Diary of a Nerd King #3: Episodes 1 to 4

by Ballard, Matt

  "So, what brings a couple of young lads like you to Shady Pines?"

  Boogie and I looked at each other and shrugged. There didn't seem any reason not to tell Old Man Handerson the whole story.

  I started, and Boogie chipped in along the way, and in no time at all we'd told Mr. Hankerson all about Bugster and the Turtle, the prank that started it all, and how we ended up at Shady Pines.

  Mr. Hankerson had a good chuckle as we told him the story. He burst out laughing when we got to the part about us looking like over-sized blue Smurfs, and again when we told him about the photo of the Turtle kissing a cow.

  I even remembered the whole poem I'd written, "Bessie, My Bovine Love," and recited it for Mr. Hankerson. He got a real kick out of the poem and almost fell out of his chair laughing.

  By this point, Boogie and I were laughing pretty hard right along with him. You know how it is when one of your friends starts laughing really hard, and then you start too, and the next thing you know, you're all laughing so hard your sides hurt?

  I think it's fair to say we were getting along just fine with Old Man Hankerson.

  Once we'd all managed to stop laughing, Mr. Hankerson wiped a tear from his eye from laughing so hard and looked happily at Boogie and I.

  "You know boys, I think this has been the best visit I've had in a LONG time."

  (I tried to draw a realistic looking picture of Mr. Hankerson looking happy. I'm not really sure it looks a whole lot like him, but I thought it looked pretty cool anyways, so here it is.)

  Boogie and I smiled and nodded.

  "Yeah," I said. "Spending time here at Shady Pines has been pretty cool after all. I'm really glad we got to meet you Mr. Hankerson."

  "Yeah," Boogie agreed. "Me too Mr. Hankerson."

  "You know boys," Mr. Hankerson said as he scratched his chin, "I was a bit of a prankster myself when I was younger."

  Boogie and I laughed. Considering how we'd come to meet Mr. Hankerson, it was safe to say that was probably a bit of an under-statement. Mr. Hankerson may well have been a bit of a prankster when he was younger, but judging by his little heart attack prank, he'd never stopped.

  For the next couple of hours, Old Man Hankerson told us story after story from his younger days, some of them pranks, and some of them just stuff about his life. All of them were really interesting though, and Mr. Hankerson seemed to love telling them.

  Mr. Hankerson was a pretty interesting guy. He'd been in the army when he was younger, and he had some pretty cool stories from those days. He actually used to drive a tank! How cool is that?

  And sure enough, there were some pretty cool pranks he told us about from his army days. One of the funniest was the time Mr. Hankerson and his buddy had snuck into their commanding officer's room and stolen a pair of his underwear.

  The next morning at roll call (that's when everyone has to line up for attendance and get inspected, kinda like we do at school), someone started snickering in line, and then a couple more joined in, and soon the whole group was snickering and trying not to laugh.

  Their commanding officer pretended not to notice at first, but by the time everyone was doing it, he started to lose his patience and demanded to know what everyone thought was so funny.

  No one said anything, so the commanding officer singled out someone out of the line and demanded he tell him what was so funny. The poor guy barely managed to keep a straight face as he pointed up into the sky to where the flagpole stood.

  When the commanding officer turned to look, the whole group lost it and started howling with laughter. There, hanging from the top of the flagpole and flying proudly in the breeze was the commanding officer's underwear that Mr. Hankerson and his buddy had stolen from his room.

  Their commanding officer lost it! He freaked out and demanded someone tell him who had put his underwear up the flagpole, but no one would say a word.

  Mr. Hankerson said that was probably mostly because nobody knew except him and his buddy who had taken the underwear. They'd been smart enough to keep quiet and not say a word about it to anyone.

  Mr. Hankerson said they felt pretty bad when everyone was forced to run laps around the base for the rest of the morning, but he chuckled a little when he admitted they hadn't felt bad enough to tell their commanding officer it had been them that had flown his underwear up the flagpole.

  (I could hardly imagine Mr. Hankerson running laps, but I guess he was a whole lot younger then. I'm not sure if they make you run laps in your Army boots when you're in the military, but I drew them anyways.)

  I can't say as I blame him. I probably wouldn't have admitted it either because I would've been more scared of what would happen once the commanding officer found out it was me.

  By the time Mrs. Stevenson came back, we'd actually been at Shady Pines for almost THREE HOURS, but it hardly seemed like that was possible. It felt like we'd just got there only a little while ago.

  Boogie and I said good-bye to Mr. Hankerson and said we'd see him again soon since we'd be back again on Tuesday. Mr. Hankerson looked like he was already looking forward to it, and he was probably already remembering a whole bunch of new stories to tell us when we returned.

  Mrs. Stevenson walked us to the door and thanked us for coming. She said it seemed like Mr. Hankerson had really enjoyed our visit, and that she was looking forward to seeing us again on Tuesday.

  Strangely enough, I was actually looking forward to coming back Tuesday too!

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