It All Started With An Apple

Chapter 21

Other than the fact that the crew bickered about what stores they planned on hitting during the weekend trip, lunch went by pretty uneventful.  Dannon and I chatted about absolutely nothing.  Think I’m lying?  Well, let me tell you. . . .

“Two plus two equals fish!”

You see?  Dannon managed to take a simple, “What’s two plus two?” question and turn it into this: a pointless conversation about fish.  It was like the guy hadn’t attended elementary school.

“Hate to break it to you,” I drawled, not hating this at all, “but a fish isn’t a number.” 

Dannon stared at me for a long time before he opened his mouth.  “Someone give me a paper and a pen!” he called out to the fellow teenagers at our table.  “Brianne is sadly mistaken on what two plus two is.”

Suddenly six pairs of eyes slid in our direction.  They all wore the same incredulous expressions as they stared me down, as though trying to figure out how the hell I didn’t know what two plus two was.  I stared back, utterly confused.  Even Kyla was giving me that look. 

“It’s fish,” Garner and Oliver said blankly.

I stared at them, not comprehending.  How come everyone at this table thought two plus two equaled fish besides me?

Oliver leaned down, grabbing a piece of paper and a pen from his bag.  He slid it down, and the crew passed it down until it reached Dannon’s hands.  He thanked his friend, uncapping the pen and bringing it down to the paper.  I leaned forward, watching skeptically as Dannon began drawing “two plus two.”

Except, in reality?  He drew two twos connected to one another—one facing backwards in order to create the illusion that it was a fish not two twos put together.

How the hell could that be considered two plus two?  Our world has been destroyed by such logic—and if it hasn’t already, it would be.  Dannon held out the paper, as though I hadn’t seen it already, a triumphant expression on his face.  “You see?” he said, waggling the paper with a grin.  “This is two plus two.”

I scoffed.  “If you’re going to draw it out as an answer, you need a plus sign.”

“I don’t see a plus sign in the number four,” Dannon retorted, flashing another grin at me.  “You lose!”

I shook my head disbelievingly.  “You’re diabolical.”

“No, I’m logical.  There’s a difference.”

Yeah, because making a fish out of two twos very incredibly logical.  More logical than physics, really.  “Yeah, okay.”  I rolled my eyes, taking a bite out of my pizza.  If you could even call it pizza.  It sure as hell didn’t taste like pizza.

“Oh, remember you’re going to have to go to the game tomorrow,” Dannon said, suddenly changing the subject. 

I turned back to look at him.  I opened my mouth to reply, but my mouth paused, half open, when my eyes met him.  My mouth clamped shut, and I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing.  Had he no shame?  I swear, he was a six-year-old trapped in a seventeen-year-old’s body. 

They guy had a spoon balanced on his nose.

Yep, a spoon.

“What are you doing?” I asked slowly, my eyes latching onto the spoon.  I really hoped that it would fall, but no.  Dannon had to be too skilled to let it collapse.

“Practicing my balancing skills.”  He paused, glancing over at me from the corner of his eye.  “You should try.”

I couldn’t help but laugh as the spoon suddenly clattered to the table’s surface, leaving Dannon looking absolutely dumbfounded.  He didn’t really look happy at the prospect of putting the spoon back into his face, but he did anyway, scooping it up from the table and plopping it onto his nose, his face fit in concentration.