“This isn’t fair,” Brandon whined, “She gets to be Subzero, and you get to be Scorpion, and what do I get to be?”
We looked at him in annoyance. He complained too much. “Pond Frog. He’s not even a real Mortal Kombat character! You just made him up!”
“No we didn’t,” Sam pointed out, “He’s gonna be in four. Just you wait.”
“Yeah right. He doesn’t even have any super powers. You can kill people with your, uh, freezy force thing,” he pointed out, gesturing at Sam. Then he gestured towards me and continued, “And you can kill people with your imaginary ass extension. And what can I do? I can hop around and say ‘ribbet.’”
“Pond Frog does too have super powers. He has a lethal tongue.”
“He does?” Brandon asked with curiosity.
“Yeah. Like that chick from that movie with that guy!”
“You mean Uma Thurman, that Batman movie, and George Clooney?”
“Yeah!”
“Cool!”
He grabbed Sam and gave her a long, deep, French kiss. Then he pulled away and exclaimed, “You’re dead!”
“No I’m not, I put my freezy forcey thing on my mouth, and you’re tongue didn’t work. You have to kiss me good enough that my freezy forcey thing melts.”
“Well how do I know when your freezy forcey thing melts?”
“When I drag you into the shrubs.”
“Oh.”
Brandon once again grabbed Sam and started making out with her. A few minutes later, I announced, “This game is really starting to suck. And I think Sam’s freezy force thing killed Brandon a long time ago.”
“Subzero’s freezy force thing killed Pond Frog!” Sam corrected me.
“I’m so sorry your highness,” I apologised.
“Whatever. Get back here,” Pond Frog instructed, pulling Subzero back to him.
I rolled my eyes and quickly killed them both with my imaginary ass extension, and exclaimed, “There! Now you’re both dead! Game over. I win. Let’s all go inside now.”
Sam and Brandon shrugged and walked into the house and up the stairs to their room, where I heard the bed hitting the wall a few short minutes later.
A few minutes after that, eight year old Gwenevere walked into the room and asked, “What in the hell is going on up there?”
“Pond Frog and Subzero are having sex.”
“They are! Cool! I wanna go watch!”
“Gwen! No! That means Sam and Brandon!”
“Oh,” she sighed in disappointment. “It would have been cool to see that. By the way, who’s Pond Frog?”
It was now Nick’s four month birthday and I was standing over his crib looking at him. “So, you’re still not talking?”
He looked at me.
“Please? I want to be able to brag to all my friends that you said stuff.”
He continued to look at me.
“Look, I’m begging you. Say something. Come on, your daddy’s begging. Say something.”
He looked up at me, opened his mouth, and said, “Do it!”
“Oh my God! He said it!” I exclaimed at the top of my lungs. “Mom, Dad, get the Polaroid! Nick just said his first words!”
Nick burst into tears and looked as if he regretted saying it.
I picked him up and began to rock him back and forth the way Mom had taught me when Jessica was little. I had been too young for holding with Zac, I couldn’t exactly hold myself, and I wasn’t born yet with Isaac.
“I’m sorry, Little Guy,” I murmured into his hair, which wasn’t very long yet. “I shouldn’t have screamed. That was stupid of me. I was just excited because this is a major mile stone in your life, and you mean a lot to me.”
He slowed down and gradually stopped crying. “That’s my little man,” I whispered and set him back down.
I walked out of the room thinking, Sap Central!
I had been watching TV for about an hour. About half way through that time period, I heard Taylor yelling something about Nick saying his first words or some crap like that.
I wondered if Zac was done attempting to make a cake yet. When Fresh Prince of Belair drew to a close, I switched the set off and strolled into the kitchen to see. I was looking forward to seeing something that would make me feel better about my failure. Instead, I saw Zac sitting in a chair next to a cake with-two, four, six-six layers on it. It was beautiful, with gorgeous white frosting all over it, and pretty white ribbon things and pale yellow, blue, and pink roses in clusters of one of each artfully spread out over it. It had ‘Happy eighth kid, Mom’ iced on the top layer in pale blue, accompanied with two clusters of flowers.
“You did not make that,” I accused him.
“You were sitting in the living room the whole time, I didn’t leave. And I couldn’t have been hiding it in the fridge,” he reasoned.
I frowned at him and decided a woman didn’t need a baby shower until she was at least showing anyway.
Hmmm, Hepatitis Branch Home Page, that sounds promising, I thought as clicked on the link. I had been searching the web for about ten minutes at the West Side Tulsa Library, looking for Hepatitis B sites.
I wanted to figure out what to do so that I wouldn’t have Hepatitis B anymore. I couldn’t tell Cate, but, when we had gotten checked for STD’s, I have turned up positive for Hepatitis B.
I knew that if I told her, Cate would dump me for ‘lying to her’ about never having unprotected sex. Even though I had been telling the truth.
Hepatitis A. Hepatitis B. Hepatitis C. Hepatitis D. Hepatitis E. Hepatitis G. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as Hepatitis C, D, E, and G.
I clicked Hepatitis B. I clicked on symptoms, just for the hell of it. Jaundice. What in the hell is Jaundice? Fatigue, abdominal cramps, nausea, vomiting. So that’s what that was! I thought I was just PMSing!
Huh huh huh, I mentally chuckled as my document printed off. Save changes to ‘Ike Sucks?’ No. I quickly hit the ‘N’ key.
I picked up the print out paper. Huh huh huh.
I walked into Isaac and I’s room to find him asleep in his bed, just as I left him. I put some Scotch tape on the paper, and careful not to wake him, stuck it on his back.
I walked out of the room and into the kitchen. to get me some OJ.
I walked into the kitchen to get myself a glass of milk. Eight ice cold glasses a day can prevent osteoporosis, don ‘cha know.
I walked to the fridge and got the milk out. My mom walked past me and started laughing. She greeted me, “Morning, Honey.” Then she kicked me lightly in the leg.
“Hey!”
Mac wandered into the kitchen, apparantly intent on preventing osteoporosis also, cuz after saying, “Mornin’ Ikey!” and kicking me, he requested, “Could you get me some milk?”
I looked at him strangely, and poured him a glass. I handed it to him and he said, “Thank you Ikers.” He went and sat down.
Dad wandered into the kitchen and laughed. He said, “Mornin’ family!” and kicked me.
“Hey! Don’t do that!”
A few minutes later, Jessica and Avery wandered into the kitchen and Jessica spoke for both of them by saying, “Mornin.’”
They both kicked me as they passed.
“Hey! What’s the deal!?” I asked.
Taylor got up and walked around until he was behind me. “Kick me, I have sexual intercourse with my pillow on a regular basis.”
Then he began to wander off, but, before leaving said, “Oh, and, by the way,” and then kicked me.
Chapter Eighteen Back to the Chapters
