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Learning to Fall: The scoop.
"Will you just give it a rest?" I didn't mean to yell at Terry but he was being all sorts of a pain in the butt in between classes today, wanting me to draw him a map of Gill's place and asking everything you could imagine about Gill's house and how he lives and all. Yelling in the lunchroom at him was the only way to shut him up.
He asked things like, "Does he have pets? Does he have a bathroom downstairs? Does his girlfriend live with him? Does he sleep on the ground floor or upstairs? Which room is his?" And those are just the ones I can remember out of the fifty million questions he asked, all the time writing everything I said down in a black notebook with a red skull and crossbones on it and nodding like he was a reporter scooping a really big story like men landing on Mars or something.
Whenever I learned that 'scooping' meant getting the dirt on someone early on, I thought it made sense like being there right when they took a dump and catching their poop in a super dooper pooper scooper like the ones Dad would make for us by cutting out a Chlorox bottle back when we had dogs. But I was only six then and I thought some pretty stupid things.
I answered most of his questions and then I felt a little creepy about how Terry has been acting since old liver lips laid one on him in front of us when Terry threw up as much out of shock as he did from being grossed right out the door. Terry still had that look on his face of a mean old man, all shriveled up and angry with his lips drawn back on his teeth and his eyes all squinty. He looked like Jillian's chihuahua did back that time it ate a block of cheese and couldn't crap for a week, only Terry is paler than Mr. Chips was and I used to hug and kiss on Mr. Chips but I couldn't imagine doing that with Terry. Not without throwing up anyhow.
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