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Tiny Yogurt

Tiny Yogurt eats alone. It’s not a big deal, it’s just that lunch is a tricky thing, lunch is difficult, and her former lunch circle is unavailable so she takes her half sandwich and twelve doritos and namesake cup of fruit-on-the-bottom to the hall by the library and sits, taking measured, careful bites.

She takes comfort in it, this space of her own, silent and answerable to no one. Until the day this kid carrying a stack of books he can’t see over trips on her.

“Watch it,” Tiny Yogurt snaps, startling herself.

“Sorry!” says Giant Nut Head.

Giant Nut Head

Giant Nut Head does not have a nut for a head but this crush is treating him like a shell between levers. It’s not a crush, it’s a smash: a glass underfoot, a thumb in a car door.

It’s important that everybody knows.

“It’s bad,” he sighs, “really bad.”

“Yup,” says Kent.

“I wish I could tell her,” says Giant Nut Head, with deep mystery. “I can’t. But if I could…”

“Uh huh,” says Maddy.

Giant Nut Head chuckles. “Well. Thus always ’twere love!”

“Mm,” says Kent, looking at Maddy, who is desperate to fuck if this kid would just leave.

Giant Nut Head

“Who’s reading next?” asks Jeremiah, smoking.

“Thank you!” says Giant Nut Head, standing up in a varsity band jacket two sizes too big. “This is a poem I wrote about Highlander.” In response, against all credulity, the kids lounged around the steps smatter applause.

“I’ve got to stop coming to school hung over,” winces Destiny.

“Look at it this way,” murmurs Jeremiah, “anyone who sees your eyes will just assume you’re high.”

Destiny pushes sunglasses up her nose. “I wish.”

“You really don’t,” says Jeremiah. “Poetry Time is best suffered sober.”

“The TV show, not the movie,” Giant Nut Head clarifies.

Giant Nut Head

Giant Nut Head does not have a giant nut for a head. It’s a long story.

See, his name is Bryan, but in tenth grade he had to switch from trumpets to the percussion pit because of his asthma. The only carless percussionist, he hitched a ride to Zephram’s party and developed this hilarious squeaking cough when everyone went downstairs to smoke up. One of the older girls (Landrey) smiled and told him it was okay; he, with the unplumbed desperation of youth, fell in love with her.

Then everyone started calling him Giant Nut Head.

Okay, it’s a short story.

Giant Nut Head

Giant Nut Head does not have a giant nut for a head. Don’t worry about it.

“We can seriously get State this year, guys,” he says, leaning over the back of the bus seat with one arm between Lula and Zephram.

“Yeah, I’ve been looking forward to this trip,” says Zephram absently.

“You too?” says Lula. Her knees are up, hair twirled, eyes sparkling.

“Not for State, though.”

“No?”

“Just for the ride.”

Zephram and Lula look at each other, then, a smile shivering back and forth between them.

“I’ve been thinking about doing more push-ups,” adds Giant Nut Head.

Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
This work is licensed under a Attribution-Share Alike 3.0.