A Comedy of AR's

Chapter 94
CHAPTER 194 .......... Little Buddy Day – Part 6

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CHAPTER  194

With Hoshi’s attention focused on Ling Ling, Madeline stretched her right arm out and placed the well-folded note on my desk.  That never would have happened if I had Dorcus on my lap.

I expected the note to contain some lame attempt at humor, but I chose to placate Madeline by reading it anyway.  It turned out to be not what I expected.

… Derrek … I have a huge problem with my little buddy Zebulon.  He refused to pee in the boys bathroom.  He insisted that we go outside the school so he could pee on the grass. 

(I was puzzled as to why she would bother telling me about that.  I continued reading.)

… Derrek, I assumed he was afraid of running into older boys in the bathroom.  But several times today, when we were passing a water fountain in the hallway, he jumped away in fear.  So he was not afraid of who he might meet in the bathroom.  He was deathly afraid of the water … Meet me outside the school, behind the gym when the bell rings ending Biology … Don’t go to study hall and don’t tell Hoshiko … Madeline.

I turned my head slightly in her direction … and nodded one time.

Professor Clinkenbeard did not show any more of his sex organs to the five-year-olds.  He just did a slide show on the various large and small mammals in the world and thankfully, he skipped the echidna, the one with a four-headed penis.

When the bell rang, I took a circuitous route to the back of the school, avoiding Hoshiko.  We did not yet want to reveal our water curse to her.  I waited about a minute for Madeline and Zebulon to arrive, and we sat together on the grass.

The little boy took out some ‘finger puppets’ to place on his digits and play whatever game that was … to occupy his attention.

“Zeb,” said Madeline.  “This is my friend Derrek.  He’s the president of our class.”

Without looking up, the boy replied, “You must be very important … But your little buddy is naughty.”

“You’re very observant, Zebulon,” I told him.

“Please call me Zeb.”

“Sure thing, Zeb.  By the way, I like your blue suspenders.  And your glasses make you look very smart.”

“Thanks, I am very smart.  And I really like Madeline … She’s so nice.”

“Zeb, I have a question for you.  Madeline says you might be afraid of water.  Is that true?”

The little boy crossed his legs when he sat.  He continued to bang his finger puppets together and he replied again without looking up.  “Yes, I don’t like water.”

“Can I ask why is that, Zeb?”

“I don’t know … It hurts.”

The moment of truth had arrived.  I took a deep breath and asked him the proverbial 64 thousand dollar question … “Zeb, with your last name being Allred, do you happen to know a young woman named Queenemma Allred?”

“I just call her Emma and she’s really nice too.”

Wow, I wasn’t expecting that … “How do you know her, Zeb?”

“Because she visited me in the nursing home.”

(Nursing home?!  WTF?)

“I think she’s my great granddaughter although I’m not supposed to say that because I had dementia.”

Madeline and I shared looks of ‘shock’ … but we had to keep pressing for answers.

My partner continued the probe.  “Zeb, did Emma have something that looked like a squirt gun … and did she use it to shoot you in the back of your neck … right here?”

“Yes she did, but how did you know that?”

Madeline explained, “You’re not the only one who has the water curse, Zeb.”

The boy now looked surprised.  “Oh, it’s not a water curse, Madeline,” he replied.  “It’s a water blessing.  I was sick with a bunch of bullshit diseases for old people.  After Emma shot my neck, she took some flowers out of a vase and threw all the water in my face.  Then she just went away … and so did my sicknesses.”

“Really?” said Madeline.  “So how old are you in real life?”

“Five.”

“No, what I meant was how old were you in the nursing home?”

“Well … It’s hard to remember … I know I fought in World War II because my grandson showed me all my medals and uniform.”

“Is that who you live with now?”  I asked him.

“Yeah … he and his wife.  They’re Emma’s parents.  She ran away from home, but I think she’s doing better now … going to the community college.  Like I said, she’s a sweet girl.”

“Zeb, does your grandson put something like a teaspoon of water on you every night so you can stay at five years old.”

“You guys seem to know everything, Derrek.  And I’m still thinking about Madeline’s  question about my age … Well, the dementia made my head kind of foggy, but I think I was maybe 105 or 106.”

For once, Madeline and I were both speechless.  We had been using our ‘water curse’ for fun and adventure as kids.  If Emma’s special tool could peel off a hundred years from a person’s age, then that would present a whole new dynamic to the situation.

“Derrek,” said Madeline, “I think I know now why the government might be after us.  This is powerful stuff we’re dealing with.  Could this ‘curse’ actually give a person a chance at immortality?  Like we’d never die?”

“Zeb, how’s your math?” I asked the little boy.  “No one’s ever lived 130 years … So could you live 105 years in your first life and 25 or more years in your current life?

The boy shrugged his shoulders.  “I don’t know.”

Madeline added, “If that’s true, then every billionaire on the planet will want to get his hands on this process.”

“Every human on the planet,” I corrected her.  “That’s another scenario for how the world ends.  The AI’s wouldn’t have to fight us.  They’d just wait for humanity to destroy itself fighting over who gets the water curse.”

The girl sighed.  “And we’re just using it to play around in the seventh grade.  Do you still want to keep up this charade, Derrek?”

I nodded.  “Sure, Maddie … Screw the rest of the world.  It will end or not end … but not because of the piddling activities of a couple seventh graders.”

The little boy raised his hand as if he were in the classroom.  “Madeline, can I ask you a question?”

“Sure, Zeb.”

“Can you please take me trick-or-treating on Halloween tomorrow night?  I haven’t done it in 95 years.”

“I don’t see why not, Zeb.  In fact we could go in a little group.  Hoshi could take Ling Ling and Derrek could take –“

“Nope, nope,” I interrupted. “Not going to happen … I am not taking Dorcus trick-or-treating.”

“No, Derrek.  For a second, I was thinking of your little neighbor boy, Johnny Meeks, who was sitting on my lap in Math class.  But then I remembered who Johnny Meeks really was.”

“But, are we too old to do this, Madeline?”

“Well, let’s see,” the girl replied.  “We’re 28, 30, and 105 … Nope, as long as we wear some kind of costume, we’re definitely not too old for trick-or-treat.”

“I can wear my army jacket with my medals … but not the pants,” said Zebulon.

I suggested, “The rest of us … we only need some grease paint to look like zombies.  That’s easy enough … except I live in an apartment.”

“We can go on my street when you pick me up,” Zeb solved the problem.

“Great, my mom can drive us,” I responded.  “Zeb, do you know your address?”

“Of course,” the boy squeaked.  “What do you think I am, five years old?”

“Then it’s settled.  We’re going to get a sugur high.

We returned to eighth period study hall where Madeline filled in Hoshiko on our plan.  But when the bell rang, I had to retrieve my ‘little burden’ who was hopefully still handcuffed to the nurses’ bed.

I found Dorcus where I had left him, and he greeted me with a rhythmic chant while he rang the metal handcuffs back and forth.

“Fuck you Derrek!  Fuck you Derrek!  Fuck you Derrek!  Fuck you Derrek!”

In order, I retrieved the key, released Dorcus, grabbed his wrist, returned the handcuffs to the security guard, and escorted the bratty child out the front entrance.  And sure enough, waiting to greet us was Chikon Crudup.

“BEAT HIM UP, CHIKON!!” the five-year-old screamed.  “Derrek’s been spanking and beating me all day!  He tried to cut off my penis! … and saw me in half! … and throw me out the window!”

The teenager stepped forward and took a long look at me.  Then he reacted.

“Hey, aren’t you the same dumbass kid that Kitti was babysitting that one time when I came over?  You were a fucking retard, Derrek … Oh, you’re gonna pay now!”

“You got it all wrong, Chikon,” I shot back.  “First of all, I was awake when you stabbed yourself with a safety pin and Kitti had to take you to the ER.  That takes real talent.  Oh, and your little brother tried to burn down our school today.”

“LIAR!!” both Crudups yelled back.

“I’m going to beat the shit out of you right now, Derrek.”

But Chikon never got the chance to do me in.  From behind, a huge pair of arms engulfed his chest and sqeezed mightily.

Wheezing, the teenager struggled, but slowly sunk to his knees, rasping out the words, “I can’t breathe.”

After a moment, the Big-O, my teammate, Otto Brown, released his potential death grip on Chikon Crudup and grabbed his shirt under his chin.”

“If I ever see you at our middle school again,” he warned, “You’ll be a dead duck, Chikon.”

As the teenager gasped for air, his little brother kept badgering him, “Aren’t you going to beat up Derrek?”

Chikon picked himself off the ground and gave a dirty look to Big-O.  Then he slapped his five-year-old brother in the back of his head.  “Shut up, you little prick.  Get in the car.”

It wasn’t hard to figure out why Dorcus was such a menace … being picked on daily by a loser brother like Chikon.  Overall, I barely survived ‘Little Buddy’ day.

“Thanks for the backup, Big-O,” I told my teammate.

“No sweat … always happy to mess up a bully … and Jack the Ripper is next.  Time to suit up, Derrek.  We’ve got a bus to catch.”