Twin Shorts
Page 2
The Stupid Song Assignment by Priscilla M. Sumner
Mrs. Talendy's 7th Grade English Class
Sorry for the title. I couldn't remember what you actually called this assignment. All I remember is that we were supposed to take a song title and relate it to our life. And since I'm sitting at the breakfast table shoving Froot Loops into my face with one hand and writing this with the other because it's due in like an hour, I don't really have time to sit and figure out what I was supposed to call it.
This morning after using up all the hot water for his three hour shower, my older brother Josh went into his room and started blaring this song called Pain Lies on the Riverside by Live. It's a super old song that came out like before I was born, but it was pretty funky and much better than Josh's usual selection of depressing white boy music.
Anyway, Pain Lies on the Riverside is the perfect description of what happened this summer a week before 4th of July weekend. My dad thought it would be a great idea to have a family picnic by the river since my mother was actually home for a change. She went away on business a lot as an official drug dealer. I'm not making that up. She deals drugs. She's a rep for some pharmaceutical company and travels the world pushing drugs. Well, that's what she tells everyone. I can't really tell you what she really does. If I did, you wouldn't believe me anyway, so let's just move on, okay?
It was supposed to be a family picnic, right? So, ask me how my brother's girlfriend Stefanie Crawford ended up joining us. I'll tell you how. Josh is a big, huge, giant brat who whined and moaned until he got his way. I swear, he can be worse than the twins sometimes. I am the only normal person in this family.
So Dad packed a lunch and big blanket, yada yada yada and we all went to the river to have family time. Well, family plus Stefanie time. If you haven't figured it out by now, I don't really like Stefanie. In fact, I don't even call her Stefanie. To me, she's Skank-anie since she dated every boy on the River's Bend High School football team before settling on my poor stupidly romantic brother. But since this is like an official assignment for a grade and stuff I figure I should keep it formal. Anyway, she'd been dating my brother for like four months and she still insisted on calling me Pamela, Patricia, or Penelope. She does it on purpose. I mean really, whose name is Penelope?
Not ten minutes into the picnic, Josh and Stefanie sneak off into the woods. So to my right I have my parents snuggling on a blanket and to my left Josh is making out with his girlfriend. The only thing worse than watching your brother swap spit with a skank is watching your parents feed each other grapes while lying on a blanket. Ugh, it was like a nasty version of that Cleopatra movie you made us watch last week.
So there I was stuck between the gross and the grossest. What was I supposed to do? I looked around and noticed that Charlie and Chester had disappeared. I chugged half a bottle of Pepto Bismol then went to look for them.
I really didn't want to find them, but anything was better than that pain by the riverside I was being forced to endure. (See how I worked in the title of the song? Pretty good, huh Mrs. Talendy?)
Five minutes later something fell out of a tree and landed on my back. I would have thought it was a wild monkey or something, but it smelled like peanut butter which meant it had to be Charlie. He always smelled like peanut butter. It was like it came out of his pores.
I flipped Charlie over my shoulder then pinned him to the ground.
"Let go of my brother!" Chester said as he flew through the air and landed on my back as well.
Wow, these boys are pretty good, I thought. I didn't see either of them coming. There had to be a way to use their sneakiness for good.
That's when I got a brilliant idea. I grabbed my bottle of Pepto and we all headed toward the skank.
I really didn't want to involve Josh in the prank. I mean, he may be annoying and use all the hot water every day, but he was still my brother and I kinda liked him sometimes. So I had to figure out a way to get his lips off the skank long enough to pull off my plan.
Both Charlie and Chester climbed a tree right above where Josh and Stefanie were making out. Chester leapt into action first and landed on Josh's back. Then Chester ran off into the woods. Of course, big macho Josh couldn't let Chester get the best of him in front of his girlfriend so he took off after him in order to get revenge. This left Stefanie totally defenseless, just how I wanted.
Seconds later Charlie landed on her head and opened the bottle of Pepto Bismol. I know you've taught English in River's Bend for years and you probably had Stefanie Crawford in your class a couple of years ago. But in case you don't remember, Mrs. Talendy, Stefanie Crawford has been dyeing her hair blonde since about two days after she was born. (That's also the last time she got any smarter.) So the pink from the Pepto really stood out against the bottle blondeness.
My only regret that day was not having a camera handy 'cause once Charlie was done with her she looked like a straight up troll doll. If I ever get the chance to mess with her again, I think I'll shave my name into her head. Then I'll stand on her face and yell 'What's my name now, skank?'
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