Is She Weird?

Several eighth graders at a Catholic school in a small town have an in-depth discussion about the very unusual new girl from the big city.

 

“Is She Weird?”

 

            “Is she pretty?” Asked a sturdy girl, wearing Doc Martins.

            “Kind of.”  Ralph replied.

            “Does she smell nice?”  Asked the boy with severe psoriasis.

            “I s’pose.  She didn’t really smell like anything.”  Ralph explained.

            “How does she dress?”  Asked the fattest girl in school.

            “Uhh… kinda plain, I guess.”

            “Is she ‘cool’?”  Asked Cocaine Sally, though what she meant was “she’s not a f****n’ nark, is she?”.

            “… Maybe?”

            Then came the defining question:

            “Is she weird?”  The boy with the extremely pronounced speech impediment asked.  It was the only question Ralph had a precise answer for.

            “Hell yes.”

            Canonburgh was a tiny little pocket of civilization tossed out somewhere in rural Indiana, so whenever a new family moved into town it caused something of a ruckus.  Myles and Adeleine Blake moved to Canonburgh one spring from Chicago, seemingly for no reason.  They brought with them their only child: a daughter named Cynthia-Anne who was an albino and awkward to boot.

            They bought the house next door to Fred and Carley Wilshire, who were the parents of fifteen-year-old Ralph.  In keeping with small-town, middle-American tradition, Fred and Carley invited themselves over to the Blakes’ one evening bearing the gift of jello-mold: an old-world symbol for welcoming towards new neighbors.  They brought Ralph with them as Cynthia-Anne was the same age, and the two of them would be in the same class at Saint Anthony’s Catholic School.

            The Wilshires stayed over an hour, during which time the adults made idle chatter about whatever it is that adults talk about.  The young folks, however, barely spoke twenty words between the two of them the whole time.  Ralph tried to make some conversation, but every time he asked Cynthia-Anne a question, she always answered it with the shortest, simplest reply she could.  She didn’t even make eye-contact with him—or anything, for that matter; she just sort of stared off into space.  She wasn’t necessarily nasty and she didn’t act as if she was better than him and so above making conversation… she was just weird.  She’s probably just socially retarded, he thought.  Her parents, however, were eerily normal.

            “Is she some kind of space alien?”  Asked the girl with no eyebrows, and the forked tongue.

            “Probably.”  Ralph replied.

            “Were her parents normal?”  Asked the boy who had skipped two grades and whose head was entirely too large for the rest of his body.

            “More or less.”

            “… Do ya wanna do her?”  Asked Jimmy Cochran, who was nearly twenty-three and had no business still being in the eighth grade.

            Ralph’s answer was simple:  “Sure do.”

 

[end]

Reviews

[unspokenguilt]

Wow... hehehe funny, WEIRD, cool.

Great story, very entertaining!
Excellent characters you got there. Very colorful.

[Hedra Helix]

hah that's great, hot is hot right?
fast thought exchange and clear languge;)
i dig your style.
this is super engaging.
cleanly written

i look forward to reading more.