Mark gave me four of his diapers and said that if there were any of them left afterward that I should take them home and use them myself. I think secretly, he really wants to get me into a diaper like him.
The two of us road my bike up to the corner drug store with me peddling and Mark on my handlebars.
“Mark, you need to go on a diet! You’re wearing me out!” I moaned as I tried to peddle up the hill.
Though I recognized the line Mark stole from Monsters Inc. it was still funny, “Less talking and more peddling marshmallow boy!” he said.
He then said, “I’ll peddle on the way back!”
“Oh sure! It’s almost all downhill going back!” I complained.
Mark laughed, “Hey, it’s your crazy idea! I’m just along for the ride. Now peddle!”
At the drug store, Mark stayed outside and guarded my bike so that it wouldn’t be stolen while I was inside getting the supplies I would need. I went straight to the diaper isle and looked at all the different kinds of diapers. I finally decided to buy the smallest quantity package of Pampers size-6 because they looked to be the biggest and most absorbent of all the diapers. I also had to make sure that I had enough money to get the other supplies. I also picked out a container of baby-wipes, a container each of baby scented baby powder and Vaseline.
I had to go to the next isle over to find the baby bottles and pacifiers. I had intended to get one of each, but they had the neatest gadget, it was an adaptor that you screw onto a soda or water bottle and then you are able to attach any normal baby bottle nipple to it. It came two to a package for $1.99 so I got that instead. The pacifier that I selected was green and shaped like Kermit the Frog’s head.
The last item I needed to pick up was something that I knew about, but wasn’t sure what it was called. When I was about 8-years-old, on a bet from my brother, I had swallowed twenty five marbles. The doctor had told my mom to give me this medicine that she got at this drug store and put it into a can of Root beer. Whatever that stuff was, within about fifteen minutes, I was pooping rivers of crap and marbles. That stuff flushed out my entire body, and I know that more stuff came out of me than I’d ever in my life put into me.
However, it didn’t take very long for me to realize that, I wasn’t going to be able to find it on my own. I needed help. The question was, how do I ask someone at the store for something like that? Then I had the idea of telling them that my mom had given me a list of things to buy and that I’d lost the list on the way over.
I found a nice lady that worked at the pharmacy and told her my story. She bought into it with no hesitation at all.
“I think I know what she wants,” the lady said and led me to a mind staggeringly large selection of laxatives and stool softeners. I had no idea that there were so many different kinds of drugs to help you poop.
“Oh here it is,” the lady said, picking up a small plastic bottle from the bottom shelf.
I recognized the shape of the bottle instantly. The label read, “Kondremul Lubricant Laxative”.
“Yeah, that’s what mom called it.” I lied.
On the way to the checkout counter, I grabbed two, two-liter bottles of caffeine free, chocolate cola. I paid for the items and still had three dollars and some change left over, so I bought three candy-bars. One was for me, one was for Mark and one was for Damien that I would give him later.
I arrived at Bill and Gladys’s home right on time. “Glad to see you Max!” Bill said slapping me on the back and ushering me into their house. Damien was nowhere to be seen and Bill said that Gladys was upstairs putting on her face.
“Putting on her face?” I asked as I slipped off my backpack and put it in the front closet with my jacket. “I knew you two were too good to be true. You’re both aliens from some distant planet aren’t you?” I joked.
Bill’s face was blank and serious. He rolled his eyes back so that only the whites were showing, pointed at me and said, “Brains… must eat brains!”
I laughed and said, “Hey, you can ask my dad, there aren’t any brains in my head!”
Right then, Gladys came down the steps. Sounding totally serious, she said, “Honey, you know that eating brains gives you gas.” And then walked up to me, pinched both of my cheeks and gave me a kiss on the forehead. She then licked her lips and said to Bill, “Besides, he’s not ripe yet.”
“Ha-Ha! You guys are too funny! And I suppose you’re going to tell me that Damien’s an alien too.” I laughed.
Bill was getting into the coat closet to get his and Gladys’s jackets as he said, “Nope, just snack, uh, I mean human like you.”
“Alright, that’s enough.” Gladys told him and then proceeded to give me a rundown of everything I would need to know about, including how to contact them in case of an emergency.
As they were leaving, and just as he’d done the previous evening, Bill said, “Don’t burn the house down! No wild parties and don’t drink the blue water in the toilets!”
“No promises!” I said as I closed and locked the front door.
This time, I peeked through the front curtain and watched until they were gone. I also waited a good half-hour before doing anything just in case they came back to get something they had forgotten.
Unlike the previous night, Gladys had already prepared dinner for the two of us and had it waiting in the oven to keep it hot. It was a tasty looking pot-roast with carrots, potatoes and really long green beans.
Before going to try and make up with Damien, I would have to earn his trust if I was going to exact my revenge. I got the table set, and filled both of our glasses with some of the chocolate soda I’d brought for him, except in Damien’s drink, I also added half the bottle of Kondremul.
At first, I was just going to call him down, but I figured that after the way I had talked to him earlier in the day, it wouldn’t have surprised me at all if he totally ignored me. So instead, I climbed the steps and found which room he was in.
“Hi Damien,” I said, trying to be friendly.
He was lying on the bed on his belly playing with a videogame with a set of headphones on so he had not heard me coming. I was all the way in the room and standing next to the bed before he even knew I was around. When he finally saw me, he screamed and flew off the bed. His headphones were yanked off his head and he crashed backward into a dresser against the far wall. His head hit the dresser fairly hard and he began to cry as he held the back of his head.
I raced to his side and tried to see if he was bleeding, but he kept trying to pull away from me.
I tried to keep my voice calm so not to upset him anymore than I had already done. I also tried to make a joke to get him to stop crying, “Hold still, and let me see if you’re leaking brains.”
“Ow-Ow-Ow!” he cried out.
He already had a slight bump forming and within about ten minutes it had become a nasty little goose egg. He was still crying pretty hard when I picked him up and carried him downstairs to put some ice on his head. I had sat him on the kitchen counter while I got the ice, put it into a Zip-Lock baggie and then wrapped it with one of the kitchen towels.
“Here, hold this on your head and it will help.” I instructed.
“How come you are here and not that other girl?” Damien asked through his diminishing tears.
I told him why and then told him how sorry I was that I had startled him so badly upstairs. The ice seemed to be doing the trick because he had stopped crying and I was even able to make him laugh about it.
“Boy, you got me good!” he laughed.
“Yeah, you jumped a mile!” I agreed.
“No way! he laughed even louder, “I jumped ten miles!”
Then I asked him, “Did you even know that your grandma and grandpa shouted goodbye to you?”
“I didn’t even know they were gone!” he said and winced when he moved his head too fast.
“Still hurt?” I asked.
Instead of answering, he asked his own question, “Are you still way super mad at me?”
I smiled and give him a little tickle, “Nah, I am not still way super mad at you no more.”
Whacking his head was a bad way to break the ice between us, but it seemed to do the trick and maybe for a fraction of a second, I had second thoughts about going through with my plans, but then I remembered how manipulative Damien was. Inside, I knew that it wouldn’t be long before he’d try something again.