulders. Alright, here goes.

Yeah...here wound up being the bathroom. He sat on the closed lid in the far stall against the wall and stared down at his feet. He planned to go to the art room eventually, but he wasn't in a rush. He pulled out his phone, checked his Discord, and fired off a text to Sid who wanted to know if his family used wash clothes in the shower or loofah. Neither, we just use a raw bar of soap.

She replied with a puking face emoji.

What?

It's not like they washed their bodies with it. They just lathered up their hands.

He put his phone away and took a deep breath that locked in his lungs when the bathroom door opened. Slow footfalls clicked ominously on the tiled floor and reverberated off the walls like the hoofbeats of approaching doom, and in an instant, Lincoln knew that they meant trouble. He swallowed and watched beneath the stall as a pair of brown loafers came into view. Only one man wore shoes like that, and his name was -

"Lincoln Loud," Principal Bodner said in this wispy voice of his, "I know you're in there, young man. Come out."

Darn it.

The jig was up.

Getting to his feet, Lincoln opened the door. Principal Bodner, short with black hair and prissy features, put his hands on his hips and glared down at him. "Skipping your club, huh?"

"N-No," Lincoln lied.

Principal Bodner shook his head. He snatched Lincoln by the back of his coat and lead him into the hall, where Johnny waited with his head down. Lincoln blinked in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

"He caught me hiding behind a trash can," Johnny said.

Principal Bodner grabbed Johnny by his coat and guided both boys down the hall. "You elected to participate in these clubs and you know the rules going in. If you'd like to drop out, we can call your parents and -"

"NO!" Lincoln and Johnny cried in unison. If he called home, their dad would whip their butts in a triple steel cage with razor wire for ropes.

"Then you are both going to your club and you will not make any trouble, do you understand?"

Lincoln and Johnny looked at each other, then nodded vigorously. "Yes, sir," Johnny said.

"We promise," Lincoln added.

The cooking room was at the end of the hall and on the right. Principal Bodner released Lincoln, opened the door, and shoved Johnny in. Lincoln got the briefest, most tantalizing flash of a kitchen and happy, smiling kids in aprons, then the door fell closed and Bodner was pulling him away. The art room was down another hall, situated between the library and the nurse's office. Principal Bodner twisted the knob and manhandled Lincoln over the threshold. "If I hear a single little peep from you," he warned, "I will come down on you like judgement day. Understood?"

Lincoln nodded. "Yes sir."

Principal Bodner closed the door.

Sighing, Lincoln turned. Kids sat at long, paint-stained tables and worked on drawings while the art teacher, Mrs. Lender, glided around the room in a smock. She looked up at him and flashed a quick smile. "Welcome, Lincoln," she said, "please have a seat."

Lincoln hung his head and shuffled over to one of the tables, sinking into the first empty seat he saw. "Hey, Linc."

He looked up. Lana Loud grinned broadly, showing off her missing teeth.

"Lana?" Lincoln asked, tasting her name as though it were alien and not wholly pleasant. "What are you doing here?"

She shrugged. "Eh, I gotta bring my grades up."

Lincoln's brow creased. "You're six, what are you failing, nap time?"

A dark shadow flickered across Lana's face. "Shapes and colors are a lot harder than they look, buddy. What are you failing, doofus class?"

"English," he said.

Lana rolled her eyes. "English? Really? Even I know English. It are my specialty."

Yeah, okay.

Mrs. Lender came over and sat piece of construction paper in front of Lincoln. "We're free drawing today," she said. "Draw whatever you like. There is no right way or wrong way to create art."

Good to know.

Lincoln took a colored pencil from the plastic tub between him and Lana and stared down at the page, stuck for what to draw. He thought back to the glimpse of kitchen he caught before Bodner shut Johnny up in the cooking room. A stainless steel fridge nestled in an alcove, an overhead microwave, appliances, green countertops, woodwork, happiness, food, ugh,

He didn't realize he had started to draw until the image began to take shape before him. Giving himself to the rush of the moment, he plastered his tongue to his upper lip and leaned into the fall. He sketched everything he remembered from the cooking room, even the other kids and their joyous expressions. The tip of his pencil blazed across the paper and by the time Mrs. Lender asked everyone to turn in their drawings, he had rendered a nearly true to life depiction of the kitchen. He stared dazedly down at it, unable to believe that it came from him, and Lana leaned over to see. "Whoa. That's pretty good. Mine's better, though." She held up a picture of crude stick figures holding hands under a smiling sun.

Before leaving, everyone dropped their drawing off at Mrs. Lender's desk. When it was Lincoln's turn, he sat it proudly on top of the pile. She glanced at it and her eyes widened. "Wow, that's very good, Lincoln. Do you have formal training?"

Lincoln shrugged. "No, I just...did it."

"This is amazing. You may have a future in art."

Lincoln didn't know about that, but he did know one thing: He enjoyed himself, and now, he couldn't wait until the next meeting.


Lucy bent, opened the oven, and frowned. "I don't think they're done."

Johnny squatted next to her and peered into the depths. A tray of dough balls sat on the top rack. "We better leave them in there longer." He stood up, went over to the counter, and checked the first batch. Chocolate chip cookies stared up at him, begging to be eaten. He used a spatula to pry one off the tray and carefully took a bite. It was soft and moist and good, with hints of cinnamon and spice. Lucy shut the oven door and grabbed a cookie of her own.

"These are really good," Johnny said and crammed another one into his mouth.

"Thanks," Lucy said. "It's my Grandma Harriet's recipe."

Johnny swallowed. "I didn't know you had a grandma. Where does she live?"

"She's dead."

Oh.

"I'm sorry."

"I have seances with her all the time," Lucy said, "that's how I got this recipe."

Ah.

That made total sense.

Johnny grabbed another cookie and crunched it between his teeth. They were hardening. He couldn't tell if he liked them better hard or soft.

Around them, kids decorated cupcakes and sat pies out to cool. The smell of warm goodness filled the air and Johnny took a deep breath through his nose. The teacher walked around, inspecting everyone's pastries, and Johnny turned his back to her so she didn't see that he was eating. No eating anything until the end of class, she said earlier. Whoops. Sorry.

Lucy hung her head and chewed faster but not fast enough. The teacher came over and looked at the tray, not noticing a bunch of cookies were missing or pretending not to. "This looks very good, Lucy and Johnny."

They are good.

At the end of the class, everyone gathered at a large table to one side of the room and sat the fruits of their labors in the middle. There were Danishes, cakes, candies, brownies, cookies, pies, tarts, and a thousand other things that Johnny couldn't name. He licked his chops like a hungry dog as the teacher sampled each one. He really wished he was her right now, all that stuff looked really good.

"Alright, class," she said when she was done, "get a plate and dig in."

Johnny's jaw dropped. They got to eat all this stuff too?

He grabbed a paper plate from a stack and loaded it down with as much as it could hold, then ate until he was stuffed whereupon...he ate a little more. "Cooking class rules," he said through a mouth full of fudge and icing.

"You rule," Lucy said. She stared up at him with a little blush.

"Uh...thanks."

Following class, Johnny met up with Lincoln outside and they started home through the rapidly darkening afternoon. "I'm gonna burst," Johnny said. "You were right about cooking class. It rocks. How was art?"

"It was a lot of fun," Lincoln said. "I drew a really cool picture now I wanna draw another one."

Huh.

Looks like everything worked out for the best, Johnny thought.

At least until the sugar high wore off and he fell asleep at the dinner table.

"Johnny!"

Johnny startled awake. His father stood over him dressed like Hulk Hogan. "You, me, steel cage, right now, brother."

When he woke up the next morning and realized that was just a dream, he swore off eating that much sugar ever again.

Then he attended his next meeting of cooking class and that went right out the window.

Could you really blame him, though?

Cooking is awesome.