The Two of Us

Gust of Wind

"Oh, Leslie. Why?"

"I wanted to make use of the hotdog and googly eye that Fred gave me during lunch. Plus, that's what he gets for falling asleep on us. Again. Like, man, I wanna learn. What is this bullshit?"

"Wait, what's happening? I zoned out."

"Somebody just glued a third eye onto Mr. Fitzgerald's forehead and stuck a hotdog in his coffee."

I spared a glance at our teacher, who was sleeping at his desk with his coffee mug in his hand. There was indeed a hotdog in it. And there was indeed a googly eye on his forehead.

"It's not even a big deal, really. Pretty low tier fuckery if you ask me. And I didn't glue a third eye on, I simply opened his pre-existing one."

"How did you even manage to do that in the span of time it took me to retrieve my pencil from under the table?"

"I drank three of those Nightmare energy drinks earlier and I'm feeling real fast right now. Wanna see me run to the door and back?" Leslie paused for about two seconds. "Now do you wanna see me do it again?"

Blair laughed but quickly turned it into a cough. "I'm not going to laugh at that. It was dumb."

"No, no, dude. You laughed. I heard it."

"No. I did not. Back me up, Baby."

"I'm sorry, what? I can't hear you anymore."

"Are you pretending to turn your hearing aid down? How dare you."

The bell rang overhead, cutting our stupidity short.

"Well, would you look at that? Class is over and I've got somewhere to be. Splitsville, dorks." Leslie abruptly dashed out the classroom, slapping one of her stupid stickers onto my back.

"What does the sticker say?"

Blair turned me around by my shoulders so that she could read it. "'My third eye is hotdog water-free.'"

"Huh. Now, do you suppose that's a good thing or a bad thing?"

"Well, I imagine having hotdog water in your eye isn't very fun, so...a good thing, probably."

"Then I'll just leave it there."

We put our junk into our bags and started heading for the door.

Mr. Fitzgerald was still asleep, so I took the opportunity to poke his third eye before leaving.

"Alright so, we have to head over to Eddie's truck, right?"

Since Government was our last class, we were all free to leave the premises.

"Yeah, shouldn't take long."

We pushed our way through the stampede of students trying to get home and into the safety of the parking lot.

Locating my brother's truck wasn't all that hard. It was bright red with a crooked green stripe on the hood (which Eddie painted on himself) and beaten to shit.

Speaking of Clown-Boy, he was already standing by the open driver's side door next to Bonnibel, who was seated in the Cheeto-stained driver's seat.

"Hey, Baby!" She waved.

"Oh, hey," I threw open the back door of the truck and grabbed the goods from under the seat. "What're you two up to?"

"Bonnibel is showing me how my windshield wipers work!"

"Oh, of course. I should have known." With how dirty the windshield was, it should've been no surprise to me that Eddie didn't know how the windshield wipers worked. "You guys have fun with that."

"We will!"

With that, I slammed the door shut, grabbed Blair's arm, and dragged her across the parking lot before anybody could try to run us over.

I stopped once we reached the sidewalk that wrapped around the school because I remembered that I had no fucking idea where she lived.

"Okay...where am I going?"

"This way. I live just at the end of that street over there." Blair slammed her hand on the crosswalk button and nodded in the general direction of her house.

Once the walk signal popped up, she grabbed my hand and we crossed the street.

"What is this? You think that I can't cross the street if someone isn't holding my hand?"

"Yeah. Plus, you're pretty small, and if a gust of wind comes by I might lose you."

"Very funny. How dare you make fun of me because I drank too much coffee when I was younger. That's very rude, you know. You think you have the right to do that because you can reach the top shelves in grocery stores? Because you're never stopped by height restrictions at amusement parks? Well, think again. Because you don't. And it's not even windy today. It's not even breezy."

Blair only laughed. "You never know, it could kick up all of a sudden and then bam, I have nobody to talk to during French class. And nobody to tell that drinking out of puddles is a bad idea."

"Eh, I don't know. Leslie would probably drink out a puddle for a quarter. And Freddy would do it if she did."

"Actually, you're probably right about that."

Suddenly, we both stopped. Blair let go of my hand, which I completely forgot she was still holding after I started ranting.

"We're here," she said.

"Oh, shit."

We stood in front of a fairly nice house with arched windows and a covered front porch. It was so bright white that it kinda hurt my fucking eyes. 

Blair started to unlock the door. "By the way, my parents aren't going to be home today." That was fine with me because they seemed kinda fucking scary. Sorta like my mother. "So you know, if you want to partake in any sacrificial rituals with me today I don't think we'll be caught."

"Oh, cool. I was actually planning on asking you about that."

"I could tell."

The inside of her house looked like an IKEA ad. Blue-gray walls with only a couple of things hung on them, a baby picture of who were -- presumably -- her sisters, and one of her in a winter hat and coat from when she was around six or seven; spotless furniture that looked untouched by human hands, multiple shelves, a few obnoxiously green plants...

I almost felt wrong allowing my trash self to walk across the fucking pristine wooden flooring.

"Follow me, Tenner. This marathon is taking place upstairs."