Munmun(50)

I looked at Grace, Grace studied me carefully, wait do I know this guy, her eyes were fakeblue that day.

I said, “Hey Grace, can I get you a mocha, please.”

“Ohgod, the creep knows her name,” yelled friend. “That is some nextlevel creeping.”

“Ohmygoodness, it’s you, you’re out of jail,” cried Grace, finally realizing who is this pumpedup bustednose redfish.

The friends were losing their minds from excitement, ontheonehand overjoyed that Grace has a scandalous secret, ontheother terrified of a creepy criminal. Two friends encircled Grace protectively, a third actually raced away shrieking.

“You brought me a nice drink once, now maybe I can return the favor,” I suggested and she blushed glowy white under the plumskin.

Kind Grace agreed to a date at Shaky Buzz, a loud jittery zone of Mun World featuring mochashakes, coffeecreams, pearlteas, nonstop popvids starring Famous Randy and his famous turtleneck.

The friends agreed to sit two tables away, inreturn I had to buy them drinks.

“Oh, you don’t have to buy so many drinks,” started to say Grace.

Short loud friend Angel interrupted, “Heck no, beautifull Grace, he completely does because your friends need drinks to sip on while we stare at him vigilantly, that’s incase he tries any funnybusiness.”

“She’s right ofcourse,” I said, “what does everyone want, please order your heartsdesire,” so what do you think happened, obviously each friend ordered the most expensive, ultralarges with surplus pearls, lavish syrups, expressiveshots, fizzy tops, frothy gallons that taste like cartoons.

I smiled casually to pretend it was nobigdeal and infact great that half my freaking allowance was swimming down the throats of these giggly sceneteens.

Grace, last to order, got a simple minimocha.

Thank you, Grace, said my heart.

We sat, she sipped, I told her the supershort version: Sorry again for hiding in your garbage, what happened was, a faceboy lowlife tried to kidnap my sister, I tried to shoot him, hid from the cops for a few days mostly in your garbage, finally turned myself in, my lawyer made me plead guilty and the judge thought I was nogood, I spent a year in jail, then a cityboss’s daughter learned about my story and got me out, now I and also the sister live with them, we’re scaledup on a gift of their munmuns, trying to make the most of this opportunity.

But I was listening to my own story and it didn’t sound like me. It sounded like the story of someone tougher, dumber, meaner, some thug hoping to convince you he doesn’t love violence.

I heard a jacked guy with faketeeth telling a girl, “judge thought I was nogood,” I didn’t care if it was true, I didn’t care if it was me. I still thought to that girl, ohno, turn, run, you don’t want this guy in your life.

But Grace listened, sipped, gazed. And didn’t assume I was lying or evil, didn’t see in my eyes the twitchy mistrustmyself feeling. Or maybe she did but she understood somehow, sympathized, whoknows, all I knew was, I felt like allofasudden there was a girl I could realtalk with.

“What about you, Almanac is pretty far from the Dreamoughs,” I asked.

Yeah rent got too high in Sand Dreamough, at the same time business got too bad because middleriches can’t eat at a middlepoor stand. Oneandahalfscales are kind of taking over and rebuilding Sand Dreamough blockbyblock, widening the roads, combining buildingstories, for littler middles the writing’s onthewall. So Grace Family Cowsoy moved to Eat Almanac, hopefully things are better over here, lots of middlepoors anyway, more littles too.

But Grace made it onto Wordy Track, great reading skills from her love of comics, speaks three languages, parents are hoping for lawschool. What about you, Warner, is your track impressive or pathetic.

“I’m on Lifty Track,” I admitted, again it was the voice of a big dumb strangler.

But she actually smiled a little deeper, glanced at my arms, said, “You look like you might be prettygood at it too.”

The smile made my heart gulp.

“Well, I’m letting you in on a secret here, Lifty is only tenpercent muscles, it’s really ninetypercent brain,” I told her.

“Oh really,” she said.

“Yeah it’s true, Lifty is the secret home of geniuses,” I said. “Yesterday during Generic Distress Response three guys working together invented a brandnew way to get trapped under a bus.”

She laughed a real laugh, my heart got dizzy, meanwhile twotables away her friends noticed, elbowed each other, hands halfway covering big horrified smiles.

Her laugh unlocked me and we really started talking.

I told her my hope is, retrack to Mathy but it’s a longshot forsure, I’m worried it’s too late for an oaf like me, so much ketchup and notenough time, and Hue Family is really putting on the pressure like if you fail this retrack, we’re pulling the plug, ejecting you and your sister from our nice house.

She told me, with her actually it’s same same, parents put crazy pressure on her like if she doesn’t get into law school they’ll expel her from the family, but she doesn’t have enough time to study either, at home she has to wait tables, wash dishes, take out the cowsoy garbage, and the law school entrytests are super hard, not a ton of law schools have middlepoor facilities either so there’s not even that many places she could even go, it’s pretty nerveracking, sorry to babble at you like this.