No Laughing Matter

NO LAUGHING MATTER

I heard it before I saw it: a high-pitched giggle, like that of a delighted child.  I stopped to look behind me.  Nobody.  The sidewalk stretched out behind me, endless and empty.

Then I heard it again, closer this time, almost underfoot.  I looked down, eyes searching the sunbaked cement for whatever was mocking me.  Still nothing.  Frustrated and certain someone was playing a prank on me, I shouldered my backpack as if to leave.  I needed to hurry anyway, or I would be late to school.  Again.

The shrill giggle pierced my ear again.  I glanced at one of the spindly trees lining the side of the road and was startled to see a stripe of neon-pink draped across one of the scrawny, peeling trunks.  I hurried across the sidewalk for a closer look.

I peered at the pink thing, squinting at it in the bright morning sunlight.  It was almost fluorescent in its brightness.  My mother had a leotard that colour in the eighties.  I made a face at the thought then turned my attention back to the plump, pink worm-like creature that was attached to the sickly tree.

Carefully I peeled it off the bark, grimacing at its soft body.  No sooner than it was in my hand, I started laughing.  Giggling hysterically for no real reason, unable to stop.  Fearing that I might crush the poor thing, I set it back on the tree for a moment while I tried to compose myself.  As soon as my fingers left it, the giggling stopped.

Curious, I picked the worm up once more.  Again I was overcome by hysterical laughter.  When I put it down again, the laughter stopped.  Interesting.  I shrugged off my backpack and dug out the tin I kept my pens in.  A worm like this had so much potential.  I grinned wickedly to myself as I slipped the squidgy pink thing into the tin, tipping the pens into the bottom of my bag. 

****

The sunlight slanted through the tall windows in Mr. DeForge’s maths class, turning the room into an oven.  I tried to stifle a yawn, but managed only to make it bigger, my mouth gaping open.
“Am I boring you?” Mr. DeForge asked, gray eyes skewering me from the front of the room.
“Uh…. No,” I stammered.  “It’s just so warm in here!”
Mr. DeForge strode across to the windows and threw one open.  “Better?” he asked.
“Yes.  Thank you.” I ducked my head, breathing deeply the scent of freshly mown grass that wafted through the open window from the playing fields below.
“Alright then,” Mr.Deforge said.  “I’d like you to complete these five equations.”  He slid the blackboard across to reveal the chalked numbers neatly written there.

I pulled my pencil case from my backpack, startled when it didn’t rattle as it usually did.  Then I remembered the worm.  I carefully lifted the lid to reveal the creature.  It raised the front part of its body, antenna waving in the air.  I reached into my bag for a pen, cursing under my breath when my hand came out streaked in ink.  I glanced at the desk in front of me, at the sunburnt neck of the boy sitting there, head bent over his work.

I flicked the worm from the tin.  It landed on the boy’s neck with a barely audible plop.  Almost immediately he started giggling, great gales of laughter bubbling out of him like foam spilling from a beer mug.  Heads turned, everyone in the room curious as to what might be causing this sudden hilarity,
“Mr. Lewis!” snapped Mr. De.Forge.  “Please.  Share the joke!”  But Dave Lewis was helpless to reply, doubled over with laughter.  Mr. DeForge’s face went pink, then red, then crimson as he tried to contain his fury.  Just when I thought he might explode, I reached out and pulled the worm from Dave’s neck, shutting it back into my tin.

Dave stopped laughing and sat there, gasping for breath. 
“Office!” Mr. Deforge intoned, his voice as cold and deadly as I remember hearing it.  “Now!”  I saw Dave’s face as he shuffled out of the room, the expression priceless in its confusion.

****

McKinley High was a strange place to be that day.  In each of my classes, I managed to slip the worm onto another student, making them collapse in giggles.  Teachers went from bemused to furious and back again, no one being able to identify why only one student seemed affected.  They were used to gaggles of girls giggling under their breath.  They could handle gangs of boys sniggering.  But individual laughers? That was something new.

During last period Mrs. Carlisle, the principal, called an assembly.  As we all shuffled through the hallway on the way to the auditorium, I ducked into the girls’ bathroom.  I waited there until the noise in the hallway had died down.  Then I snuck my way to the backstage area of the auditorium.  Being a drama student I knew my way through there blindfolded.

My right hand was wrapped around my tin as I climbed the narrow ladder to the catwalk over the stage, thankful, not for the first time, that I wasn’t afraid of heights.  I could see Mrs. Carlisle and several other teachers on the stage below.  I noticed how thin Mr. Deforge’s hair was on top, the stage lights shining through it to reveal shiny pink scalp.  I made my way to the centre of the catwalk, taking great care not to bump any of the lights.

Mrs. Carlisle stepped forwards, tapped the microphone twice and cleared her throat.
“I’m greatly saddened to be standing before you this afternoon,” she began.  “A rather disruptive prank seems to be doing the rounds of this school, and I would like to see it nipped in the bud.”

The worm dropped right in the centre of her frosted blonde bouffant,

Then she started giggling.

990 words