In a tree house a few hundred yards from Lake Cobbler, the boys sit in a circle. Billy Apple, age 10, allows his flip-flops to hang off his feet. His yellow and green horizontal-striped long-sleeved shirt hangs loosely on his thin body. Billy is listening to Jack Banana, whose long, yellow arms flail wildly as he makes his argument. Jack’s bushy eyebrows bounce up and down passionately emphasizing his point. And in the middle of each point, he pulls down the short sleeves of his orange tee shirt after they have fallen to his shoulders.
The final boy is Sandy Grapes. Sandy is also 10, but unlike the other boys, he would be the bad seed in the bunch. Sandy Grapes is usually the first one to go bad. Sandy sits fiddling with a cap that usually sits backwards on his grape head. And what is most on his mind while Jack rants is whether his blue cap goes with his long-sleeved, lime-green shirt and olive-green pants. Sandy is torn.
When Jack’s arms subside, Billy lifts his tree branch gavel and bangs it.
“So the motion carries. From now on, ‘who smelt it, dealt it.’ What’s next on our agenda?” Billy says, looking at his two friends.
Jack looks down at his poorly taken notes. “Next up is what we’re gonna do today.”
“I have a motion,” Candy says appearing out of nowhere.
“Ahhh!” the boys scream in surprise.
After a silent moment, a fart is heard followed by a sniff.
“My bad,” Sandy decides.
Candy continues. “According to motion 169, anyone present when the agenda is called to order can make or suggest an activity.”
“Yes, but motion 169 is set on the presumption that that party was invited into the circle,” Billy rebuts.
“Right, but according to motion 242, anyone in said circle must be assumed to have been invited because how else could they have gotten in,” Candy adds.
Jack leans over to Billy and whispers, “How is she able to navigate our bureaucracy with such ease?”
Becky Orange now has her hands over her orange ears trying to block out the memory of the sounds. “So much farting!” she says, still rocking back and forth in the corner.
Candy continues, “I purpose...”
Sandy tries to interrupt, “You can’t just come in here and…”
“… that we all go down to the lake and go skinny dipping,” Candy concludes.
There is a long silence in the room. All of the boys stare at Candy with their mouths hanging open. The sound of a fart breaks the silence.
“My bad,” Sandy admits.
“Go on,” Billy says, finding room in their agenda for consideration of her motion.
Candy speaks in a very innocent, high-pitched voice. “I propose that we all take a trip down to the lake, taking any boxes or similar carrying devices that we all may have. And then throw caution into the wind and see what we find... I mean discover.”
Molly, who was sitting quietly next to Candy, corrects her. “She meant ‘what comes up.’”
“Yes, thank you, Molly. Let’s see what comes up.”
The boys’ mouths hang open. Their eyes bulge at their fruit-head maximums.
Jack is the first to speak. He does so with a clear rational mind. “As a point of order, I would like to put on record all of the reasons we shouldn’t do this. One, I keep a special place in my pants, and my mom said I shouldn’t touch it when I’m around other people. Two, I like touching it soooo... Wait, what happened?”
Jack looks down to find that all three of the boys are naked with their hands over their pickles. The girls are nowhere around.
Billy, looking suckered, answers, “I don’t know, Jack. I don’t know.”
“Where are the girls?” Jack says, looking around.
“I don’t know,” Billy says with resentment in his voice.
“I say we get dressed before someone sees us,” Sandy Grapes says, suddenly self-conscious about his raisins.
As the boys look around for their clothes, Candy and Molly come out of nowhere dressed in ski masks. The boys see them and the first thing they notice are the guns they are holding in their pockets.
“OK, this is a stick up!” Candy announces.
“Oh, no!” Jack screams.
An extended fart is heard followed by a pooping sound. Everyone remains still.
“My bad,” Sandy says.
With the fart claimed, Candy goes back to work. “OK, you know what we want.”
“Not my special spot,” Jack yells.
“Yes, your special spot. Hands up in the air,” Candy demands.
The boys slowly lift their hands into the air.
Candy examines the boys when their arms are fully extended. “I don’t get it. Where is it?” Candy asks confused.
“We checked their clothes; they have to have it on them,” Molly adds.
“But I don’t see it,” Candy admits.
“Wait there it is,” Molly points out.
“Where?” Candy asks, scanning the boys’ crotches.
“Right there. Look close.”
Billy lowers his head in shame. “Oh, god!”
Candy leans forward squinting her eyes. “Oh, I see it. There’s got to be more to it than that.”
“That’s what I say every day,” Sandy acknowledges with sadness.
Molly points at Jack. “But that one’s a lot bigger than the others.”
“What?” Billy asks, before he and Sandy turn and look down at Jack’s sprout.
“Dude!” they both say in harmony.
Yelling in embarrassment Jack says, “I can’t control it! It has a mind of its own.”
“How are we supposed to take them from them? Should we try to pull them off?” Molly asks her partner.
“What if they don’t come off?”
“Then we keep pulling. It’s got to come off eventually.”
“Ahhh!” Jack screams, terrified.
Also terrified, Billy protests, “This is insane. You can’t do that. If you did that, that would make... wait.” First Billy, and then all of the boys get lost in thought about what would happen if someone kept pulling on their special spot. Smiles creep across the boys’ faces. And with their eyes shifting, they look at each other to see if they had all had the same thought. They all had.
“Maybe that…” Billy starts, before he is interrupted by Candy.
“You boys may have won this round,” Candy starts.
As she does, Billy finally recognizes her voice. “Candy?” he pronounces.
“But we will have your sources of power. And when we do...” Candy laughs hysterically, like a mad scientist. Both girls run away. As they do, Molly addresses her friend.
“Seriously, you have to lay off your scratch ’n sniff.”
Sandy immediately runs back to where they left their clothes. “They took our clothes.”
“What was she talking about?” Billy asks.
“I feel dirty,” Jack adds.
“We can’t let them get away with this. We have to figure out a way to get back at them,” Billy decides, wanting to regain his honor.
Returning to the group, Sandy agrees. “I say that we convince them to go skinny dipping and we take their clothes.”
“No, that won’t work. We need to...” Billy stops talking as he notices Jack looking down at his crotch.
When Jack feels Billy’s stare he looks away.
“Wait, did you just look at my...?”
“No, I didn’t,” Jack says defensively.
Billy looks at his friend as a light goes off in his head. “Oh my god, you’re the gay one.”
“The what?” Jack asks as tension builds in his banana head.
Billy explains. “Every group of friends has one person that grows up to be the gay one. And you’re the one.”
“I don’t wanna be the gay one.”
“Your eyes clearly crossed below the horizon,” Billy points out.
“What?”
“Your eyes, they looked down when they should have been looking straight across,” Billy explains
.
A ferret, who has been watching the kids from just outside the trees, approaches the boys. Ferret is of ambiguous gender and age. He stands on his back legs, making him mostly as tall as Billy. He speaks in a slow, slightly southern drawl and has a look on his face that makes him seem like he is barely awake. Both of those characteristics mask all his motives.
“He’s right,” the ferret, simply known as Ferret, says. “Your eyes crossed the horizon. Did you know that every group of childhood friends has one guy that is gay? The gay one doesn’t usually discover it, though until one morning in college when he wakes up with an empty bottle of Goldschlager, a naked twink named Justin, and the smell of Astroglide in the air.”
“What’s a twink?” Sandy asks.
Jack is louder and more fearful in the face of the mounting evidence. “But I don’t want to be the gay one.”
Billy and Sandy look at each other. Billy puts his finger on his nose. “Not it.”
Sandy follows. “Not it.”
Jack still objects but being the last one to touch his nose he sees the writing on the wall. “But I don’t wanna be the gay one,” he says, resigned.
“Do you know where we could find some clothes?” Billy asks Ferret, liking their new friend.
“I do, but why would you need them. I don’t wear any and I’m fine.”
“Our parent can’t find us like this. They’d kill us,” Billy says.
“That’s a good point. But did you know that when parents find a group of children naked they usually blame the one with the erection?”
All three look at Jack who lowers his head. Continuing their walk, the boys follow Ferret into the woods.
“Even so, we should find some clothes,” Billy adds.
“I could help you with that. I could also help you get revenge on the girls. I saw what they did.”
“Oh, cool!” Billy exclaims. “Hey, afterwards you want to come by my house?”
“You mean like for dinner?” Ferret asks.
“Ummm, sure.”
“And would that make me your pet?”
“Ummm, I guess.”
“I would like that. Did you know that ferrets are the second most popular exotic pet?” He looks at Billy for acknowledgement. “Yeah, snakes are number one, but we are less likely to strangle our owners in the middle of the night... no matter how hard we try.” Ferret looks forward but continues to address Billy. “You have a nice body. It’s very toned.”
“Ummm, thank you,” Billy says, unsure how to respond.
“You ever hang out in the steam room at your gym?” Ferret asks.
“My school doesn’t have a steam room.”
“That’s too bad,” the ferret decides. Ferret turns back toward Billy. “Now about your revenge, did you know girls will ‘do’ anyone that reminds them of their father?”
“What does ‘do’ mean?” Jack asks.
“Oh, you wouldn’t like it. But your friends probably will. Come on, I’ll show you.”
The boys and the ferret run off.
*****
Chapter 3