P.S. I Hate You

“What the flip?” It’s morning and I’m flipping through the mail. We usually forget about it, so once a week or so I manage to recall and grab everything- which usually includes tons of crap and bills. Nothing for me, except for this.

It just says my name and address… but no stamp, no return address. It smells like… no seriously, it smells. I lift the thick envelope, and sniff. Ew. Dead meat or something. My little brother is watching me with a strange face. Well, I can’t blame him- who smells their mail, honestly?

Cautiously, though, I decide to open it. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” I mutter. “What the heck?”

“What?” Benji asks, curious.

“It’s bologna!”

“Bologna?” He repeats doubtfully.

I gag. “Covered in mold!” I shove it in the trash hurriedly, and go wash my hands. “That was so disgusting!” I shudder, rubbing my red hands.

“Who sent it?” He asks, cocking his head.

I raise my eyebrow. Who would send it? It’s totally obvious. No note, just dead meat. Not to mention my name was spelled wrong, and there wasn’t a stamp- it was just shoved in the box. So apparent it was Caleb. The devil’s spawn. He must have been adopted, cause his family’s nice and he… is… very much something else.

Benji can’t know, though. I can’t disappoint the kid, you know? He loves Caleb. I don’t know how, but apparently the dude knows how to act, and maybe Benji just needed an guy model that was a little better than Gerald. So I don’t blame him… too much. Still. When I kill Caleb, I won’t feel a bit sorry.

Groaning, I glance at the time, finding a way to distract my brother. “School time,” I remind him, grabbing his lunch. “Put it in your bag and get your shoes, little man.” I hurriedly find a banana and fix a pathetic sandwich for myself before finding some shoes, running into the door, stubbing my toe, and we’re headed out to school.

“Well you’re just a brat!” I retort to him. It was supposed to be some class presentation about safety of all types. Leah was talking about fire, and Caleb gave a sneaky insult my way, and that started us off again.

“Oh please,” he scoffs. “I mean, really. It’s just water. You couldn’t put out a fire if you tried. In fact, I’m sure you caused that school fire two years ago.”

Okay, that’s true, but it was totally on accident. All the same, I hate for it. “Liar!” I stomp towards where he stood up- our teacher, as always, watches us in awe- as I grab the extinguisher. Feeling hot anger pushing the adrenaline going, I unjam it, point the nozzle and pull the lever.

“You little-” he spits out the crap and I spray some more. But he keeps walking forward, trying to yell at me. The class is egging us on, and as usual it really helps. “Shiloh, you better-” he grabs the nozzle, turning it on me. I duck, but it catches my hair and he turns it down to get my shoes.

“You rat!” I screech, trying to turn it back on him. I step forward, trying to shove it in his mouth, but it’s slippery and I start falling. Still holding onto the canister, he comes down with me. The fall hurts and will probably leave a bruise, but I don’t care. I’m too focused on trying to get my revenge, thank you very much.

“Get off!”

“You get off!”

“Stop that!”

“Shove off!”

“Up yours!”

“Oh please, this is high school, prat!”

“SHUT UP!”

We freeze. We tend to do that when someone is louder than the two of us. Above us, arms crossed with their ankles covered in the foam, stands our principle and vice principle. My heart thuds. Well, this can’t be good.