Evil Kenevil
“No way! Emily actually set the table on fire!
Why wasn’t I there?!” Ben cried over lunch.
“You didn’t let me finish.
Then I turned around, and I grabbed Emily, and my hair went into the fire, and then sparks started burning my hair a–”
“
You burnt your hair?” She interrupted, reaching across the table and grabbing Lycia’s ponytail before she had a chance to protest and inspecting each strand thoroughly.
Lycia could understand Ben’s panic. Like all the rest of their features, they shared identical hair. Long, brown, and silky, to Ben it was a point of pride. Even the fact that it took forever to wash, dry, and brush couldn’t convince her to cut it. She just kept allowing it to grow. Step-Mama never even thought about things like haircuts, and thus Lycia’s and her half-sister’s hair stayed long, though Lycia had learned enough to be able to trim Alec and Xav’s hair with marginal success.
“It’s fine,” Lycia assured her. “Just a few singed bits that I pulled out. No big deal.”
“El keuchen. Did I just hear Philycia Morgan say ‘
No big deal'? I can scarce believe my ears.”
“Shut up, Benny. And no more Germish.”
“It isn’t Ger
mish. It’s Ger
nish. Germish makes it sound like a disease–”
“–so does the fake language itself–”
“–and Spaman makes it sound like Spam.”
“Not like that’s a bad thing,” put in Lycia.
“What’s not a bad thing?” Agatha asked as she sat down next to Lycia.
“Philycia likes Spam,” announced Ben before Lycia could respond.
“I do not,” she retorted, throwing a French fry at Ben.
“You do too! You said so!”
“Did not!”
“Do too!”
Agatha interrupted, “Oh, will you two stop bickering?”
“But it’s fun!” Ben pouted.
“For you two, maybe. But not for those of us who have to listen to you.”
“Oh, fine. Anyway, why’re you so late to lunch? Ben and I are usually the last ones,” Lycia pointed out, increasing the volume of her voice at the cheers from across the cafeteria.
“Oh, Mrs. Fortson stopped me in the hall on my way down here. She wanted me to tell Ben that we’re getting a new student tomorrow and you’re going to have to show her around,” Agatha revealed, an wicked gleam in her eye.
“Show her around where? It’s not like she can get lost,” snickered Kenya, who’d moved over with Emily from the rowdy side of the lunch room.
Lycia and Ben just grinned at each other evilly. Their plan was always the same, though they rarely got to execute it on new students.
“Do we still got it?” they chorused in unison. “Oh yeah, we still got it.”
They collapsed into giggles all around the table.
“You guys still going with Sunny and Bunny?” Emily chuckled.
“Yep!” the girls chimed.
“Last new kid we got was Melody. You two remember how the school plan goes?” Kenya asked, though she didn’t look worried.
“Es ist nicht selbstverständlich?” Ben answered.
Agatha rolled her eyes. “Translation?”
“If you want it literally, it’s ‘It is not obvious?’ If you want it what she’s really trying to say, it’s… well, ‘duh,’” Lycia answered. “Now, the school plan.”
“We come to school in matching outfits, leaving no detail unthought-of. We arrive at the same time,” Ben began.
“Kenya and Emily, with their high morning spirits, go to the office to greet the newcomer. They bring said new student to Ben’s locker, next to which is the locker I switched with Emily for. Ben and I introduce ourselves, not as Benja and Philycia, but as Sunny and Bunny.”
“With our entire appearance –face, height, weight, clothes, and expression– impossible to tell apart, poor said newcomer believes that ‘Sunny and Bunny,’ their guides, are identical twins”
“Which, of course, we aren’t, but they don’t know that,” added Lycia gleefully.
“To all this, we add the cooperation of the student body, and the non-calling-on-ness of the teachers towards you, and we have a new student who believes she is doomed to be in the presence of two identical girls who they can’t tell apart and always get their names mixed up,” finished Agatha.
The table laughed again. It was true that even though Ben and Lycia weren’t related, they looked exactly alike. When out in public outside of school, they pulled this same hoax, revealing only at the end that it wasn’t true, and watching their victims disbelieving faces. The entire school (minus the teachers, who didn’t know; as president of the freshman class, Ben was required to show the new freshmen around, so nothing was odd about them spending time with her, and Lycia was always by her side) loved to trick the new students, and they all participated. Sometimes Lycia suspected that they only reason the class voted them president and vice president was to give credit to their success in this ruse. And of course to encourage them to pull it again.
“Not that it helps them that ‘Sunny and Bunny’ keep switching identities,” snickered Kenya.
“Or that Emily, a.k.a. the world’s worst liar, is going to suddenly go mute tomorrow,” included Ben.
“I can’t help that I like to laugh!” Emily defended herself. “And I’m not that bad of a liar.”
“Yes, you are,” retorted Lycia.
“Emily, what color is the sky?” Agatha asked innocently.
They could see Emily visibly fighting the corners of her mouth, which yearned to turn up. Her throat worked to force back giggles, and she even clapped her hands over her eyes so she wouldn’t have to look at their amused faces. “The sky… is… oran–” She collapsed in cackles.
The girls began laughing anew. Then Ben snorted, causing them to guffaw so loudly that their volume rivaled the other side of the cafeteria.
It was good to have friends.
Isn't it sweet? heart
It makes up for the next part. twisted
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