September 1st, Lunch Period – Part 2

“I’m not going to lie to you, Sally-“

“No, please. Lie to me.”

She gets me with this every time. EVERY TIME. I get it. As an English teacher, she’s probably hardwired to say that. Or maybe she just likes annoying me. It’s probably a mixture of the two.

“Alright, to be completely dishonest, untruthful, and fibtacular, the next three incidents went similarly to the first. Some sort of disruption early in the period, retrospectively funny action, hands me an envelope, sits down. Bingo bango bongo. Although last time, it was two girls rather than one.”

“Were all of them girls?” asks Sally, sounding uncharacteristically serious.

“As a matter of fact, they were all girls.”

“Makes sense. Did you check the letters?”

“What makes you say there are letters inside?”

“Just open one. I wanna see something.”

I’d like to believe that I’m not the type of guy who would keep a woman waiting. I pop open Mira’s envelope and start reading. I make sure to dramatically clear my throat, first.

“Ahem.”

❤❤❤

Dear Mr. Penrose Blacklead,

I, Mira Double-Loveless Asphodel, from the house of Asphodel, humbly instate you, Mr. Super Bossman himself, as the official advisor to the legendary, once-defeated, now-defunct Competitive Band club. You do not have a choice in the matter, and we (the aforementioned house of Asphodel) will sue the shit out of the school if you decline. I wish you and Sally Blacklead, nee Antimonia, whose name echoes in the hallowed halls of the Competitive Band Hall of Fame forever, a very pleasant morning/afternoon/evening/night.

Sincerely,

Mirabelle Double-Loveless Asphodel the First

Heiress to House Asphodel of Pluto

❤❤❤

“…”

“…”

I don’t want to even think about opening the other letters right now. A silence hangs in the air. Suddenly, I hear a deep breath. Sally’s the first one to speak.

“I definitely didn’t expect to hear that.”

“Wait, it’s true? You’re actually some sort of secret pop idol?”

I’m really confused. Getting threatened by space nobility for something as trivial as this? I think Miss Asphodel is bullshitting me. Most importantly, how come I never knew that Sally was even involved in this stuff? I know she’s good at singing and dancing, but that’s just because she used to be into theater. Or at least, that’s what she told me.

“I kept this from you to prevent you from becoming more of a Wife Guy than you already are! Even though you didn’t know about my past success, you talk about me all the time, and that’s partially why I love you.”

Blasphemous. After keeping a secret that big from me, she then has the audacity to call me a Wife Guy?

“Let’s get one thing straight. I’m not a Wife Guy. I’m the Wife Guy. So why did you need to hide the fact that you’re the best band girl in the galaxy?”

“I just told you! Also, can you call me that again?”

“First of all, I’ll consider calling you that again in the future. Maybe I’ll put it on a T-shirt, with your face or something in the middle. Second, somehow, I doubt that’s the only reason you’d hide something like that from me. We’ve talked about wayyyyy heavier stuff than this. You obviously had your reasons, but as your husband, I deserve to know.”

I hear Sally take a deep breath.

“The reason I hid this from you is dumber than it has any right to be, and I’m sorry about that. It involves the high school mafia, Competitive Band witness protection, and a desire not to get wrapped up in Solar System politics. The long and short of it is this. Most people don’t even know that the champion is Sally Antimonia, aka me. I competed under a fake name to avoid attention. Someone must have paid an insane amount of money to find out about me, presumably the Asphodels.”

“What.”

“I don’t have the time nor the energy to explain everything in detail.”

“Honestly, I don’t have the time nor the energy to hear everything in detail.”

“We should definitely talk more about this when we get home.”

“…Yeah.”

“Alright, then. I’ll… see you later. Bye-bye.”

She hung up. If I can be perfectly dishonest and behave in a manner not unlike a pathological liar, I’m not really too upset about this whole situation. It’s just confusing, and rather exhausting. Those are some good words to describe my entire day so far. Whatever Sally’s going to tell me, it’s probably going to be fine. I just need to hold out for the rest of the day, and hopefully avoid more incidents with crazed teenage girls. Wait. What time is it? I lazily checked my phone. Hold on, ten minutes before I have to go to my next class? I haven’t even eaten yet! It’s time to let the Vibe Force take the wheel. I double click the home button and let my hopes and dreams flow through my phone. My prayers are answered- turns out there was a hyper-fast-food place a couple of blocks away. Even more convenient, my order was already placed and paid for before I even knew what I wanted. That’s the power of technology. As I went to go pick my food up, I tried gathering up my thoughts about Sally and asking the Vibe Force what to do. No answer.

This might seem unrelated, but I would say that I am a man of many talents. One of these talents includes eating super-fast, incidentally. Three minutes to walk to the fast-food place, three minutes to walk back. That gives me four minutes to finish a double cheeseburger, large fries, and a shake. Easy peasy. I once ate something similar in two minutes, so this should be fine. After sentencing my meal to a righteous execution, I managed to reach my classroom on time. On my desk, I found another note. Oh boy. Here we go again.

Or not.

It was a sticky note, rather than an envelope.

---

Penrose

I need to talk to you about something.

Come to my office after school.

Marisa

---

Looks like I’m getting sent to the principal’s office.