YAFF Muse: Mouthful

By Cam

YAFF Muse is a new weekly blog series featuring some YA Fiction Fanatics members. In this series, we’ll post original short stories created from an image meant to inspire our Muse. Hope you enjoy! And don’t forget to check out the other *YAFFers participating in this series (links below).

Photo Credit: My Charm of Luck by Evely Duis

Mouthful

“Alright bitches! Kiss the wall!”

I try not to roll my eyes but—oops. Too late. Veronica Manchester pops her gum and struts toward me. I don’t want to make the same mistake twice so I stare at her necklace. The chain is too long. Her pendant—some plastic, gawdy-looking thing—hits between her bikini-clad boobs. I see waves of heat rise above the pavement behind her. Yeah, it’s hot. My shorts are drenched and sticking to my butt, so I can only imagine the pendant is glued to her cleave-sweat, too.

I’ve heard the stories from past players. I don’t know if they’re true, but if so, this could really suck.

“I said, ‘kiss the wall,’ Stanton. What part of that does your little turd-sized brain not understand?” she asks.

Veronica is so close I can see the chip in the coating of her black-framed sunglasses. At tryouts last week, I overheard her tell the other seniors her fancy shades were Chanel or Christian Dior or some other high-end brand that starts with a ‘C.’ But it’s obvious they’re knock-offs. Just goes to show who really has the turd-sized brain. Of course I’ll never say this out loud. I oohed and ahhed with the rest of the incoming freshman girls.

Veronica huffs. A cotton candy-scented pocket of air wafts in my face.

I forgot she asked me a question. I look at her—a ballsy move for sure—and open my mouth to say what she wants to hear. Except what comes out is: “I don’t know, Veronica. Maybe all of it?” I don’t mean to come off sounding snarky, but it’s too late. I’m at the point of no return.

Veronica mashes her wad of gum to the right side of her mouth. It balloons out of her cheek like a tumor or a ripe zit. I want to pop it. I clench my fists by my sides so I don’t do anything rash.

I’m a freshman. A nobody.

“What did you say?” She drops her chin a little. Above the rim of her glasses I see her brown eyes glare at me like two darts of death.

“All of it?” I ask. A drop of sweat slides down my temple. It’s like Time pulls up a chair and shakes open a bag of popcorn. Off to either side of me I sense five pairs of freshman eyes afraid to blink. A basketball bounces, then rolls off somewhere to the left, maybe by the back court. I see the other senior girls creep closer to me and Veronica, surrounding us like a protective blanket. It’s still up in the air on whether they’re protecting us from each other, or outsider attention. Either way, the best thing for me to do is keep my mouth shut.

“Alright, Stanton,” Veronica says, “I’ll try to make things a little clearer for you.”

* * *

I was right. Her pendant is made out of plastic. It also tastes like rubbing alcohol and salt. I have to swallow hard because it’s more than slightly nauseating to know I’ve ingested Veronica Manchester’s cleave-sweat as I hold the chunky pendant between my teeth.

Veronica leans against the brick wall perpendicular to me. She smiles. “All you have to do is drop it, Stanton.”

I snort. Right, like the alternative is a better choice.

She shrugs and holds out her hand to a senior whose name I can’t remember. Something shiny drops in her palm.

My stomach churns when Veronica glides to me, holding another pendant between her fingers. It’s identical to the one in my mouth, only silver instead of white.

“Open up,” she says. She smiles so big I almost ask to borrow her sunglasses because her teeth are too bright. It hurts my eyes.

But I can’t open my mouth. If I do then her necklace will drop and that’s really not an option at this point. I shake my head as Veronica holds the silver pendant in front of my face.

She shoves it in my mouth anyway.

* * *

There are fifteen seniors on the field hockey team. Apparently there are also fifteen different colors of plastic, gawdy pendants on cheap gold chains. Who knew? I hold fourteen in my mouth. I don’t swallow because I know the first one, Veronica’s white pendant, will slide down my throat if I do.

“Last one, Stanton.” Veronica looks bored as she approaches me. Her shoulders aren’t quite as broad as they were earlier and her smooth swagger has fizzled into a shuffle. And she checks her watch every other minute like she has something better to do than haze freshman girls all day.

I want to flip her off or give her a nasty look but my arms are sore from holding the field hockey stick for so long and my eyes sting because I haven’t blinked since she stuffed the twelfth pendant between my lips. There’s a tickle in my windpipe and I concentrate on clamping the back of my throat closed. This is why I’m not prepared when Veronica shoves the pale pink pendant, the last one, into my mouth.

Fifteen pendants clank onto the pavement like a handful of wet jacks. I drop the stick and barely have time to wretch when both my arms are yanked back.

Veronica’s in my face and amazingly, her breath still smells like cotton candy gum. She sneers and grabs the collar of my shirt with both hands.

At first I think we’re going to kiss and I want to tell her I’m not cool with that. But it’s not softness I feel against my lips. It’s cement—hard and rough—and the taste of blood overwhelms me.

The brick exfoliates my cheek. It stings but I don’t cry because the contrast of sticky hot air against my bare butt is so shocking I stop breathing. I blink and force air into my lungs because breathing trumps crying any day of the week.

* * *

The first whap of the stick across my ass is as bad as I imagined it could be.

The second one isn’t any better.

By the time the fifteenth senior gets her turn, I don’t feel anything.

That’s okay because I understand. This is all part of it—team camaraderie, sisterhood, loyalty, whatever. But I wonder how long it’ll take to get the aftertaste of cleave-sweat out of my mouth.

© 2010 Cambria Dillon

(Author’s Note: The first thing that popped in my head when I sat down to write this story was that hazing scene in Dazed and Confused. You know the one I’m talking about, right? Parker Posey screams “Fry like bacon, piggies!” at the incoming freshman girls and they all begrudgingly flatten themselves onto the scorching pavement and flap around like, well, bacon. Classic scene. Classic movie. This short story is sort of an homage to that scene. )

*Don’t forget to check out other stories from YAFF Muse participants:
Jennifer Fischetto
Vanessa Barger