It was an ordinary afternoon at school, or at least it should have been. Lucy Van Pelt, fuming after spending an hour in detention, stomped down the hallway. The scowl on her face was as deep as her frustration. Just as she passed the lockers, Violet appeared, smirking.
"Hey, blockhead! Did you enjoy your punishment?" Violet teased, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
Lucy's eyes narrowed into slits. "Why, you little—!" She charged toward Violet like a bull seeing red. But before she could reach her target, her feet hit a wet patch on the floor. In an instant, Lucy's arms flailed wildly as she skidded across the hallway.
"Whoa! Help!" Lucy screeched, her legs moving faster than her brain could keep up.
Her sneakers slid straight toward the art room, and before anyone could react, Lucy's momentum carried her straight through the door. She tripped on the floor base and, as if in slow motion, launched into the air. She crashed into a row of paintings, sending canvases, brushes, and splatters of paint flying in all directions.
Inside the art room, everything was chaos. Splashes of color covered the walls, the floor, and, most notably, Lucy.
Groaning, Lucy struggled to her feet, now a walking masterpiece of paint and paper stuck to her clothes and hair. She stumbled out of the art room just in time for her little brother, Linus, to stroll by.
"Hey, Lucy," Linus said casually, barely glancing at her as he clutched his blanket. "You don't look so good."
Lucy's eyes flashed with fury. "Linus!" she shrieked, lunging at him with renewed rage.
But the universe wasn't done with her yet. As soon as she took a step forward, her feet betrayed her once again. She slipped on the wet floor, arms flapping like a penguin trying to take flight. This time, she collided directly with the very thing that had caused all her trouble—a bright yellow "Caution: Wet Floor" sign.
The sign clattered to the ground, and Lucy followed suit, crumpling into a heap. Paint splattered everywhere, and to top it off, the sign landed squarely on her head.
Just then, Miss Othmar, the ever-watchful teacher, walked by. She raised an eyebrow, looked Lucy up and down, and said in a voice as dry as chalk dust, "Lucy, you need to take a bath."
Lucy, dazed and dripping paint, could only manage a low growl in response.
As Miss Othmar disappeared down the hallway, Charlie Brown walked up, taking in the scene. Lucy, sitting on the floor, covered in paint, with a wet floor sign resting on her head like a crown. Charlie sighed and shook his head.
"It looks like Lucy is having a bad day," he said, more to himself than anyone else.
Lucy, utterly defeated, peeked out from behind the wet floor sign, her face a mix of embarrassment and quiet rage. For once, she didn't have anything to say. She simply stayed there, hiding behind the very object that had become her nemesis for the day, wondering how she had gone from detention to disaster in record time.
And so, Lucy's slippery day came to an unceremonious, paint-splattered end, as the school hallway echoed with Charlie Brown's timeless sigh of, "Good grief."
