None the Worse ✓

6) 'He's Fine' And Other Lies You Need To Hear To Maintain Your Sanity...

6) 'He's Fine' And Other Lies You Need To Hear To Maintain Your Sanity (For Some Stupid Reason)

Thijmen kept to his promise.

The following day, he didn't talk to Benjamin, he didn't come close to him, he didn't look his way or smoke his way. He made sure no one in the whole school could possibly know that Ben's house was his habitat at the moment.

On the other hand, Ben couldn't look away, no matter how hard he tried to keep his eyes off the Dutch mystery, and this was how he ended up with a confrontation from Pi—in front of Martin, Heston and Messiah, no less.

"Ben, why are you staring at the new guy, who you 'don't know', so much?"

"I'm not," he denied. And in that exact moment his voice decided to become one of those toned, brain dead California surfers by jumping on a wave. And it fell off. And crashed.

His voice swayed just a tad too much for something that was supposed to sound like a truth.

Benjamin cringed.

It would've been more believable if he said he was going to the moon on vacation. He definitely could have said that with a convincing voice and straight face. What he just did was quite the opposite of that. He didn't even look away from Thijmen across the cafeteria while he said it.

"Right," Pi said, rolling his eyes so far back they should have gotten stuck the other way around in their sockets. "Then why did he call your name like a hundred times yesterday in the hallway?"

Benjamin was flustered. And when that happened, his words no longer wanted approval from the brain, or rather couldn't; the server connection was lost.

Before he could say anything, thank God and everything above, Messiah decided to add something (not) very helpful.

Messiah stopped chewing on his chocolate bar. "Yeah. Why did he? It wasn't another Benjamin; the only other one is that sophomore from my Crochet club, and he's sick all the time."

The remaining two of their little group agreed with monotone humming.

After that, there was no one to conveniently stop Benjamin from spewing out bullcrap left and right and all over his friends.

"Well," he began, for a second convincing himself that 'oh, I can do this. I'm in control'. Then came what was supposed to be the major lie. What his marginally dysfunctional group of allies were to believe for the foreseeable future.

Benjamin coughed.

Cleared his throat.

Swallowed.

Having the ability to teleport right now would have been... perfection.

He did not.

"Well," repeated Benjamin, swallowing once again. "I... I.... The thing is...."

Pi crossed his arms, "the thing? So there is a thing?"

Benjamin pursed his lips. "No?"

Close enough?

No. "Benjamin the third," said Pi. "Spill."

Benjamin changed his thought from a bit ago. This was when he wanted a Pterodactyl to come. Only this time, he wanted it to be a friendly Pterodactyl (maybe one of Tolkien's eagles would have been better), that came to rescue him.

The world did not have enough dinosaurs. Flying ones.

So here came the part where Ben would have to improvise and hope for the best, or come up with a really good explanation, which would take time.