“It all started on Monday morning when several citizens of Tumbler City noticed
that the sky didn't look quite right,” started the man on the TV.
“I hate Days of Our Lives reruns!” exclaimed Lean as she turned off the TV.
Lean picked up her phone to call her friend, Bridge, but then she stopped
herself. She dialed a random number and waited. One ring, two rings, three
rings... “Hello?” said an old man's voice.
“Hello,” Lean said.
“Hello?” said the old man.
“Hello,”
“Hello?”
“Hello,”
“Hello?”
“Good-bye!”
“Hello? What?
Button your lip, Kid. Donut be calling me no more.
Why, back in my day we didn't do prank calls. As a matter of fact we didn't
have telephones back then. None of this prank calling. You must think your
life is
a bowl of cherries. Well, if you heard some of my
war stories
you would get
butterflies in your stomach. You must be
the black
sheep of the family, you have to pull pranks on your elders to feel important.
Well, your barking up the wrong tree, Little One...” the old man went on
and on. The sad thing is he could have
saved it for a rainy day. Lean
hung up the phone when he said something about not having phones when he
was young.
Lean tried calling the old man again but it was busy. She figured he
was still talking to himself, so she just called Summer. They
chewed the
fat until almost three in the morning and finally Bee said that they
should
call it a day. Some say that
blood is thicker than water
but Bridge and Lean are way closer than they are with their families.
Once
in a blue moon they get mad at each other but they always are friends
minutes after. A couple minutes later Lean tried the old man's phone
number again. It was still busy.
* * * *
“Hey, Lena,” Bee said one Friday afternoon.
“Yeah,” Lena said. She was bored on this
dog day of summer and being
bored always made her tired.
“Are you gonna play at the finals?” She was always asking this and it was
kind of getting old.
“Yes, I told you.”
Back to Story Index