That night my father got right to the point.
“So, honey, mission accomplished?” he asked as he stabbed into a mountain of fettuccine and whirled his fork around.
I attacked my noodles too and gave him a smile. “Uh huh,” I said as I sat up tall to deliver the news.
“They’re all chickens.”
The turning of his fork came to a grinding halt. “And… ?”
I could tell something was wrong, but I didn’t know what. I tried to keep the smile plastered on my face as I said, “And what?”
He rested his fork and stared at me. “Is that what she said? ‘They’re all chickens’?”
“Uh, not exactly.”
“Then exactly what did she say?”
“Uh… she didn’t exactly say anything.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning I went over there and took a look for myself.” I tried very hard to sound like this was a major accomplishment, but he wasn’t buying.
“You didn’t ask her?”
“I didn’t have to. Beomgyu knows a lot about chickens, and we went over there and found out for ourselves.”
Chaewon came back from rinsing the Romano sauce off her seven and a half noodles, then reached for the salt and scowled at me, saying, “You’re the chicken.”
"Chaewon!” my mother said. “Be nice.”
Chaewon stopped shaking the salt. “Mother, she spied. You get it? She went over there and looked over the fence. Are you saying you’re okay with that?”
My mom turned to me. “Minjeong? Is that true?”
Everyone was staring at me now, and I felt like I had to save face. “What’s the big deal? You told me to find out about her chickens, and I found out about her chickens!”
“Brawk-brawk-brawk!” my sister whispered.
My father still wasn’t eating. “And what you found out,” he said, like he was measuring every word, “was that they’re all chickens.”
“Right.”
He sighed, then took that bite of noodles and chewed it for the longest time.
It felt like I was sinking fast, but I couldn’t figure out why. So I tried to bail out with, “And you guys can go ahead and eat those eggs, but there’s no way I’m going to touch them, so don’t even ask.”
My mother’s looking back and forth from my dad to me while she eats her salad, and I can tell she’s waiting for him to address my adventure as a neighborhood operative. But since he’s not saying anything, she clears her throat and says, “Why’s that?”
“Because there’s… well, there’s… I don’t know how to say this nicely.”
“Just say it,” my father snaps.
“Well, there’s, you know, excrement everywhere.”
“Oh, gross!” my sister says, throwing down her fork.
“You mean chicken droppings?” my mother asks.
“Yeah. There’s not even a lawn. It’s all dirt and, uh, you know, chicken turds. The chickens walk in it and peck through it and..”
“Oh, gross!” Chaewon wails.
“Well, it’s true!”
Chaewon stands up and says, “You expect me to eat after this?” and stalks out of the room.
YOU ARE READING
flipped - winrina ff
FanfictionThe first time Jimin saw her, she flipped. The first time Minjeong saw her, she ran. That was the second grade, but not much has changed by the seventh. She says, "My Minjeong.. still walking around with my first kiss." The other says, "It's been s...
