A half empty bag of chips sitting on the small table in front of my wood shaving pile. I sat down in the pile, feeling a bit more comfortable in the pile than in a chair now I think about it, and inspected these mystery chips. Barbecue… salt and vinegar… and sour cream and onion all mixed together? Those are my three most favorite potato chips! Who gave me these?
Class was as normal and boring as ever. Buttfucking Calculus right at first period. Now normally I was able to stay awake and attentive through a whole lecture, but as I was taking notes I could feel my eyes getting heavy. I couldn’t be that bored, could I? At least I had these spare chips to give my brain something else to do so that I didn’t pass out. Eventually the bell rang, time to move to the next class, and as I gathered my stuff I was suddenly approached by Emilia.
She asks me, “Hey Jeraldine, ready to go to your next class?”
So I answered with, “Yeah, I’m ready. Why, are you my escort or something?”
“Just like always,” she smiled blithely, “Did you enjoy the treat I left you?”
That made me all like “That was you?”
Emilia’s all like “Of course! You’ve been doing really well with your grades recently that I fixed you a treat! Do good all this month and I’ll let you plow me as a special treat!” Then she winked at me.
I was all like “Wut?”
She sighed and said “Let’s just get to class,” and took my hand. I followed after her, almost instinctively, like a pet being led by its owner. “You have been acting pretty strange though, Jeraldine. Trying to sit at a desk like a human instead of your comfy nesting, especially with your incontinence. I’ll make a note of it on your behavior chart, but that’s neither here nor there. Anyway, how was your weekend, girl?”
“My weekend?” I balked, “Alright, back up! First of all, since when has my name been Jeraldine instead of Jordan?”
“Dude, Jordan’s your middle name,” Emilia explained, “Relax. Wasn’t your name Jeraldine ever since your mom adopted you?”
“A-adopted?!” I shrieked.
“Well yeah,” Emilia shrugged, “I mean, come on, humans can’t just give birth to rats!”
I decided to unpack that bombshell later and moved onto my next question. “What’s all this about a behavior chart?”
“Well you are the school’s pet rat, aren’t you?” Emilia asked rhetorically, “Jeez, you’re acting really funny. Definitely making a note of this. Anyway, you never answered my first question. Weekend. How was it?”
After a beat I stammered out a quick “E-eventful.”
“Eventful like how?”
“Eventful like I don’t want to talk about it.” I stated.
“O… kay? Guess we’ll leave it at that,” Emilia shrugged, “Hey, you wouldn’t happen to have seen another rat wandering around here, have you?”
I was like “Wait what?”
“Yeah, kinda short, wearing a hood, says some of her words twice in a row? Gives off creepy vibes?”