Be a Man

The thing that irritated me most out of the school day wasn’t making such a stupid deal with him. It was what he called as I started walking away from him after making the deal.

“I won’t need luck, baby, I’ll just need you!”

I felt my cheeks flare up instantly and refused the urge to turn around and slap him across the face, since the vice principal was standing right there. So that’s when I chose to walk away without another glance in his direction. Hailey, being the brilliant friend she is, laughed the whole way to the table, then explained when they asked why she was laughing.

And they all started laughing at the sour look on my face.

But what can I say? They’re my friends, and I love them.

Sometimes I love them like the gum on the bottom of my shoe, but hey, what can you do?

“So…whatcha wanna do?” Hailey asked good-naturedly as we lay in a heap on my bed - me, Haily, Sara, Brandon, and Josh.

Well, not really a heap, just…Sara was sitting up leaning against the head of the bed with Josh’s head in her lap, and Brandon was laying across the foot with my head on his stomach, and Hailey was laying across my stomach with her head propped on her elbows on one side of me and her feet on Sara’s outstretched legs. So what if we’re one screwed up group of friends? Every single one of us claimed to be comfortable.

Claimed.

“Movie?” Josh suggested half-heartedly.

“Nah,” Brandon and Hailey both said, and I grunted my agreement with them.

“Arcade?” Hailey shrugged, then at our refusals, said, “I got nothing.”

“Swimming?” Sara asked.

“It closes in an hour,” Brandon sighed, “or else I’d so be there.”

“Stupid pool with it’s closing at six,” I sighed. “And just when high school students need to be relieved of boredom!”

“How about golf?” Brandon said jokingly.

“No.” Every single one of us - minus Brandon, of course - said simultaneously.

“Man, this is going to get old fast,” Hailey said. “This whole, ‘nothing to do’ or ‘can’t think of anything to do’ routine.”

“Totally, Hails,” I sighed. Then I said, out of the blue, “Paintball?”

“YES!” Josh flew up, and I heard Brandon’s whoop of agreement. Not that he couldn’t shoot up in the air like Josh had, but he was more considerate of the people around him.

“I’m up for it,” Hailey mused. “We haven’t done that one for a long time.”

“Eighth grade?” Sara mused. “Right after we met this idiot.”

She gave Josh a playful whack upside the head.

“Paintball it is!” I said, then, “Hails, if you don’t get off of Sara, then she can’t go, and if you don’t get off of me then Brandon and I can’t go.”

We all kind of laughed as Hailey picked up her butt and did a sort-of somersault off of the bed and landed perfectly on her feet.

“Aaaand she sticks the landing!” Brandon said for dramatic effect as he sat up after I had done so.

We laughed on our way down the stairs, and I told Mom - who was in the kitchen starting to make a salad - that we’d be back in about two hours, covered in paint and in need of showers. She just laughed and said it was okay, and that our dinner would be ready by then. They were all crashing in my living room tonight, since we got out early tomorrow for no reason whatsoever that we could figure out, and we were going to have ourselves ridiculously worn out by the time we got home from our plans for tomorrow afternoon.
There was a carnival in the next town over, and we planned to spend the whole afternoon there. Can you say, spinning rides and funnel cakes and fun? I know I can - I just did.

School dragged on and on, considering that it ran a few hours shorter than usual. But finally we were free.

“HERE WE COME!” Brandon cried, the coffee kick he’d got on this morning at my house seeming to still be in place. Never, ever give Brandon coffee. Especially not when you have a few classes with him. The teacher gets a wee bit frustrated.

For example, let’s take second hour math, where he’d babbled for sixteen minutes straight about where the teacher had messed up in the quadratic equation before the teacher got fed up with him. Austin had been silently laughing right beside me, whereas Brandon was on the other side.

“ ‘Brandon Quigley! What has gotten into you? Did someone give you coffee again?’ ”

To which Brandon quite happily replied, “ ‘Anna did, sir!’ ”

No more coffee for you, then, Mr. Tell-all!

“WOOHOO!” Hailey flew out the doors right after Brandon.

“Geez, guys, calm down, I laughed at their antics.

“COTTON CANDY!” Brandon cheered.

“FUNNEL CAKES!” Hailey added.

“CORNDOGS!” Brandon cheered again.

“THE AWESOMEST EASY-TO-SET-UP RIDES EVER!” Hailey practically screamed.

By now, everyone in the parking lot was staring or laughing. It’s not like they didn’t have the same idea, but my friends were just a bit more vocal about it. Okay, okay, so it was a lot more vocal. But I wasn’t about to stop them. I was glad they were doing it so I didn’t have to…it livened the atmosphere up like beer and a bonfire. Or so I’ve heard.

“Carnival!” Josh sighed as we got to my four door truck. “Here we come.”

“I ALREADY SAID THAT!” Brandon cried, practically in my ear.

“Calm down just a wee bit,” I laughed. “You don’t want a deaf chauffer, do you?”

“No, ma’am!” Brandon said quickly, throwing a salute as Josh and Sara elected to sit in the back voluntarily, and Brandon joined them so Hailey had her usual seat in shotgun. I started the truck and Brandon and Hailey both let off one last excited squeal and we pulled out of the school parking lot.

We had in a mixed CD on the way there, of which our first song was Linkin Park’s Breaking the Habit. Brandon belted it out, and I chuckled as I glimpsed him dancing awkwardly in his seat with his seatbelt on. I hummed along, and after the first verse, Hailey let out an, “Oh, what the hell!” and joined in with vigor. Then the song from Cinderella that I never remember the name to but I like it anyway, and then another song from some random Disney movie, then Chicken Fried…which we all stopped any conversation to belt out.

Afterwards, we all had a nice laughing fit, receiving a weird look from an old white-haired lady at a randomly placed four way stop in the country between our town and the one the carnival was in…which only made us laugh more, and it was simultaneously decided that we would sing as many of the songs as we knew lyrics to just to see the reaction we would get.

Then, Hailey and I squealed loudly at exactly the same time as Brandon’s “HELL YES!” when Her Diamonds came on. I wasted no time in blaring our favorite song of the moment as we pulled into the carnival’s parking