The Two of Us

He Found Salt

Leslie bombarded me with a shit ton of questions as we waited outside the classroom, most of which she asked before I could even finish answering the last one.

She only stopped when somebody came running down the hallway yelling, "L-LOOK OUT!"

I turned around right as a blue rabbit puppet smacked me in the face.

"The fuck—!?"

A chubby, round-faced boy with a ton of freckles, warm brown skin, and sky blue eyes stopped just short of us. He was clad in a purplish-pink and white striped polo shirt, black khakis, and white shoes. "SORRY ABOUT TH-THAT!"

Leslie cackled. "Holy shit, dude. What the hell?" She pulled him down so that he was sitting next to her.

"SORRY!" He put the puppet back on his hand.

The puppet turned to look at him, staring straight into his soul with his black button eyes. "You better stop throwing me around, boy."

"IT W-W-W... IT W-WAS AN ACCIDENT!"

"Your face is an accident."

"OH Y-YEAH? W-WELL, YOUR STITCHING IS W-WEIRD!"

"Wow. That was a great insult. I feel so hurt."

"Y-Y-Y... Y-YOU'RE BEING SARCASTIC AREN'T Y-YOU? WHY DOES NOTHING OFFEND Y-YOU?! WHY CAN'T YOU AT LEAST APPRECIATE MY ATTEMPTS AT INSULTS!?!"

"Because they suck eggs."

"W-WELL, I NEVER!"

"Yo, Dork-Boy and Cottontail, if you two are done arguing like an old married couple, we have a new friend here that you just assaulted."

The puppet and the boy turned back towards me.

"OH, WHOOPS!" The boy stuck his hand out. "I'M FREDDY! SORRY FOR HITTING Y-Y-YOU WITH MY FRIEND!"

I awkwardly shook his hand. "I'm Baby. And It's fine."

"THIS IS TH-TH-TH... THE FRIEND THAT I HIT Y-YOU WITH! HIS NAME IS BON-BON!" He gestured to his puppet, which I also shook the hand of... for some reason.

"Seasons greetings, Pigtails."

It was the middle of September.

"...Hi."

A man who looked like he hadn't slept for five nights walked past us.

"GOOD MORNING, MR. SCHMIDT!" Freddy greeted.

"Good morning, Mr. Fisher..." Mr. Schmidt mumbled, fumbling with his keys as he attempted to unlock the classroom door.

"We've got some fresh meat here, Schmitty."

"That's really nice, small puppet. I'm gonna let you and your friends give them the class synopsis."

"Figures."

After Mr. Schmidt finally managed to get the door open, Freddy and Leslie dragged me into the classroom.

As it turned out, the classroom was not only in a weird place, but it was also weirdly decorated. Most of the desks were arranged in a "U" shape, which in itself isn't too weird, but the sides of the classroom were decorated with old newspapers, Chinese lanterns, Russian nesting dolls, Christmas lights, and at least four horrendous technicolor rugs.

I was dragged to a table far away from the other desks. It was covered by a cheap purple tablecloth with white stars on it, and a fake vase of flowers that was plopped on top.

"What's with this table?"

"Oh, we were late on the first day and there were no seats left, so we had to sit here. It's pretty great honestly. Perfect place to not pay attention."

"Alright... Follow up question, why does this class smell like pot?"

"Mr. Schmidt likes pot, dude." Leslie shrugged, shoving the fake vase of flowers to the side.

"Makes sense."

Freddy reached into the flower vase and pulled out a packet of salt. "LOOK! I FOUND SALT!"

Leslie placed a hand on his shoulder. "Good job, Fred. Do you want a sticker?"

Freddy thought for a moment before nodding rapidly. "Y-YEAH!"

"Boy, she's not gonna—" Bon-Bon started, but was cut off by Leslie actually pulling a fucking sticker out of her backpack. "Oh my god."

Leslie put the sticker on Freddy's forehead. It was a gold star with, 'good job, motherfucker' printed on it.

"Y-YAY!"

"Why?" I asked.

Leslie shrugged again. "Why not? I have a bunch of them. You want one?"

I was gonna say no, but screw it. "You know what? Sure."

Leslie grinned, "Hell yeah, dude!" She brushed my bangs aside and put a sticker on my forehead too. Rather than saying, 'good job, motherfucker' it said, 'this bitch gets an A+'.

She also stuck a sticker on Bon-Bon.

"I don't care what you say, you're getting one too."

His sticker said, 'holy shit biscuits!' on it.

"What's a shit biscuit?"

As everybody finished filing into the classroom, Mr. Schmidt cleared his throat in the loudest and weirdest way possible. "Alright everyone, class is starting now..."

He talked for five more minutes, gave us a short article to annotate, and then retreated to his desk to eat a bowl of soup.

We all finished annotating the article pretty quickly and just continued to talk for the rest of class.

Freddy and Leslie looked through the rest of my schedule and we ended up having a few other classes together. One of those classes was fourth hour, meaning we had, and I quote, "the honor of sharing lunch with Leslie, the supreme overlord of this mortal world, and her friends Dork-Boy, Smurfie, and the Queen of Spiders."

Wasn't sure who the Queen of Spiders was, but I could figure out the identities of Dork and Smurf.

The bell eventually rang and everyone trampled each other in an attempt to get out of the classroom.

I continued to walk with the friends I had somehow managed to make because apparently, my next class was on the way to theirs.

Leslie stopped me right before I entered my next class. "Wait, man. I wanna do something before I forget. Give me your hand."

"Uhh...alright?"

She took my hand and wrote something on it.

"There you go."

I looked at it.

(555)23-0755

"Text me if you get lost in this dark abyss of a school. Or if you get bored, I guess. I don't fucking care."

"OH! OH! I W-W-W... I W-WANT TO P-PUT NUMBER TOO!" Freddy took my hand and wrote on it too.

HERE YOU GO, FRIEND!

(555)75-0880

'My god, he doesn't just speak in caps lock, he writes in it too.'

"Y'know, you could've written that down on paper, or put it into my phone..."

"Maybe, but where's the fun in that?" Leslie started to drag Freddy down a different hallway before I could respond. "See you during fourth hour, man!"

"BYE, FRIEND!"

"Later, Pigtails."

"Bye..."