The Second Snowball Fight (A True Story in Dialogue)

So I decided to see if I could tell a story accurately and in a way that made sense, without using anything but dialogue. This story especially would be hard to tell, because it took place walking home, and with just voices you can tell no real change in position or time, though I at times threw in some information in between the **'s. All you will know is who's talking and that we are, indeed, walking home from school, and it is a Wednesday afternoon.

The air is cold, but the sun is warm, and the trees have lost their December magic as the snowball warriors fight a new battle. The curtains open, and the story begins.


Me: ...

Ethan, Javier, and Stranger: ...

Me: ...

Ethan, Javier, and Stranger: ...

Me: ...Are you following me?

Ethan: "Shh. Don't move."

Javier: *laughing* "Oh, I can't do this anymore. Hey Shady."

Me: "Hey man. What's he doing?"

Ethan: "They can't move when you're looking at them."

Me: "Well then I'll just walk backwards. BEAT THAT, ETHAN."

Ethan: "F**k."

Stranger: *appreciative laughter*

Me: "Hey, where's Isaac?"

Javier: "Yeah, I know. He's like always with you...oh, here he comes."

Me: "ISAAC! You seen Lafflin's brother? We still gotta beat him up, remember?"

Isaac: ...

Javier: "Please don't tell me you're in with Ethan."

Ethan: "We're the Mafia. Don't move, or we'll shoot."

Stranger: *appreciative laughter*

Me: "Where do you guys even walk to every day?"

Isaac: "Ugh, you made me trip up! I can't do this anymore."

Javier: "Lakewood."

*discontinued conversation walking down a hill*

...

Isaac: "Hey, where'd Shady go?"

Isaac: "Shady?"

Me: "Is that...?"

Isaac: *panting* "Who?"

Me: *hands cupped to mouth* "LAFFF-LIN?"

...

Me: "Hey Lafflin!"

Isaac: *creepy Isaac voice* "Hey Lafflin."

Lafflin: "Hi."

Me: "What's up?"

Lafflin: "Not much."

Me: "So we don't get to beat up your brother today, huh?"

Lafflin: "Oh, anytime's fine."

Me: "I saw you like nudging him up the hill there, like, 'run away, run away!'"

Lafflin: "Nah, I was calling him a bitch."

Isaac: "PAHA."

Me: "Haha Lafflin! Language!"

Lafflin: "Well..."

..

Me: "...Ha! I looked at you and you kept moving!"

Ethan: "No! You were just- seeing things."

Stranger: "Yeah, seeing things."

Isaac: "So I hear you like Batman."

Lafflin: "Batman's the best."

Isaac: "WELL, SPIDERMAN'S WAY BETTER."

Lafflin: "How could you even compare?"

Me: "Dude, don't even go there. We all know Batman's the best there is."

Isaac: "Are you kidding?! Batman doesn't even have-"

Me: "Don't you DARE go there! Batman's powers come from HIM! It's like just because Peter Parker somehow got bit by a spider, just like ANYONE ELSE, it makes him a superhero."

Isaac: "Um, it was NOT random. Spiderman was destined to-"

Lafflin: "Have you even read DC? Marvel sucks."

Isaac: "WHOA. YOU DID NOT JUST GO THERE."

Me: "Oh, I think he did."

Lafflin: "In all of the 8,000-something Batman comics-"

Isaac: "UM, HAVE YOU EVER READ CROSS-OVER? THE CROSS-OVER BETWEEN MARVEL AND DC?"

Lafflin: "Dude, Cross-Over was the worst thing that has ever happened to-"

Isaac: "WELL, SPIDERMAN IS WAY BETTER. I MEAN, AT LEAST HE HAS POWERS."

Me: "SPIDERMAN IS THE WORST THING THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND AND IF YOU MAKE ME I SWEAR I WILL-"

Lafflin: "Batman has gadgets! Gadgets are way cool."

Isaac: "DUDE CROSS-OVER IS SO BEAST, YOU DON'T EVEN UNDERSTAND-"

Me: "Isaac, cross-over sucks. End of story. Batman wins, two to one."


Me: "Jake! Hey, it's Jake and Aaron! HEY HEY JAKE WHERE DO YOU LIVVVVVE??"

Jake: "..."

Me: "IMMA FOLLOW YOU HOMMMMME."

Jake: "...Oh, hey Shady."

Me: "Oh, somebody's calling me. Wait hold on- listen to the ringtone."

Ringtone: "These LUMPS aren't for SALE, BILLY!"

Lafflin and Isaac: *supportive, confused laughter*

Me: "Hello? ...Oh yeah, okay. No that's fine. I mean, at least you remembered at some point... Jacob's coming? Yeah, there's no rush, I'm fine. ...oh, why am I panting? ISAAC STOP YELLING. ISAAC. ISAAC. No yeah everything's cool. Tell him I'll be near there...ISAAC! IS- okay bye."

Ethan: "Who was that?"

Me: "My ride."

Javier: "You don't walk home?!"

Me: ".....well, I mean, they always forget, and I didn't want to be alone... LAFFLIN! Oh, you're going to pay for that one!"

...

(a moment of terrible and pitiful snowball-throwing, running, and panting)

...

Lafflin: "You never even hit me once."

Me: *groaning over knees* "Yeah, I'm kinda out of shape."

Lafflin: *groaning and panting* "I don't need to work out." *growly voice* "I'm Batman."

Isaac and Me: *raucous laughter*

Me: "So- wait, where were you guys supposed to be again?"

Isaac: "We were all walking to Lakewood."

Me: "Isn't that the other way?"

Isaac: "Well...we had to follow you. For the freeze-glare thing."

Ethan: *yelling from a ways away* "WE'RE GOING TO CANADA. ...FOR THE BAGS OF MILK."

Me: "...Lafflin, where do you live?"

Lafflin: *eyeing a house* "Like...right...near...here."

Me: "Ohhhkay, we'll be leaving then. Sorry for following you home!"

Isaac: "Bye Lafflin!!"

Me: "Have a good day!"

Lafflin: "Bye. :) "


...

Ethan, Javier, Isaac, and Stranger: "RGHRTHPAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!"

Me: "JESUS-"

Ethan, Isaac, Javier, and Stranger: *laughter*

Isaac: "Oh, we got you."

Me: "Yeah, you got me. Now shut up before I shove you in those bushes."

-end-

How the Tree Monster AVENGED SNOT MAN (and scared a poor kid half to death)

Today there was a 'party' for the kids who got all A's and B's the past semester. It was pretty much just a bunch of nerdy kids in the cafeteria with a bouncy castle on the stage and Taylor Swift playing in the background, with Massah handing out Fat Boy ice cream sandwiches way more enthusiastically than he should have been.

Not that I didn't have the time of my life.

But you get the picture.

Anyways, the party took place the last period of the day. The class right before that, I got a new drawing from Lafflin, and was extremely disappointed that it was not delivered by him. I guess he just couldn't find me where he used to, after the schedule change.

So after that I stapled it to the Board and took down his old drawing of a superhero called Snot Man. Then I waited in Mr. Wood's class for the first fifteen minutes of the 'party', while he taught his class about a website. Then I asked him what period he has Lafflin, and went on to the party, carrying a dejected Snot Man with me.

The party consisted of a discussion of Libby's emotion problems involving cookie recipes, until I eventually got up to go see how Jake was faring. He was sitting way in the corner of the lunchroom with his Minecraft buddies, Jason the Jew and Mehul the Indian and Aaron the white kid.

Eventually the other girls came over to the table, and, long story short, they broke Jason's Rubik's cube and were trying with pathetic persistency to save it.

After a while, I went around to the other side of the table. Remember, at this point I was still holding Lafflin's drawing, which Jake and Aaron noticed, and asked me about. So I explained about Lafflin and his drawings, and how I'm his mother and IF YOU TOUCH HIM YOU DIE.

The following events took place in only a moment, but they completely changed everything that had ever happened thus far.

Jason and the apologetic girls were trying to fix a Rubik's cube.

I was kneeling on the ground by Jake. Jake was in a chair in front of the cafeteria wall, behind the circular table we were all crowded around.

Jake was holding the comic.

Aaron was sitting in another chair on the opposite side of Jake.

The circular table was in a corner.


And Aaron took the comic. And Aaron said,

"What would you do if I ripped it?"

And, at that moment, Aaron took his two thumbs and forefingers, positioned them in a small, unimportant corner of the page, And. He. Ripped it.

Over the screams from the jumpy castle, the party music, and the conversation and laughter of a cafeteria, the sound of a centimeter of paper being softly separated from itself tore into me. And in that moment - that exact moment - I stood up.

I climbed straight over Jake, at which point things started to stop, and people in the lunchroom started to go, "holy crap, what is happening," and the other side of the table was watching and listening as I screamed in poor Aaron's face,
"WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU DO THAT?!"

I had climbed over Jake, who was sitting probably just a few inches away from Aaron. He suddenly realized that it was my obvious intention to pummel him to the ground. He backed his chair up so fast, clambering to get away as fast as I was clambering to get at him, and in the time it took for me to say that one sentence, he was against the wall and I was in his face, and he was absolutely trapped.

Terrified.

His folding chair hit the wall, and with the momentum of his trying to escape, it unfolded, and he toppled over onto the ground. At this point, watching poor Aaron on the floor of a cafeteria, scared out of his mind, as about four teachers and fifteen-odd students stood watching; as the principal walked curiously to the scene of an infuriated young girl standing over a body on the floor and a chair clattering on the tile; I realized what I had done.

"Aaron! Oh glob, Aaron?!" I reached down to help him up, and he squirmed away from my hand, trying not to show it but obviously scared out of his mind. I felt so bad. I really hadn't planned for that to happen."I'm so sorry Aaron! I didn't mean for you to be on the ground!"

He jumped up, gasping, staring at me. The principal was laughing hysterically, as was the rest of the table. I had never heard Jake laugh so hard.

The both of us were panting, and I wasn't done with him. "YOU JUST DON'T DO THINGS LIKE THAT." My arms were flying dramatically, hands outstretched with the palms facing up. "YOU DON'T RIP LAFFLIN'S PICTURES."

I paced around Jake, as Aaron hid behind him. "Man, I'm going to have to give him back this picture with a RIP IN IT. He's going to disown me as his mother, and THEN where will I be?! He's never ever going to give me his drawings AGAIN, all because YOU RIPPED LAUFFLIN'S PICTURE."

I stood there and slumped, quieted down. "...What am I going to tell him now?"

"...That you almost killed Aaron because of it?"


And that is why, children, you must never internalize anger. Bad things happen.