The Boy's Club.

ii. preparations.

Smalls | 2

"I-Spy with my little eye something...red." Ham speaks while pointing around the room to throw us off. We let him go first because, well, it is his house. Those are childish rules but then again, we are childish guys.

Yes, we're a lot older now, but when you're this bored - you'll play any game. Before Tommy suggested this wonderful game, we were literally counting the loose threads on our sweaters.

It was raining, and all of the games today had been cancelled. I forgot to mention that we all made the cut for the high-school varsity baseball team. Well, that is excluding Tommy. He'd joined the school's book club last summer. He decided that playing without the rest of us was no use and that his heart was with words, anyways.

"The clock." Benny says while blowing on his fingernails for no apparent reason.

"Nope." Ham smirks. "You're out."
"Who else wants to take on The Master?"

Benny rolls his eyes and sits up. He speaks in a joking manner. "We aren't stupid, Ham. You're not gonna tell us when we get it right. You're just gonna lie until we give up. We know you." He gives a small laugh at the end, causing the rest of us to chuckle.

"You're just saying that cause you don't know!" Ham jokes back.

Kenny stands up and peeks out the window.

Bertram follows.

Timmy squints his eyes. "What are you guys looking at?"

Bertram turns with one foot. "Raise your hand if you can drive."

Everyone raises their hand.

Squints stands in front of the door with his arms crossed. "But." He puts great emphasis on the word. "I don't care if you can drive, no one is leaving this house until you start you-know-what'ing for the you-know-what. Not even Ham."

Ham rolls his eyes. "Someone decode whatever he just said."

Benny, Kenny, and I say it at the same time. "Preparing for the party."

Timmy looks confused. "I mean, we don't have to go all out, do we?"

Bertram replies. "Yeah. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you didn't do anything special for our birthdays."

"You're wrong." Squints taps his foot to the wooden floor.

Yeah-Yeah makes his appearance into the conversation. "Oh, yeah? What exactly did you do, then? We're waiting."

Squints holds his heart as if he's hurt. "Every year I put blood, sweat, tears, and hard work into your gifts."

Benny scratches his head. "You gave me a sandwich."

I follow. "You gave me socks."

Timmy and Tommy join. "You gave us pictures of you."

Kenny does a "not-so-bad" motion with his hand. "Eh, you gave me a baseball card."

"You gave me a pen." Bertram says.

Yeah-Yeah makes a line with his lips. "You gave me a piece of gum."

Ham adds on. "You gave me a rash!"

"Stop there!" Squints takes his glasses off to clean them. "I may not be the best giver of materialistic things, but I always show up with my love, right?"

You know. He was obviously just trying to get out of this, but to be honest, he was right. No matter if he showed up with a big gift, or no gift at all. His friendship was more than enough.

I'm guessing that everyone agreed, because we all chose to still have the party.

He pulls a yellow paper out of his pocket.

"Okay." He winks as if he had an audience that he'd just pleased. He gave us our assignments and what we were supposed to get.

T&T - Food.
Yeah-Yeah and Benny - Decorations.
Kenny & Bertram - Invitations.
Ham & Smalls - Mission Get Wendy to the Party.
Squints - "a kick-ass party."

After about 30 minutes of begging our parents to let us drive in the rain,(finally), we were on our ways to make the preparations.