If you thought last chapter was bad, than this one is even worse. God, I hate this chapter.
It’s hell. Yeah. Last chapter, nothing serious happened. Sure, Jaidon did some… stuff, but nothing major happened.
This one- hohoho, it’s a chapter, all right. Well, this is a book after all.
God. God, why? Why have I been cursed to go to this school? Being in this class, meeting a specific person, having to deal with their nefarious things? Why have I been born into a world where this specific entity of a being has to live in the same area as myself, let alone go to the same educational building and room of learning as me? WHY
You get the point, uh, glad that’s over with. Um, where were we? Oh, right, I was explaining what this so-called ‘Hug - O’Clock’ is. Ummm, just read what it’s called a few times. You’ll probably be able to at least come up with an idea of what it could be.
It’s a specific time where you… uh… hug.
“That sounds incredibly dumb, Jaidon.”
After he proposed the idea to me, I said that to him immediately afterwards.
“A whole hour where you hug someone? Gross and boring.”
“It’ll only be for five minutes during recess.”
“Oh, okay.”
“So you don’t have to hug anyone, if you don’t want to.”
“Good, cause I don’t want to.”
“Not even Caitlyn?”
“I- no, definitely not.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure. Dude, what even gave you the idea I would want to?”
“But you liiiiiike her.”
“What? No!”
A-anyway, he announced the whole hug time thing during recess immediately following our conversation.
“Everyone! We’re about to do Hug - O’Clock!”
Everyone didn’t like that. Except Anna, who immediately ran (even though they were right next to each other, she still ran… I guess moved quickly?) to Caitlyn and bear hugged the soul out of her body. Oh, god, that looks painful. I mean besides the fact Caitlyn was being suffocated. Just the idea of hugs in general, I guess.
Am I hugaphobic? No, because that’s not a real thing. Right? Yeah, I just looked it up, it isn’t a real thing. It’s called haphephobia, which I don’t have. Uh, anyway.
“Why are we doing this?”
Great question, Karoline! I wholeheartedly agree with you!
“Because it’s funny.”
Terrible response, Jaidon! Try again!
“And to ship people.”
Ship- what? Like that shipping thing Anna mention- oh, whatever, I’kk figure it out later (THIS IS FORESHADOWING IF YOU DIDNT KNOW)
“So what do we even do?”
“Uh… for the next five minutes, try to hug as many people as possible.”
“And the prize?”
“You, uh, get hugged.”
Prize sucks.
Anyway, Jaidon ‘let us go’ and we ran away from each other. All of us that were there. We all just split up. Probably because we were hoping that no one was going to try to hug us, and by the looks of it, no one even wanted to.
It seemed like none of us competitors weren’t too keen on getting a lot of early points- why am I describing this repulsive activity like it’s an Olympic sport?
I didn’t want to participate. No one did. I walked around, trying to avoid people, until I got into a conversation with someone. Who they are doesn’t matter (sorry) for right now, but what did was that it was an excuse to not be hugged by anyone. Huggers would probably find people that were by themselves to save embarrassment in front of a crowd.
I don’t even know what I’m talking about anymore.
Anyway, I looked around and, not surprisingly, saw a vast number of people hugging tons of other people:
0. No one was hugging anyone.
Why did you even think this was a good idea, Jaidon? I mean, sure, I eventually found him to ask what was going on, but seriously? Oh. I found him hugging other people. Guess he just wanted to hug other people. Weird. Is that the only reason?
As I was staring at him, waiting for him to release his current victim, he suddenly sprang from the body (possibly a corpse now) and latched onto me.
“Get off of me!”
“You can’t just stand there! You’re supposed to hug people back, Alan!”
“Get off!”
After successfully ripping Jaidon off of my shoulders, I was about to scold him about his dumb idea when…
“It’s Becky, not Alan.”
Guess who.
“You’re supposed ot be hugging people too, Caitlyn.”
“I don’t really wanna do that, so, uh, no thanks.”
“But that’s the point of the game! The time’s probably almost up! Here, hug Alan right now- you’ll get bonus points if you do.”
Jaidon- ugh. Why?
“No, that’s freaking stupid.”
“Yeah, sounds like a terrible idea to me.”
Me, too. Wait, I was the one who just said that
“Just do it already! Good practice, right?”
“Practice for what?”
“Uh, duh? For when you hug each other for real?”
We both stared at him.
“What?”
“You know, when you’re like, I dunno, hugging like a couple?”
“Ex- NO! We aren’t a couple, idiot!”
Caitlyn got pretty flustered. I was still processing what he said. Uh, when we hug… why would we hug? As a couple? Do couples hug- WAIT I’VE SEEN THIS IN A DISNEY MOVIE
“NO THAT’S DISGUSTING!”
I got even more flustered than Caitlyn.
“Hey, what? Disgusting?”
“Yeah, hugging you! Gross!”
Jaidon took a step back.
“Uh, says you? You’re literally gross.”
“You’re… literally dumb.”
GOTTEM
“I’m smarter than you.”
“No, you’re not.”
Sure, there was that one math problem, but who cares.
“Remember that one time in math?”
GOD DAMN IT
“Uh, no? I don’t remember anything that happened in math class.”
“So you don’t pay attention in class, so you’re dumb?”
“NO THAT’S NOT WHAT I- ugh, no!”
I rolled my eyes. I heard Jaidon’s laugh going on to the right of me.
“So I’m smarter than you?”
Caitlyn said that with a pride-filled face. She put her hands on her hips, even.
“No, watch- Jaidon, say any hard math problem, and whoever says it first is smarter.”
“Uh, 4 times 5?”
Jaidon, you’re stupid.
“20!”
“20!”
Uh
So I was a little slow at saying the answer.
“I said it first!”
Maybe if I scream that I said it first, they would actually think I did.
“No.”
“No.”
“Okay, well, speed isn’t always smart.”
That sentence just doesn’t make sense
“I dunno, I think Caitlyn’s smarter than you.”
Jaidon, you’re supposed to be on my side! What happened to, like, boys versus girls? Uh, you and I versus Caitlyn and Anna?
Oh, god.
I said her name, didn’t I?
“She is smarter than Becky!”
SHE’S HERE I’VE GOT TO GO
“Where the hell did you come from?”
“I just hugged 13 people. How many people have you hugged, Becky?”
“Like, 15 people.”
Maybe Anna’ll believe me
“So you’re dumb AND a liar, Becky.”
Ok so Anna isn’t gonna believe me any more thanks Caitlyn
“I’M NOT A LI- okay, whatever, I give up.”
“Psst, Jaidon!”
Anna whispered to Jaidon, but, uh, didn’t? She said it with the like hiss noise that whispering makes, but…really loud? I don’t know. Scream whispering. Sure. Yeah, I think I’ve used that term sometime in my life.
“What, Anna?”
Jaidon also scream whispered. Great. Caitlyn looked confused. Why were they pretending to whisper?
“Have they hugged yet?”
OH MY GOD BACK TO THIS
“No! Should we activate plan D?”
Plan d*ck?
“Yeah! Go, go, go!”
Anna walked towards Caitlyn and grabbed her arms. I saw Jaidon approaching me, so I stuck my arm out to stop him. We struggled a bit, but eventually he grabbed a hold of my arms too. I tried to stomp on his feet, but he wasn’t just holding me. He was pushing me, using his feet to propel me forwards. I wasn’t sure what was going on, so I tried to push against him, but after a bit I gave up because it was too tiring. It’s not like he’s strong, he just grabbed hold of my arms, and, like, had the hill advantage (there wasn’t a hill), and, like, short people tend to be… stronger?
I’m not weak. Trust me.
After giving up, I looked forwards to see where my transportation was taking me. I saw that Anna was basically doing the same thing to Caitlyn, too.
BACK INTO PUSH BACK MODE WHAT IS HAPPENING
I figured the two of them were trying to push us into each other, so we… could… hug?
I don’t- why are they doing this? Did Anna plan this?
Ohhhhhhh. Of course she did.
“Hey, Becky, Caitlyn, to tell you the truth-”
Hey, how come she can just talk so easily? Isn’t Caitlyn pushing back on her, to- wait why isn’t she
“Caitlyn! Push- ugh- back- argh- harder!”
I was trying to push against Jaidon, so talking while doing that was pretty tiring. But you know who wasn’t tired? Anna.
Caitlyn wasn’t pushing back nearly as much as me, so Anna just kinda shoved her towards me.
“STOP!”
I felt a great force shove my back forwards, straight towards Caitlyn. Anna gave a final push and Caitlyn fell forwards.
What, did they think this was gonna work?
So, about that. I stuck my arms out to protect my fall, and so did Caitlyn, so things kinda just snowballed after that, and we both just fell into each other’s arms-
No, we didn’t hug each other. We slammed our heads into each other and fell backwards. I felt dizzy, and my forehead hurt. I opened my eyes, feeling nauseous and started to pick myself up. Jaidon and Anna both looked surprised, watching as the two of us attempted to stand back up after that. I looked at them with an angry face, but didn’t say anything. Just groaned really hard. Which Anna laughed at.
Caitlyn and I both had to go to the nurse to get our heads checked (nurse made to check our heads for physical and mental problems). After about 15 minutes of explaining what happened, we came back with ice packs (they weren’t ice packs. The nurse wrapped ice cubed in those like brown paper towels, taped them up, and told us to keep them to our foreheads for a couple hours until they melted. Friggin’ awesome.) and found Jaidon and Anna, still there, waiting for us.
“Aww, you both went to the nurse together!”
“Shut up!”
“Aww, you’re so cute together!”
DUDE SHUT UP
“DUDE SHUT UP!”
I- Caitlyn said exactly what I was thinking of saying. Huh. Crazy how that works.
“But you guys would be such a good couple right, Jaidon?”
“Yeah, totally!”
Jaidon and Anna just love being partners in crime, always causing Caitlyn and I to do these stupid things.
Hmm. Jaidon. Anna. Love. Partners. Stupid things.
I’m sensing something.
“You’re making my head hurt, stop!”
Get the pun? Get it? Get it?
“Why don’t you ask Caitlyn to kiss your boo-boo for you, then?”
THEY JUST DONT LET UP DO THEY
“NO!”
Bell rang. Recess was over.
“See you, lovebirds!”
Caitlyn and I both screamed at him, Anna laughing.
“STOP!”
ns 172.70.130.210da2