Miss Taken

Chapter 2-Tomatoes

Chapter 2

Time passed by with a slowness comparable to the speed of time in math class. That is to say, slow. For hours no one came in. I was left in a dark room made of concrete with no windows or anything cheerful at all. The only source of light was a flickering light on the ceiling with dark specs inside representing dead flies. I was currently playing a game with my old pal the light whom I had named Joe. Every so often the light would turn off entirely and I would scream "Monsters!" at the top of my lungs as many times as possible before it turned back on. My personal record was eight.

As luck would have it, I was about to beat my record when Karter flung open the door in the middle of my ninth "Monsters!" and the light instantly turned back on. I closed my mouth and scowled at him.

"You're disrupted my personal record," I told him in annoyance.

"Oh, I'm sorry to disrupt your little girl tantrum," he said in a mimicking voice. "I didn't realize you were afraid of the dark."

"Everyone is afraid of the dark," I said matter-of-factly.

"Well I'm not," Karter said, turning to leave.

"You should be," I told him.

"Oh? And why's that?" Karter asked with mock curiosity.

"The Vashta Nerada."

Karter gave me a look that pretty much said "you're completely insane" before turning and walking out the door. Before the door shut, however, I heard him mutter "nerd" under his breath.

Ha, I knew he would get the reference.

---

From that visit on, I screamed "Vashta Nerada!" instead whenever the light turned off. After about an hour of that, Karter came in with a metal folding chair and a light bulb. Without a word, he climbed up on the folding chair and began to change the lightbulb. All the time I was saying, "how many Karters does it take to change a lightbulb?" While he was unscrewing it, something shocked him and he cried out and fell off the chair. I laughed and said, "Apparently more than one!"

At that Karter scowled and climbed back up on his chair. When he had replaced the lightbulb he climbed off the chair and kicked it back into folded position and gave me a look that clearly said, "There. Now you better shut up."

Bored of my game, I tried to strike up conversation. "If I was that annoying, why didn't you just do that in the first place?"

Karter looked away and began to walk to the door. Then it dawned on me.

"You didn't have any light bulbs, did you?" I laughed. "You went to the store and bought a light bulb to shut me up!"

"Yes," Karter said finally. "Since you seem so incapable of doing so yourself." He began to leave, but I called out.

"Karter!"

He looked back. "What?"

"I'm hungry still," I said. He rolled his eyes and left.

I frowned. I really was.

I stared at the new lightbulb until my eyes hurt. "You're not Joe," I told it. "I will call you Fred."

Holy crap I'm talking to a lightbulb.

Finally, after I listed the names of all my relatives in my head, I began to sing loudly, "Ninety-nine plates of really good and fresh sandwiches with lettuce and ham and cheese and no tomatoes on wheat on the wall, ninety-nine plates of sandwiches! Take one down, give it to Lauryn, ninety-eight plates of really good and fresh sandwiches with lettuce and ham and cheese and no tomatoes on wheat on the wall!" I paused for a moment, waiting for my song to take effect. "Ninety-eight plates of really good and fresh sandwiches-"