Super Forbidden Zone! 💖

“W-w-well, dude?” Fence’s voice was an octave higher than usual, and cracking. “Lead us on in.”

“Y-you first.” Mine wasn’t much better.

It was late afternoon on a Friday, and school was practically deserted — at least it should have been. Any well-calculated risk — like the one I was standing there, knees practically knocking together, just trying to put off taking — would have taken into account that the school premises were indeed functionally empty.

But personally, I was never great at math. Especially under pressure.

“G-g-g-go ahead.” I urged Fence on. “Unless you’re ch-ch-chicken or something.”

But he wasn’t having it. Wasn’t taking the bait. “Right behind you, dude.” He gulped dehydratedly.

You might be wondering just where the hell we were. Frankly, so was I. I had to wonder how me and Fence had been dumb enough to get suckered into yet another situation as stupid as this one. We were two inches away from a line that would qualify us for a week’s suspension and marks on our permanent records at best if we crossed it, and about two seconds from taking the leap, school rules, common sense, and personal dignity be damned. Separated from us by nothing more than a flimsy door and a single lousy layer of drywall was a place so restricted, a zone so off limits, a realm into which entry was so taboo that I’d probably feel more comfortable waltzing into a nuclear exclusion zone than I did getting within even ten feet of it.

That’s right. You guessed it.

We were standing right in front of the girls’ bathroom.

#

To explain, I’m gonna need to wind the clock back a little. The time? Still Friday, ten and a half minutes after last bell. The place? Principal Pid’s rooftop tomato garden/ketchup kitchen/office.

“I’m sorry, what?” I stood there frozen, blinking in confusion at the sheer absurdity of the order I had just been given. The mission to rescue Snowball. “Snowball’s gone missing? And I have to save her? Why me? What about the cops? Or the police detectives? The national guard! Her parents! Hell, how about that custodian who usually takes care of the cafeteria during lunch? He was just telling me he could use some overtime the other day! Please! Anyone but me! I don’t even like Snowball!” Fence snickered. Stupid Fence. “I’m glad she’s missing!”

It was a mean thing to say, in hindsight. But it was also the truth. Ever since she showed up, Snowball had seemed intent on turning me into her own personal pseudo-scientific circus act. The fact that she had apparently gone missing obviously wasn’t a good thing. But if it was between her and the assurance that I wasn’t randomly going to be low-voltage electrocuted, first-degree burned, dunk-tanked into a slime mold colony, pantsed by robots, and/or run over with a jet-fuel-powered tricycle twice a day, well…

“I’m sorry, son,” said the principal, shaking his head knowingly. “It has to be you, seeing as you’re the girl’s legally wedded husband.”

Another chill down my spine. Or was it up? Hard to remember.

“I’m her legally what-ed what now?!”

“Dude!” Fence cried. “You didn’t even invite me to the wedding?”

“Not now, man!” I turned back to the principal. “How are me and Snowball married? I never agreed to that. It doesn’t even make sense!”

“Sense or no sense” — he shrugged his skinny, tweed-clad shoulders — “we have a copy of the certificate right here, for the school records. See?” He whipped a very official-looking document out from nowhere and waved it in my face. “Signed right here, into law, by the both of you.”

“Yeah, that’s definitely forged.”

“It’s also fingerprinted.” He tapped the paper to show me where. Sure enough, there were two sets of fingerprints stamped into the doc. One of the sets looked suspiciously like mine. “No forging those.”

Dammit. So that was Snowball’s game. She had told me she wanted copies of my fingerprints for one of her experiments. I should have known that “Mentos, Diet Coke, and court-admissible fingerprint samples” wasn’t a real thing. Or that if it was, it would be way too basic, and more importantly way too safe, for Snowball to care about.

Well, that about sealed the deal. At that point, I knew there was no way out of this. No loophole I could weasel through. No overlooked clause in the contract I would be able to point to so that I could, you know, just go home and have a normal weekend sleeping in, playing video games, doing my homework, and taking the genetically engineered chupacabra I was now keeping as a pet (thanks to Snowball) out to the park. Now I had to rescue Snowball, as dictated by law apparently. Plus I bet my mom would kill me if she found out I accidentally left my surprise wife to potentially die and/or get trafficked and sold into slavery and/or stub her big toe on something really hard.

I hated to admit it, but I had to: I was trapped in this situation like a lab rat. But if rescuing Snowball was all I was going to have to do, all this ridiculous escapade was going to entail, I might have even sucked it up, put on the bravest face I could, and done it with whatever pride I still had left after a couple months of being Snowball’s plaything. But that was the problem: that wasn’t all this was about.

The real issue here, and reason number one why I was so reluctant to try and get Snowball back to us safe and sound, was that I was now, according to Principal Pid and the good state of Wiscontucky, a man married. Specifically, a man married to a hyperactive, honors-program-enrolled menace in love, bunny slippers, and a constant state of emotionally volatile, sugar-fueled, science-loving mania. I didn’t know exactly what that type of relationship would entail, but if the trial run these last few months had been was any good indicator, I knew it couldn’t be anything even remotely safe. If I had to guess, I probably would have told you I was in for a lifetime of being Snowball’s walking, talking science experiment, because I was just so — her words — “experimentable on.”

Great. Just great.

But what was all this about her disappearance anyway? How was everyone so sure she had gone missing? What if she had just, like, gone to the bathroom or something? As soon as I accepted that I was a part of this whether I liked it or not, these were the first questions I asked.

“She hasn’t been seen in almost a week, son” Principal Pid told me, shooting me a quizzical look like he was genuinely unsure whether or not I was sane. “If she’s been in the bathroom all this time, this is the worst recorded case of constipation at this school since the Great Dairy Debacle of ‘03. Ah, I remember it like it was just twenty-three years ag—”

“Ok, ok, fine, stupid idea.” The last thing I needed right now was a flashback. Much less a cheesy one like I knew Principal Pid’s was going to be. “But, like, do we have any trace of her whereabouts or anything? Or am I just gonna be flying blind here?”

“The only trace we’ve been able to find so far is her journal,” Principal Pid said. He had already turned his attention back to his annoyingly perfectly cultivated tomato plants. Like none of this was even his problem anymore. Like it had all been foisted on me and me alone.

Oh wait.

It had.

Or had it?

“Wait, why am I here then?” Fence asked, apparently completely on page with what I’d just been thinking. What are best friends for, am I right?

“Good question, Fence,” the principal cooed. It was the same voice he used to talk to his tomato plants. “I figured that since you two are best friends, you could tag along and provide support.”

“Nah. No thanks, sir. I’d rather not have anything to do with any of th—”

“Oh, no you don’t.” I clamped a hand over Fence’s big mouth. “I am not doing this alone. He’s happy to help, sir,” I lied.

From there the conversation turned back to the topic unfortunately at hand. I asked again about potential leads, and as it turned out, there was only one. “Like I mentioned, the only clue we’ve been able to find as to Snowball’s whereabouts,” Principal Pid explained in his all-gum, no-tooth old person voice, “is a journal she left behind. More precisely, it’s a Super Secret Love Diary 💖. It says so on the cover. The 💖 is part of the name. You have to say it every time.”

Principal Pid’s tone told me he thought the policy was plain stupid. Not only was he right. He was also preaching to the choir. The only thing almost as irritating as Snowball’s inventions themselves was her naming scheme for them. The scheme, by the way, was that other than the 💖 being in each name and model number, there was no scheme. I thought it was quite ridiculous too. If it was up to me, I definitely wouldn’t be caught dead using that 💖 in a name, I thought.

From the title, this so-called lead sounded pretty much useless to me. But it was better than nothing. “Alright. Let’s see this journal.”

“Feel free. You can go pick it up yourself.”

“You mean you don’t have it with you?”

“Of course not!” Principal Pid scoffed. “I’m the principal of this fine educational establishment, thank you very much! Are you suggesting that I just mosey into the girls’ restroom like it’s no big deal?”

#

And that brings us back to present day, present time. The gift this particular moment was giving me, bow wrapped neatly on top? An anxiety attack, damn near. Hahahaha.

In case it needs spelling out: Snowball’s diary had been left where it was found: the girls’ bathroom: second floor: end of the science lab hall.

“Would it have killed the school to, you know, actually gather the evidence instead of leaving it where they found it?” I wondered aloud.

Good thing it was a rhetorical question, cause Fence was too nervous to answer. Or even to realize I had said anything at all, it seemed like.

“Well,” I said with a sigh. “There’s nothing we can do about it now. We just have to go in. And when you think about it logically, there shouldn’t actually be any problem with that.”

“What do you mean?” That got Fence’s attention. He was never one to put two and two together to get five. That was my job. That was why my mention of logic snapped him out of his trance and got him to listen up. This was something he’d never be able to think up himself.

“Think about it, man,” I told him. “It’s well after school on a Friday. Almost everyone’s gone home already. There’s probably not even anyone in there right now.”

“Oh yeah, dude. Good thinking. And that means… uh, wait, what does it mean?”

I pinched the bridge of my nose between my forefinger and my thumb in exasperation, just like whatshisface from that world-famous novel series about aliens, time travelers, and psychics. What was his name again? The protagonist guy. Eh, whatever. Doesn't matter. “What it means,” I said, “is that the chance that anyone’s even in the bathroom right now is, like, basically zero.”

“Ohhhhhhhhhhh. Right. So we’re basically fretting over nothing, right?”

“Bingo. Plus, do you hear any activity in there?”

“None at all.”

“Exactly. So we’re probably in the clear. But just to be safe, we’d better wait out here for like ten more minutes or so. If nobody goes in or comes out during that period, I’d say we’re probably good.”

“And I’d say you’re probably right.”

It sounded like a plan.

A bad one, as I was soon to realize.

Ten minutes later, we strode into the girls’ bathroom like we owned the place. “See? What did I tell you, Fence? Nobody in sight. Nobody except the ten or so girls standing stock still in utter shock and staring at us like deer in headlights, of course. And the ten or so more already wise to the situation and glaring daggers at us, looking like they’re about two seconds from screaming at the top of their lu— wait, what?!?!?!?!?!?!?!”

It was the most embarrassed I’d been since… well, since Snowball disappeared.

To be continued!