Monday, May 22, 2017

Dawn on Jefferson, Chapter 16: WAITAMINUTE!

Just when you think you're about to go do something amazing and wild and crazy and fun, that's when you get into a fight.  Every time.  I swear.  Unfortunately, it was with my friends, my Merry Pranksters.

Veena, Rosa, Tom, Jackie and I all blew up at each other and it became a serious huff between us. It was all very dramatic.  Well, perhaps not that dramatic.  Perhaps it was a fight.  Yes, there was yelling.  However, we didn't get that mad at each other.  It was just dramatic.

It started because Jackie, oh so bright and relatively normal Jackie, asked if the emperor was wearing any clothes.  Well, sorta.

Parents and adults and teachers and all those people who pretend to be grown up are often annoying, very annoying.  They tell you what to do.  They tell you how to do it.  They tell you what you CANNOT do (most annoying of all).  They often think they are right.  Even when they are not.  But...

Most of the time they are.  Its even more annoying that way.  The adults are annoying, but they are rarely stupid.  We might not see what they are doing and why - we're still kids after all - but they almost always have a reason.  It might be one we like.  It might not be one they explain (psst.  helps us grow up if we understand what you're doing, grownups!) It might not be one we think is fair. It might even be really annoying!  However, it is really outright dumb.

Jackie asked why didn't the adults see this?  They had all the information we did.  They had better equipment to study everything we had.  How come they were not going out to deal with the legless footman we just saw?

Rosa got into a bit of a huff then.  She was feeling really proud of finding the foot.  She felt a bit...superior for the act.  Her find was being called into question and she didn't like that.  She countered that sometimes some people notice things faster than others.  It was a dig.  It wasn't nice.  She shouldn't have taken Jackie's comments as an attack (hint: they weren't.  They were a good and insightful criticism.)  Rosa was just being too proud at that moment.

Veena jumped to Rosa's defense and started saying how good and smart we were and especially Rosa.  We obviously saw it first.

I felt bad for Jackie.  She wasn't doing anything wrong and was actually making a good observation.  I jumped in on her side when I heard Jackie growl.  Jackie growls impressively.  She was likely to bite off Rosa and Veena's heads.  She's not just taller than the rest of us, including Tom (ha! Tom! I see you grimace and glance to see if you're taller than Jackie ever time you stand next to her!  Have a coooommmmmpleeeex?!), but she also has a presence.  When she pops, she's scary.  But when she's not, she has a force of nature feeling to her.  She's not mean.  She's not overbearing.  She's not even the leader of the group (hello?!).  She does stand her ground better than the rest of us and doesn't wilt.  And then, sometimes, when she does pop she growls more impressively than a bear.

This was going to make her bear moments seem tame.  Those moments would seem like Masha's Medved from that ancient Russian cartoon.  She was about to go nuclear cave bear.  

Her chest began to expand when I jumped in on her side.  She looked at me as I did.  I reasonable.  I was brilliant.  I was a genius with my arguments, but then Veena and Rosa started yelling at me.  The nerve!  

Jackie and I were yelling at Rosa and Veena.   The argument was heated.  The argument was white hot flaming.  Any human not participating would have been instantly sautéed by just being in the room.  There were clashes and battles and epic wars in that argument.  There would have been very hurt and angry feelings except for one thing.

The smell of popcorn snapped us out of the fighting.  Hot, buttery popcorn.  There in a bowl. Sitting in Tom's lap.  Where had Tom gotten popcorn?!  We were at SCHOOL!  Yet there he was.  Watching us.  Munching on popcorn.  And looking both terribly amused and smug with his salty, buttery munchie.  

We were stunned!

WHAT!
THE!

HECK!

Tom, in an exaggerated movement, wiped his mouth with a napkin and even dabbed at his mouth's corners in a ridiculous action of pretension.  It was comical.  It was ridiculous.  It was oh-so-Tom.

He then opened his mouth - which was fortunately not full of popcorn!  How gross would have that been?!  EW! - and said, "While this is entirely amusing, I have to say, I'm sure the adults have figured it out, which case, we'll follow along a path already worn and we'll have fun.  If not, we'll get our adventure.  And I, for one, want an adventure.  We are the Merry Pranksters after all, not the Immie Spud Club."

And it was hard to argue with him over that.

But I STILL want to know how, where he got that popcorn!  He's been holding out on us!

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