Diary of a Shrimpy Kid

Chapter 9: Prom-posal

Authors Note: If you would like to see this as it was meant to be, copy and paste Chapter 9 into Google Docs, then change all the bold, italicized lines to "Lobster" font, all underlined lines to "Orbitron" font, and all italicized lines to "Cherry Cream Soda" font. It's only marginally funnier, but worth it (kind of).

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The next day brought no respite from the rain and the oppressive gray clouds, which Chad didn't mind. Unfortunately for him that meant that his teachers were acting even crabbier than usual. In all his classes they seemed to snap more easily at any stupid questions and he could've sworn his math teacher Mr. Tsunami had developed a slight reddish orange crusty sheen on his skin from the weather.

As a result, Chad had kept quiet in all the classes and didn't raise his clubs to any of the questions they asked. He didn't know what a rocket was, much less a dang thing about theoretical rocket science or any of the math behind it. Just like birds that weren't seagulls, he was convinced they weren't actually real. He watched the clock tick down way too slowly as he counted down the minutes to the end of the school day.

Finally the bell rang, signaling the start of lunch. Chad eagerly scuttled out, not waiting for Goldie as he made his way to the cafeteria. His parents had packed him algae à la mode and he was excited to dig into this delicacy.

So swimming with excitement was he that as he rounded the corner to the cafeteria he almost ran into the signature knee high red boots with white trim of Shellby.

"Oh Neptune, I'm sorry Chad. I nearly crushed you there," she said apologetically.

Chad blinked his compound eyes and adjusted his stance to look up at her. "No worries, it's my bad. I wasn't looking where I was walking. But now that you're here, I did want to talk with you."

"Sure, about what?" Shellby replied as she quickly glanced at her watch.

"Well, I thought it might be a good idea to chat about how we're going to take down the infamous Clamby Clan Clam catchers of the Bubble Bump Clam Catchery," he replied.

Shellby checked her watch again. "Absolutely. But do you think that it can wait until tomorrow? I'm actually running late to the prom committee meeting. We only meet during lunch and I had to get school lunch today."

"Oh... okay," Chad said, taken aback. "We can do that."

"You're the best!" she exclaimed as she hurried off. "Kthanxbaiiiii!"

Chad watched forlornly as she went around the corner and out of sight. He didn't quite know how to feel. It was like this whole thing was a riptide. Just yesterday Shellby had been completely completely on board with taking down the Clamby Clan Clam Patriarchy but now it's like she didn't even care. How much effort would it take to get her to realize the genocide her people were enacting on his clam-ily?

He shook his head, popped in his earbuds into his ear holes and pressed play on his custom, waterproof, mantis shrimp sized iPod Nano 6th generation. The cover of Check Yes, Juliet by SadBois, Inphecs, Twin Lights & Livingston Crain blasted out in response. He was definitely entering into his Marianas Trench emo phase now with all this angst the past couple weeks had caused him.

Shellby met Sophie and Sofie in the hall and together they walked to the prom planning committee.

The room was small, not much bigger than a broom closet, and was funnily enough being used as a broom closet as evident by the mops and cleaning supplies in the corner. In the middle of the room was a pathetic little foldout table at which only one person sat. It was a crustacean wearing a boater.