It All Started With An Apple

Chapter 22

Kyla nodded, smiling in amusement.  “Yes, very much so.  Wasn’t your dad that clown in the circus that came to town a few months ago?  And your mom, gosh wasn’t she that cross-dressing man in that movie?  Which movie was it again?  It was either House Bunny or Anger Management.”

I slapped her shoulder.  “Not funny!” I exclaimed, even though I actually did find her comment funny.

Kyla laughed, slapping me back without turning away from the wheel.  “I thought it was pretty damn hilarious.”

I shook my head slightly, letting out a small laugh.  No matter how hard you tried, you just couldn’t act seriously with her.  Everything was a joke.  Everything was hilarious.  Everything was fun.  Well, that was, until something really important was going on.  “There’s something wrong with you,” I felt the need to inform her.

“I do not know why people bother wasting their breath telling me that over and over again,” Kyla mused, shaking her head.  “I believe telling me once gets your point across.  And how many times have you told me this?”

I laughed as Kyla spared a glance my way, wriggling her eyebrows.  “Well, it’s the second time today, so . . . about a thousand times.”

“You see?  Think of all the oxygen you’ve deprived of the world with your pointless chatter!”

“Didn’t you just create a pointless conversation?” I countered.

Kyla paused before answering.  I laughed, my eyes shooting up to the ceiling.  She really needed practice at these play-arguments.  She always did great until the very end where it really counted: getting the last word.  “Shut up,” she murmured finally, turning up the radio and blasting it.  That was her way of saying, “Even though you technically got the last word, I’m going to sit here in denial, blasting music to say words for me.  So, in a way, I have won.  Ha!”

Yeah, well my poor friend, it just didn’t work out that way.  “You’ve lost again,” I said loudly, hoping to be heard over the radio, “but congratulations on making it further this time.”         

Kyla slapped my shoulder.  “Buttface.”

“Buttear.”

“Butteyebrow!”

Kyla and I had this thing where we took the word “butt” and put a different suffix at the end—if you didn’t notice already.  If you could have butthead and buttface—which sounded all right to me—then why couldn’t you take any other body part and do the same thing?  On a day when we were both hyper, we decided to test the question.  It stuck ever since.

I was about to reply, but Barbie Girl happened to belt out suddenly, cutting me off.  I scrounged around in my pocket, pulling out my cell phone and bringing it to my ear.  “You’ve got to stop calling me while I’m in a vehicle, Barone,” I teased lightly.  “You’re becoming quite obsessive.

Dannon chuckled softly.  “Don’t worry.  This is a quick call.  I happen to have an appointment.”

Oh.  Okay then.  “What do you want, then?” I asked, pushing down the bubbling curiosity about his appointment.  Another one?  I never knew anyone who had as many appointments as this guy did.  Was his dad germ-phobic or something?  Or did he just like keeping all the appointments meshed up in the same time period?  If that was the case, that really sucked for Dannon.

“When will you learn to be nice to him?” Kyla demanded.

I glanced over at her, prying the phone away from my ear.  “Never,” I answered simply, bringing the phone back to my ear right as the word “project” was said.  My eyebrows crinkled together.  Dannon had continued talking while I’d pulled the phone away.  Wow.  Just my luck.