Week 6.2 – Frog Boy

Previously: Digger was telling Twain the story of the most annoying villain he ever fought. And now…

“Hit by what?” Twain asked.

“Who are we talking about?” Digger said. “Frog Boy. I turn around, and there’s this guy in the most ridiculous get-up you’ve ever seen. These weird coveralls like a painter’s smock, leather gardening gloves that looked like he’d stuffed them with newspaper or something–guy had huge hands–this rubber frog mask, and I kid you not, swim fins on over his shoes.

“I’m like, ‘Dude, what the hell?’ because the guy I’m tailing is getting away, but Frog Boy just tells me I have to let this guy leave.

“So I say, ‘Who’s going to make me? You?’ And he says, ‘Duh, I’m already doing it.’”

“Well, at least what he lacked in fashion sense, he made up in confidence,” Twain said.

“Don’t start rhyming again,” Digger said.

“I’m not,” Twain said. “Just saying, I like this guy’s style.”

“You would. So anyway, I decide not to go all Drillery on his ass, because I’m trying to be discreet here…”

Twain burst out with a sudden laugh that sounded almost as if he had been punched in the gut.

“I know, not my style,” Digger said. “But it’s not as if I go around blowing stuff up whenever I feel like it. It’s usually justified.”

“Usually.”

Digger shook his head. He’d learned too many times that trying to win that argument was a waste of time and mental energy. People made up stories, about themselves and others, to make sense of the world and keep track of everything that happened. Once they had given you a particular role, no amount of talking could change it. You could only change it through action, and often not even then, since there were so many ways to interpret a given action. “So…” he continued, letting the point go, “I decided to just go round the guy. Or over. You seen how I can jump, right?”

Twan nodded.

“My guy is almost to the exits, but I can catch him up with one big jump. So I don’t even bother arguing with this guy. I just turn and leap. And BOOM! I feel two feet hit me in hte back and I’m hit sideways across two aisles and crash down in front of this guy selling Dungeons and Dragons miniatures and sheet music.”

“I didn’t know Dungeons and Dragons put out sheet music,” Twain said.

“It wasn’t Dungeons and Dragons sheet music,” Digger said. “Just regular sheet music. Those were just the two things this guy was selling.”

“Weird combination.”

“What part of ‘flea market in Berkeley’ led you to think it would be anything other than weird?” Digger asked. “I just remember the booth because the guy lands in front of me as I’m getting up, and he points at this piece of music, this song I’d never heard of called Dance With a Dolly With a Hole in Her Stocking, and he’s like, ‘I know that song.’”

“You remember the name?”

“I ran into it later.”

How will the story end? Join us tomorrow for the next exciting episode!

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