Munmun(49)

“Ohno, Warner,” she said. “Crap.”

“What,” I said. “Shut up.”

“You crush on her super hard,” Prayer realized. “Nonono. Warner, don’t screw this up for yourself and also me, please.”

“Shut up,” I said. “You think I don’t know it’s impossible? You think I feel any kind of stupid hope like I’m going to marry this girl? No, so just shut up please.”

“If you have to crush, please don’t crush on Kitty, that’s a disaster, find some halfscale girl to crush on instead, a little less likely to ruin your happiness and also both of our lives,” Prayer told me.

“Shutting up will need to happen soon in here,” I yelled into the pillow I was smashing into my head.

“Better you don’t crush on anyone though, try to cool off that needy heart,” Prayer advised.

But toobad Prayer, very nextday I found a new girl to crush on, a girl my scale too.

“New” maybe isn’t the right word though, I’ve seen this girl before, you have too.





LIFEANDDEATHWORLD


Tray and Brand and me were strolling Mun World in search of shootemups when I saw her with a little crew of girls, judging handbags and phoneshells in an aisle of jewels and fraygrances.

Atfirst I thought where do I know this face, how is she familiar.

Why do I remember this girl outscaling me by four, why am I remembering hiding in garbage, did this girl pity me once and leave me sweet limewater to drink.

Does her family serve bowls of tangy creamy cowsoy in Sand Dreamough when it’s Neighborhood Souptime, ohmygod, it’s Grace.

Definitely it was Grace’s sweet freckly plumface, but no longer fourtimes bigger than mine, actually littler if you can believe it.

I stared a little too long, her friends noticed, mine did too.

“Don’t creep, bradpitt,” said Tray, smacking my skull, and we escaped into some gameboxes for testdrives.

Shootemups didn’t intrest me a ton but Tray and Brand loved all the various kinds. Infact I would say it was the only thing that brought Tray happiness. Be a starwarrior, be a batman, murder thousands of people, have nightmare adventures in hell, anything’s possible.

The tech was intresting to me atleast. Stand inside your gamebox, dash and twist on the threesickty treadmill. I enjoyed traveling limitlessly all over magical environments, a wildwest, a worldwar, a roadrage, magic sewer, lordoftherings, anchorwat, outerspace. It’s a little like Dreamworld actually, nowonder poors love escaping into it.

But the travel ends prettyquick when you get discovered by enemies and if you don’t have a childhood of playing these things, forget it, you’re useless. Die violently, tons of screaming, bloodandguts paint the boxwalls, plus mockingfaces, lol hey loser, how pathetic, you’ll never be goodenough to survive the miamivice no matter how hard you try, anyway why not try again, hey where are you going.

I stepped out cautiously but Grace was nowhere to be seen. So instead I watched cops try to dig some littlepoors out from burrows in the phone section, Mun World contains thieves and schemers always, cops patrol it twentyfourseven.

Secondtime I saw Grace, it was across the parkinglot, this time she was with some skinny nerd. This pimply scrawn held his foldphone for her to read, something he wrote forsure. She liked it though, was making nods and faces of, the surprising thing you wrote surprises me, wow, oh and now I’m laughing at the part where you made a stupid joke or something.

Meanwhile, Brand was showing me wrestlingvids on his phone, less delightfull viewing material forsure. Specifically these were vids of the Cram Jam.

Cram Jam is one of the annual battles of Yewess Wrestle Club, the Numberone In The Yewess And Worldwide It’s Numberthree Wrestling Entertainment Choice. This battle is, put thirty wrestlers in an enormous fishtank, all over the walls and floor are the slippery mouths of drainagepipes, goal is to cram everyone else into the pipes and flush them into the sea, winner is the last guy still in the tank.

So, excited Brand and pretending to be captivated me were watching enraged oily wrestlers whirl a guy around or bonk him in the head and then frantically drag this stunned guy to the mouth of a drainagepipe and try to smush him in there, meanwhile the guy is pretending to wake up halfway into the pipe and furiously clawing his way back out and thrashing around, meanwhile meanwhile I saw that Grace was done reading, thanking the nerd but walking away to class or something, I thought about running up to her and introing myself, hey Grace, remember me.

But then some other daves wandered up and yell, “Ohsnap, are you watching replays of the Cram Jam, heckyeah,” a loud crowd of morons gathered around us to cheer and then start also wrestling and cramming, Grace glanced over and without thinking I ducked and ran, can’t be seen with these psycho boneheads, that’s when I knew, I must like this girl.

Thirdtime I saw her, it was in Mun World again, and again I was caught looking by one of her friends, shortest and feistiest. This time the friend shamed me before I could sprint away.

“Hey creep, stop staring at my friend, either buy her some presents or go die in a hole somewhere,” she yelled.

The other girls giggled and murmured except embarrassed Grace.

“Okay sure, I’ll buy her a present,” I said for some reason.

“Great, what are you getting her,” said delighted friend.