Chapter 4: Begging and pleading

If I avoided putting a glass of water in my room and very carefully set three alarms, I had a better chance of starting the next morning right. That was rule number 2: always have a technology back-up. I had never been a particularly cautious person until now. Now, everything was a potential chaos factor.

Just getting my locker open became a personal victory. Sometimes the lock was sticky and didn’t move at all. Otherwise it glided perfectly to each number but still refused to open. In fact, every door was like that. Even though I always brought two copies of my house key with me, the door to my house often simply refused to open when I got home from school. I vowed to take up lockpicking.

I scanned the cafeteria for potential threats. A chair I could trip over. Glass that could break. Liquids in general.

I made my way carefully over to Madison's table, ignoring the fact that her friends started booing me when I got within 10 feet of them. A wrapped twinkie hit me in the forehead.

“That's for Madison!” a tiny girl screamed at me.

The old me would have caught it and taken a bite. This me fell down and accidentally sat in a plate of mashed potatoes.

“Madison, can we talk? Alone?” I asked.

“Whatever you say in front of me you can say in front of them,” she said, eyes twinkling. She was clearly enjoying this.

“Look,” I said, “I'm really sorry for everything. Can you please just call off the curse?" I tried to give her puppy eyes, but had to step to the side to avoid being hit by an orange peel. Somehow it hit me perfectly in the face even though I was certain I had dodged in time.

“You're only sorry because I got revenge. Besides, you've only been cursed for two days. You've been causing trouble for me for two years.”

“Two years?” I sputtered, confused, “I thought you were just mad at me for posting that video of you.”

“That was the last straw,” she admitted.

“Well what did I do before that?” From the look on her face, I was supposed to know that.

She crossed her arms and refused to answer me. Her friends were all whispering in a way that made it absolutely clear that I was the only one who didn’t know what I did.

“Beg me to break the curse,” she finally said.

“What?” I looked around at the others, trying to get a feel for if she was being serious.

I got close, trying my best to look sincere. “Please, Madison?” I asked her in what I hoped was the right tone. I could see my friends staring at me from across the lunchroom, trying to figure out what was going on.

Dead silence for four full seconds. Then she said, “I'll think about it. But then you'll have to do something for me.”

I was starting to get angry. She was the one who had cursed me. Maybe it was all in my imagination this whole time. She had really gotten in my head.

My temper clouded my better judgement and I said loudly, “You know what? Forget I even came over here. I'm not sorry at all.”

I grabbed a ketchup packet from Madison’s lunch tray, preparing to squirt it at her, but she stepped out of the way in time and I accidentally squirted Dr. Munsip, the school principal.

“I am so sorry,” I kept saying. I started to say that I was trying to squirt Madison, but that wouldn’t really help my case.

“Detention,” she said, pointing at me. I breathed a sigh of relief that it wasn’t worse. “For three weeks,” she continued. And there it was. I looked at Madison. She was covering her mouth, trying not to laugh.

Chapter 5: Detention

I had plenty of time to think in detention. About my situation and what caused it. I had gotten pretty good at mitigating the daily dangers… Since my alarm was no longer reliable, I set three of them across two different devices. I didn’t keep any liquids or sharp objects nearby. I stopped taking chances. I got quiet and more observant, like a chess player analyzing the whole board before taking a single step.

I also became a lot more aware of Madison. She was watching me too. I had thought she was just mad at me for posting that embarrassing video of her faceplanting into the grass on a muddy day, but there had to be more to it than that. The hatred she felt for me seemed deeply personal. I needed more information.

I noticed Madison’s friend Chelsea was in detention with me. The tiny loud one who hated me every bit as much as Madison did. I looked at the detention monitor. He was on his laptop, not paying us the least bit of attention.

We weren’t allowed to have our phones, but we did have our school chromebooks since all of our homework was on them. I guess they figured that was okay because everything fun was blocked. That was okay. I only needed email. I didn’t know Chelsea’s last name, so I sent it out to all three Chelseas at the school. Because of the curse, I did get a slight electric shock when I touched the keyboard and the “a” key stopped working, but I wouldn’t let that stop me.

“Wht r you in here for?” I typed.

I knew she had gotten the message when she looked up at me, flashing me a death stare.

A few seconds later, I received a reply, “What does it matter to you?”

“Just curious, I guess,” I responded.

A new message appeared in my inbox. “I got a little too aggressive in gym class and ripped a kid’s shirt.” I laughed. I couldn’t help it. The thought of that tiny girl being so maniacal.

Mr. Borderlin’s head snapped up at his desk.

“Something funny, Danny?”

“No sir,” I said, “I was just thinking about something funny, that’s all.”

“Why don’t you share it with the class? I know I want a laugh.” He didn’t look like he was in a comedic mood. Chelsea’s eyes were laughing at me already.

“Um,” my throat was dry and my mind went blank, “Why did the chicken get on the roller coaster?” It was the only joke I could remember.

“I don’t know,” Mr. Borderlin said, “Enlighten me.”

“It was trying to make scrambled eggs,” I said, my voice barely audible. I was dying of embarrassment. A couple kids snickered.

“If you’re planning on becoming a comedian, make sure you have a backup plan,” Mr. Borderlin said, “In case it doesn’t work out.” It made it more humiliating that I think he actually felt sorry for me now. I shrunk down, trying to make myself invisible.

“Great joke,” Chelsea emailed me back, “It was so funny I forgot to laugh.”

“Do you know why Mdison htes me?” I typed back.

“Yeah, don’t you? That video of her falling went viral.”

“Yeh, but she said tht I’ve been torturing her for two years. I posted tht video lst week.”

“Oh, that. Yeah, I’m not going to talk about that.” But I had a feeling I knew who would.