Munmun(53)

My culty sister meanwhile failed out of junioryear at Wet Almanac.

It wasn’t a total tragedy though, they dropped her into sopmoreyear classes, and she told us it was going waybetter.

“Instead of essays, Teacher lets me give presentation speeches about corpos,” she chirped at dinner, “it’s multidissupline and here’s how, when you analyze a business you’re using the power of words, math, science, and socialstudies, so you’re learning everything at once, it’s a true studying multivitamin!”

“How come they didn’t let me do that,” I yelled.

“You didn’t ask, I guess,” Prayer winked, Hue chuckled and Markfive did, too, he was guesting at familydinner to sneak peeks at completely unintrested Daisy.

“Lol Warner your sis is crazy,” Markfive lolled, Prayer beamed, atleast one girl at the dinnertable liked him.

“Your new friend is highly cute,” Prayer remarked that night as we were going to sleep.

“The only friend of mine you get to date is Usher,” I told her as a reflex, then felt stabs of sickness from having no idea where Usher even is.

That night I shook myself out of Kitty Operahouse, got to look for Usher, don’t want to because he’s probably dead, would have found him bynow, but toobad, no choice, have to look for the poor guy.

In Dreamworld I tumbled and drifted, wandered Sand Dreamough, checked the old coastguard station, blew through the sky above Lossy Indica, the view he wanted to show my sis. I looked for his twisty body, his gray face, nowhere to be found. I hoped for the gray firework, no one’s sending it up into the sky.

I tried dreaming myself to Usher but he’s not dreaming himself to me, even if he were alive why would he, it’s been more than a year.

I put up some gray fireworks myself, still pretty outofcontrol and nightmare so some of the fireworks fizzled, shot sideways, made no sound, sucked light from the sky and sound from the air.

No Usher anywhere, night after night. Tonight he’s just not sleeping deep enough, I kept thinking, maybe tomorrow he conks out good and I’ll see him.

But he doesn’t and I don’t.





LIFEANDDEATHWORLD


Down in Eat I kept taking little breaks from school to see Grace meanwhile, I even read some Lords and Swords on the bus. This thing was pretty intense, the adventures of some crazy allwhite lordoftherings, come ride with me to a mystical realm where everyone’s skin is painfully white and getting punctured with swords and knives constantly, tons of dragons and rapes, everyone is seeking revenge on everyone and prettymuch every page a thousand people die screaming, notmything if I’m being honest with you but something made me happy that Grace liked it, a weird bloodthirsty mind was hiding in that mild head, behind the fakegreen eyes.

I bugged and pestered sometimes to see her real eyecolor, she said it’s just stupid plain superviolet, honestly like black.

I told her I bet it’s like a pretty nightsky, she tried to choke off a little smile and look stern but her freckly plumskin blushed even plummier.

Meanwhile nowandthen I saw her huddling with this other guy in the parkinglot, the scrawny nervous guy who showed her stuff on his screens.

His name was Frank and he was Wordy too, they were in lots of classes together, does he have more incommon with her than me, dang, he might.

But does he take her to fun loud delicious Shaky Buzz, no, instead he corners her in the shadeless parkinglot to read his poems and novels, soundslike a date from hell tobehonest but I saw her smiling and laughing and I wanted to sprint over there and fling Frank into the street like a frizzbee.

Instead I casually mentioned, “Hey, I think in the hot dusty parkinglot I saw a guy reading you his endless tolstoy, was it any good.”

“Oh, you mean Frank,” she said. “Yeah, it was good, uh, I mean I’ve known him for a while, he’s really improving as a writer.”

“Good good, it’s important to support new artists,” I encouraged in a super calm voice, then I looked down and I was mangling a napkin.

She saw it too, started to choke off a smile, decided not to, let it flood into the cheeks.

“Warner?” she asked. “Would you like to go somewhere today afterschool?”

Wasn’t quite a date though, more of a group invite to Angel Brother Birthday Beebeecue. Grace’s crew, my crew of Tray and Brand, plus a few other randos from Wordy and Busy walked from school to a ballfield, you could smell the meaty smoke from many blocks away.

Look, even if it wasn’t a date, Grace tucked her hand in mine as we walked like it was nobigdeal, my heart got hot and frantic, I tried not to mangle her hand like a napkin.

Angel yammered happily, “Warner, Tray, Other Random Friend, you’re going to love it, my family has the best beebeecues, we have like eight secret recipes that my grandma has sworn to take to the grave. Warner bytheway it’s time for you to know this, I’ve changed my mind about you, atfirst I assumed you were a creep but now I think you’re goodenough to date my friend, and she’s a beautifull sexy miracle, so that means you’re prettygood, congratulations.”

I hugged her from the side, maybe a little too hard, she laughed and yelled, “Okay, okay, strongguy, I get it.”

gotta skip tootsesh, I messaged Markfive, he responded lol allgood.

mite be late for familydinner, I thought about messaging Prayer or Kitty or someone but didn’t, Warner you’ll just stick around for an hourandahalf, home by seven forsure.