Overheard in the Library

Girl: You look like you need a hug.

Boy: Um.

Girl: Doesn't he look like he needs a hug?

Boy: Uh...

Girl: I would hug you, but I don't like touching people.

Chicken

Another narrative piece for English.

I take his plate from in front of him and shift my hand to keep the gruesome, putrid, picked-apart chicken carcass from contaminating my skin. My grandfather, Papa, has miraculously managed to strip every shred of flesh from the bones. I’m amazed that he’s managed to fit the bites in between the endless stream of praise for Kosta, the oldest, wisest, celebrated grandson.

I carry the defiled chicken remains to the trash and turn the plate sideways, trying to slide them off. A bit of splintery bone catches on the edge and sticks. I push

it off with the tiniest tip of my finger before thrusting my hand under hot water to remove any traces of grease. I slip past my grandmother as I returned to the table. She, despite her broken wrist, is transferring asparagus into a container to put in the fridge. Papa is still at the table. He’s picked a scab on his wrist and is catching the blood on his grimy napkin, but has finally moved on to praising my younger cousins.

“We’re going to be seeing Kat in a few weeks. She’s gotten very thin, very pretty. You know, when she was born, she was so fat. I was worried that she was going to be one of those awful overweight girls.”

I pick up the last of the dishes and walked to the sink to get a sponge. Papa stands. “Well, Anne, girls, I’m tired. I wanted to get to bed early. I’ll see you next week.” He opens his arms for a hug.

I don’t want to hug him. I don’t want to have to wait until he leaves to wipe his slimy kiss off my cheek. I don’t want to pretend that I want to see him next week.

I want to tell him what I think. “Kosta is not praiseworthy. When Kosta, artistically stunted as he is, assistant taught an art class at his college, he gave bad grades to the geeky-looking guys he didn’t like and the girl who didn’t shave her armpits. Kosta may be good a baseball and have a pretty girlfriend, but he’s an ass.” I walk towards the sink, towards Papa, as I speak. “Listening to you praise him makes me almost as sick as the chicken you make us eat every time you visit.” I pause, take a breath, and rest my hand on the counter next to the stack of greasy plates. “Kat has a black belt in tae kwon do, is in the gifted and talented program at her school, and is outgoing, fun, and wonderful. Praise her on that, not on her weight. After all, I certainly hope that you’d love her even if she weighed a hundred pounds more.” I clutch a platter of left over lumps of meat, trying to support myself as the rage spews forth. “Praise your granddaughters on something other than their appearance! Stop being sexist! Your wife has devoted her life to cleaning up after you, ironing your clothes, cooking your meals. The least you could do are the goddamned dishes!” I hurl the plate at him. It shatters. In my mind, I finish my diatribe and run out of the room.

In actuality, I say nothing. I hug him as if I want to. I wait until he leaves to wipe his slimy kiss off my cheek. I pretend I want to see him next week, when I, coward that I am, will stay as silent as always.

Tripping Tea Strikes Again

This morning, before my Spanish final, I was walking up the stairs. My foot caught on the edge, and I tripped forward. I looked back, hoping nobody had noticed, and that my skirt hadn't flown up. The guy behind me said, "Don't worry, nobody saw."

Except him....

In other news, the waiter at the restaurant we went to for dinner looked eerily like Lysander, only different, and with a possibly fake Italian accent, and no glasses. It was utterly bizarre.

Also, we had a pretty awesome impromptu party at my house; Ginny, Tierra, Dora, Avon, Nyx, Vicky, and Gretchen all came over, although Nyx didn't get there until almost everyone else had left. Regardless, it was a fun time.

I hugged Opmin during my last day of U.S. History. I was like, "this year was awesome, can I hug you?" and she went "Okay!" so I did. Horribly exciting, no?

Also, I might as well share a story from U.S.

I was sitting in my quartergroup with Emma, Joanie and Charles. Emma was talking about going to college, and how she wanted to go to University of Florida but that, since her sister (who is currently training to be a sex therapist) hadn't gotten in, wouldn't either.

Joanie responded with, "Well, was it a target school, or no, because it makes a difference."

and Rachel immediately butted in.

"Don't say that!"

"Um..."

"It's rude and cruel."

"Look, Rachel, I said a target school, it wasn't anything interesting."

"I told you not to say that!"

At that point, Charles mostly just looked confused, and Peter and I were cracking up.

"I have no idea what word you're talking about."

"Retarded. You said retarded."

"She didn't say retarded, she said target," I said.

"No she didn't." She looked at Peter and Emma for agreement.

"She definitely did not say-"

"STOP SAYING THAT!" Opmin interrupted.

"I didn't say anything in the first place," grumbled Joanie.

Oh, Rachel. In the beginning of class, Michael pulled out a pair of large silver headphones and put them over his ears. "These are great," he said. "I can't here Rachel at all!"

My table, at least, was in hysterics.

Also, there are suspicions that the gatorade was spiked. Charles was drinking it, and he said, "Wow, this gatorade tastes funny."

"It's blue gatorade, what do you expect?"

"No, I mean, it doesn't taste normal. Don't drink it, okay?"

"I wasn't planning on it."

"I'm serious. It's spiked or something."

I gave him an incredulous look. "Whatever you say."

A few minutes later, Daniel turned around.

"Charles," he said. "I think the gatorade is spiked."

"I know, dude. Weird." He turned to me. "See, it's corroborated. Don't drink it."

"I already said I wasn't going to."

"Good."

Vampires and Zombies and Spaceships, oh my!

This is another dream, courtesy of Tea's twisted subconscious. Enjoy.

My sisters (Genie and Shelby) and Mario and Nyx and I started in this dark graveyard at night, using our magic powers to keep someone else from reaching the gravestone we are guarding. The graveyard itself was a cross between the one in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Goblet of Fire, so I suppose, in that context, these actions made sense.

Everyone else had normal magic powers, spell flinging and whatnot. I was a good vampire, and the vampires in this dream didn't drink blood; instead, when they were killed, they became a spirit that had to take over a dead body or a doll. Dead bodies could be possessed indefinitely, but dolls must be replaced after only a few days or hours, proportional to their size. So, when a spell was about to hit Shelby, I jumped in front of her, taking the hit. I dissolved, leaving behind a rotting corpse.

The others, unable to fight them off without me, went home. I followed them, trying to find a new body. I got back to my room and try to find a suitable replacement. I considered my Spring Pearl doll, but she was rather tiny and won't last for long, so I decided to use one of Genie's porcelain dolls instead. Even so, I would need a new corpse soon. While I was floating, I found my Spanish textbook and workbook, which had been missing.

I found Dad and Shelby on the front lawn of the house. There was a fairly large crowd assembled, angry about the vampires. I heard Shelby say something about Mario, and I panicked that she was telling everybody that I liked him, so I made Dad shut her up. However, I didn't want to tell an angry crowd that I was a vampire, so I went looking for Mario.

I needed to ask him to go back to the graveyard and find my a dead body, but by they time I found him, he was already in the mudroom, preparing to leave. Abruptly, I hugged him, because I was happy that he was going to find me a body, and because, in dreamworld, I was into him too. He was surprised for a second, but hugged me back. I gave him a look that attempted to communicate "I like you. Please don't die." He squeezed me and said, "I don't know," before letting go, although I don't know if he was referencing the liking or the dying.

I passed Dora on my way back to my bedroom. "I don't think I like these vampires," she informed me.

In my room, Nyx and my sisters were sitting around. I tried to tell Nyx about hugging Mario, but then I realized that my sisters were listening, and considering Shelby had been talking about it ten minutes before, I didn't want to give her more ammunition. Nyx told be that she hadn't slept for two days and needed a nap. I had been dead that morning, so sleep wasn't really that big of a deal, but I figured a nap couldn't hurt, so Nyx, Genie and I squeezed into my teeny tiny bed and went to sleep. Shelby was supposed to keep watch, but she soon dozed off as well.

That was when the villain chose to strike. I woke up to see Richard (the boy in Nyx's lab group with the twin cousins who harass Gretchen) standing in the doorway. He looked pretty much like Richard always does, only something about him appeared vaguely evil. I rushed towards him, trying to fight min off, but he glided right past me. I tried to take over his mind (which vampires can do to each other) but I'd never been very good at.

"Look at her, trying to attack me. Ha!" he said, and pushed back, making me into his automaton. He then made me stand still as he hit me with a spell, killing me again. The porcelain doll fell to the closet floor, cracked and dirtied, as my spirit dissipated.

Dad then came in, and Richard informed him that they will be spared and I returned if they'll do Richard a few small favors. Dad agreed, on the condition that he got me back right away, and Richard informs me that there are a few dead bodies out on the front lawn for exactly that purpose.

Richard wanted us to steal three electrophorysis trays from my church. When we got there, they were in the middle of Bridging ceremony, but it was the weirdest church event I'd ever seen. A girl wearing a buttload of makeup was standing in the front, wiping it off, layer by layer, using little round handiwipes. We decided to get the trays by pretending we were supposed to be fixing them, so my sisters and I walked up to the front and took them.

However, just as I was walking back, the woman holding the handiwipes intercepted me. "Hold these," she said, and I passed the machine to Genie and accepted the wipes. I went to put them between my knees for better holding purposes, only to realize abruptly that I was naked, and I then proceeded to pass out.

The next thing I knew, I was clothed and on a spaceship with a tall, thirty-something black guy wearing what was, for all intents and purposes, Joseph's Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

"We have to complete a quest," he told me.

"What?"

"A quest to increase your powers. The quest of the moonfrogs."

"I was thoroughly confused, but there wasn't really much I could do about it. We came to the moon, which was shaped like one of Mars's moons, but with a hole drilled through the middle. On the outside, there were winds and floating moondust, and I became worried that they'd put me out there. Even if I couldn't die, it looked rather cold.

Instead, we flew inside the hole. We passed through a weird field, and, suddenly, I was in a store with Dad, Genie, and Shelby. We had to put the correct items into our cart in the correct order, without running out of time. I got into a fight with Genie over whether to pick cheerios or rice krispies, and then I woke up.

Anyone who can interpret this wins a gold star.

Hugs

First, a quote, courtesy of Otis in my English class.

"If nobody voted, there would be no votes."

Now, onto current events. According to this article, hugs are the latest social trends. Apparently, we teenagers hug everybody, all the time. Now, I may not be the coolest kid on campus, but I'm not blind, and I definitely do not see that much hugging. Yes, I do hug a few of my closest friends, but I'm hardly a hugging maniac, and I haven't really noticed other people hugging excessively.

Thoughts?

Another example of the sheer inanity of high school students:

The other day, I was walking down the hallway and talking to my friend Nyx. We left the cafeteria and began walking down the crowded ramp that leads to the library. Right as we reached the bottom, a boy whom I had absolutely no idea who was spread his arms, said "heyy!" and tried to hug me. Polite, decorous person that I am, I lifted his arm, ducked underneath, and said, nice as you please, "no, thank you," before continuing my conversation with Nyx. Strange people trying to hug me, while odd, wasn't enough to distract me.

When we got out of ear shot, Nyx turned to me and said, "Who was that?"

"How should I know?"

"Wait, you seriously don't know who that is? You were so polite, I just assumed you knew him."

Polite as I was, I was still rather flustered. I was late to English and, when sneaking into the room, proceeded to knock over the phone twice, before breaking down about having to run away from the mysterious hugger.

All in a day's work.