Jennifer anxiously bit her lip. Even though she knew that Kyle's "curse" bullshit was just a pathetic attempt to scare her, it still did a decent job staying in her mind, twirling around in it like an evil carousel, playing Kyle's words instead of carnival music. She could tell that this phone call showed more, if anything, about Kyle's perverted sexual fantasies than any curse or revenge. Whoever gave that twerp her fucking phone number will have it in for them, mark her words.
"Hey, Jenny!" Called someone behind her. Jennifer twirled around to see her friend running out of the bus's open doors towards her. The sight made her smile. In this awful day, at least one thing was going right.
"Martha, you won't believe what happened this morning," Jennifer said, smiling devilishly as they walked into the school doors. The daily routine of gossiping and shit talking had begun.
"Oh, tell me! Tell me!" Martha eagerly begged. "Did that quarterback Jack-Something call you? Did he ask you out?"
"His name is Jack Morgan you idiot, and no he didn't call me. This faggot Kyle did. He was trying to get revenge on me, and he -"
Jennifer stopped, remembering Kyle's words; "Every time you try to tell someone about this you will get the sudden urge to just walk around and find an animal to look at."
Would she risk that? Even though it probably wasn't even real?
No, she wouldn't. Not if her reputation meant anything.
Jennifer was so wrapped up in her almost slip up that she forgot Martha was walking with her.
"He did what? What? You okay, buddy?"
"What? No, no, nevermind. I-I have to go to home room anyway. See ya."
Martha cocked her head, confused since her friend never cared about being on time before. "O-okay then. See you at the zoo!"
Jennifer stopped dead in her tracks. The zoo. Oh fuck.
The rest of home room was an unfocused background to Jennifer's panicked thoughts. The zoo. The zoo. The zoo. The only place in the city were you could find more animals than pigeons. And they were going there today. This curse was killing her. Damn you, Kyle. Fuck that regard.
On the bus Jennifer didn't talk to anyone. The only thing on her mind was a plan. A plan to find out how to sneak away, how to somehow not see any animals. But try as she might, no good definitive answer came to her. She was stuck.
Jennifer prolonged the inevitable for as long as possible, looking only at her feet as she stepped through the zoo's gate. Finally, she could not look down any longer. Taking a deep breath, she looked up and saw…