The Extraterrestrial Truth And The Girl From Seat 2B [ONC 2022]

1.2 [DR. EVIL RUINS THE ROLLERCOASTER]

Once they had shaken the insistent calls of Leo, who was following them rather petulantly, the a was a lot more fun. By the time they stopped for lunch, Vicky was giddy and out of breath and raring for a second go on the Rapids.

The day was a montage of rides and laughing, of bad and worse jokes that Vicky turned out not to mind all that much, and of the beginnings of a sunburn she knew she was going to regret in the coming days but couldn't bring herself to care about now.

Leo finally got over himself about an hour into it and started having some fun around the time they were all off the third ride. For him, fun meant hitting on every girl near his merry group of five in every single line and, if he could, making plans to meet up in some bathroom later.

2B spent a lot of time doing the Dr. Evil voice, as in the one from Austin Powers. It got substantially more unfunny the more she did it. The rides were fun, though, and so was being out in the sun, circumnavigating the park with people she genuinely wanted to be around and who genuinely wanted to be around her.

Arguably the best part of the day-- and the worst-- was when Leo puked on himself while riding the Dew Tower Drop, of all things. It was a weird chunky green-yellow and had chunks of the morning's school-provided breakfast burrito, which he had eaten on the bus. It was all down the front of his shirt. He seemed like he was on the verge of crying like a little baby, not because he felt horrible or because he was covered in something objectively disgusting, but because there was a crack in his thick shell of porcelain affirmations that insisted he was both the greatest guy in the world and god's gift to girls. Vicky had always been able to see through that for as long as she knew him (and she had known him for a while), but it was nice that he could see his own imperfections conveyed through chunks of half-digested egg and sausage stuck to his braces. When it happened, Connor couldn't stop laughing, even after he ended up crouching and nearly entirely on the ground-- and then did end up on the ground, in the fetal position, wheezing-laughing. Scotty, ever the sympathetic puker, ended up with his face in a trash can out of solidarity.

It was at that point that the five of them decided to stop for lunch at the mushroom-shaped food stand surrounded by yellow and red picnic tables and big white rain-stained and sun-bleached umbrellas. There was a bathroom near there; Leo went in to clean himself in the sink, dishing out orders that someone should buy him a new shirt with the money in his bag; Connor followed him in. Scotty, still swishing water in his mouth, went in after them.

"He knows they don't sell shirts here, right?" 2B asked, craning her neck to watch them go.

Vicky stood next to her, knowing full well that 2B was right about that. "I wouldn't buy him a goddamn shirt anyway. Not after he got his goddamn vomit on my fucking shoes. He can just wear one of my shirts."

"You're wearing two shirts?" The girl from 2B looked at Vicky with confusion and curiosity.

"Yeah. My mom makes me wear a camisole under all my shirts. She's paranoid that somebody is going to come up and steal my top shirt, hence the one underneath it. I don't know. It's easier to appease her."

"That's... weird."

"She's a paranoid woman. Luckily, it came in handy this time. He can have the camisole. I'm cultivating a great farmer's tan here and I don't want to interfere with that."

2B cracked a smile. "My god, Vic, was that a joke?"

"Yeah, maybe."

"You silly goose."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. I'm going to take off my shirts in the bathroom. Come with me, don't, I don't give a shit." Vicky didn't know why she said that last part, but it was kind of way too late to take that back now. For a moment, Vicky considered leaving her bag behind to reserve a table for the five of them. Realistically, she knew that nobody would steal a Ziploc bag of five dollars in nickels and pennies and a peanut butter and margarine sandwich. Still there was that classic paranoia there, instilled into her by her mother. In this case, Mama was probably right. She brought the bag with her to the bathroom.