Peeves. Mike Waes Van

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СКАЧАТЬ curious one seemed shocked and hurt by this. It looked up at me with its big, wide eyes and asked, “Why don’t you like us?” It sounded so sincere I almost felt bad for it, like it was real. But, as if answering on my behalf, the noisy one went back to BEEP BEEP BEEPING as if it couldn’t not make noise and that was its natural default. I slumped my shoulders and dragged myself into school with everyone else.

      Even under the most normal circumstances, school was a challenge. But normally when I had serious anxiety or a full-blown panic attack, the things that triggered it were just temporary – like the booger that Otis flicked on me. Eventually, I could get away. But that wasn’t the case with these furry figments of my imagination.

      The noisy one mimicked every locker slam and bag zipping I heard, loudly and proudly.

      The curious one bounced around in front of me asking questions without seeming to breathe. “What’s homework? Can I eat that? Why are they staring at you?” The kids in the hall were giving me strange looks as I unsuccessfully tried to swat and kick away the monsters no one else could see.

      The tattletale had somehow tapped a whole vein of new secrets and it couldn’t spill them fast enough. “He wet the bed till he was seven. He’s wearing yesterday’s underwear. He hoards Twizzlers.”

      Mortified to hear all my shortcomings catalogued at full volume, even though no one else could hear any of this, I swung my backpack off my shoulder, unzipped it, dumped my books out and snatched up the tattletale in one swift motion. Then I zipped it shut, which muffled the blabbermouth enough to make its monologue of my secrets almost bearable. Unfortunately, I did this right on the perfectly trendy shoes of Heather Hu and her clonelike horde, who looked at me like … well, like I was nuts. “Here we have a garden variety dork in its native environment,” said Heather as she recorded my behaviour on her phone like it was some sort of demented nature documentary. The trendoids who followed her were delighted. I was just annoyed.

      And then it happened again. I didn’t mean to, but I couldn’t stop it. I sneezed on her. And I have to admit it felt kind of good. She squealed and cursed and stomped away only to be replaced a moment later by a red-furred, blue-horned creature with an “over it” expression plastered on its face. The snarky-looking monster gave me a long side-eye glance and then rolled its eyes away and said, “Not even worth it.”

      BRRRRING! The bell rang, warning me that I had to get to class. Heather’s horde stepped over my books, which I gathered frantically in my other hand as the curious creature wondered, “What’s a dork? Am I a dork? Is dork a bad thing?”

      As I stumbled down the hall, I could hear the tattletale trying to comment on the situation, but thankfully its monologue was muffled inside my backpack. BRRRRING! I was already late! I started running past all the other kids who were still walking calmly to class and I tripped over someone’s bag on the floor, face-planting and skidding across the cold tiles to the utter joy of everyone who saw it. I rolled over to find the noisy one climbing onto my chest. It opened its trapdoor mouth and … BRRRRING! I smacked it away, splatting it against a locker. But by the time I got up and gathered my scattered books and dignity, the noisemaker had already peeled free from the lockers and re-formed like an inflating balloon. BRRRRING! But this time it actually was the bell and I actually was late.

      I hurried into homeroom while Mrs Bowers’s back was turned and made it to my seat without getting caught for being tardy. I reached into my backpack to get a pen and inadvertently released the tattletale. It scrambled out and joined the other creatures all around my desk. As Mrs Bowers started roll call, I took a deep, cleansing breath, and tried to calm down and focus. I was almost getting used to the chorus of random noises and annoying questions and personal revelations from the monsters when a spine-tingling SNIFFLE cut through the ruckus. I looked at the noisy one accusingly, but its ears were aimed behind me, excited to hear a new noise to mimic.

      I turned to glare at Otis Miller, and was surprised to see that this time he looked genuinely sick. He even had a mini-pack of tissues on his desk. Otis looked at me sheepishly. “My mom said without a fever I’m not contagious and can’t stay at home.”

      Before I could respond, Mrs Bowers yelled, “MR PICKINGS!” I spun round to face the front and shouted “HERE!” while instantly fearing the use of my last name would inspire someone in this room to start in with the nose-picking taunts again. But Otis was too down with his cold to bother. Instead, he let out another shiver-inducing SNIFFLE SNIFFLE SNEEZE from behind me. I could feel little droplets of stray spittle hit my neck and reflexively spun round again to say something, but I just responded with a massive sneeze of my own.

      “I knew I was contagious!” blurted Otis as he raised his hand. “Can I go to the nurse?”

      Mrs Bowers dismissed him and Otis fled the room without even offering me a tissue. Normally I would have freaked out, but today I had way bigger worries. I just wiped my neck with my sleeve as the curious creature wondered, “If he’s contagious, what am I?”

      “You’re annoying,” said the tattletale. “We all are.”

      “That’s an understatement,” commented the snarky one.

      The curious one looked almost as if its feelings were hurt again.

      I tried to focus on the announcements Mrs Bowers was reading out loud, but then I heard the SNIFF SNIFF SNIFF start again. I looked accusingly at the noisy one, but it was busy BEEP BEEP BEEPING. I cringed as I realised what had just happened. I turned round towards Otis’s empty desk, terrified of what I knew I’d see – another translucent glob of goo. This one had sprouted fur and arms and was stretching its body upward. It had a big, pink nose to go with its droopy, watery eyes and floppy ears. It sniffled and sneezed and wiped its nose in its own fur. For a moment it looked content, but then it sneezed and started the whole process over again. It was one sticky-looking, snot-hardened, green-furred, monster hallucination.

      “Why does that happen?” asked the curious one, observing its new colleague.

      “Because he’s easily annoyed,” chimed in the tattletale. “He’s also pissing off the teacher,” it added as Mrs Bowers gave me another stern look.

      I slunk down in my seat, trying to ignore the sniffling one too. But that was hard to do. The noisy one had latched onto its sniffle sounds and they were sitting on either side of my chair back. It was SNIFF SNIFF SNIFF in one ear and SNIFF SNIFF SNIFF in the other. Like an echo chamber of grossness that prevented me from actually paying attention to whatever Mrs Bowers was going on about.

      Science class afforded me a bit of a break since everyone was focused on a test and that meant they were unlikely to create any new annoyances. The room was quiet, at least to everyone else. Me, I was swarmed by monsters. And the relative silence amplified the sloshing, chomping, gulping sounds Mr Schwartz made while eating a messy tuna sandwich at his desk. Every swallow seemed to last for ever down his ostrich-like throat. And the noisy one’s exuberant mimicry of the sound caused me to shudder and gag.

      “As if you sound any better when you eat,” noted the snarky one with a dismissive face. “Also, you’re totally failing your test,” it said without even bothering to look at the test I was too distracted to work on.

      The curious one made its way over to the Evolution of Man poster. It looked at me, then the poster, then at me again, suddenly understanding something and wondering, “If that’s what you came from, then what did I come from?”

      “Boogers!” shouted the tattletale. And, as if on cue, the sniffling one perked up and sneezed right in my face. I wiped it off, totally СКАЧАТЬ