Dawn on Jefferson: Chapter Sixteen, WAITAMINUTE!

Chapter One: Getting Up
Chapter Two: Where I Live
Chapter Three: The Walk
Chapter Four: School
Chapter Five: Introducing my Friends, the Merry Pranksters!
Chapter Six: Walking to Mom's
Chapter Seven: Mom’s House
Chapter Eight: It Began on Constitution Hill
Chapter Nine: Attack of the Awknerds!
Chapter Ten: No Awknerds Were Harmed
Chapter Eleven: The Breaking Shadstorm
Chapter Twelve: Where I Envy Grilled Cheese
Chapter Thirteen: Doom! Doom! Doom! Where I Want to go to School! The End Must be Nigh!
Chapter Fourteen: The Game is a Foot
Chapter Fifteen: Uncomfortable Revelations!

Chapter Sixteen: WAITAMINUTE!

Just when you think you're about to go do something amazing and wild and crazy and fun, that's when you get into a fight. Every time. I swear. Unfortunately, it was with my friends, my Merry Pranksters.

Veena, Rosa, Tom, Jackie and I all blew up at each other and it became a serious huff between us. It was all very dramatic. Well, perhaps not that dramatic. Perhaps, it was a fight. Yes, there was yelling. However, we didn't get that mad at each other. It was just dramatic.

It started because Jackie, oh so bright and relatively normal Jackie, asked if the emperor was wearing any clothes. Well, sorta.

Parents and adults and teachers and all those people who pretended to be grown up were often annoying, very annoying. They liked to tell you what to do. They liked to tell you how to do it. They liked to tell you what you CANNOT do (most annoying of all). They often thought they are right. Even when they were not. But...

Most of the time they were. It was even more annoying that way. The adults were annoying, but they were rarely stupid. We might not have seen what they were doing and why - we were still kids after all - but they almost always had a reason. It might have been one we liked. It might not have been one they explained (psst. helps us grow up if we understand what you're doing, grownups!) It might not have been been one we thought was fair. It might even have been really annoying! However, it was rarely outright dumb.

Jackie asked why didn't the adults see this? They had all the information we did. They had better equipment to study everything we had. How come they were not going out to deal with the legless footman we just saw?

Rosa got into a bit of a huff then. She felt really proud of finding the foot. She felt a bit...superior for the act. Her find was being called into question and she didn't like that. She countered that sometimes some people notice things faster than others. It was a dig. It wasn't nice. She shouldn't have taken Jackie's comments as an attack (hint: they weren't. They were a good and insightful criticism.) Rosa was just being too proud at that moment.

Veena jumped to Rosa's defense and started saying how good and smart we were and especially Rosa. We obviously saw it first.

I felt bad for Jackie. She wasn't doing anything wrong and was actually making a good observation. I jumped in on her side when I heard Jackie growl. Jackie growls impressively. She was likely to bite off Rosa and Veena's heads. She's not just taller than the rest of us, including Tom (ha! Tom! I saw you grimace and glance to see if you're taller than Jackie ever time you stand next to her! Have a coooommmmmpleeeex?!), but she also has a presence. When she pops, she's scary. But when she's not, she has a force of nature feeling to her. She's not mean. She's not overbearing. She's not even the leader of the group (hello?!). She did stand her ground better than the rest of us and didn't wilt. And then, sometimes, when she did pop she growls more impressively than a bear.

This was going to make her bear moments seem tame. Those moments would have seemed like Masha's Medved from that ancient Russian cartoon. She was about to go nuclear cave bear.

Her chest began to expand when I jumped in on her side. She looked at me as I did. I was reasonable. I was brilliant. I was a genius with my arguments, but then Veena and Rosa started yelling at me. The nerve!

Jackie and I were yelling at Rosa and Veena. The argument was heated. The argument was white hot flaming. Any human not participating would have been instantly sautéed by just being in the room. There were clashes and battles and epic wars in that argument. There would have been very hurt and angry feelings except for one thing.

The smell of popcorn snapped us out of the fighting. Hot, buttery popcorn. There in a bowl. Sitting in Tom's lap. Where had Tom gotten popcorn?! We were at SCHOOL! Yet there he was. Watching us. Munching on popcorn. And looking both terribly amused and smug with his salty, buttery munchie.

We were stunned!

WHAT!

THE!

HECK!

Tom, in an exaggerated movement, wiped his mouth with a napkin and even dabbed at his mouth's corners in a ridiculous action of pretension. It was comical. It was ridiculous. It was oh-so-Tom.

He then opened his mouth - which was fortunately not full of popcorn! How gross would have that been?! EW! - and said, "While this is entirely amusing, I have to say, I'm sure the adults have figured it out, which case, we'll follow along a path already worn and we'll have fun. If not, we'll get our adventure. And I, for one, want an adventure. We are the Merry Pranksters after all, not the Immie Spud Club."

And it was hard to argue with him over that.

But, after all this time, I STILL want to know how, where he got that popcorn! He'd been holding out on us!