Second Monday

Joshua.

He likes me, but I don’t like him because his fingers are always cheesy.

So are his teeth.

He pulls up his socks too high and is always breaking bones. When he was in a body cast I used him as a coat hanger. Another time, I found my school picture in his geometry box. It was the one I had given to Mr. Hero at the beginning of the year. It even said so on the back, so I knew he was one of those stealers.

But I guess I didn’t mind. It’s not like I talk to him at all. There’s things to do, like sit in the soft part of the grass behind the baseball diamond. Mom always gets mad when I get green patches. But that’s okay because I like them and think they’re sort of nice.

The other day I came there with my dog. He and I are partners in crime. We always get up to no good, like running as fast as we can around that pool of water that smells a little bad near the highway. Sometimes, when he runs, I imagine I’m him since he’s so much faster than me. I think dogs like speed. That’s why they get so happy when they stick their faces out the truck window.

One time, this man approached me and asked if he could buy my dog. Isn’t that crazy! For fifty dollars he said he would like to buy my dog. I think it’s pretty strange since we were standing in a catwalk between the houses. I think that’s a bad place to offer to buy someone’s dog. There’s not a good omen around it. So I said no because I already loved my dog more than money. I’m pretty mature at my age. That’s why I always get such good marks at school, even though Mr. Hero says I’m a social butterfly.

Mr. Hero is a very smart man who teaches our class all kinds of things. Like how to be responsible for our environment. That’s why every second Monday he makes us clean our lockers, our desks, the back tables, and sometimes even the floor. He says it’s very important to keep a clean space so that our minds can try and absorb information better. I don’t know if it works but every time we have to clean, all kinds of yucky things come out of the woodwork. On this one day, the whole class got an extra 20 minutes’ recess because a kid hadn’t been cleaning out his desk and we found a mushy green orange with chunky chocolate milk spilled all over it. The smell reeked.

That was about four second-Monday’s ago. Today also happens to be a second-Monday. So I was looking into people’s lockers as usual since I want to be the one to tell if someone has something that isn’t allowed in there. I got over to this boy named James’ locker, right beside Joshua’s. James told me to get away from them since I had a bad case of the cooties. I told him they were freckles, but he didn’t even believe me. Then he gave me the meanest glare which made me a little scared. I almost ran away from them quick when I noticed wriggling at the bottom of Joshua’s locker.

I saw and it was worms. I was so grossed out, but then I remembered to be brave since I knew the worms wouldn’t hurt me. I knew that because one time this girl I had never met before and I made friends during a rainstorm since we had climbed the same tree to escape. After the storm was gone we found a broken ice cream pail and began collecting worms from around the whole block. Then we decided to count the worms. One two three. But guess what that little girl did! She pulled open the back of my overalls and dumped all those muddy worms down my pants before we could even count them all! They wiggled every way you can think of too, and not even all of them came out when I stood up and did a shake. I even accidentally stepped on one. I have to be honest, it was kind of fun to goosh it between my toes.

***

            When I saw the worms that the boys had, I was really excited and I wanted to point and jump up and down but I maintained my composure and told them I wouldn’t tell on them if they gave me a nice present. The only problem is they didn’t even have anything cool to bargain with. But then I came up with a brilliant idea that I learned from a movie I’d seen on TV. It was called Truth or Dare. When they heard my idea, they said that would be okay. So I asked them, Truth or Dare? And they said Dare. So I looked around real fast and saw this bottle that was bright blue coloured. I’d seen that bottle before. It was the one all the kids fought over since it had a spraying kind of nozzle that made cleaning a lot easier. But last week Randy broke the handle so no one really wanted it anymore I guess.

I thought of all those things in under five seconds flat. Then I told them they would have to drink every last drop, and after pretend that the liquid had turned them into zombies. I counted down one two three go, and Joshua went first. He lifted the broken part off the top and brought the bottle at himself so fast that he hit his teeth and said Ow before getting his cheesy lips on it and making big gulping noises.

The next minute, he stopped drinking and began pretending he was a zombie. In his act, he threw the bottle away and started making these groaning noises. I didn’t know he was such a good actor because even his eyes looked like they were zombie eyes since they were kind of rolling around.

I looked at James’ eyes to see if he would just play along with the zombie part of the dare or be a chicken, and when I looked over, his eyes werevery big. And when I looked back at Joshua, there was less colour to him. I told him he could stop acting like a zombie since the game was over, but he didn’t even stop. Maybe he got obsessed with his talent.

I think Joshua is a very dramatic person now. He fell down and was shaking, and wouldn’t even get up. He even started doing this gross drool on the floor where I’d been planning on cleaning next. I told him it was very funny, but that I wasn’t impressed at all. Then I told him that since it was almost quarter past two that I was going to get in line early for recess without him. And when Mr. Hero took Joshua to the principal’s office for his antics, I wouldn’t even look at him in his droopy, cheesy face.

That recess was pretty fun today. I played four-square with Tiffany and some other kids, and almost stayed in the King’s square the whole time. I only missed a bounce when I got distracted by some sirens going by.

By that time, I was bored of the whole game anyway.