Immaculate

Chapter 8

It was just another manic Monday. Wish it was Sunday, that's my fun day. :(

I should have known Emil would extract revenge after I told him I wouldn't join his club. (Oh yeah, I forgot to talk about that. I decided Halitosis Boy was good enough for me.)

He acted all okay about it, but he was actually foaming mad. It was really weird and we had to call the school nurse. Apparently he didn't have rabies but had actually used too much toothpaste that morning and was still frothing. Nobody turns down an opportunity from him.

Not even a lack of rabies.

"Hi Immaculate! Hello, er...urm...uh, Alexsom!" Emil greeted us at lunch.

"It's Alexson, Emil. Get it right, pretty please," Alexson replied, obviously offended.

"Hey, Emil," I said wearily. I was pretty done with him, not gonna lie. But he had the biggest boy from the esports team behind him so I was a bit nervous.

"Hey Immaculate," Emil repeated. "Can you come with me? Hopefully pants? Those are my favorite?"

"Sorry, what?"

"Just come with me," Emil snapped.

"Does he have to come, too?" I asked, gesturing to the boy behind him. The overwhelming scent of Fritos radiated from him like the glow of a very smelly lamplight in the night.

"Oh my god, just come with me."

"Okay. But why?"

Emil pulled out a People magazine. "Is this true?" he asked me.

"Why as a teenager in the 2020s do you have a People magazine?" I asked.

He shook the magazine at me. "Just read it."

I read the headline news.

ROGER DROPLETIA ENGAGED TO ALL FOUR FELLOW BAND MEMBERS!

"What!" I shouted. I mean, in cases like this, you can't really say anything else.

Emil smiled evilly. He took great pleasure in this, for some reason. "And last week's was this one," he said. Except this time instead of holding out a magazine he pulled from behind him a crumbling newspaper that must've been dated from 1865 at least. The print was so small I had to hold it three inches from my face to read it.

"I don't think this is from last week," I said.

"That's what you think," he cackled.

"'Battle at Antietam claims thousands of lives?'" I read aloud.

"Oh. That's not from last week," he said. He tried to take it back, but it had already crumbled to dust in my firm grip, so he gave me another one. "Here."

"Where are you keeping these?"

"Just read!"

This newspaper looked equally old but read:

STREAM DROPLETIA'S MOST CRINGE TAKES YET!

I gasped. "How old is my Mother? Because the date at the top says 1883."

"I made it in Photoshop and forgot to fix that," Emil said. "Anyway, thoughts?"

"How–"

I was going to go on and ask "How did you put so much time and effort into making something so elaborate and still make it too stupid to work?" but Emil interrupted me.

"Yes, Immaculate. Your little fame family is coming to an end. Well, actually, it's getting a lot bigger, but you don't live with your dad. And before you know it, I'm going to be on the front headlines—as the winner of The Masked Singer!"