Page 39 of Bride of Choice

“Booger thinks? Dumps mud all over Jojo-knee!” Rek barked. “Booger bad male! Bad like Goober! Stupid!”

“Two,” I gritted out.

The sound of the dirt bag dropping was loud in the silence that followed. It was too bad the dirt bag dropped wasn’t named Rek.

“Three,” I bit off.

“Muddy,” someone else murmured.

“Four,” I called louder.

Rek growled and the sound of a shuffling scuffle sounded.

A looky-loo beast growled right back softly as if to ask what the big idea was.

“Jojo-knee no counts to tens! Lies! Gets fives and goes BOOM!” Rek warned them all.

At the door, about to get the hell out of my hair, he paused, sniffed, grunted, made that weird sneezing sound, then sniffed again. “What that smells?” the sock monkey grumbled, rumbling as he sniffed some more.

“It’s exactly what you think it is!” I snapped, shooting up, flinging mud everywhere in the process.

“No,” Rek burst out, like if he said so then it wouldn’t be true.

“Yes,” I said simply, grinding it out through gritted teeth.

“No,” he argued, his voice growing insistent.

Saying that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, dummy. “Yes,” I shot back with the same fiery tone.

“NO!” he called out louder, until we were shouting back and forth at each other.

“YES!”

“NO!”

“YES!!”

“NO!!”

“What they argue ‘bout,” whoever was plainly that damned stupid asked Boog, I was assuming as Rek got all up in my face.

“FIVE!” I announced, doing a bit of roaring of my own.

“Scatters!” Boog called out, the sound of thundering footsteps stampeding from my mud hut and Rek shouting, “Ah! Eh! Eh! What’s big in the ideas! Put Rek down! Down now, Boogers!!” as he was quickly snatched from my distorted field of vision, it was like Christmas morning. Hallelujah.

“Rek stupid. Bauheg save from self! Rek thank Bauheg later!” Boog snapped.

Rek’s caterwauling faded into the distance as I trudged over to the door, slammed it shut and locked it, and had a good fishmouthed gape at the mess left in their wake. “I hate men!” I shouted as I flung my arms out, then let them fall wetly to my sides with a resounding slap of a clap. “You ALL suck!! All of you! Every single last damn diddly darn freakin doodly one! You hear me?! You SSSSSUCK!”

With a groan, knowing what I had to do and not looking forward to it one lick, I limped over to my door , unlocked it, and flung it open. Walking back towards my mess, I started the arduous task of finishing off that stupid partially closed up hole.

???

Sometime later, a heavy grunt alerted me to company. Attempting to shimmy my upper half out from underneath my bed, wondering at how I’d thought it a genius idea to push it back into place first, I was working on wiggling my way out without spreading even more mud and muck anywhere, when thick fingers wrapped around my waist and just jerked me right out from underneath my bed.

Popping free with a yelp, I was all set to start lambasting a fool when Bum-bum’s concerned mug stole my attention.

“Well, what the hell are you doing here?” I blurted, holding my hands out so I didn’t touch him with dirt and muck encrusted hands. I’d lost four nails. Four! Four beautiful, acrylic claws of destruction gone working on this ish, but I’d admit I enjoyed that feeling of a hard task accomplished. Even if it left me sweaty, gross, short a few claws, and coated in ick.

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