Page 18 of Say Something
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“It’s a cookie!”
“No, it’s a meatball.”
“Pizza!”
Dad turned away from the white board and rolled his eyes at his team. I could tell by the look on his face that he wanted to yell the right answer at them, but if he spoke, he forfeited his turn. That was how we played Pictionary when the Thompson’s came over for family game night.
Mr. Thompson returned to the living room with a beer in each hand, one for him and one for my dad. “American Pie,” he said as he sat down, setting the bottles on coasters.
Dad spun around and pointed at Mr. T. “Yes!” He walked over to the couch and they high-fived each other.
Did I mention that we played different themes each week? That week was movies.
“All right, girls. We got this,” Mrs. T said as she went up to the board for her turn. She pulled a postcard off the pile and read it. Then she grinned. Melissa, Mom, and I exchanged smiles. We were down by two points, but it was still early.
Bryan flipped the timer and yelled “go,” and Mrs. T began drawing.
First she drew a tall rectangle with a...a phone. It was a phone booth! “Phone booth!” I shouted. She turned and pointed at me, but kept drawing. A stick figure...a cape…
“Superman!” Melissa called out.
“Yes!” Mrs. T yelled, high-fiving all of us as she returned to her seat.
The guys all rolled their eyes. They had the worst sportsmanship on game night.
“Dan, you’re up,” Dad said.
Danny stood from his place on a beanbag seat on the floor and walked over to the cards, pulling one off the top. His shoulders slumped as he read the movie title and I knew it had to be one of the ones me and Melissa put in the pile. We always added movies that would be difficult to draw, especially if you didn’t know what it was about.
Melissa reached over and flipped the timer on the table, and Danny began to draw. He made a circle that sort of looked like a hamburger on its side, then added a line that looked like a string. Was it a yo-yo? I had no idea where he was going with that, then Melissa leaned over and whispered in my ear. “Ya-Ya.”
Laughter erupted from my chest and Danny glared at me. I immediately quieted down. He was trying to drawDivine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. It was a new movie in theaters, and when Melissa and I had seen the title, we knew we had to add it to game night.
The guys’ team guessed that it was a yo-yo, but they couldn’t figure the rest out before time ran out. We high-fived, and Danny glared as he returned to his seat.
It was my turn. I got up and picked a card from the middle of the deck. There was no rule on where we had to pick from, so I always picked from the middle.
I recognized Danny’s handwriting immediately. The movie wasCoyote Ugly. I wanted to guess that he’d chosen that title because the girls all sucked at drawing animals, but little did he know, I could put a stick figure on a bartop and Melissa would get it right away. I smirked at him and he frowned. Game on.
Mikey flipped the timer and I got started. My bar was nothing more than a rectangular box with some stools in front of it. I drew some shelves behind the bar with bottles of alcohol on them. Then came the stick figure in a short skirt.
“Cocktail,” Mom yelled. Close, but not quite.Come on, Melissa.
“Road House.” I wasn’t even sure what Mrs. T was talking about.
“Oh!” Thatta girl, Mel. “Coyote Ugly!”
“Whoohoo!” I did a little dance on my way back to the couch. I was starting my second year of cheerleading, so I had a few moves. I caught Danny watching me shake my hips, and he wasn’t glaring. Hmm.
“All right, we need a tiebreaker.” Mom announced. When we had tiebreakers, each team drew the same thing and whichever team got it first won. If they guessed at the same time, or it was too close to determine, we did it again and again until we had a clear winner. We were a pretty competitive bunch.
Mom went against Mr. T in the first, and hopefully only, tiebreaker round. I had a good feeling about this.
They each looked at the card, then we counted to three as a group, and they began drawing. There was no timer during tiebreakers.
Mom drew a wavy line across her side of the board, then a boat. So it was a movie with a boat.
