I love art. You know that. I talked about it last year, or last book, whatever, and I talked about it this book, or year, whatever. I do love art. Enough love that in Elementary School, I could consider it to be my favorite class. I know, there’s a lot of contestants for that position. But today, I started liking art even more.
Backstory time. Don’t lie, you know you love it when this happens.
So, I have these grandparents. Crazy, right? Well, my grandmother especially loves pottery. Enough that she likes, does it for a living or something. So, she obviously has a ton of pottery equipment lying around her pottery house (That’s what we called the place where she does her pottery.), and sometimes she’ll let my family use it to make pottery. So I have experience forming the clay, and using a kiln, and making all the weird indents and painting two coats of paint or more, and all the pottery rules. You could say I was an expert. I think.
So this is obviously going to tie into the story somehow, so I’m gonna introduce the subject of the chapter now. We went to Art class one day, and the teacher told us we were starting our pottery unit.
Yes. Finally, my years of… experience… will finally pay off? Never mind. We started making our pottery projNO WAIT WAIT WAIT
We were yelled at. Well, not really yelled at, but scolded for not reading what was written on the whiteboard. It says that we weren’t doing ‘just pottery’. We were specifically making bird baths. And our teacher was mad that we didn’t pay attention. Hey, teach’, we’re only like… I don’t know how old 4th graders are… What is it… subtract from my age… uh… like, 7? That’s probably close enough. Yeah, we’re only 7, don’t get mad at us that you probably forgot to mention it ourselves, it’s not our fault we’re dumb kids that don’t pay attention to anyth- I’m just insulting myself now.
Well, thanks, teacher, now I have to scrap my amazing idea of creating a huge dragon to show off in front of everyone. Whatever, I might as well start sculpting the clay.
I started with the bath part, of course. I figured everyone was just gonna do the same thing as me, which was create some glossy, multi-colored bird bath, and then put some birds on top of it. That’s the smart thing to do, right? It would award you more points- well, it’s a completion grade, so it doesn’t… grades don’t even matter in Elementary School anyway, why am I so worked up over some clay?!
I think it went pretty well. I was just making a bowl, of course, and even though it was lopsided on one side and stretched on the other, I figured I’d fix it later. I had already spent a ton of time on it. Like, a long while on making it big enough. I had planned everything out, even making a few sketches of ideas. Sure, we only had one class period to complete it, but-
EXCUSE ME? TEACHER, WHAT? ONE DAY TO COMPLETE IT?
Okay, she made up the excuse that it would take a while for the kiln to work and that she would have to look over them. I know she’s lying. I’ve worked with a kiln before, I know it doesn’t take a week for something to cook! What, talk to her about it? Uh, I’m too scared to talk to the teacher about something like that! Besides… uh, maybe she has something cool prepared for next class? Who am I kidding it’s just going to be some coloring pages again
Well, the harsh time limit isn’t going to stop me at all. I just need to start making the bird. Sure, I’ve only got some time left, but I’m sure I can do it in enough time. I was sitting next to the window today (ugh, of course. The lighting was horrible, as all windows have.), and looked outside the refresh myself. I saw a group of kids standing outside, with a coach who was holding a foam ball, and was standing around a group of bases. Maybe they’re playing baseball or something like that? Not the point. I thought I saw a familiar set of hair and freckles. All the way from where I was? How? How would I be able to recognize her? Maybe I’ve just spent so much time looking at her… I mean, I haven’t even said who I thought I had said. Uh, uh, of course I wasn’t thinking I was looking at Caitlyn or anything! Ha ha ha!
I looked down at what I was doing. I was paying too much attention to the girl I was looking at to notice what I was doing with my hands… the bird was now a deformed mess.
When I say the bird was a ‘deformed mess’, I don’t think you know what I mean by that. You’re probably thinking… ‘oh, haha, this guy’s talking about how he made a bird with a slightly misshapen head-’ NO THAT IS NOT WHAT I AM SAYING THE BIRD IS A GOD DAMN MESS OF A CREATURE
I DON’T EVEN WANT TO DESCRIBE IT TO YOU who am i kidding of course i want to describe it to you
Okay. So, first things first, it was fat. The body was very, very plump. It was just a ball, with some attachments that I thought were its tail and beak sticking out of the front and back. I forgot to add wings to it, so it was literally just a… ball with attachments. Woah. It gets worse, though. The ‘tail’ was literally a plate that I stuck to the backside of it. It was fat and big. Looked nothing like a bird’s tail. The beak? Yeah. Even worse. The beak was… not a beak. It was a bill. It was flat and ugly. And on top of it, there were two dots that were meant to be eyes but now they just looked like weird, circular indents in its face.
I’m bodyshaming the hell out of my own creation, aren’t I? I mean, it’s my own creation, so it should be fine if I make fun of it- that’s not something someone on Twitter should take out of context.
I have to fix this ugly thing! I don’t know how much time I have left, but if I can fix-
“3 minutes left!”
NO THERE’S NO WAY
I HAVEN’T FINISHED AND I STILL NEED TO FINISH THE STAND IT GOES ON AND STICK THE BIRD ON TOP OF THE BATH NOTHING IS GOING ACCORDING TO PLAN AND THEN I NEED TO PAINT IT
Okay, this new plan I just came up with works. I didn’t have time to… well, I was gonna say fix, but that’s implying that it was a bird in the first place, which… it obviously wasn’t. Okay, I didn’t have enough time to create a bird, so I just decided to leave it, along with the bowl, create the stand really quickly, and then paint it over with one coat of paint. Yeah, one coat. Horrifying, isn’t it?
Okay, simply put, this whole bird thing isn’t a bird at all. It’s a fat duck with a wide tail, and it didn’t look right at all. You know that one saying, ‘You are what you eat’? Heard of it? It doesn’t apply here in the slightest bit. Not at all. Wait how does that relate at all
So, yeah, not only was it completely deformed, it also had a ton of bare spots because I missed spots where I was supposed to paint it. At least not everyone found out about my horrible creat- I should’nt have said that.
“Mark, your birdbath is so good!”
exCUSE ME? Why are you guys saying that? Stop, the teacher’s-no, don’t pick mine up- why are you calling it a good sculpture- DONT SAY YOU WANNA SHOW IT TO EVERYON-NO DONT
Holy mmmmmmmm so
The Art teacher decided to show it off to everyone in everyone’s classes. I’m not totally sure why, she could’ve picked someone else’s to show off that had a bird that doesn’t even look like a bird, but they didn’t. I’m still processing how that happened. Nonetheless, the teacher showed it off to everyone, and like always, I’m sure everyone reacted perfectly normal. I didn’t hear how anyone reacted, cause it was Friday, which meant it was the weekend after today. So, maybe everyone forgot about the birdbath? Chances are yes, right? Of course that’s true, it has to be, everyone’s bound to forget.
“Hey, Becky, nice birdbath.”
Oh, no. Caitlyn. It’s been a whole three days, how does she remember that?
“It looked like a freaking platypus.”
That’s a good one. Why didn’t I think of that?
“Thanks, that’s what I was going for.”
“Really?”
“No! I didn’t mean for it to look like that at all!”
“It was really funny looking. Just like you. Did you model it after yourself?”
You see what she said was hilarious because I’m not funny looking in the slightest bit she’s saying this because since it’s not true it’s funny so it’s hilarious and entertaining and funny and cool NO IT’S NOT COOL THIS WHOLE THING LITERALLY IS NOT A ‘You are what you eat’ SITUATION I JUST SAID THAT LIKE A SECOND AGO
“You’re so funny, you know that?”
“If you modeled it after yourself, then wouldn’t it be called…”
Don’t even. Don’t say anything smart. Don’t.
“Alatypus?”
Okay, that’s a good one. It’s creative. Really enjoyed that one.
“DON’T SAY THAT THAT’S HORRIBLE”
“Huh, what’s wrong Becky? Do you not like Alatypus?”
“You are so funny! You make me laugh so much!”
“I know I do. So, you’re gonna name yours Alatypus?”
“STOP CALLING IT THAT”
That was really loud.
“No, that’s what it’s called.”
“It’s my own project, I’m not gonna call it- why would I name it whatever you wanted to name it?”
“You gotta agree, it’s a fitting name.”
“No, it isn’t!”
“What’s a fitting name?”
You know how in all those annoying romcom movies there’s that one side character that ALWAYS interrupts conversations?
Yeah, that happened, but this isn’t a romcom, and that one side character is Jaidon.
“Jaidon, remember when {the art teacher’s name} showed off that birdbath with the really fat bird?”
“Yeah, it looked like a grape.”
“That was Becky’s.”
“Pfffff- really? Why did you make it look like that?”
“I didn’t mean!”
“Anyway, Jaidon, we named it Alatypus.”
“YOU NAMED IT ALATYPUS I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING”
“You named it after yourself? You’re so selfish!”
How does that-
“Literally why-”
“Actually, I think it looks like you, too. You even modeled it after yourself? You’re so selfish!”
“Okay, that time, ‘selfish’ isn’t even the right word. The actual word is-”
“You’re so selfish, you’re so selfish, you’re so selfish!”
I really just wanna MMMMMcrackMMMMMMMMMMM
(Cringe warning: High levels of 5th grade cringe coming up)
“Alright, Jaidon. You’re really annoying. You know that? I wanna punch you in the face so h-no, I want to freaking kick you.”
“I wanna get a hundred swords and hit you with them!”
“I want to… drop a bomb on you. Yeah, how you like that?”
“Oh yeah? I wanna… send a torpedo straight to your face!”
“I’ll… create a thunderstorm and electrocute you!”
“That sounds a lot like that thing we did last year. Remember? Something about Elementals?”
Don’t even get me started- We are not having another epic fight scene. You do not want to know how long it took me to write that part of the story (it didn’t actually take that long, but it still was the longest chapter of Book 1, so I’m still gonna pretend like it took a really long time.)
Anyway, it actually did start raining, so we didn’t have time to continue our incredibly intense argument and had to run inside.
“We’ll continue this later!”
“No, we won’t.”
(Later)
“Becky, wanna see my bird?”
“Uh, sure.”
Caitlyn walked up to me after school and pulled her phone out of her back pocket. She showed me a picture of a clay bird, and I could figure out that it was her model of a birdbath. And it… looked very well done. Almost cute. At least compared to mine. Didn’t she mentioned earlier that I modeled mine after my own self (Which it wasN’T)? Well, maybe she did the same thing. Her bird? It was cute.
Wait no i meant ugly NOOOO
“Becky, wanna see my bird?”
Oh, great, another disturbance! This time, it’s even worse, and it goes by the name ‘Anna’!
“Uh, no?”
“C’mon, just-”
“No, thank you, you’re just gonna tie it back to me having a platypus for a birdbath.”
“Platypus?”
Do not tell me she doesn’t know.
“I mean… uh… nothing…?”
“Anna!”
“Caitlyn!”
“Do you not know about Becky’s Platypus?”
“Caitlyn, shut up.”
“Becky’s Platypus? What platypus?”
“Remember that one really fat birdbath the art teacher showed off?”
She just loves talking about how fat it is, doesn’t she?
“Caitlyn, shut up!”
“Yeah, I remember it, why? Wait- is that Becky’s? OH MY GOSH NO WAY THAT’S SO FUNNY!”
Okay, great. It was bad enough when Caitlyn knew, and then Jaidon found out- I should be careful with my words, if I say people’s names too much, sometimes they just randomly appear out of nowhere into the conversation.
“What’s so funny?”
Like that. Of course he’s here as soon as I think about how annoying he is for even a second.
“Just talking about Alatypus again, Jaidon.”
I should really put a stop to her calling it that.
“Stop calling it that.”
“What’s Alatypu- oh my gosh. Is that what you named it?”
“No, no, no! I did NOT name it that! Caitlyn di-”
“We both agreed on the name.”
“NO WE DIDN’T!”
“That’s what I heard.”
“JAIDON, SHUT UP!”
“Wait, so you both came up with a name for the bird?”
“Yup, we both wanted the name Alatypus.”
God, Caitlyn, you- you’re so- god. You. I’m literally clenching my fists at you right now, I’m so mad.
“So… you basically had a baby?”
Okay this is getting weird. I could tell Caitlyn was also feeling things getting weird. We already kinda delt with this last year, so this year, I’m going to immediately try to shut things down. Hopefully Anna won’t continue with this.
“Huh? No! What?”
“You both named something Becky made, so…”
Alright, so Anna continued with this joke, looks like the shutting down plan got shut down.
“I DIDN’T NAME IT ANYTHING!”
“So you guys basically had a baby… right?”
“Anna, I think you’re right!”
JAIDON. STOP AGREEING WITH HER. PLEASE.
“You guys had a baby! You guys had a baby!”
“Can you both please, please just shut up! It’s so annoying!”
I’m so annoyed I might just run aw- I’m not gonna run away again. I would never.
“Alatypus is so funny, too!”
I’m gonna run away. Not just from this conversation, but from this entire school. I can’t handle these idiots. I need to leave this place. I can’t handle someone like Anna.
“You’re so annoying!”
“You guys had a baby! Alatypus! Alatypus! Alatypus!”
I could say a lot of illegal things right now.
“SHUT UP!”
I started screaming, but could tell Caitlyn wasn’t acting up like me. Figured she wasn’t going to help me in this fight, so might as well leave the fight too.
I ran away. I can’t handle her annoyingness.
Maybe I should’ve just turned in a bath without a bird on it in the first place. That would’ve solved so many of my problems. Such as getting made fun of. Or maybe girls in general. Yeah, yeah. That’s my biggest problem. Girls. Every day. All the time. Girls. Always there. Always on my mi- never mind. I hate girls.149Please respect copyright.PENANATzrFOaYZqz