Chapter 3 - The Pizza Started It
“So, kids, what shall we do tonight?”
Kyan hoped his dad wouldn’t come up with some wretchedly dull activity and embarrass him in front of the others. They were sprawled out in the living room, sitting quietly: Mr. Pufferly in his armchair, the girls on the sofa, Oliver on the pile of sleeping bags, and Kyan on the floor. The girls looked at each other. Oliver started picking at some melted fabric on one of the bags where it apparently had had a close encounter with a campfire. Kyan scanned the floor, looking for his father’s baseball.
“I know!” continued Mr. Pufferly. “What about a movie and some gosh-golly greasy pizza? Does that sound good?” Kyan exhaled in relief. At least it was a run-of-the-mill, utterly normal suggestion. It even had the possibility of being considered fairly decent, but then…
“How about Bradley Boo Boo’s Big Adventure in the Ghost Corral?”
Kyan couldn’t help but slap his forehead and groan. He hadn’t meant to, but it came out quite loudly.
“All right,” said Mr. Pufferly, “it sounds like we’ll have to work on the movie selection. Why don’t you kids talk it over while I go order the pizza? Pepperoni and mushrooms sound good?”
“I’m allergic to mushrooms, Mr. Pufferly,” peeped Zoe in a tiny, barely-there voice. Kyan wasn’t sure he had heard her correctly.
“What?” he asked.
“I’m allergic to mushrooms,” she repeated, a little louder this time.
Kyan glared at her. Mushrooms were his favorite thing to eat in the whole wide world.
“What would happen to you if you just happen to eat some?” he asked through clenched teeth.
“I break out in really bad hives.” Zoe returned Kyan’s glare with a steady gaze of her own.
“That’s not so bad, let’s get them anyway.”
“Kyan, come on buddy, be nice,” said Mr. Pufferly. “You can have mushrooms another time. Since they are our guests, we should let them decide what they’d like on their pizza and not try to poison them.”
Zoe giggled, and Kyan glared at her again. My, she’s annoying, he thought. He didn’t know much about her other than she was Amanda’s best friend, and she spent a lot of time making up complicated mazes for fun (weird), but he was starting to not like her very much.
“OK, how about this?” said Mr. Pufferly. “Why don’t you each tell me one thing you’d like on the pizza?”
“Olives,” said Amanda.
“Pineapple,” chimed in Zoe.
“Sausage!” came from Oliver.
There was a pause.
“Kyan?” asked Mr. Pufferly.
“Mushrooms.”
“Kyan.”
“Fine, peanuts.”
Zoe raised her hand halfway, as if she were in class and teetering about whether she knew the answer or not. “I’m allergic to peanuts too.”
“Are you KIDDING me?!” exploded Kyan. Was she trying to drive him crazy? Why were girls always doing that? Why couldn’t they just be normal?
“Peanuts are worse,” said Zoe. “Swollen-tongue-can’t-breathe worse.”
“Anaphylactic shock!” Oliver chirped excitedly.
“Yeah,” said Zoe, giving him a funny look.
“Thank you, WebMD!” said Oliver, more to himself than to the room at large.
“Have you tried it recently?” asked Kyan. “Sometimes people grow out of their allergies.”
“She’s allergic to peanuts, Kyan, get over it,” interjected Amanda, coming to Zoe’s defense. “And who puts peanuts on a pizza anyway? That’s gross.”
“Have you even tried it? It’s good! Peanuts are good on lots of things: crushed peanuts with sugar on rice— de-licious! Mac ‘n cheese spring rolls with peanut sauce! I can’t even tell you—I could eat that all day!”
“That’s not food!” Amanda’s face contorted in disgust.
“Really? You’re telling me that? Miss I’ll-pretty-much-eat-anything-and-everything?”
“Hey, just because I love food doesn’t mean I’ll eat anything.”
“Well, I like peanuts on my pizza, and if either of you had any taste, so would you!”
“She can’t eat them.”
“And your point is…?”
“You’re mentally damaged!”
“Oh yeah? Well… YOU’RE a monkey’s criminally insane toe cheese!”
“What does that even mean?” Amanda snarled.
“ALL RIGHT, THAT’S ENOUGH.” They both shut up. Mr. Pufferly only raised his voice for very rare special occasions—the not-good kind of special—and these occasions usually ended with some extremely boring brand of punishment. Amanda and Kyan glared at each other in silence.
“That’s better. Now Kyan, you know that Pizza Pals doesn’t have peanuts anyway, so could you please just pick something else?” Kyan’s mouth opened. “And don’t say mushrooms,” Mr. Pufferly added. Kyan’s mouth closed. Girls and their nonsensical allergies! He didn’t know how and he didn’t know when, but revenge was imminent.
~~~~~
Two hours and thirty-eight minutes later, after an olive-pineapple-sausage-and-anchovy pizza and Bradley Boo Boo’s Great Adventure in the Ghost Corral (the kids couldn’t agree on a movie, so Mr. Pufferly had to take over), everyone prepared to set up camp in the living room. Well, everyone except Kyan, that is. He was doing his best impression of a saintly child who would never dream of getting into any sort of trouble.
“Father, dear Father, I would very much like it if Oliver and I could spend the night in my room, as is our custom.”
“Kyan, dear Kyan, no. Please get ready for bed.”
“If we might discuss this further—”
“It’s not up for discussion,” interjected Mr. Pufferly, “so please go brush your teeth.”
Kyan exhaled in exasperation.
“You’re just going to stay there on the couch and watch us sleep?”
“Like a hawk.”
“Dad, seriously.”
“Seriously.”
“Daaaad.”
“Yeeees?”
“Seriously.”
“You should try to stay away from redundancy in your speech, buddy.”
Kyan’s face screwed up into a question mark, which made his father smile.
“Now go brush your teeth,” said Mr. Pufferly, ruffling Kyan’s hair.
“OK, fine. Come on, Oliver.” The boys trudged down the hall and into the bathroom.
“This is so not cool,” Kyan complained as he reached for his electric toothbrush. Oliver looked wistfully at his own old-fashioned manual toothbrush. The fact that he had to actually move his hand in a circular motion to clean his teeth made him feel so very behind the times.
“This whole night has been the complete opposite of fun,” continued Kyan. “It’s bad enough that the girls are sleeping over, but they also had to sabotage the pizza, make us watch a baby movie, and now we have to stay in the living room with my dad.”
“It was your dad’s idea to watch Bradley Boo Boo,” said Oliver, as he slowly squeezed toothpaste onto the frayed bristles of his very ancient toothbrush.
“Yes, but it’s their fault for not agreeing to watch Chief Agent Super Spy Tiny Guy…in London.”
“All right, sure, but it could be a lot worse. Amanda is really good at making life miserable, so let’s just leave it alone and try not to make anyone mad, OK?”
“But they’re already making me mad. We have to get back at them.”
“What? No, that’s really not a good idea.”
“We can’t just pretend like they didn’t do anything.”
The wheels in Kyan’s head started turning…extremely slowly, but nevertheless the motion had begun.
“Yes, we can. Let it go,” Oliver urged.
“No way, bud. Nope, no can do, not going to happen.”
“No really, let it pass. If you just let it pass, it’ll save you so much grief in the future.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know, but my mom says that to my dad all the time. Besides, I read on multiple wellness websites that you should learn to embrace forgiveness. Holding onto grudges—or any kind of negative energy—is really bad for your overall health.”
Mr. Pufferly’s faraway voice interrupted their exchange.
“Kyan, I don’t hear your toothbrush working.”
“Argh, this stinking toothbrush,” growled Kyan. “I don’t even want to brush my teeth, and you know what? I’m not going to!”
“But your dad can—”
“Here, want to use my toothbrush?”
“YES!” Oliver grabbed the electric toothbrush and smothered its bristles in red-white-and-blue striped Super Spy Tiny Guy toothpaste. Some of the goo dribbled onto his chin as he shoved the overflowing toothbrush head into his mouth. The motor started up, and Oliver’s mouth was happily buzzing toward minty-fresh breath.
Meanwhile, Kyan had become lost in thought. His head suddenly popped up and turned toward the doorway.
“Did you hear that?”
“Herr wha?” asked Oliver, his mouth full of foaming freshness still being churned by the rotating/vibrating/super-gyrating magic tooth wand.
Without another word, Kyan ninja-crept to the doorway and popped his head into the hall. Oliver could see him out of the corner of his eye but remained too happily engrossed in his current activity to pay much attention to the odd behavior of his best friend.
Kyan looked up the hallway. Nothing. Kyan looked down the hallway. More nothing. Kyan looked up the hallway again. Still nothing. He backed up into the bathroom and shut the door.
“It’s the girls,” he whispered.
“Wha?” The two-minute brush cycle had expired a short while ago, but Oliver was on his second round. He figured he should take advantage of this opportunity to really, really get his teeth an optimal level of clean.
“I heard a door… It’s the girls, I just know it.”
“Yoh kwazy.”
“They’re trying to scare us or something. Ha! Trying to scare us. What, are they insane? Taking on the impossible. We don’t get scared.”
The buzzing stopped abruptly, signifying the end of the second two-minute cycle, but Oliver could still feel his face vibrating. He spit into the sink and turned on the tap to rinse out his mouth.
“I get scared,” said Oliver, wiping his chin.
“But not really—we’re boys, we don’t get real scared.”
“What’s the difference?”
Kyan thought for a moment.
“Well, it’s extremely minor, but… It’s like… Look, it’s hard to explain—just believe me, there’s a difference. Now help me think of something we can do to them.”
“I still don’t think—” But Oliver didn’t get to finish his thought. At that very moment, the door flew open and in marched Amanda, with Zoe hovering close behind.
“What are you guys doing in here, plucking your nose hairs?” asked Amanda, a huge smirk on her face.
“HEY! What’s the big idea?” Kyan spat angrily. “Don’t you knock? You can’t just go barging in on people, especially in a bathroom!”
“Whatever, you guys were taking for-ever, so your dad told us to come check on you. We’re here to let you know that it’s no use, your noses will still be disgusting.”
“Ha-ha, very funny,” said Kyan sarcastically.
“Now get out because it’s our turn.”
“Well, it’s my house, so we can stay in here as long as we want.”
“Do you really want me to make you leave?” Amanda whispered in a low, sinister voice.
“I’d really like to see you try,” Kyan growled.
“Miiiiiiiii-ster Puuuufferleeeeeeeeee,” she sang out in an extra sweet, extra girly voice.
Mr. Pufferly’s voice drifted down the hallway.
“Yes?”
“OK, fine, we’re leaving,” snarled Kyan, “but you’ll regret this. Let’s go, Oliver.”
“Ooh, I’m sca-aAa-aAared,” said Amanda, pretending to shake like a leaf. She smiled triumphantly. “Never mind, Mr. Pufferly,” she called out.
Kyan fumed as he trudged down the hall with Oliver, heading back to the living room. He imagined plumes of steam billowing out of his ears, he was so mad. Who did she think she was? He would show her what happened to people who messed with Kyan Pufferly. He would show her… Later, once he thought of something to do to her… and to Zoe too, of course.
