Jay walked to school alone. He'd lingered in front of Cerise’s house for a while but she never appeared. When he got to school he found her at her locker. She must have left pretty early.
“Hey,” he said brightly, peering out from behind her locker door and delivering a goofy grin.
“Hey,” she replied.
“So did you have a good time on the ski trip?” he asked tentatively.
“Yeah actually, I had an excellent time.”
“Oh cool. We had fun too. We skipped and we went to Karl’s cabane and it was hilarious! Willy got drunk and he passed out in the snow but before that he cried. I’m serious. Balled like a baby. We have photos to prove it. We put them on facebook, did you see?
“Yeah, hilarious.”
“Willy is so pissed! It was awesome! I wish we had video of him crying, ‘cause it was mega…”
“Hey Cerise,” said Sarah, approaching with the other Green Girls.
“Hey!” Cerise smiled and slammed her locker, going off with the girls. “See ya, Jay,” she called out as an afterthought.
What the hell?
At lunch it was more of the same. Cerise totally walked by their table and went to sit with the enviro squad.
“What the hell?” said Willy, all pissed off.
“Seriously, why is she totally ignoring us?” asked Jay.
“She’s clearly a Green Girl now,” said Karl matter-of-factly.
“Well it happened,” nodded Vani. “We’ve been rejected. It was just a matter of time. I guess it’s as it should be.”
“The natural order of the universe has been restored,” agreed Karl.
“This sucks!” whined Willy.
“Relax you guys,” said Jay. “She hasn’t rejected us. She’s just hanging with them because…”
Karl pushed his glasses up on his nose and smiled. “Because she’s joined the green team. There’s no other explanation. Why else would anyone hang with the Green Girls? She’s gone, Jay, face it! She’s gone green!”
“You should talk,” smirked Vani, noting Karl’s entirely green wardrobe.
“My affiliation with the colour green has nothing to do with my views on the environment.”
“What’s it about then?” asked Willy.
“I don’t know, Willy,” said Karl. “What’s that pain in your hand about?”
“What?”
Karl slammed his fist down onto Willy’s hand and Willy cringed.
“So I guess my plan backfired,” said Vani. “Trying to be cool had the reverse effect.”
“Which just proves that it’s impossible for us to ever become cool. The harder we try the more majorly we fail,” said Karl.
“Our day of debauchery had nothing to do with Cerise rejecting us. Not that she’s even rejecting us. I mean she doesn’t even know what we did! Besides, she’s not rejecting us!” insisted Jay.
“She may not have witnessed the debauchery but perhaps she sensed it with her female psychic powers,” mused Vani.
“She’s not Deanna Troi. She just saw the facebook pics,” said Willy. “And she thinks it’s totally lame how you guys were such assholes to me and that’s why she doesn’t wanna be friends with you guys anymore!”
They all stared at Willy like he was retarded, which he was.
They went through the run rather half-heartedly and even though Karl wanted to game once they got to the wall, the rest of them wanted to keep discussing the Cerise situation.
“You know this just proves my theory that women are naturally vindictive,” said Vani.
“And who’s ass did you pull that one out of?” asked Jay.
“Willy’s obviously since there’s so much room,” said Karl.
“My theory is proven!” insisted Vani.
“No, she was just hanging out with us to be nice. But now she’s met real people and we must return to our roots,” said Karl. “Roll-off time.”
“We never left our roots,” said Jay.
“Vindictive by nature I tell ya.”
“You’re never gonna get a girlfriend,” said Jay.
Vani nodded. “One: That’s true. Two: The relevance escapes me. Three: I don’t even care because four: Vindictive by nature!”
Cerise and her gang of Greens came walking down the hall and Cerise said hi to them but then she went into student union with her new posse. She came out a while later and put up a poster and threatened their lives if they tore it down or defaced it. Once she was gone, Vani wondered if they should mess with it. Jay didn’t think so but Karl said they couldn’t exactly not. They were pretty much obliged to do something.
“Not only should we take it down, we should shit all over it and throw it back in her face,” said Willy.
“Way to keep things in perspective, Willy.” Jay rolled his eyes.
“Well we should do something,” he sulked.
“Like cry for our mommies?”
Karl considered this. “We should… not cry for our mommies like Willy the wacktard but we should do something. Let’s go to the library.”
“Why? Is Willy’s mommy there?” asked Vani.
“Possibly but we’re going to get some magazines.”
“Oh my god, you guys are such a cute couple.”
“I know!”
“So you guys are like officially going out, right?”
“Yeah, it’s like official, right? You’re like officially girlfriend and boyfriend?”
“I guess so,” said Cerise. “I don’t know, I mean, how do you know?”
“Well he’s not macking on other chicks,” said Sarah. “I think his record for longevity with a girl was Christina Penna. They were together for over a month.”
“Well I certainly hope we’ll beat that record,” said Cerise.
“In a way you already have,” said Sarah.
“How so?”
“Well, you guys first went out in October, right?”
“Yeah, Halloween.”
“And then you went out again in November. And now it’s practically March. I mean, I know you guys weren’t together for most of that time but Terry was interested in you for all of that time.”
“Oh my god, that’s totally true,” said Steph.
“It totally is,” agreed Mel.
“That’s like four months.”
“But we weren’t even speaking. For all I know he was macking on tons of other chicks like all through December and January.”
“He wasn’t!” insisted Sarah. “I saw him at Karine’s New Year’s party. He kissed Christina Penna and even went upstairs with her but he came down two seconds later. Like he obviously totally blew her off. And then he left with Karine but they’re just friends.”
“How do we know that?”
“She came back without him. She probably just drove him home or something. Besides, you can always tell if a girl has hooked up with Terry. Karine hasn’t been there. And Christina hasn’t been there since the beginning of the year.”
“Do you think Erica’s been there?” asked Mel.
“Pfft, she wishes,” scoffed Sarah.
“Seriously, Terry hates Erica,” confirmed Cerise.
“Does anyone not hate Erica?” asked Steph.
They all paused for a moment and then giggled with glee. Suddenly an envelope was slipped under the door. Sarah picked it up. It was addressed to the Green Girls. They opened it and shredded paper fell out. There was also a note written out in letters cut from magazines.
IF YOU EVER WANT TO SEE THE REST OF YOUR PRECIOUS
POSTER AGAIN YOU WILL PRINT UP ONE HUNDRED
LEAFLETS DENOUNCING ECOLOGICAL AWARENESS
“What the hell?”
“Seriously, what the fuck?”
“It’s a ransom note for our Earth Day poster,” explained Cerise. “It’s obviously from the guys.”
“Who?
“Karl Weber, Jason Harris, Vani Ameeriar and William Watts,” said Sarah.
“That is so retarded!”
“Kinda funny though,” giggled Cerise.
“God, how do they even come up with this stuff?” smirked Sarah.
“Well, two can play this game,” smiled Cerise, narrowing her eyes.
“Oh?” asked Sarah.
“We’re gonna need duct tape.”
The next day Vani was minding his own business, heading towards the cafeteria for lunch when Cerise and her Green Squad of crazitude attacked him with no provocation whatsoever. The Greens each took hold of one of his arms while Cerise placed a piece of duct tape over his mouth. He mumbled in protest but didn’t struggle much as they dragged him into student union. After all, this was the most action he’d ever gotten from a girl ever so he might as well go with it.
Once they started wrapping duct tape around his legs, he tried to push them away but he couldn’t match the strength of four determined girls. It wasn’t long before he was immobilized by a swaddling of silver tape.
Besides being short, Vani was also quite skinny and barely weighed more than 100 lbs. They only required two girls to carry him out to the hallway, which was certainly humiliating but still, two girls were touching him so things could have been worse. Melanie placed a chair up against the wall and Cerise and Sarah stood him up on it. Then they got to work sticking him to the wall with hundreds of strips of duct tape. Now that their plan was clear as day Vani started to panic and squealed from behind the tape over his mouth. Perhaps fearing he might pass out from a lack of oxygen, they tore the strip off his face.
“Ow!” he yelled out in horror.
“Shut up, loser!” snarled Sarah.
The girls giggled as they kept taping him to the wall.
“I command you to release me immediately!”
The four girls burst into laughter as they carried on with their work. When they decided he was secure they all held their breath and Steph gently took the chair away. He remained on the wall, his feet dangling. He began shaking and tried to kick his legs.
“Stop struggling!” ordered Cerise. “Or we’ll put the tape back on your mouth!”
“Yeah and we’ll tape up your head and it’ll rip your hair out when you try to take it off!”
Vani whimpered and stopped struggling as the girls laughed. When they heard the boys coming they hurriedly retreated into the student union room.
“Well then,” said Karl, seemingly nonplussed.
“God Vani, we all went on the run with proper dedication and turns out you were just here hanging around?” smirked Jay.
Karl, Jay and Willy all burst into laughter and gingerly poked Vani, careful not to disturb the web he was caught in.
“Shut up, you guys! Let me down!”
“No way! Are you insane? This is awesome!” said Karl, displaying heretofore unheard of levels of enthusiasm.
“Seriously!” agreed Willy.
“I can’t believe we didn’t think of it,” said Jay.
“I know, eh? This is so genius, I can’t believe it never occurred to me,” agreed Karl.
“Get me down!” Vani shrieked.
“Who did this to you?” asked Jay.
“I flew up you frakking wacktard! Cerise! It was Cerise and the Green Squad!”
“Whoa!” said Jay, impressed.
“We taught her well,” nodded Karl.
“You guys! I’m all itchy and stuff! You have to help me!”
“No way. This is too good. I wish I had my camera,” mused Karl. “Does anyone have a camera on their phone?”
“You gotta admit it’s pretty genius, Vani,” said Jay.
“Yeah, it’d be funny if it happened to Willy but…”
“Willy would bring down the whole wall,” said Karl quite logically. “You’re the only one light enough, Vani.”
The bell rang and Vani threatened murder if the boys didn’t help him down. They informed him that they had to get to class and wished him well, advising him to hang in there. But soon the hall was flooded with students and everyone stopped and stared, laughing and poking at the duct taped victim. The boys stood back and observed while Cerise, Sarah, Melanie and Stephanie emerged from student union.
“Oh my,” said Sarah in mock shock. “A little boy is taped to the wall. How weird. I think I’ll get my camera and take some pics for yearbook.”
Everyone laughed while Sarah snapped photos. Terry Trebichavsky and his gang came along and laughed as well.
“Who did this?” asked Christina Penna, giggling.
“I did it! I’m telekinetic!” said Vani, forcing a smile.
“Oh my god!” said Jojo, joining the crowd.
“Am I tripping or is there a dude on the wall?” asked the rasta Glue Sniffer.
“There’s a dude on the wall,” replied the emo Glue Sniffer.
“Cool,” smirked girl Glue Sniffer.
“How’d you get up there?” asked Jojo.
“Well I decided to wear my duct tape jumpsuit today and then I jumped up on this wall and somehow I stuck.”
Everyone laughed and Terry approached Cerise, who stood against the student union door.
“Don’t you know this guy?” he asked.
“Vaguely,” she snickered.
“Do you know what happened?”
She smirked and shrugged and Terry’s eyes widened in comprehension.
“Nice!” he laughed. He lowered his voice and Vani couldn’t make out what he was saying but he was leaning in to Cerise and she was smirking like crazy. “Intense!” he exclaimed.
“What do you mean there’s a boy…” Mr. Taffenberg was saying as a student led him to the wall. “Oh I see. Well Vani, this is certainly a new look for you.”
“I’m trying to start a trend,” smiled Vani.
“Alright well let’s try to get you down,” said Taffy, gently pulling at the tape.
The crowd groaned and Vani yelled out for him to stop.
“No, I like it up here. I feel so tall!”
The crowd laughed appreciatively and Vani beamed with pride. Sarah asked Taffy to stand next to Vani so she could take a picture and he happily obliged.
“Hey uh, can we get in a pic with him?” asked Karl, smiling at Sarah.
She agreed and Karl, Willy and Jay all took on gangster poses while Sarah snapped a pic. Next Cerise and the Green Girls posed with Vani and then everyone took turns getting their picture taken. Vani made various funny faces throughout the process. Even Terry Trebichavsky and Andrew Lester got their picture taken with him. They acted as though they were about to punch him and Vani made a mock scared face. This was pretty much the best day of his entire life.
