Oh hey! Yesterday, I had no reason to think that anything particularly adventuresome would happen, and I was fine with that. I spent the morning reading and writing, and at about noon I went to the library, where I stayed until like, three. I checked out Plain Janes, Plain Janes in Love, and The Bermudez Triangle (which, for the record, is the only Maureen Johnson book I haven’t yet read. Almost done, though!).
When we got back to Thea’s house, I holed myself up in Thea’s room and read both of the Plain Janes books. Then, I started panicking when I realized that ohmygod the play is tomorrow aaaagh! So I got my script and started trying to practice and not get distracted by the shiny, shiny computer screen. This proved difficult, as there are so many distractions on the interwebs. After a while, Thea came into the room and asked if I wanted to play outside with her. I declined, being as I was being all dramatic and “Oh my God play play aaack, drama drama drama!” and also being as it was so windy outside I was a bit worried of blowing away.
After a while, I finally got some practice in and agreed to play with Thea outside. Turns out she had a few neighborhood friends with her! Yay! They seemed like nice kids, even if they thought I was “hilarious” because of all of my anxieties, a fact they exploited. One of them, named London, was about Thea’s age, although really short and tiny. There was an even tinier one who was about nine and so freaking short and I assumed she was London’s sister because they looked so much alike. Her name was Gracie. The third girl was named Nadaine and I don’t know how young she was, but I’m thinking she was maybe older than Gracie but younger than London, and she seemed absolutely convinced that Justin Bieber’s voice is so squeaky because he hasn’t had his period yet.
We played happily on Thea’s tire swing for a while, except for the time when Thea was pushing me on the swing and I wasn’t looking because I was dizzy and then I accidentally kicked Nadaine and London. That sucked. Also, I was all dizzy and the branch the swing was on was all creaky so I was screaming about how I was going to die, and little Gracie was all, “No, you’re not going to die,” which was very cute but also sort of shaming.
After a while, they decided to play a game called Pants! I added the exclamation point, but I’m pretty sure it was implied. This game involved two teams, Team One being Nadaine, London, and Gracie, and Team Two being Thea and me. During this game, everyone on Team One tried to pull the pants off of Team Two, and vice versa, only Team One decided it would be better to leave Thea alone and gang up on me. This was mildly humorous for about thirty seconds, but quickly commenced into me running around the outside of Thea’s house while evil demon nine-year-olds chased me, making my knees hurt and my pants fall off. Thankfully, Thea is a wonderful, merciful friend, who tried valiantly to save me.
After a while, they gave into my pleas for a truce and we all sat down on the grass. I was trying to be friendly, because it’s sitzpinklery* to be mad at kids much younger and smaller than you just for trying to have fun. I suggested we play Truth or Dare, because as long as I stuck to Truths, they couldn’t hurt me, but they weren’t buying it. I know, you might think it’s lame to be scared of kids who are both younger and much, much smaller than you, but 1. I’m not known for my physical strength, and 2. As you will soon see, these are super-powered devil children.
After a while, they seemed to think it was funny to start throwing grass down our shirts (“our” being Thea’s and mine). If this has ever happened to you, you will know that it’s actually not funny at all. It’s mean and itchy and if you wear a bra the grass gets stuck in it and you look hilarious pawing around in your shirt for grass.
Thea and I giggled and asked them to stop, which they seemed to think was extra hilarious. They continued to assault us, shoving grass down our shirts and pants and underwear. Apparently, though, I’m much more fun to torture, because they seemed to completely forget about Thea. I don’t know why, maybe it was just an, “Oooh! We can actually beat up the paranoid geek with man-hands! Right on!” but whatever it is, it was like freaking fuel for the devil-children. They pinned me down on the ground and started simultaneously shoving grass down my clothes and pulling off my pants.
By “pulling off my pants,” I mean that they were ripping off my knickers like some savage bears. It was all kind of a blur of pain and humiliation, but I’m pretty sure two of them were pulling my pants in one direction (and not down, mind you, they were pulling them against my hips) and the other was pulling my underwear in the opposite direction. I figured that I could be humiliated thus far, but I wasn’t going to let them take my underpants. I screamed, “JUST DON’T TAKE OFF MY UNDERWEAR! LEAVE MY UNDERWEAR ON!” which seemed to fuel their pursuits. They kept ripping my drawers off, and I remembered yelling, “You’re gonna rip my pants! I like these pants!”
Thea was sitting there on the ground looking horrorstruck and grass-covered, so I screeched, “THEA HELP ME THEA GET THEM OFF MEEEEEE!” She grabbed the one who was pulling my underwear and tried to pull her off me, which at first succeeded in making me feel even more like I was being drawn and quartered. However, being the magnificent and loyal person she is, Thea somehow managed to get them off me. I can only imagine she used a mixture of ninja-moves and Jedi mind tricks, but I don’t even recall. I thanked her profusely, stood up, and, with as much dignity as I could, said, “Well, ladies, this has been lovely, but I’m going to go now.”
I ran inside, humiliated sore, and tired, and locked myself in the bathroom where I proceeded to take off my clothes and empty them of grass. This took about five minutes, and, to make it worse, I started hearing the ice cream truck. It was playing “When the Saints Come Marching In” very cheerfully, and I felt personally insulted, like the ice cream truck was singing, “Haha, you’re cleaning grass from your tank top and yooouuuu can’t get ice cream!” It felt vaguely like the entire cosmos were turning against me, but I finally managed to clean the grass up and walk dejectedly out of the bathroom. Kim met me in the living room with an urgent, “The ice cream truck is here fast fast fast!” I thanked Kim quickly, grabbed my duct tape wallet, and went outside where I paid the ice cream man two dollars for a delicious Batman-shaped ice cream with gumballs for eyes. I smiled at the ice cream man like he had just told me I won the lottery.
Thea, Nadaine, Gracie, and London were outside, eating their ice cream. I went back inside and ate my ice cream until Nemo came to pick me up. I told him the whole extensive story as I finished my Batman ice cream. When I was done, all he said was, “Ah. Gang up on the nerd day again?”
P.S. I didn’t even mention the part where they came inside and grabbed the laptop, where my most recent post was proudly displayed on the screen. “Swordguns and Prostitutes?” one of them asked. I felt like saying, “Sweetie, you don’t even know what that word means,” but I didn’t.
Awesome: Maureen Johnson!
Unawesome: Um, getting drawn and quartered by your own pants.
*See what I did there, John Green fans?
Oddment! Tweak! 