Here's part 2 of the short story I've been writing, Pancake Diner:
Mark broke it first. “Did…did she just
tell us something about herself without any kind of coercing or conniving
necessary?”
“I think she did. What does this mean?
Is it one of seven signs of the apocalypse or something?”
Mark glanced out the window. “Maybe,
but I don’t see anything apocalyptic going on outside.”
Amber kicked me underneath the table,
catching me right in the shin, and cutting my laugh off in the middle. I looked
at her and she gave me a wink, but not your ordinary “ha-ha, I just hit you for
laughing” wink. When Amber winked, it was like the very gods (or goddesses, for
Mark’s sake) had come down from heaven just to grace this one shutting and
reopening of an eye lid. Her sage green eyes would sparkle, and as one eye was
covered by her hair, you could just see the corner of her mouth curl up into a,
as Dan puts it, knock-your-socks-off smile. Even though she was a quiet person,
she only ever had to wink to be a flirt. The involuntary grunt I made from
getting my shin bruised seemed to rouse Dan from his shock-induced coma, and he
exclaimed.
“We’ve got to put Amber into a fighting
competition!” All the sudden outbursts seemed to have attracted Marge’s
attention as she returned to our table.
“Is everything alright over here?” She
asked, as I felt my understanding of the word “disgruntled” expand vastly.
“Yeah, we’re fine, Marge. Thanks for
asking,” Mark said, as if the rap battle had somehow unlocked a confidence that
the yesterday Mark never displayed.
“Anything wrong with the food?”
Marge gestured to our four untouched plates of pancakes.
“Oh, no. It’s fine,” I quickly
replied. “We’ve just been a little distracted from eating.” Marge made no sign
of hearing, turning away from the table to return to her post behind the
counter of the diner.
“Dan, we shouldn’t enter Amber into a
fighting competition. That makes it sound like she’s an animal-“
“Which would make it dog fighting or
cock fighting.” Mark added.
“And that’s horrifically wrong.
Besides, fighting competitions are, like, incredibly dangerous, right?” I asked
Amber.
“If you’re going solely off of The Karate Kid, sure,” Dan quipped,
rousing a bout of laughter from the rest of us.
“While Daniel-san’s is a rare case,”
Amber started, taking a drink of water, “Nate’s not totally wrong. People can
get easily and seriously hurt during those things.” She gave me a quick smile, then
she went back to eating her pancakes.
“But she’s awesome at it! She could
totally win!” Dan retorted. Time for a
miracle, I thought, as I made eye contact with Amber and Mark.
“I haven’t had a lesson in four years,
Dan. The people in the competitions have been training since they were like
five years old, and they haven’t had a knee surgery.” She took another bite of
pancake.
“But…” Dan looked at Mark, who shook
his head.
“But…” he looked to me, and I mimicked
Mark.
“Sorry, dude. That’s 3 to 1, and you
agreed at the spring festival that you need at least 50% of the group to agree
for us to try one of your ideas.” Dan sighed, and he looked almost visibly
deflated.
“Alright.” He mumbled.
Holy. Crap. For the first time in three
years, we successfully convinced Dan away from a crazy, hair-brained idea. The
last time was when Dan wanted us to come to his grandparents’ house over the
summer and try deep-sea fishing. To be fair, our parents shot that one down,
but in our minds, it still counted.
“So, it’s three in the morning, and
we’re eating pancakes in a 24-hour diner,” Mark began. “How on earth did we get
here? Didn’t today start with a spring festival at school?”
“Yeah, but I think we all know why we
left,” Dan smirked. “Nate asked us to leave, and so we took a vote, and he won.
That took us to the police station to bail out Amber’s boyfriend.”
“Hey, by the way, how many vandalism
charges does it take to rack up a three thousand dollar bail?” I shot him a
look, knowing Amber wasn’t too happy about that being brought up. He saw it,
glanced at Amber, and cleared his throat. “Wh-which is why we need to find a
way to get money,” Mark nodded to Dan, and the dug into his pancakes. Dan
picked up the conversation baton.
“That’s when I found out about the rap
battle! We went to the abandoned warehouse–“
“Such a stereotypical place to host a
rap battle,” interjected Amber.
“And Mark entered himself into the
competition.” Which was a huge surprise to all of us.
“From there, Mark went through a couple
rounds, and then when it came time for the final round, we got our asses handed
to us by Michael and George, rapper and hypeman duo extraordinaire.” I said.
See y'all around!
DFTBA
