Brooke walked across the parking lot, as always with her back perfectly rigid. She tried the door handle of her brother's car, which he had let her use because he hadn't come to school, and she discovered it was locked. With a shaky hand, she jabbed the key into the lock.
"Hey Brooke," Tommy Edwards called. He flashed her a shy smile.
She smiled back. "Hi, Tommy."
He kept walking, and her smile immediately left. God, she was such a fake.
She slipped into the driver's seat, leaned her head back, and after a long silence, burst into tears.
Because she wasn't a fake with Gordie. And the bitch of that was, he hated her.
Vern peeked around the corner. Seeing Cassie walking down the hall, he squawked and dove back out of sight.
"Oh God," he whispered, panicking. "Oh God. 'Hello Cassie, I love you.' No, no, no, you retard, be cool. Okay. 'Cassie, because of you, I have to change my sheets almost daily.' Damn. Bad idea. Okay. Oh God. 'Cassie, you're pretty and will you be my girlfriend?' Oh God. Oh God."
Cassie turned the corner, saw him, and stopped in her tracks.
"Oh God," Vern said instead of something normal, like hello.
She smiled nervously, going slightly paler. "Hi Vern. How are you?"
"I love your brains!"
"Oh." She grimaced. "Thank you. Yes. Okay. Goodbye now."
"Jesus, I'm so sorry," Chris said in a flustered rush, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Seriously, Anya, I'm sorry. I should never have touched you."
Anya chewed on her bottom lip, her eyes thoughtful and liquid blue. "Why…" She appeared lost. "…did you?"
The question took him back. Why had he kissed her? Had it been because of the way her ash blond hair caught every streak of light and turned it into gold, or how her hands wrung each other out nervously and vulnerably, or how she suddenly looked prettier than she had five minutes ago? Or maybe she had just seen all the things he wished people would see and he hadn't known how to thank her for opening her eyes.
"I don't know," he told her; not being able to come to a conclusion.
"Do you remember in grade seven, at that Halloween party? A bunch of us were playing spin the bottle. Remember?"
Chris nodded. "I remember."
"You were my first kiss," she said, smiling. He noticed that her mouth lifted a little higher on one side when she smiled. "I was so nervous when we all sat down to play because I'd never kissed anyone, and then when I found out I had to kiss you, I felt better. In my head, sometimes, I used to compare Reese to you, but after awhile I started to forget. You just reminded me, and I'm not sorry, so you don't have to be sorry either. I never understood why people were mean to you. I started to understand as I grew up, but I never got the justification of it. You're more than anyone knows, and that's all I've ever understood about you."
He couldn't think of anything to say out loud. A thousand thoughts raced through his mind, but none of them seemed good enough. Finally, he said, "You were my first kiss too. And now you're my second."
"Can I be your third?"
As he nodded slowly and deliberately, he asked, "What about Reese?"
Anya brushed back a lock of his hair. "I can't be with someone who treats you the way he does."
"He'll kill me, you know that, right?"
"If he tries anything, I'll sic Lorelei on him. She bites, kicks, scratches and licks."
"She licks?"
"Yeah, actually, the licking is the most effective one of her weapons. You piss her off, she licks you, and you immediately behave."
Chris grinned. Algebra was wonderful.
"Thanks for walking me home, Teddy," Lorelei said when they were in front of her house. She hugged her books to her chest, and smiling up at him lightly. "It really wasn't necessary. I can cross the street by myself now."
"But you don't look both ways before crossing," Teddy pointed out. "And anyway, I wasn't in a rush to get home."
"I can see if my sister will drive you home or something; this really was so out of your way."
"It's okay." He mussed up her unkempt hair in a brother-sister way. "I'll see you tomor--"
Lorelei screamed and dove for cover as a water balloon, coming from the tree they were standing under, pelted Teddy. He yelled in surprise and took his glasses off to wipe away the water. He replaced them even though they were all streaky. Then he dropped his backpack and hollered, "All right, I've declared war!"
"Oh God, Teddy no! You'll lose and die!" Lorelei exclaimed as she ran for the front step. "I swear to God, my brother was like raised in the jungle by those Pygmy people! He's evil and has very good aiming skills."
"Do you have a hose?"
"What?"
"Do you--have a--HOSE?" Teddy enunciated.
"Go around to the side of the house," she muttered, wondering what it was about guys that made them so immature. She sat on the front step and rolled her socks down so that she could try and get a bit of a tan from the surprisingly warm September sun.
"AAAHAHAHAHAHAHA--JESUS!" Teddy screamed just before there was a huge splashing noise.
Lorelei's ears perked up a bit at the sound of horror and agony, but shrugged and rested back on her elbows, figuring someone would let her know when the war was over and someone was dead.
Eventually, Teddy emerged from the back of the house, completely drenched and not leaving much to the imagination, led by a perfectly dry eight-year-old. "Hi Lora," the boy, her little brother Alexander, said cheerfully. She realized there was a tooth missing from his huge smile. "Is this your boyfriend? He passed the test."
"Um." Lorelei looked troubled. "No he's not, and you have a test?"
"Yeah. I ambush them."
"Okay. How long were you hiding up in that tree before I got home?"
"Like twenty minutes. I was actually going to ambush you, but then I saw you were with this guy and my plans changed."
"How free-spirited of you."
"Thank you. Bye!" He jammed his sling shot in his back pocket and ran into the backyard again.
Lorelei finally turned her attention back to Teddy. She looked at him, startled. "Holy damn, did you shrink?"
"Uh huh," he replied, his teeth chattering. "I'd better get home before my balls freeze off." He began to make his way across the fading green of the grass; his shoes making squishing sounds with each step he took.
"You poor wet rat, come here," she sighed. "You can borrow a change of clothes. I don't want anything happening to your balls."
"Really? You value the well-being of my balls?"
"No. Come in, I guess. Just try not to drip too much."
Gordie finally got home. He didn't bother calling out a hello because he was pissed off and he knew he'd be even more pissed off with the inevitable silence that would be his reply.
For the first time in years, he went into Denny's room, his eyes closing before his head even hit his dead brother's pillow.
"You're leaving footprints on the carpet," Lorelei whispered.
"Yes," he whispered back.
"Okay. This is my room. Yes, that would be my underwear drawer wide open there…So." Lorelei walked over to her dresser, rammed the underwear drawer closed with her hip while she dug through another drawer. Finally she produced a pair of sweatpants and a large blue T-shirt. "Here. My bathroom is right there."
"I can't wear your clothes, you're a girl and I'm a man!"
"A MAN?" she cackled. "That's funny, Teddy. Get dressed now."
Resentfully, he took the pile of folded clothes and locked himself in her bathroom.
It smelled like peaches or something. It had never crossed his mind that Lorelei, who was like another guy to him, would be all sweet-smelling or whatever. It took some effort to peel off his soaking clothes, which he threw into the tub, and then he slipped into the welcoming warmth of her androgynous clothing. Looking in the mirror, he saw the words Don't forget English homework were written on the glass in bright lipstick. He checked himself out. Interestingly enough, he appeared to be the same size as Lorelei.
The peaches smell was getting to him, and he started to sneeze rapidly. Keeping one hand over his mouth, he looked around for a Kleenex box. All he could find was a roll of paper towel. He decided that the paper towel would just have to do; sneeze attacks waited for no man. He ripped off a huge wad, blew his nose violently, and then peeked under the sink to see if there was a trash can. Then he slammed the cupboard drawer shut upon seeing feminine products. Not taking into consideration how many paper towels he had used, he tossed it into the toilet and flushed it.
"Hmm," he muttered to himself, watching the toilet.
Apparently, the water seemed to be rising instead of going down.
"Stop that," he whispered to the toilet. "Stop now. Oh…shit. Shh! Woah, there, slow down!"
He thought perhaps the water would just stop once it got to the top, but then it started to spill over the rim and onto the floor. "Oh holy Moses," he gasped. "Paper towels!" He started to unravel the roll of paper towel, throwing it on the ground. He was having visions of the entire bathroom filling up to the ceiling, and therefore began to panic.
"Teddy?" Lorelei called. "What the hell are you doing?"
"Oh--" His voice cracked. "Just…I think I might be awhile."
"Teddy," she growled. "You leave my bathroom in the same condition it was when you went in there."
"Of cour--" He wiped out in the spreading puddle of water. "God damn you."
"Teddy, these noises I'm hearing are quite worrisome," she said in a cautious voice.
"Lorelei," he said. "Um…we're friends, right?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you really like your bathroom?"
"Yes, it comes in handy."
"Are there other bathrooms in this house you could possibly use if something were to ever happen to this one?"
"TEDDY…"
"Okay, I'm having a war with your toilet!"
"Are you winning?"
"NO!"
"I won't kill you or anything. Just open the door and let me help you."
Teddy crawled to the door after slipping several times. After having a few problems with the lock, he eased open the door to let her in.
Never in his life had he been more afraid of a five-foot-four girl with pigtails.
"Remember how you said you weren't going to kill me?" he asked.
Lorelei looked around her bathroom in complete shock. "Oh for the love of Jesus and all his twelve sons and his father's father…"
"You're not very religious, are you?"
"What did you DO?" she cried.
"I blew my nose!"
"And the blowing of your nose somehow triggered the toilet to explode?!"
"Well, a funny thing happened. I used like half a roll of paper towel."
"How badly did you sneeze?"
"Well if you're bathroom didn't smell so bad I wouldn't have sneezed!"
"My bathroom used to smell good! Now it smells like toilet!"
"Team work, Lorelei, team work!"
She growled inhumanly for a moment, then tried to spin around, but slipped in the water, which did not help her become any more cheerful. She carefully got to her feet and ran down the hall to get some towels and a mop.
When she returned, she threw everything to him, and then set to work attacking the toilet with a plunger.
Teddy grinned at her. "If Chris could only see you now…"
[Author's Note: The toilet adventure was based on true events…sad but true events. And also, the term "For the love of Jesus and his twelve sons and his father's father" belongs to my friend Robyn and her frustration with Biology. ]