She was only able to nod. The lump in her throat prevented words from forming.
“Even if it’s true, I don’t care. I still like you,” he said. “I still want to be with you.”
Her heart fluttered. She took a deep breath in and waited for his words to register completely in her head. “Really?” she said.
“Yeah. I told you: I don’t care about your past. I like you regardless of whoever you used to be.”
A tear streamed down her cheek. He stood up and placed his hands on her hips. And then suddenly they were back on the Jumbotron as they went in for a kiss. People started clapping, and then they started cheering. M. Maker’s grand humiliation had backfired.
And suddenly, Rebecca could hear someone shouting. She looked over and saw the mechanic, standing a few rows back. He was screaming at the clapping fans. “No! Why are you all cheering? Don’t you see that she is really a guy? She was fooling him this whole time! He didn’t know!” But no one was paying attention to the mechanic, who had apparently orchestrated this whole thing in an attempt to humiliate Rebecca and Francis. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this!”
Maybe M. Maker didn’t stand for matchmaker, but that’s exactly what he was, even if he didn’t know it.
Rebecca checked her phone once they were sitting back down. There were many messages from friends and family members—but everyone was congratulating her. No one was scorning her or telling her she was making a big mistake. There were even a few messages that read, ‘You look so beautiful!’ Rebecca felt happy. She wasn’t sure she’d ever felt so happy in her life. She looked over at Francis, and once again they were on the Jumbotron, with ‘Sponsored by Machine Makers’ below their faces. They kissed again.
THE END
SISSY PUNISHMENT
After being unfairly targeted by the school principal, Ian decides to put on some dark clothes and egg the principal’s house, one week before Halloween. But he gets the wrong house. The house he hits with his many cartons of eggs actually belongs to Jenna, a housewife who throws the town’s biggest annual Halloween party.
When Ian’s mom finds out about the act, she decides that Ian will be punished by spending the week at Jenna’s house, helping her prepare for her big party. And Jenna’s got an idea to make the punishment especially humiliating, with a bit of help from her college-aged daughter’s closet.
CHAPTER I
It was Tony’s idea to egg that house—not mine. Tony insisted that it was Principal Andersen’s house, but I’m pretty sure he just said that to convince me to tag along. Had I known whose house it really was, I wouldn’t have thrown a single egg.
For the past week, Principal Andersen had made a point of making my life a living hell. It all started after I gave his son a little shove during gym class—but I assure you that he deserved that shove; we were playing dodge ball and he kept diving in front of me to steal my balls, even though he was on my team—and he was doing it because he knew it pissed me off. Of course he tattled when I shoved him, and of course I got a detention. But the detention wasn’t the worst of it—it was the extra attention I got.
Principal Andersen was suddenly always there, wherever I went. Between classes he would stand in the hall with a view of my locker, and then I swear he would always follow me to my classes. And he was always watching whenever I slipped up. I was a single minute late for my math class… Detention. I was running down the hall to make it to class on time… Detention. I sneezed during class while Principal Andersen was standing in the doorway, and he was convinced that I’d insulted the teacher while pretending to sneeze… So I got another detention.
He would always be the one monitoring my detentions. He would sit there on his laptop, watching some movie on Netflix as he twirled his wedding ring between the tip of his thumb and the tip of his pointer finger. He dropped it on his desk constantly—and it made for a surprisingly irritating white noise.
And of course my mother wasn’t happy—four detentions in a single week. She didn’t believe me when I told her that I didn’t deserve any of them, especially because Principal Andersen made a point of calling her every single time I got into the slightest ounce of trouble. I was in his bad books, and he was starting to wriggle into my bad books. So when Tony presented me an opportunity to get a little bit of revenge, I didn’t hesitate.
Tony already had all of the eggs ready. So we hopped on our bikes and headed over to the house. We left our bikes down by the park and walked the extra block, worried someone might recognize our bikes. No one was going to recognize us—we were wearing black pants, black hoodies, and black bandanas around our faces.
The house looked strangely familiar to me, but I couldn’t figure out why. I had the strangest feeling that I’d been inside of it before, but I couldn’t figure out why I would have even been inside Principal Andersen’s house. I’d never been friends with Principal Andersen’s son—we’d never even spoken to one another until shortly before I gave him that shove. My first words to him were, “Quit stealing my balls you little shit!” And his first words to me were, “Shove it, faggot.” His last words to me were, “I’m telling my dad!”
It dawned on me as we approached the house that I was about to get a bit of revenge on that little shit, as well as his dad.
We nestled into a safe spot between two large rose bushes and then we got our eggs ready—cartons open. Tony counted to three and then we started painting the side of that house with raw egg. We threw four dozen eggs before lights started turning on. Tony even managed to peg one of their jack-o-lanterns dead on, tipping it over and making it tumble down the steps.
We ran away as fast as we could as soon as the porch light turned on and that front door swung open. We hopped on our bikes and made off as fast as we could.
In the morning, I decided to detour around the house, to see the damage. The house was still covered with dripping yolks. I stopped to take it in, feeling strangely satisfied with my work. I was so busy staring up at the house with a grin on my face, I didn’t even notice the front door opening. When I finally looked down, I saw a police officer stepping out from the house with a familiar woman. They both looked at me and then I panicked. I should have played it cool—maybe waved and smiled—but instead I became tense. I looked away quickly and then I had the urge to bike away. I shouldn’t have caved to that urge, but I did. They watched as I left the scene of the crime looking guiltier than a professional football player driving down the highway in a white Bronco.
The woman was not Principal Andersen’s wife. She was not Principal Andersen’s live-in nanny or the maid or a friend or even a distant relative—because the house we egged didn’t belong to Principal Andersen. The house belonged to Jenna Kerrigan—Jimmy’s mother.
Jimmy was a friend of mine back when we were in elementary school. When we hung out, we would play with little model figurines. The figurines belonged to Jimmy—he would spend all of his allowance on the little models and the expensive paints used to paint the little things. He would always beg me to go out and buy my own, but they were so expensive, so we just played with his. Once we were in junior high, his little figurine obsession started to become weird. I stopped having him over at my house because I always felt embarrassed when he wheeled his little carts up to my front door—carts filled with the little figurines. The neighbour kids would call me names like ‘geek’ and ‘nerd’ and ‘loser’. Sometimes Jimmy even brought the little models to school, and he would bring them out during lunch, in the middle of the cafeteria.
“Put them away, Jimmy,” I would say. But he didn’t care what anyone else thought—he just wanted to play with his little toys. During period breaks, he would sit alone in the break area with stacks of rulebooks, which explained the intricate rules of the complex miniature game. Going into high school, I knew I needed to distance myself from Jimmy and his miniature obsession, so I told him I didn’t want to be friends anymore. It felt harsh, but it needed to be done.
My heart was racing i
ntermittently throughout that whole day as the image of that egg-splattered house remained at the forefront of my mind. I could still feel the gaze of that police officer burning into my psyche. They knew I did it—the moment I started biking away, it must have been so obvious. It was around lunch when I started thinking I should just come clean—fess up to reduce my sentence. Can a person go to jail for egging a house?
CHAPTER II
I saw Jimmy during my third period class. I found myself staring at him, trying to figure out if he even knew his house had been egged. And then I found myself trying to figure out why Tony would have wanted to egg Jimmy’s house. Tony was friends with Jimmy back in elementary school as well—he used to come over to my house and we would all play with those little models together. And like me, Tony stopped hanging out with Jimmy once puberty kicked in and we realized playing with little models wasn’t cool.
I saw Tony during my fourth period. I pulled him aside and I asked him, “Why did you tell me that was Principal Andersen’s house? And why the hell did you want to throw eggs at Jimmy’s house?”
He smirked. “Because I knew you wouldn’t come with me unless I told you it was Principal Andersen’s house.”
“But what did Jimmy do to you? All he does is sit there with his toys—so what gives?” I asked, keeping my voice low, still worried a police officer would be lingering over my shoulder at any moment.
“Tessa found out that we used to be friends,” Tony said. Tessa was one of the popular girls. She had long blonde hair and she always wore big sunglasses, even inside—until the teachers told her to take them off.
“So what?”
“She thought we were still friends, so I had to prove to her that we weren’t. And you proved it too—I did you a favour.”
I found out that Tony wasn’t lying—he really did egg the house to prove that he wasn’t friends with Jimmy. He even made a point of telling all of the popular girls, who told their friends, who told their friends. And by the end of the day, almost everyone in the school knew Tony and I had egged Jimmy’s house. It was ten minutes before the final bell when the intercom crackled. “Tony Wallace and Ian Peterson, please come to the principal’s office.” We were doomed. I stood up slowly. Everyone in my class was staring at me. They all knew I was doomed, too.
The walk to the principal’s office was long and excruciating. I was trying to think of an excuse in my head, but I couldn’t think of anything. What excuse could a person possibly have for egging another person’s house? I slipped and accidentally threw two dozen eggs! No one would believe that…
Tony was already in the office when I walked up to the receptionist’s desk. They weren’t giving us a chance to get our stories straight. I took a seat and sat for the next thirty minutes. In that time the school bell rang and all of the students left for the day. They all looked over at me as they filtered out through the main entrance. Some of them had looks of pity on their faces, and some of them were laughing.
I was finally called into the office. Tony was sitting in the corner, his head hung low. I could tell that he’d fessed up, so I knew there was no hope. And I was right: we both ended up suspended for a whole week. “You only get one suspension here,” Principal Andersen said. “After this, it’s expulsion. Understand? Now go home.”
We had to walk home because we’d missed our busses. Tony went his way and I went my way. We didn’t say anything to one another. But I couldn’t help but notice Tony’s smirk, as if he’d accomplished his goal of ensuring the girls knew he wasn’t friends with Jimmy. He didn’t seem to care that his parents were going to be livid. His dad was a fiery person—I’d been over at Tony’s house before when Tony got the belt to the ass. I was shocked that Tony could be smirking knowing what was coming.
My mom was home when I walked in the door. She was standing in the hallway with her hands on her hips, and she was staring at me with a big disappointed frown. She shook her head slowly, and I knew she’d already heard the news. “How could you?” she said softly, as if she was about to start crying. My heart clenched and ached in my chest.
“We thought it was Principal Andersen’s house,” I said, as if that made it better. And then I watched as my mom shook her head slowly again.
“Well don’t think that the next week will be a little vacation for you. I’m obviously taking away your computer and your video games. You won’t be able to watch TV or use your phone—we’re taking that away too.”
“So what am I supposed to do?” I said. I didn’t have any homework, and we weren’t quite two months into the school year, so there wasn’t even much to study. “Am I just supposed to sit and stare at the wall?”
“No. You’re going to help Mrs. Kerrigan set up for her Halloween party next week.”
“What?! No—I can’t go over there. She’ll kill me! Are you crazy?” My heart was suddenly racing. I didn’t want to go over to Jenna Kerrigan’s house—I didn’t want to look her in the eyes after I ruined the side of her house with raw eggs.
“Too bad. You’re going over there in the morning and you’re going to do whatever she wants you to do, and if you complain, then I’m taking your computer and your phone and your video games away for the rest of the year. And don’t you think that I’m bluffing, because I promise you that I’m not bluffing.” My mom’s face was a shade of red—she really wasn’t bluffing. She really was furious and disappointed with me. “And I told her to make sure it’s a good punishment—so don’t you think you’re getting off easy because she’s a nice lady. I made a point of telling her not to go easy on you.”
“Mom—are you serious? What if she makes me clean behind her toilets? Isn’t that child abuse?”
“First of all, you aren’t a child anymore. And second of all, I hope she does make you clean behind the toilets. You deserve to clean behind one thousand toilets after what you did to her house. Now go to your room and… and think about what you did!”
I shuffled up to my room and I fell down on my bed, defeated. I almost wished I was Tony—getting smacked on the ass with a folded belt. At least that punishment would only last a couple of minutes. At least Tony didn’t have to waste his whole week setting up for some stupid party.
CHAPTER III
Every year, Jenna Kerrigan threw a big Halloween party for all of the adults in the neighbourhood. She had the biggest property in our community, and she always made sure every inch of it was outfitted for Halloween. Every year, pictures of her party ended up in the November 1st newspaper—one time she even made the front page, and she was always getting pictures featured in magazines.
She was a stay-at-home mom—which I always thought was just code for ‘someone with too much time on their hands’. She was a perfectionist. Jimmy would always come to school with his lunchbox meticulously packed: crusts cut off his sandwich, exactly one cup of steaming homemade soup in a small thermos… He was the only kid I knew who ate homemade pudding at lunch, instead of pudding in a pre-packaged cup.
Back when we were in elementary school, he would always have a homemade Halloween costume. He never wore costumes from costume shops. Transformers were big when we were in the third grade. We all came to school in our store-bought Transformers costumes, and Jimmy came to school in his homemade costume—and his actually looked better, though we still made fun of it because his mom sewed ‘Jimmytron 5000’ on the front and back of it.
When I pulled up to Jenna’s house that first morning of my weeklong suspension, there was a crew of workers scrubbing egg off the siding. You could still see the streaks where dried egg had already been cleaned off—streaks that would be there until the side of the house received a fresh coat of paint. I had a feeling that I would be the one getting up on the ladder to paint the side of the house.
I walked up to the door slowly. I hadn’t been on that doorstep in nearly a decade. I took a deep breath and then I knocked. I was dreading the moment that door opened. I didn’t want to see Jenna’s betrayed face—I didn’t want her t
o look into my guilty eyes. I could hear her approaching the door in her heels—she always wore heels around the house—I’d forgotten about that. It never struck me as odd as a child, but now I couldn’t help but wonder if her feet were constantly sore, or if she just got used to always being in heels.
The door opened and I braced myself for the disappointed glare. But instead she smiled and her face lit up. “Ian! It’s been so long. Come on in. It’s cold out. Where’s your coat? Come in, come in.” Her big smile didn’t go away. She seemed cheery and excited, as if she had no idea I was the one who ruined the side of her house.
I took a step inside. “You know, I didn’t know this was your house,” I said. “I thought it was the principal’s house. I wouldn’t have thrown any eggs had I known this was your house.”
“Of course, dear. Do you want a cookie? They’re fresh out of the oven.” She walked a plate of freshly baked, still steaming, chocolate chip cookies over to me. She held the plate out. “Take one—or two. And if you’re really hungry, I still have a few scones leftover from breakfast.”
I took a cookie but I was hesitant to eat it. She was being nice to me—too nice. Something seemed fishy. Were the cookies poisoned? Was she trying to kill me because I ruined the face of her house one week before her annual Halloween bash? I took a bite. It was good and it didn’t taste like poison at all. “These are great,” I said.
“Thank you. It’s an old family recipe. I was thinking of making a batch with some green dye for the party. What do you think? We can call them Vomit Cookies—or is that too gross? I just though they would look like vomit, being green with the little black chunks… I might even put white chocolate chips in there as well, to make them even more fun. What do you think?”
“I, uh, think that’s a fine idea,” I said. I took another cookie and ate it. I wanted to take more, but I still wasn’t convinced I wasn’t being set up for some form of revenge. Even if she did believe that I didn’t mean to egg her house, she still had no reason to be nice to me—plus my mother specifically told her to be especially mean to me. So why wasn’t she being mean? Why was she stuffing my face with delicious cookies? And why was she so happy? “I really didn’t think this was your house. I completely forgot that you lived here—I really mean it,” I said.
GIRLIFIED: 15 BOOKS MEGA BUNDLE Page 36
