Chapter 50
The next day was February 13th – the day before Valentine's Day. And one day closer to mushy, romantic, stuff.
"Hi guys!" Jaz yelled, running up to us at recess. "Guess what tomorrow is?"
"Christmas?" I asked, rolling my eyes at her.
Jaz shook her head. "No, silly! It's Valentine's Day tomorrow! And that means candy!"
"Oh yeah!" Iggy said, grinning. "I love candy!"
I had to admit, the idea of giving candy to everyone –and getting a whole bunch of sweets back – was not such a bad idea. I figured that maybe that could get me through the horror of having to present my dumb poem in front of the entire class - Mrs. Jenkins had informed us this morning that we had to read our poems out loud, and I could have sworn she was smiling evilly at me as she said it.
"So," Jaz continued, clasping her hands in front of her chest, and beaming at the three of us, "we should all go to buy candy after school!"
"Sure," Fang responded. I sighed. I guess being friends with Jaz meant we had to do friend-related things with her after school.
"Alright, why not?" I added.
Jaz did that really big, goofy smile of hers. "Yay! Thanks, Max!" she cried, hugging me. I was a bit taken aback – normally, she was clinging to Fang, not me.
"Uh… yeah. No problem," I said, trying to untangle myself from her. "Are you… okay?"
Jaz beamed at me. "Normally you don't want to hang out with me! For once, you said yes! I feel like we're really friends now!"
"Um… okay," I replied, scratching the back of my neck. Having Jaz as a friend was pretty weird at times, but I guessed sometimes she wasn't too bad.
~~::~~
"Why did we have to drive to the store?" I complained loudly over the music coming from the radio. Fang had claimed shotgun, and he was blasting his favorite rock band as loud as the radio could go.
Unfortunately, no one else in the flock really liked Fang's favorite band.
"You know, sometimes I wish I were deaf instead of blind!" Iggy yelled at Fang, the music nearly drowning his voice out.
Fang just turned around and shrugged his shoulders, like, Oh well.
"He's shrugging his shoulders," I whispered to Iggy, who grimaced.
"I hate when he does that," Iggy muttered.
Iggy, Jaz, and I were crammed in the middle row, with Gazzy, Nudge, and Angel – buckled into her little pink car seat – were squished together in the back.
"If we sit like this for any longer, I will probably lose all sense of feeling in my arms and legs," Nudge announced. She was smashed between Gazzy and Angel.
"I don't feel too good," Gazzy whined, holding his stomach.
"Keep it together!" I shouted at him, rolling down the window.
Jeb sighed from the driver's seat. "I'm going to get in a car accident if you all keep yelling."
Angel and Jaz were the only ones who seemed to be having a good time. Angel had started singing her favorite songs, and Jaz was only too happy to sing along with her. They were currently on their seventh reprise of "Mary Had a Little Lamb."
"It's fleece was white as snow," Angel sang, clapping her hands together and grinning.
"I hate that song!" Gazzy shouted. "It's almost as bad as Fang's music!"
Fang gave the Gasman his glare of death and just turned the radio even louder.
Finally, we pulled into the parking lot of Party City.
I got the door open first, and everyone else spilled out behind me.
"FREEDOM!" Gazzy shouted as he jumped out of the cars and fell to his knees in mock relief.
"We are never driving anywhere ever again," Nudge decided as she climbed out of the car and brushed her clothes off.
Jeb unbuckled Angel from her car seat and handed her to me. "Whoa, Angel," I said, laughing, "you're getting pretty heavy, huh?" I put her on my shoulders so I didn't have to worry about her wandering off.
Nudge and Gazzy ran up ahead. "Hey, they have an automatic door!" Gazzy yelled, and proceeded to make the door open and close about fifty times before we even reached him and Nudge.
Jeb sighed. He sighed a lot. "Let's just make this quick."
Unfortunately, six flock members + one outsider/friend + huge store with candy and toys and who-knows-what around every corner = not exactly a walk in the park. Or, a walk in a party supply store, I should say.
"We could have just gone to Target," Fang offered we walked up to the store, and the automatic doors shot open with a huge whoosh.
Jaz shrugged her shoulders. "But Party City has EVERYTHING!"
I figured that was probably an overstatement, until about ten seconds later, when we actually stepped inside the store.
Shelves and aisles full of party supplies filled the store, as far as we could see, and practically anything you could think of was on those shelves. Silly hats? Check. Balloons? Check. Little toys and games? Check. They even had piñatas hanging from every inch of the ceiling.
And they had three huge aisles full of candy. Definitely check.
Okay, maybe they did have everything.
"This is the coolest place ever!" Nudge said. "I want to live here!"
Gazzy was describing everything to Iggy – at least, he was trying to. None of us bird kids had ever been to Party City before, and I felt like we had just found the Holy Grail or something.
"Let's go!" Jaz yelled, running towards the candy aisles. We all ran behind her. I distantly heard Jeb say, "I need to go grab something. Meet me by the checkout counter in five minutes!"
"Yeah, yeah, whatever," I replied, brushing off his command. There was no way we were going to leave this store after five minutes.
"Hey, what do you guys think?" Jaz asked, holding up two bags of candy. "Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, or Snickers?"
"I can eat nine of those without barfing!" Nudge proclaimed from the other side of the aisle.
"Yeah, but can you eat nine bags of mini-Snickers without barfing?" Iggy challenged her.
I wandered towards the end of the aisle, taking in everything. Gazzy was holding up ten bags of candy and saying that he needed to buy all of them. Even Fang looked less annoyed than usual. I lifted Angel off of my shoulders and put her on the ground so I could check out the candy for myself.
"Hey, where did Angel go?" I heard Nudge saying a couple minutes later. I looked down at the floor, bewildered. Angel had been right there! I turned around just in time to see her diving into a huge bin of stuffed bears.
"Angel, no!" I yelled, which made everyone turn and look, including some not-so-happy employees.
Angel, in turn, giggled. "I want this one!" she decided, holding up a huge pink bear.
"Okay, but you can't go wandering off like that!" I told her, lifting her out of the bin. "Now, we just need to-"
"Guys, watch this!" Gazzy's voice came from a few aisles away. I turned and noticed the kids had disappeared. In fact, Fang was the only person left standing in the candy aisle.
He just shrugged at me. I rolled my eyes. Infuriating.
I handed Angel – and her pink bear – to him and took off running, where I was just in time to see Gazzy take a plastic bat and swing it at a gigantic Dora the Explorer piñata that was hanging from the ceiling.
"Take that, Dora!" he yelled as the piñata crashed to the ground. "No more exploring for you!"
"We're going to have to pay for that," Iggy told him.
"As long as it's not coming out of my wallet," I cut in.
Nudge, meanwhile, was scouring the ground for any candy that might have fallen out of the piñata. Of course there wasn't any.
Fang walked up to us and surveyed the scene. "Who murdered Dora?" he asked.
"Me!" Gazzy cheered proudly.
"We should probably-" Fang started to say, but he was interrupted by Jaz shoving a huge, pink, cheetah-spot covered top hat - complete with hot pink feathers around the brim – onto his head.
We all burst out laughing at Fang standing there, holding a three-year old and a giant pink bear and wearing the most ridiculous hat I'd ever seen.
Fang just sighed. "Like I was trying to say, we'd better clean this up before we get in trouble."
"Hey, what are you kids doing?" an angry voice shouted from behind us.
"Too late," Iggy muttered.
"What now?" Jaz asked, looking around. "Are we gonna get kicked out of the store?"
I practically threw Nudge and Gazzy into an empty shopping cart. "Not if we run!" I yelled, and started pushing the shopping cart down the aisle. Jaz, Iggy, and Fang – still carrying Angel, her bear, and the ugly pink hat – dashed after us.
"Get back here!" the angry employee lady shouted. "Where are your parents?"
I just laughed, turning the corner with the shopping cart. I got some momentum and then jumped onto the back of the cart, letting it skid down the aisle.
"We're gonna crash!" Nudge screamed. I jumped off the cart to try to yank it to a halt, but the cart kept going and crashed into a display full of whoopee cushions. The whoopee cushions flew everywhere – one hit Fang in the face. He just continued to look annoyed.
"That was a close one!" Gazzy said, his head popping out from the mountain of whoopee cushions that had fallen on top of him and Nudge. He leapt out of the cart. "Let's do that again!"
Nudge climbed out too. "Let's not," she replied. "My stomach hurts and I'm like, pretty sure I can't eat nine bags of mini Snickers anymore, at least not anytime soon!"
"Well, the good news is, I think we lost her," Jaz reported, looking around.
"You kids are in major trouble!" the voice boomed from behind us. We turned around and saw the angry employee lady emerging from the shadows. Well, actually she was just emerging from the spooky Halloween aisle.
Just then, Jeb walked up to us, holding a couple Party City bags full of who-knows-what. "Hi, kids," he said. "Has everyone gotten everything they need?"
Angry Employee Lady looked at him, well, angrily. "Do these children belong to you?"
"I don't belong to anyone!" I told her defiantly. Jeb gave me a Max, please shut up, expression before he continued.
"What's the problem?" he asked, looking at us warily.
"These children just destroyed half of the store! They've knocked products off of shelves, ran in the store, and even broke one of the piñatas," Angry Employee Lady replied, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Dora was asking for it," the Gasman piped up. He then proceeded to deflate one of the whoopee cushions. "Hey Max, can I get one of these?"
I glared at him. "Gazzy, I think you manage well enough without one of those around."
"There will be major damage payments," Angry Employee Lady finished, ignoring us.
Jeb just looked at me. Of course he figured I was to blame. I just gave him the most innocent smile I could manage.
After Jeb finally finished paying for all the stuff that everyone broke, plus probably fifteen bags of candy, we finally headed back to the car.
"Happy Valentine's Day!" Nudge called to Angry Employee Lady as we walked out the sliding door. The employee just glared at us like she didn't enjoy Valentine's Day, or possibly hooligan kids destroying her store.
"Now all we have to do is write our poems, and then tomorrow will be the best Valentine's Day ever!" Jaz cheered as we piled into the car.
I groaned. I'd forgotten about the poem until that moment. "Well, I'm only in it for the candy," I decided out loud.