NANOWRIMO 2020

11.04 Peanut Butter Crunch

Bisu absolutely love love loved crunchy peanut butter. The way that it chunked together and had a hard time spreading on toast—the massive glob of peanut butteriness that made his jaw stick and turned his teeth a disgusting sticky shade of brown but was equal parts creamy and equal parts crunchy. Crunchy peanut butter was in a texture league all on its own.

Sometimes Bisu would slap so much of it on his sandwiches that every bit would ooze and spill out and cover his little fingers with its brown residue and he would happily lick it up like a puppy. The best thing in the world.

Don't even get him started on adding banana slices to it or lemony chips crushed up and sprinkled like some fancy garnish. The mesh of flavors, the competing textures; decadence fit for the nectar of the gods.

He'd read that in a history book the other day. "Decadence fit for the nectar of the gods." It sounded cool and he looked up each of the words he didn't understand and painstakingly wrote their definitions down in his school notebook so he could use it later on. They were big words but he knew that he'd use it some day and he wanted to be prepared. Bisu was like that. Always preparing his knowledge and waiting for an opportunity to use it.

It was at the lunch tables on a bright Thursday afternoon that he saw an opportunity and took it. Everybody was unwrapping their foodstuffs or dragging over styrofoam trays laden with a mash of green and white and black and Bisu had his crunchy peanut butter sandwich, the aluminum foil neatly folded back and a small toothy bite already denting it's perfect appearance.

He turned to his right. "Crunchy peanut butter is decadence fit for the nectar of the gods."

Little Tommy looked at Bisu with wide eyes and continued to chew with a wide mouth. "Crunchy peanut butter," Bisu said. "Is decadence. Fit. For the gods."

Tommy nodded and stuffed some apple pieces into his mouth. "Do you know what that means?" Bisu looked for a response from Tommy and upon seeing the blank look, opened his mouth to launch into the lecture he had prepared.

"Do you even know what that means?" Ezra, mean and lean and a good half centimeter taller than Bisu scoffed and threw his trash at Bisu's head. "I bet you don't. Using big words you copied out of a stupid book." He hooted and looked around to see a small gaggle of students watching with bated breath. Delighted, he continued with "Somebody better tell Mrs. Wilson that Bisu's plagiarizing."

It wasn't funny, but the tension in the air and the wild confidence in Ezra's eyes forced a few students in the vicinity to cough and somewhat laugh in a tight, forced way. That was enough for Ezra to smirk and turn his attention back to Bisu.

Bisu was frowning, upset that his speech had been ruined but thinking of how he could salvage it to use at a later date. He chewed on his crunchy peanut butter sandwich thoughtfully. Maybe a teacher would be more responsive, he mused.

A grubby fist grabbed his little starched collar and pulled him across the table and suddenly Ezra's red face was an inch from Bisu's.

Ezra sneered and Bisu was visibly upset that his crunchy peanut butter sandwich had become an unfortunate stain across the front of his favorite shirt. But then he smiled because he realized it was his two favorite things coming together and then all was forgiven and he smiled.

That pushed Ezra over the edge and he pulled his fist back as the surrounding students took a collective gasp. It wasn't one of shock, but of warning because the head lunch lady was bustling over at terminal velocity and she looked ready to murder the little boys getting into a fight at lunch table 4.

She separated them in a wild show of brute force and brought them by the scruffs of their necks to the principal's office.

Ezra flailed his arms the whole while and Bisu picked at the crunchy peanut butter smeared across his shirt.

When the principal made them shake hands, Bisu's were covered in peanuts and Ezra ended up in the nurse's room because of an allergic reaction.