The Key Chased the Blade

Simon and I loped down the street and munched on our candy. I had my usual Butterfinger and he had his Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. It was a stupid candy, in my opinion. I hated them ever since Simon gave me a half-opened package in grade school and it melted in my pocket. It gooped all over my gum and got pocket lint stuck on the gum wrappers. It was like I pulled out something from the pits of Hell, especially in my dad's perspective when he asked what the chocolate peanut buttery thing in my pocket was. I showed him and was just as surprised as he was. I hadn't yet discovered that body heat melts things until that particular moment.

I dropped the wrapper on the side of the street when I was done. Simon raised his eyebrows and picked it up. "Noah, seriously?"

"Someone else will get it." I licked my fingers. "Or it'll decompose."

"In about a hundred years. I don't even know why I put up with you." Simon started to laugh. He would laugh when others would glare at me. I had no idea why, I would glare at me too; he just thought I was hilarious for some reason. Simon and his stupid dorky laugh.

I stuck out my tongue at him and he rolled his eyes. A dog barked at us from behind a fence. Simon turned his attention to it and smiled.

"Hello, beautiful," Simon said. God. He was insane sometimes. The big, slobbering pitbull continued to bark.

"You're crazy," I told him.

"Not as crazy as you for attempting to ruin the Earth."

"God, you won't let that go, huh?"

"Nope."

He'd probably keep bringing it up for a week and then forget about it.

We passed by a house where a lady was washing clothes in the lawn. She had a bucket and everything, like one of those freakin' old time shows or whatnot. And she was washing a sweatshirt from Abercrombie and Fitch. God. What bad taste. And it had a hole in the pocket. At least I sewed mine up when they got like that.

"Have you finished the history project yet?" Simon asked. "I've got all the information, we can make the Power Point at school."

"Yeah, don't worry, I've got my information too." I wasn't really paying attention to him. Jesus, the stupid sweatshirt was covered in stains. Like freakin' massive spaghetti stains too. Okay, I was done. Enough with the weird lady and the sweatshirt. I focused back on Simon, and he was tugging at his hair. He'd do that a lot when he was distracted or whatever. That was the reason why his hair went all directions at once. He looked like a blond-haired Einstein with a brown birthmark on his forehead. But no one ever saw that part.

"We need to figure out what we're going to say in our speech," Simon said. He pulled his hair and made an awkward chunk of it fluff out. I swear he was completely oblivious to these kinds of things; he was organized everywhere else in his life. "I've still got the outline Mrs. Posner gave us."

"I lost mine." I had actually shredded it. I hated Mrs. Posner and all her outlines. Simon stopped pulling his hair and I scowled at him. "God, Simon, your hair's screwed up, stop for a freaking second." I planted myself in front of him on the sidewalk and fixed the tangled mass. It still looked like a hurricane had blown through it, but at least it was back to my standards. "What am I, your mom?" I huffed.

"Sometimes it seems like it." He smiled his stupid dorky smile at me and I gave him the best ugly scowl I could manage. We still acted like we were seven years old at some times. "Do you want to go back to my house and work on the speech?"

"No, but I'll do it for you and my grades," I said. Simon just grinned and we trekked back to his house. For some reason I could still hear that lady wringing out the sweatshirt.