The Playground Slide Page #2

• Fiction

								

Lukas Salamander was a tall, lanky boy who looked like a burnt stringbean. His long neck draped his head forward and his shoulders always humped outwards. His face was covered in zits and stubby hairs. He had eyes the color of raisins and teeth the color of the harvest moon. His gray hair was shaved at the edges and combed back meticulously. His feet stretched out far like those of a clown. He had a sharp, annoying, and ear-splitting voice that was even worse when he laughed. He laughed a lot. He was the scariest of them all.
Georgie Parka was short and had strong, rotund arms. He was rather pudgy and had nothing behind his eyes. He was strong and played a lot of football with his two brothers in high school. He had scarlet, dyed hair on a head that slouched onto his broad shoulders. He wrapped duct tape around his sleeves and always had his fists clenched. He seldom said anything, but what he did say was always crowded by grumples. He would pummel any kid to a pulp with those clenched fists. His arms swing back and forth when he walks like a charging gorilla. He was the most threatening of them all.
Pearl Blackboard was a very pretty girl who was quite nasty at heart. She had straight, short, black hair that fell off her head as gracefully as a waterfall. She was tall and thin, like Lukas but even more so. Her face was clear as the sea on a nice day. She had a disgusting smile that’s pointed ends seemed to reach her ears. She often would come up with the gruesome ideas to torture younger kids. She would rarely ever say them herself, however, but would whisper them to Lukas who would laugh ferociously with his disgusting laugh. She was the kind of kid who would act so wonderfully mild mannered in front of adults so they would never expect anything. If she were to ever get in trouble, she would blame it on her two accomplices. She was the most vicious of them all. 
Their three laughs resounded over all of the ones from the little kids. The cackling laugh, the grumbling laugh, and the petty laugh. She could see Pearl get an idea and lean over so coldly. With a hand clasped against her cheek, she whispered something into Lukas’ ear that made tears well in his eyes from laughing. He choked it back but eventually released his hyena cackle. They all three were like hyenas baking in the hot savannah, eating carcasses with blood stained mouths. Evelyn had to learn about them in science a few weeks earlier. That thought popped into her brain. The hyenas at her school.
Evelyn knew that lunch was never so bad. Sixth graders ate at the far left of the cafeteria and fourth graders ate at the far right. It was a small school so they could fit all of the kindergarten, first, second, and third graders to eat lunch at one time and all the fourth, fifth, and sixth graders to eat at another. But this day was particularly horrible. Her head stung and it hurt no matter how small the pain actually was. 
Evelyn walked away quite briskly as to try to salvage what was left of her dignity and her lunch. She, however, forgot that walking fast is not always a good thing. With one loose shoelace, she tripped and fell onto the cold floor in front of everyone. Her food sloshed onto her face and her t-shirt. She waited, and for a few seconds everything was quiet and airless and lifeless. But then the laughter started with three. It spread like a contagious disease all throughout the school cafeteria. As if a spirit possessed each and every one of them and with its puppet strings opened all their mouths and let out that hideous laughter. Evelyn didn’t rush to the bathroom. She sat down at that small table, Sloppy Joe on her shirt and in chunks in her hair and she sat. Her stomach cracked and cried after losing its lunch but Evelyn stayed steadfast and didn’t crumple or cry.
Standing, staggered line, each fourth grader hurried and pushed each standing in other directions to talk to their friends. Evelyn, however, walked slowly as she was standing in the back of the line. She considered going to the bathroom and staying there for all of recess. Yet still she walked past many classrooms, seeing the finger paintings and history reports hung up on the walls. It was warm inside, the heating units were blaring loudly. The kids at the front of the line started putting on their coats and gloves and hats hung up by the door. Evelyn’s leg muscles clenched; she was ready to run. But she knew that if she hid, they would still find her and she would be off much worse. Soon, she was getting on her winter clothes and tennis shoes and walked through the cold threshold and out of the heating.
She stood on the side of the fence, leaning on its cold metal. The teachers couldn't see her from where she stood, and hopefully, she hoped, neither could the kids. Her mittens made her hands look swollen like they were little guinea pigs attached to her wrists. She could breathe out a puff of cold air and have it drift away from her. The air would travel and travel until inhaled by another kid out there, somewhere. Evelyn’s shoes squished and sank into the cold mud. It seemed to swallow her up whole and leave no morsels left. It would eat her bones and all. 
“HEY!” yelled a voice, from across the fence. She could see where it was coming from but when she turned around she saw Lukas, contorting himself through the metal wires. He leered at her, seemingly in pain and being choked by his entanglement. He let out a ghastly moan, like that of a zombie. This sight made evelyn jump out of her skin. The three laughed, but Lukas the most. They had given her a scare, and they liked it. But it wasn't really a supposed grotesque zombie that scared her. It was Lukas himself. 
All three of them jumped the fence and now Evelyn was not protected by any barrier. She started to run, but Georgie grabbed her coat collar and it slid right off. The cold wrapped around her now, stopping her in her tracks. 
“Stop!” yelled Evelyn. “Give it back!” Georgie threw the coat to Pearl who put it on; it was too small for her. 
“You should put it on, Georgie!” laughed Lukas at the thought of such a large kid like Georgie wearing Evelyn’s size youth medium jacket. But then, pearl grabbed Lukas’ shoulder and leaned in to whisper something. Evelyn couldn't hear what it was. But by the smile on the twos faces, she knew it would be quite rotten.
“If you want this coat back,” started Pearl, “you'll have to meet us on that red slide over there, and then do whatever we say.” The hyenas howled and bellowed ready for the lion of life to destroy her, so they could finish the meal. Money was tight at home for Evelyn. Her mom would be absolutely livid if she lost her coat. She wouldn't understand any excuse. Any excuse. So she stared at the ground as she went with the chortling kids. 
She climbed up after them. Climbed right up the slide’s ladder. She was glad they didn't take her mittens too, because her hands were still freezed by the rusted metal rungs even when she was wearing them. This slide was not intended to hold four whole students at a time. It wobbled with the wind. Evelyn knew not to turn away from them. As soon as she would turn her back, she would plummet down to the mulch via the smallest of pushes. But this did not happen.

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