“Imagine everything nasty-smelling. Vinegar, tunafish, human shit-”
“Does every one of your plans involve poop?” Di says.
“-Sauerkraut, piss, old milk. You put that in a jar, let it putrify for six weeks somewhere hot, and either pour it on a possession of your enemy, and you will need a mask for that, or break the jar open on something and run.”
“You want us to get revenge on them six weeks from now?” Beddy says.
“No,” Connie says. She looks faintly hurt. “I’m currently stocked. I keep one in my trunk at all times. Gets nice and hot in there, so the fermentation process is very fertile. Also, to hide it from my parents.”
“You have it in your car?” Di says. “What happens if it breaks in there?”
“I’d have to set the car on fire and drive it into the ocean. It would be unusable after that.”
Beddy cannot help but smile at that image of Duffy’s truck being set on fire and driven into the ocean. Maybe with him in it?
“We can definitely swat at least one of them. And before you ask, that’s where we call 911, and report that they have an arsenal, or they’re holding someone hostage.”
Like Beddy’s heart.
“SWAT team gets called out, maybe they knock down their door and scare the fucking lord out of them.”
“Isn’t that what happened to Johnny Demonic?”
Based on his handle, jhonnydemonic17, Johnny Demonic was a teen folk hero imprisoned after his gunshot wound demonstration videos went viral, and police discovered he was amassing an arsenal, along with a cache of violent screeds against his enemies. High schoolers cried “thought crime,” and girls put pictures of him in their binders and lockers, even after it was revealed “Johnny” was not seventeen at all, but a 22-year-old Serbian exchange student.
“That was just a concerned citizen tracking packages going in and making the call they thought was right,” Connie says. “This would, of course, be slander.”
“Deceiving an emergency service is a serious crime,” Di says. “We could go to minors prison.”
“Clearly, this one has the greatest risk. But, the reward? Sweet indeed.”
What if their quarry isn’t home when they do it? What if that gives one of their parents a heart attack? Are their parents bad people, too?
“What if we jammed them, instead?” Di says.
“I don’t know that one,” Connie says.
“One time my house got jammed. I mean, maybe that’s not the word for it, but somebody came and threw a raspberry jam jar at our front door. The collision of the jar cracked the finish on the wood. And honestly, it looked a lot like blood. It didn’t help that whomever did it made handprints with it all over the door and front windows.”
“Jesus,” Beddy says.
“Look. My mom accepts her fate as an elementary school teacher. Our house has been TP’ed too many times to count. Random nights, full moons, definitely the end of every school year, someone gets us.”
“I would’ve gotten you if I’d lived here then,” Connie says.
“It’s the same every time. In the morning my dad sighs, gets up on the ladder with the pruner. But at the end of the hassle, he throws the whole wad away and we go back to our lives.
“But after the jam, my mom was…shaken. That whole summer, we kept the front lights on. She’d jump when the doorbell rang. When summer was almost over, she actually considered not returning to Bleachwood. She was convinced that it was a student to whom she had given a bad grade. But she didn’t know who. She’s pretty unforgiving when it comes to grades.”
“She gave me a C minus,” Beddy says.
“See, with the jam, it wasn’t a prank. It was a message.”
Di looks uncomfortable. A pause descends, extends itself, breaking upon Connie’s slow applause.