Chex Mix

“Seth! Why did you set the oven to 700 degrees?!”

“I’m sorry! I didn’t know!” he yells as we hightail our asses to the nearest exit.

“What?! The recipe was right there!” I bark back, pumping my legs faster.

“I spilled pudding on it, okay?!” he wheezes.

“The recipe didn’t call for pudding!”

“What if I like pudding—“

And then there’s this really weird sound from behind us. Like, something just blew up. Seth and I both squeal to a stop and look at each other. “It hit the science labs,” I whisper/yell over the alarms, my eye involuntarily twitching.

We are in some serious shit.

And so we scream, put our hands up in the air like we’re on a rollercoaster, and continue running until Seth smashes into a blonde girl coming out of the girl’s bathroom. “Aw, crap!” He drags himself off her and she starts bitching at him, and yet all I can think is that she’s really pretty. And she looks really familiar. Like, I’ve seen her around before and it’s like I have this really important memory of her—Oh! Right! The nurse’s office. And Ananda’s her too. Whoa. It’s like a family reunion—except not.

And then I remember that the science labs next to cooking 101 has just blown up. “No time for bickering,” I warn Seth anxiously, pushing on his back with most of my weight, looking back behind us cautiously. “We gotta gooo.”

And so he weaves around the blonde and starts fast walking/jogging/what really looks like skipping and so do Ananda and I. The blondie is seething behind us, but I think it just makes her all that more pretty.

Ahem.

“What’s going on?” Ananda asks, frowning at me.

“Uh… Nothing,” I fib.

“Is it a real fire?” she asks again, getting a little louder.

“I’m sorry!” Seth wails and starts running again.

“Wait up!” Ananda and I shout and bolt after him.

“Why the hell are you running?!” the blonde screams behind us.

Seth pushes through the doors and we follow closely behind, only to see his backside flip over some poor girl on the grass outside. He garbles something to the ground, sits up, takes one look at the girl he tripped over, and then falls back down.

“Seth?” she asks and then looks back at us. And that’s when I notice it’s that other girl from the office that was all shaky and next to her is—oh. The guy who has a death wish.

This really is a family reunion—but not.

“So…” I say after I catch my breath, and wave with one arm. “How’s it going?”