Chapter 42

Tom stood in Sean’s way from the cafeteria line to the table where Suzie was waiting for him. With a snarl on his face, Tom said, “You’re going in the trashcan.”

“Really?” Sean asked looking at Tom surprised. He figured that Tom hadn’t realized what was being served in the cafeteria that day.

“Yes,” Tom said enjoying the moment.

Sean looked over at the trashcans for a second. Turning back to Tom, he asked, “Which one?”

“Huh?” Tom asked rather surprised by the question. Sean wasn’t playing the harassed victim as dictated by the victim of a bully script.

“Which trashcan am I going in?” Sean asked gesturing over to the row of trashcans.

Picking one at random, Tom answered, “That one on the end.”

“That one on the end? Are you sure?” Sean asked looking back over at the row of trashcans.

“Yes. I’m going to stuff you in it when lunch is over and it is full of trash,” Tom said pointing a finger at Sean’s chest. He moved forward trying to look intimidating.

“Interesting,” Sean said. He held his tray with one hand and fished out a piece of wire out of one of his pockets with the other hand. He dropped the piece of wire on the floor.

“You’re going to smell like trash all day,” Tom said thinking Sean should have been looking terrified by this time. The problem was that Sean looked like he was having trouble keeping from laughing.

“Oh. That will be a novel experience,” Sean said with a smile.

Tom blinked and said, “Don’t you get it? I’m going to throw you in a trashcan.”

“Yes, I got that. You’ve mentioned in several times,” Sean said nodding his head. He glanced down at the piece of wire and ordered it to affix itself to the handle of the trashcan. It flew across the room.

“Aren’t you afraid?” Tom asked very confused by Sean’s reaction.

Sean, in an exaggerated manner, looked off to the distance with an expression of concentration on his face. After a few seconds, he looked at Tom and answered, “No.”

“I’m going to throw you in a trashcan,” Tom said growling. By this time, Sean was supposed to be looking around like a frightened puppy and seeking some direction in which to escape. This standing around discussing the matter wasn’t right.

“Okay. I’m going to eat lunch and I’ll come back a little later so that we can talk about it,” Sean said cheerfully. He stepped around Tom and headed over to the table where Suzie was waiting for him.

Tom stared at Sean’s back confused by his behavior. Last year he had been terrified by the threat of getting stuffed in a trashcan. It had been even better after he had put him in it. Shaking his head, he said, “Something fishy is going on.”

Less than satisfied with the outcome of his little confrontation with Sean, Tom started to walk to the end of the line to get his lunch. He had only taken a couple of steps when he noticed a strange noise behind him. Curious, he turned around to find that there was a trashcan three feet behind him. He stared at the trashcan wondering how it got there. He took a step away from it and the trashcan slid forward a bit to maintain the three foot distance. He checked to see if there were any wires connecting him to the trashcan, but there weren’t any that he could find.

He looked around nervously hoping that no one noticed the rather large trashcan beside him. He stepped over to the trashcan and tipped it over to look underneath for some kind of mechanism that would make it move. There wasn’t one. He scratched his head and said, “That’s really odd.”

Tom went through the line getting his tray and silverware. With each step, the trashcan followed right behind him. The trashcan was beginning to freak him out. It wasn’t until he had his lunch plate in his hand that he saw what was being served for lunch. Hanging his head, he said, “The menu said pizza.”

“Hey, Tom. What’s with the trashcan?” Jerry asked pointing to the trashcan following Tom.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Tom answered.

Jerry laughed and said, “I’ve heard of puppies and cats following people home, but never a trashcan.”

“Stuff it, you...” Tom had to pull a wad of paper from his mouth. Disgusted, he threw it in the trashcan.

“That’s a pretty lame trick,” Jerry said. He pointed to the woman at the register and said, “You’re holding up the line.”

Tom moved forward and the trashcan followed him. He paid for his lunch looking over his shoulder at the trashcan. The woman at the register cackled and said, “Enjoy your lunch.”

Tom quickly walked to his table and turned around. The trashcan was three feet away from him. With a sinking feeling in his stomach, he said, “This isn’t right.”

Debbie slid into a chair across from Tom. Leaning forward, she said, “Don’t make Sean mad. He’s really scary when he’s mad.”

“What’s with you and Sean? You act like you’re afraid of the little twerp. He’s nothing but a...” Tom’s rant was interrupted by a wad of paper flying into his mouth. Growling, he pulled it out and said, “That does it. I’m going to destroy whoever is doing this to me.”

“It is Sean,” Debbie said inching back from the table. She looked around nervously and said, “He can move things with his mind.”

“Come on, Barbie,” Tom said pausing to pull a piece of paper from his mouth.

“Don’t call me Barbie,” Debbie said angrily. She stood up and said, “When Sean does a number on you, don’t say that I didn’t warn you.”

Tom watched Debbie walk off. Shaking his head, he said, “I wonder what’s wrong with her?”

Sean and Suzie were eating their lunch. It was school spaghetti which consisted of limp wet noodles drowned in a generic pale red tomato sauce. Sean had covered his with lots of parmesan cheese. Rubbing his hands together excitedly, he said, “This looks positively horrible.”

“It is,” Suzie said looking at her spaghetti lunch. The noodles weren’t even full length, but cut into pieces that were too short to twist on the fork and too long to carry on a fork.

“Still, it is the best thing they make here,” Sean said shoveling half of a forkful of noodles into his mouth. The other half of the noodles fell off his fork and onto his lap. He said, “It is better than the pizza that was on the menu. I guess they realized they didn’t have enough cardboard to use as crusts.”

Deciding that she’d have a better chance of getting the spaghetti to her mouth if she cut the noodles in half, Suzie started cutting the noodles. Looking at them, she decided that they were still too long and cut them into even smaller chunks. Suzie said, “They shouldn’t call it spaghetti.”

“Even I make better spaghetti than they do,” Sean said. He attempted to get another forkful of noodles to his mouth, but they all fell off before the fork left the vicinity of the plate.

“You open a jar,” Suzie said. She used a spoon to scrape up the little chunks of spaghetti noodles. She had missed cutting up one long strand and it slid off to land on her lap.

“They open a can,” Sean said attempting to get another forkful of noodles.

“You’re right,” Suzie said. The bad thing was that they left the can out for them to see. The label on it was white with black letters that spelled out, ‘Generic Spaghetti Sauce.’ Someone had written a little message under the letters saying, ‘Your lunch money at work.’ She had wondered who had written the graffiti on it until she noticed a pen returning to Sean.

One of the cheerleaders walked past wearing a nice dress. There was a large red stain down the front of it. Sean commented, “That spaghetti sauce really clobbered her little outfit.”

“Sid did a pretty good job on his shirt,” Suzie commented when Sid walked past. The entire front of his shirt was red and he was scrubbing it with a piece of the garlic bread that had come with the spaghetti. The net effect of his efforts was that he now smelled of garlic.

“Looks like everyone took the spaghetti today,” Sean said. A lot of the young women were staring at their plates on the verge of tears.

Suzie snorted and said, “It was the only thing they served today.”

“You’d think this bread would soak up all of the sauce considering how dry it is,” Sean said tapping it on the table. It made a nice knocking sound very similar to that which would be made by hitting the table with a brick.

Suzie said, “I never thought of serving Melba Toast the size of Texas Toast. This bread was dried out when cavemen walked the earth.”

“Stone-aged garlic bread,” Sean said with a smile. “Maybe we should donate it to a museum.”

Suzie looked over at Tom and noticed the trashcan standing behind him. She smiled at the sight and asked, “Did he threaten to throw you in the trashcan?”

“Yes,” Sean answered with a grin.

She looked at the trashcan and said, “I can’t believe you actually decided to do it.”

“Well, I figured that getting chased around by a trashcan all day might make him think twice about dumping somebody in one,” Sean said.

“You weren’t angry?” Suzie asked.

Grinning, Sean answered, “I was having a hard time keeping from laughing.”

“Good, we don’t want any more trolls,” Suzie said wondering what had happened to the troll since they had left the mall.

Sean said, “Considering that today was surprise spaghetti day, no one would have noticed if he had put me in the trash can.”

“Ironic, isn’t it?” Suzie said as another student passed by with a patch of red down the front of their shirt and pants.

“Yes,” Sean said. He noticed Tom get up to return his tray. The front of his shirt was red from the tomato sauce. The trashcan followed Tom across the cafeteria. One of the kids stopped him and dumped the rest of his spaghetti into the trashcan. Tom stood over by the trashcans trying not to draw any attention to himself or the trashcan. Sean commented, “You’d think that after getting served school surprise spaghetti for twelve years someone would have figured out how to eat it.”

Suzie scooped up another spoonful of chopped up noodles and took a bite of her lunch. Much to her surprise she hadn’t spilled a single noodle. After swallowing, she looked over at Sean and said, “I swear that they cut the noodles that way on purpose.”

“Did you see how happy the serving people were today?” Sean asked. He took a forkful of noodles and got it most of the way to his mouth before a quarter of the noodles slipped off. He decided to try something a little different. He piled some spaghetti on his piece of garlic toast thinking that he would put the toast to his mouth and then slide the noodles into his mouth. The piece of toast broke in half before it got halfway to his mouth.