On my way to the cafeteria fourth period, I found
out what Operation Day-Glo
was. Casey Winslow and his merry band of terrorists ambushed Gina
Kenickie with plastic sandwich bags full of mashed potatoes and food
coloring, covering her from head to toe and humiliating her in front of
the everybody. It was great to see her finally get what she had
coming
all this time. My only regret was that I didn’t have anything to
throw
at her, too. (Like a hand grenade.)
Gina was furious, but I think she got the
message. She saw me
standing against the wall with a smug look on my face and knew I had
something to do with it. I just jerked a thumb at myself and
smiled.
Her eyes bugged out and she staggered backward, bumping into the
principal and squishing mashed potatoes all over his suit.
Everybody
burst out laughing as he stood there looking at himself and started
wiping off the colored goop.
Casey and his friends had already ducked out of
there, so I decided
to follow their lead and went inside the cafeteria. I found an
empty
table near one of the exits and sat down. Since I brought my own
lunch
that day, there was no need to go through the boring lunch line.
I opened my lunch box and placed everything on the
table. All I
had was a Spam sandwich, a bag of Doritoes, an apple, and a small
carton of Jungle Juice. It wasn’t much, but at least it wasn’t Thursday Surprise. Thursday Surprise is
what they serve at our school every Thursday without fail. It
consists
of two biscuits and beef stew and not much else. I have no idea
why
they call it a surprise, since everybody knows that it’s just biscuits
and beef stew. It’s a prime example of the stupidity that runs
rampant
in our school.
The cafeteria is usually pretty noisy, but on
Thursdays it’s always
quiet. Everybody is too busy eating to talk. I don’t know
what it is
about Thursday Surprise that
makes it so popular, but people pound it down like it’s the first thing
they’ve eaten in weeks. Personally, I refuse to eat any food
whose
name suggests a psychological conspiracy against us kids. The
stuff
could be drugged with something and we would never know.
Allan Matthews and Jeremy Christopher came into the
cafeteria an
noticed me sitting by myself. I gestured to them to sit
down. “Thanks
for Operation: Day-Glo,
dudes!”
“No problem,” said Jeremy.
“Aren’t you going to eat?”
“We pitched in for pizza with the gang,” Allan
said. “We don’t eat Thursday
Surprise under any condition.”
“No kidding! Neither do I! I always bring my lunch
on Thursdays. Why don’t you guys eat Thursday Surprise?”
“We heard the gravy is made by a dog food company.”
“The president of which is a known Nazi war
criminal,” added Jeremy.
“You’re kidding.”
“We’re dead serious. Thursday Surprise could very well
be made from actual human flesh. 60 Minutes did a piece on it once.”
I looked around the cafeteria and felt my stomach
turn. “I think I’m going to throw up.”
Sylvia and Jessica came in carrying trays. Sylvia noticed me and
whispered something to Jessica, then came over to my table.
Jessica
seemed reluctant to follow her, but she did anyway. Allan nudged
Jeremy as they sat down on each side of me.
Everybody said hello and smiled pleasantly, but I
sensed a strange
nervousness in Jeremy and Jessica. Neither of them spoke unless
spoken
to. Was it because of their junior high romance I heard her
friends
talking about? That was a distinct possibility. They did
make a cute
couple, in a Donny and Marie kind of way.
“You guys are eating Thursday Surprise? Haven’t
you heard they make it with human flesh?” Allan asked them.
Jessica looked at her tray and slowly pushed it away.
“He’s kidding, Jessie,” Sylvia said. She took
a bite of the hot, steamy concoction and smiled. Jessica just sat
there.
Allan looked at Jeremy. Jeremy looked at
Allan, then looked at Jessica. “How you doing, Jessica?”
“Fine, thanks.” Jessica’s reply was
quick. “Yourself?” I sensed
by the way her voice faltered on the last syllable that she really
didn’t want to hear his answer. Her eyes never left her tray.
“Pretty good,” he replied. Allan and Sylvia
looked at them curiously and said nothing.
“So,” I said good-naturedly, “you two used to go
together?”
Jeremy and Jessica turned red and began to look even
more
uncomfortable than they were before. Sylvia’s
eyebrows shot across
her forehead. “You two used to go together?”
Allan nodded slightly. “Junior high,” he
whispered.
Sylvia leaned forward to look at Jessica. “Is
that true?” Jessica
took a deep breath and glanced up at the ceiling for a moment.
Jeremy
seemed to shrink in his seat.
“What’s the big deal?” Allan asked. “It
only lasted a week!”
“Gee, you learn something new every day,” Sylvia
said, returning to
the task of eating her lunch with a grin on her face. Jeremy and
Jessica both looked as it they wished they were somewhere else.
Neither of them said a word after that.
A. J., Doobie Brother, and Casey came into the
cafeteria with a
take-out pizza and a six-pack of Coke. “You guys just missed a
good
one,” A. J. said. “Wheelie and Jojo detonated a can of shaving
cream
in the teacher’s lounge.”
They sat down at the end of our table. Casey
sat next to Sylvia
and winked at me. Doobie Brother lifted the cover off the box and
took
out a piece. “Guess what? They’re thinking about bringing
back The Tradition after what
we did to that Kenickie chick today.”
I looked at Sylvia. “What’s The Tradition?”
“The Tradition
is what
they used to do here a few years ago,” A. J. explained. “The
seniors
got to initiate the freshmen with all kinds of disgusting things.
It
was totally embarrassing.”
“You could make them do anything you wanted, and you
never got in
trouble for it. If a freshman didn’t do what you told him to,
he’d get
plastered with mashed potatotes and food coloring.” A sly grin
crossed
Casey’s face.
“It was kind of juvenile, but it did make things
interesting around here,” A. J. said. “Every freshman got it.”
“Wheelie and Jojo have been lobbying for it all
year,” said Doobie
Brother. “They’ve got freshman torture down to a science.”
Everybody grabbed a piece of pizza and started
devouring them while
visions of public humiliation assaulted my mind. My self-esteem
was
fragile enough without having to worry about being persecuted and
tortured by a bunch of sadistic seniors. Was it too late to
transfer
to another school?
Sylvia must have noticed how nervous I was
getting. She put her
hand on my shoulder and gave me a slight nudge. “Don’t worry,”
she
whispered. “They won’t pick on you.”
I wasn’t so sure. I was Curt Larson’s sister,
after all.
“What the hell,” Casey said suddenly. “Now
what?” We all turned
to see my brother come into the cafeteria pushing one of those mobile
television stands. He stopped near one of the preppy tables and
plugged it in.
“It must be time for Sesame Street,” A. J. said.
“The space shuttle’s landing today,” I told
them. Casey gave me a
funny look. Curt turned the set on and adjusted the picture.
“We can’t miss that,” Casey said sarcastically.
Tom Brokaw was talking about some of the problems
the crew had
encountered on the latest mission. A videotape of the astronauts
fixing a computer terminal came on, and I recognized Uncle Warren
floating around with the other astronauts.
“It must stink in there,” Sylvia muttered.
“They can’t open any windows.”
“I bet it crashes,” Casey said.
“No way,” Allan said. “She’s solid.”
“I got twenty bucks saying she blows up and kills
everybody on board. Who wants to match me?”
“Shut up, Casey,” Sylvia said.
“That thing won’t crash,” Allan said. “It’s as
safe as an airliner.”
“Yeah, and airliners never crash,” Casey replied,
shaking his
head. “Eventually that sucker’s luck will run out, mark my
words.”
“I can’t hear the TV,” Sylvia said. She glared
at Casey. He
scowled and got out of his chair. He left the cafeteria through
the
nearest exit while the rest of us focused on the faint image of the
shuttle as it descended through the upper atmosphere.
A. J. looked around. “Where did Casey go?”
“I don’t know,” Sylvia said. “He just got up
and left.”
Casey came back a moment later with a duffel bag
hanging from his
arm. He smiled at me and sat down. At the moment, the TV
screen went
on the blink and a loud moan rose from the crowd. Curt was on his
feet
in a flash to manipulate the picture controls in the back of the set.
“Give me a break,” Casey said. “Is he also a
top-notch TV
repairman, too?” Curt must have heard Casey’s remark because he
brought the picture back to normal without even taking his eyes off
him. The kids at the preppy table were impressed, and a smirk
crossed
Curt’s face.
Casey scowled, then dug into his duffel bag.
He pulled out a bag
of colored mashed potatoes and threw it across the room. It
rolled
through the air and exploded across Curt’s face, sending globs of
colored glop flying everywhere!
Laughter filled the cafeteria as a food fight
suddenly broke out. Thursday
Surprise
flew everywhere along with bags of mashed potatoes and a slice of pizza
or two. People began to scream as they scrambled to escape the
mayhem. This was war!
I ducked under the table with Sylvia and Jessica
while the boys at
our table joined the combat. “How immature,” Jessica
complained.
“What’s the matter with these people? They’re animals! Throwing
food!”
Sylvia simply shrugged. “It beats eating
it.”
