Loose Lips Sink Ships

by Katrina LaCroix

  *

  Avery always thought she was good at dealing with things that are long, but that school day turned out to be more than she could handle. The minutes dragged by, she was jumpy the entire day, and all she wanted was for it to be five o’clock when the game started.

  In her mind, she thought she’d easily have enough time to get to Eri after her detention ended at three-thirty and before the game started, but then she smacked her palm to her forehead when she realized how long all the players would be practicing beforehand. She’d have to meet her friend at the concession stand before anyone showed up, or else it would be pointless for her to go at all.

  That meant she had to find a way out of detention, and she worked so hard thinking about it for the rest of the day that she didn’t have any time to pay attention in her classes. Thinking kept her busy, but a solid plan still eluded her as she showed up to the rubber room once school ended.

  Students were milling about freely in the crowded hall while Avery sat chained to a hard plastic desk alongside a band of misfits worse than those on any reality TV show. The crowd in the hall thinned, the minutes seemed to tick away too quickly, and Eri was probably getting ready to set up shop even though it was absurdly early for her to do so.

  Taking a deep breath, Avery slid out of her chair and approached the rotund female math teacher who was supervising them. Kneeling down beside her table, Avery finally got her to look up from her scribbling.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Hi, yeah,” Avery began. “I’m really sorry, but I can’t be here today.”

  “Too bad. Get back to your seat,” the teacher responded coldly.

  “Wait, you didn’t let me finish. I’m having…a hysterectomy,” Avery said, causing the woman to peer at her. “Apparently I used it all up.”

  “What?” the woman cringed. “You can’t use up your uterus. Do you even have a doctor’s note or anything?”

  “Of course I do,” Avery responded as if insulted. She reached into her pocket and produced a small slip of paper, confidently sliding it over to the teacher.

  “This is signed by Dr. Pepper!” the woman snorted, turning the paper over. “And the back is from the “rules of detention” page you found on your desk!”

  Defeated, Avery slunk back to her desk, which the Neanderthal boy from her day at in-school detention now happened to be sitting next to. He smelled like the inside of a wet dumpster, and he had his eyes on her, drooling. Casually, Avery swiveled to face him.

  “If you run into the hall, take your shirt off, start singing “Single Ladies” by Beyonce while racing to the back exit, make it across the street, charge into the seven-eleven, and dunk your head in the slurpee machine, I will fuck your brains out come Monday,” she lied.

  The corpulent young man looked like he’d seen a ghost. His face went slack, his hands twitched, and then all of a sudden he started nodding compulsively. Avery watched him carefully, wondering what she’d gotten herself into. The boy lurched to his feet, making the desk crash over, and hustled for the door, which he threw open. The supervising teacher was already having a fit, and she chased him into the hall. He peeled off his greasy wrestling t-shirt, burst into song, and thundered to the right, away from the gym.

  Suddenly, Avery and the misfits were alone, an open door waiting for them.

  “Jailbreak!” she howled, and altogether the entire group rushed for the exit. Avery slipped into the hall amongst them, glancing to the right where a half-naked monster stampeded away with a teacher over his shoulder. It was go time, and Avery didn’t have a moment to lose.

  The students in detention fled the school like rats from a sinking ship, providing the perfect cover for Avery to accost her friend. Carrying the bright red jugs down the hall, she turned for the main entrance, which was mostly deserted. Sure enough, her friend Eri was perched behind the counter making price signs for the candy bars she had.

  Coming around the counter, Avery set down the big containers and started fiddling with the soda dispensers.

  “Hey, what are you doing? What is this stuff?”

  “This is a vitamin supplement for the people who attend the game today. It’s very important that everyone who comes drinks this…because soda is bad for you, and this will help.”

  Avery popped the top of the dispenser, which contained the ice that fed through the machine.

  “Stop that! You can’t just dump something into people’s drinks without telling them. That’s highly illegal and unethical!

  Holding still for a moment, Avery turned to her friend, who looked both confused and affronted. If this was going to work, Eri had to be a part of it. Setting the soda dispenser lid down, Avery faced her friend.

  “It’s very important that I do this, Eri. My life depends on it. This stuff is harmless, and Carter told me that it is completely undetectable and untraceable. So no one will ever know. So just, please,” she begged, but Eri still didn’t understand.

  “But…why are you putting it into the drinks? What does it do?” she wondered, shaking her head. Afraid of what Eri would think, Avery had to force the words out.

  “It makes people…prematurely ejaculate, like really prematurely. I’m trying to get back at the basketball team because they said all this nasty stuff about me, and Ms. Downing too, because you know what happened,” she admitted.

  Eri regarded her carefully, put her hand over her mouth, and started to giggle.

  “I hate the basketball team too! They always steal all my food and so I never end up making any money here. Ms. Downing deserves everything she gets. It’s a hard world out there for girls like us, and so we have to stick together, right?” Eri commiserated.

  “So you’ll help me?” Avery asked, expecting her friend to agree right away.

  But Eri didn’t do anything other than stare at her hard for a moment. She gritted her teeth and lowered her eyes. Avery didn’t know what Eri was getting at with her prolonged inspection, but she knew it couldn’t be good.

  “You, Avery Leigh, need my, Eri Takagawa’s, help?” she asked, putting Avery on the spot. Eri’s sharp black eyes and hair conveyed a seriousness Avery could never fathom.

  “Yes, I do,” Avery mumbled.

  “Ok, I’ll help you,” Eri glared, coming closer, “but you have to give me your most solemn promise ever, which if you break will have me hunting you down in the night, that you will never ever call me Eri Teriyaki, sneak up behind me when we’re in a crowd and start whispering “me so horny,” ask me if I have a sideways vagina, say any boy who is interested in me has “yellow fever,” or do any of the other terribly offensive things that you have ever done or thought of to me or any other Asian person ever again. Are we clear?”

  Avery had never seen Eri look so serious in her life, and she knew she would have to comply if her plan was ever going to work.

  “What if it just slips…?”

  “Never!” Eri shouted, banging her fist on the counter.

  “Ok, ok. I most solemnly promise, and I mean it.”

  Eri’s eyes widened and a hint of a smile took shape on her vindicated face. Avery was struck with how personally everyone took the things she said. For her, the words had just always slipped out of her mouth and disappeared into the air, but now she realized how much resentment they caused.

  After Eri nodded, Avery took one of the Gongdong canisters and climbed up to the top of the soda dispenser. Removing the cover required both hands though, and she fumbled and dropped the plastic jar.

  “Here, just let me do it,” Eri ordered, taking Avery’s place on the stool. Once Eri pushed open the cover, Avery handed her the jar. Holding it in her hands, Eri read the only words on the label that were in English.

  “Makes you Chinese? See, that’s offensive!”

  “I didn’t write it!” Avery objected, throwing up her hands. Grumbling, Eri popped open the jar and dumped the powder into the ice, which would then get into all of the drinks. She emptied the second jar also, climbing
down to find Avery taking a marker to one of her signs.

  “The drinks aren’t free! How am I supposed to make any money?” Eri moaned.

  Avery taped the sign to the front of the counter.

  “But that’s what the sign says. There’s nothing you can do. Just give one to everybody and talk to Carter about being reimbursed it if you want. He’s good for it!”

  There were male voices echoing down the hall, and the bus of the opposing team pulled up outside. Avery quickly started to scamper away, though Eri was still pouting.

  “Where are you going now?”

  “I’ve got to hide in the women’s locker room until it’s time. Just please do this for me!” she begged.

  “Damn you, Avery Leigh!” Eri howled, grabbing a cup and filling it with ice.