Love Me or Hate Me

This, unfortunately, was the last day of my joint solitary with Magnet. It was nice to have a week off, even if it was with Magnet. During the week of our punishment Magnet and I had to go directly to the mess hall. The first day of our punishment I tried to get a few extra hours of sleep by completely ignoring the morning alarm, but the warden wasn’t having that. When she heard that I was still in bed she immediately went to the tent and woke me up saying that even though I wasn’t digging, I still had to get up when the boys did, that was part of my “punishment”.

Over the week of our punishment, even though when it started I hated him, Magnet and I slowly began acting decent towards one another, at least in public. I was completely bored the whole time. Magnet wouldn’t play me in another game of cards, for fear I would want to make another bet, and that left me staring at the wall the whole time. The only comfort I had was the fact that Magnet was just as bored as I was, sitting in the silence of the mess hall until it was time for dinner.

I looked at the back of Magnet’s head, glaring at it, when I heard some light snores coming from his table. I got up from my table and walked over to his. Magnet had his arms folded on the table and his head down on top of his arms. I knew he couldn’t be asleep.

“Magnet?” I called lightly.

When I got no answer I lifted his head up a little bit so I could see his face. His eyes were closed and his mouth was open slightly with drool running from it. He was really asleep.

“Magnet?” I called again.

Again, I got no answer. Suddenly a plan for a sweet joke formed itself in my mind. Now granted, it was risky. He could wake up while I was doing it and I’d be caught, then I’ll be SOL (shit out of luck) and he’ll be pissed and we’ll probably end up right back here. I shrugged it off. I’ll wait until after he’s out of my control to do that particular trick. For now, I’ll do something safe.

I slowly sat Magnet back as far as I could without making him fall off the bench. I held his face steady in one hand while I reached in my pocket with the other, pulling out a pen. I uncapped the pen with my teeth and brought the pen to his face slowly, stopping when I was about an inch away. I took the time to admire how handsome he looked while he was sleeping. My mind immediately thought back to that day I saw him without a shirt and was soon followed by a plethora of dirty thoughts. I shook my head in an attempt to rid myself of those thoughts and went back to work.

I brought the pen closer to his face and carefully drew half a moustache and a goatee. I also connected his eyebrows and drew big glasses on his face and wrote various words on whatever room I could find on his forehead, cheeks and chin. I know this was childish, bur he wouldn’t let me play cards and I was bored. This entertained me for the time being. I drew a few more things on his face before recapping the pen and going back to my table to resume staring at the wall.

I was counting the tiles on the ceiling when I heard the voices of the boys first returning from the lake. I looked towards the door in time to see Curly entering the mess hall. He looked at me before scanning around the room.

“It’s okay,” I said while standing up. “He’s sleep.”

“Oh,” he replied. “Come on.”

He walked out of the mess hall and I followed him to the rec. room. It was relatively empty seeing as most of the boys were still on the lake. He and I immediately went to the pool table.

“Rack ‘em up,” I said retrieved the sticks from the wall.

Curly immediately placed all the balls on the table in a triangular shape. I leaned over the table to get a good shot and broke the formation the balls were in. I watched as they scattered all over the table.

Curly and I were well into the game when the rest of the boys began to pile into the rec. room. They left Curly and I to the pool table while the rest of them did whatever. We were all in our own little worlds when Magnet had entered. The entire room went silent.

“What?” he asked, his Spanish accent noticeable.

Curly looked at me, then back to Magnet. With I slight smile on my face, I nodded slowly and looked toward Magnet as well. He walked further into the rec. room, oblivious to the various pen marks on his face and it seemed as if no one was going to point his attention to it. I looked around the room and noticed that most of the boys were trying to hold in their laughter. Some of them were doing a horrible job.

“What you laughing at?” Magnet questioned a boy who threw caution to the wind and was laughing uncontrollably.

“Your- your face!” the boy managed to squeak out between bouts of laughter.

Magnet stared down at the boy quizzically before looking up to face the rest of camp. He looked around the room before he spotted what he was looking for. I watched as he began to walk in the direction of what was left of a mirror that was attached to a nail that hung on the wall. I took that as my cue to go. As he was approaching the mirror, I soundlessly stepped out of the rec. room know that nothing good would happen if I had stayed. I decided I would go lay down. I wasn’t expecting anyone to be in the tent, so I was a little surprised when I saw Barfbag.

“I’m sorry, I thought everyone would be in the rec. room,” I said while walking over to my cot and flopping down on it.

“That’s why I came in here. I just needed to be by myself.”

I looked over at Barfbag. He was sitting on his cot slouched over. His eyes were sunken in and he just looked sad.

“Barfbag are you okay?” I asked from my place on the cot.

He looked at me and a smile instantly graced his face. “I’m fine Cannon. I’m-”

I never got to hear what else he said. He was cut off by a piercing and angry voice bellowing my name so loud that it shook the whole tent. I looked in the direction of the tent door just in time to see a steaming mad Magnet walk through it, flanked by the rest of D tent and some C and F tent members.