Even though my dad was leaving me for twenty-four hours, he still had to keep me within his sights. So he installed a surveillance camera to report back to him anything that I did on the naughty list. Now that surveillance camera was a high school junior called Layla. Layla Sanchez. She was surprisingly short for a high schooler, with half a head of space between our heights. She was incredibly artificial. Her face looked to be painted white as Hispanics like her are mostly a tad darker than whites and a quarter darker than Italians. Her bleached, thick, snow-white dreadlocks snaked down to her waist. Tattoos covered her arms and legs with most of them being explicit (i.e. a penis, an ass, the Pornhub logo, the f-word, and most graphically of all, a fellatio scene which I will graciously spare you of the details). She sported a white tank top, a brown leather belt, blue jean shorts, and white Converse sneakers. At least her modesty was commendable. Although her Dias de los muertos flowery illustration and her silver rap chain were definitely suspect.

  In addition to her appearance, her behavior was extremely off-putting. For one, when she entered my abode, she refused to look at me. Even when my dad introduced me, she gave me a swift, half-second glance like I was a nuisance to her. And when my dad handed over my unit to her, she was not in the mood to ask about my greatness and my exploits-she remained immersed in her phone, madly texting.

  Thirdly, her scent was not only pungent but overwhelming. The weed smoke was slowly making me high. I had to plug my two nostrils to avoid getting the contagious disease of hallucination. My dad definitely knew she was a naughty girl but for him, he didn’t care. Punishing me was his greatest joy. So even a terrorist would have been a viable option as a babysitter.

  When my dad was about to leave, he wagged his usual finger and gave me the usual threats and warnings which I basically plugged my ears to.

  “Calvin, remember to follow whatever rules Layla has for you, be a model boy, and most importantly, I do not want to hear a single example of trouble. Do you understand?” My inattention had gone on for too long. “Do you understand?” He was near to snapping now.

  “Yes I understand,” I answered in my most faux polite boy voice.

  “Good,” he remarked as he stepped beyond the threshold. “I will see you tomorrow afternoon.” And with that, he was gone.

  As soon as the door was locked, Layla decided that it was time to open her mouth.

  “Come here boy,” she barked, quite irately. I obeyed. She was sitting on the long black couch, scanning me with her unblinking eyes. I nervously sat down on the black armchair opposite her. “You can do whatever you want-have a party, spill water on the floor, burn the TV-I don’t care. But under no circumstances are you to bother me. Do not call out to me, do not ask me for anything, do not dare go into the master bedroom. I am to be left alone. Got it?”

  Her last two words sounded eerily like my dad. I nodded. However unlike him, she did not respond after this but simply left to head for her self-carved out private space. Even though I was afraid of her, I was smiling-she had given me the perfect chance to throw the sleepover. So when the clock hit 6, I called Jordan, Andy, and Ethan and let them know that it was time.

  While I was calling, the wind outside was already howling like a ghost. By the time I put up the phone, the floodgates were opened and the heavens were dumping buckets. So sheets of rain were smattering from one side to another. Any unlucky person caught in the crossfire would have had his umbrella twisted in variegated ways until it was torn to pieces. It was truly a dark time for Charleston.

  But for us, the Gangster Guyz, we had a very good distraction: MineCraft. We were playing on a wide TV screen-the Samsung UND8000 flatscreen. While Layla yelped loudly over the phone to her probably jock boyfriend, we were concluding a yearlong campaign with the most important event in our lives: the battle with the Ender Dragon. We had bought the game for this, we had crafted for this, we had built for this, we had mined for this, we had farmed for this, we had explored for this. Now we were fighting to reach the end.

  And it was damn hard doing so while a hysterical girl made such remarks like “I hate that stupid love letter that freaking nerd Brad gave me; I want you to fix him” and “Mhm, I can just feel it-the touch of your smooth, fat dick in my mouth.” At first, it was relatively easy to mentally plug our audition but it got progressively harder as her shriekings rose to insanity.

  The only antidote to the madness was to keep repeating this mantra within and outside of my head- “Focus, focus, focus, focus.”

  This way, I was able to keep on fighting. But then, the aggravation started. With every shriek she gave, Andy began uttering his own.

  When she gossiped about purposefully blocking a new friend to test her loyalty, Andy would shout “Tammy Testicles!” When she fantasized about clawing off the face of any guy who would dare to have a crush on her, Andy would yell “Sammy Sex!” I could not tell him to shut up as if I took even a fraction of a second of my eyes off the screen, I would be thrown into The Void and lose all my MineCraft stuff. So now I had to deal with two lunatics. I was hoping the craziness would end in a minute but that never came.

  As soon as Layla finished remembering last night’s sexual intercourse, Andy hollered “Veronica Vagina!” My eyes turned to glare at him and instantly, the Ender Dragon’s tail swept me into The Void. I was dead, permanently and eternally.

  “Screw you Andy!” I screamed at him. His response was to laugh loudly and mockingly at me.

  “You should see your face! It’s bigger than a tomato!”

  “Screw you!!” I yelled, even angrier. “You just killed a year’s worth of hard work!” Andy shrugged his shoulders.

  “You could start over again, I mean. At least I’m still alive. Ha, take that you ugly purple piece of trash!” Now my anger was changing its aim-slowly towards the master bedroom door. I would deal with Andy later.

  “Layla or whatever your name is, be quiet!!” I think I shouted so loud that there was a slight echo to it. Immediately, Layla’s obnoxious conversation ceased.

  “Who is that?” asked her boyfriend.

  “I’ll deal with it,” she said in a deathly low voice. Her footsteps hurried to the door. For some reason, I was no longer afraid of her. My fighting spirit had returned. The door opened. Her face looked as if it could eat me. Her eyes were blazing with such fury that it looked as if there were real flames in her brown irises. Her lips were trembling with a 9.5 Richter magnitude. “Excuse me? What did you say?”

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “You’re too distracting!” I shouted back. For a second, she was taken aback by my boldness. She was not used to rebels like me.

  But she quickly recovered and shrieked, “You’re distracting me now, you insolent little brat! I’m trying to talk with my boyfriend! And now you’ve ruined all the fun!”

  “Who cares about your boyfriend!” I shot back. “He’s definitely a pedo!”

  “Peedo seedo!” chimed in Andy. He had decided to be loyal to me once again. For Layla, both of her pointed indexes were trembling. She looked as if she was about to explode into a mass of meat, brains, and guts. She took two big steps towards me.

  “You take that back! You take that back or else I’ll kill you!!” Her voice had now turned into a full rasp. She was totally losing control.

  “Try, you pornbrained witch! Kill us, whore! Kill us, whore!! JUST ME AND YOU!!!”

  “I WILL!!!!” She screamed and swung her phone at me. She missed. While she was trying to attempt another swing, I jumped on her, causing her fingers to let go of her phone and for her to fall on the hardwood floor. Both of us went at it very fiercely. She tried to claw my face but I ended up biting off every single one of her elongated painted nails. She tried to bite my fingers but I ended up reaching my other hand into her mouth and ripping out an incisor before she could close her jaws. She howled like a little girl as tears streamed down her face. She then punched me hard in the jaw. Pain coursed through my teeth as I could feel them rattling. But I didn’t cry. I pinned her punching hand down and punched her in the nose. Blood began to stream out of it. Then began the pummeling. I was winning. And she was losing. And I was intending for her to limp away in total defeat.

  ……

  As the teenage junior fought like a cat and the elementary boy fought like a dog, Andy was gleefully recording using Layla’s phone. “Viral!” He was shouting. “Viral!”

  ………….

  Bzzt! All the lights went out. Darkness was upon us in a flash. The only light source that now existed was the internecine flashes of lightning. Unfortunately, those white sheets lit up the living room in a really disturbing, ghoulish way.

  Speaking of me and Layla, we continued to fight. In the black confusion, she threw me to the ground and as Andy was rushing upon her with his foot clobber, she managed to score a blow in his face. However, Andy was a tough kid just like me so he was able to rebound easily and he began forcing her head down to the wooden floor. Bang! Bang! Bang! I joined him, thumping her head with my fists while my legs kept her chest pinned to the floor. We were absolutely euphoric in maiming her. But Jordan could not stand it and with absolute frustration, ripped us out of the fight.

  “Let go,” she said in a low voice that was in the extremity of seriousness. I didn’t want to. Andy didn’t want to. We delayed for a bit as we lightened the thrashing. Eventually, we had to release our grips. At that point, our vile babysitter saw an opportunity and began chasing us. But we were too fast and I managed to lock my bedroom door before she could burst inside.

  Bang! Bang!! BANG!!! She beat on the door with a pace that was faster than that of a heavy metal drummer. She was totally manic. While she was doing that, we retreated to the far corner of the bedroom and waited. After a very long duration of cavemen antics, she finally stopped the sounds.

  Instead, she yelled “Any of you come out of this bedroom and you are dead meat!”

  “Come inside and you’re dead meat!” I shouted back. “I come outside and you are deader meat!!” I had finally disarmed her fighting voice so she slunk to the master bedroom to cry like a toddler.

  “MY PHONE!!!” she wailed. “MY PHONNNEEEE!!!!!”

  As the hysterics continued outside, so did it start inside.

  “What is wrong with you?” Jordan demanded in a harsh voice.

  “Nothing,” I replied, quite innocently. “Self-defense.”

  “You know that’s against God’s commandments, don’t you?” God, I hated her religious talk. What a Pharisee.

  “I don’t care. I was being attacked and I had to defend myself.” This set her off completely.

  “Calvin, I used to like you, despite your interests in playing pranks. But recently, you have been losing more and more control. Calvin, I’m worried that you’ll go down a dark path if you keep acting like this.” As her voice continued to drone and drone in its faux concern, it began to mingle with that of my dad’s and Mr. Grincher’s. These authoritarian voices were ringing in my head like a blaring alarm. And I damn frick had enough.

  “You’re trying to control me, just like my damn dad!” At this, a nervous silence ensued.

  It was only broken by Jordan’s tremulous utterance of “Calvin, that’s a flagrant Fifth Commandment violation.” Flagrant. I hated that word. Despised it. Hearing it was like having my gasoline-soaked body be ignited on fire.

  “Jordan, why are you so cranky and bitchy?” At that, she began to cry. I was proud. I had won.

  “Why is it so fun seeing you two lovebirds bicker like an old married couple?” Andy’s chuckling grin was wider than that of the Cheshire Cat. “I wonder when you’ll kiss.” Andy had severely wounded my pride that it was on the very verge of death. All my anger had been transferred to my best male friend.

  “Shut up Andy Boy,” I spoke coldly. “You are not helping.”

  “Why the hell do you sound like Ole Grincher?” His annoyingly high-pitched voice was desecrating the corpse of my pride.

  “Cause you’re being an insufferable asshole!”

  “Oh yeah? Then let’s fight!!”

  In less than a second, we were on the ground, battling for dominance. Sometimes Andy was on top of me but most of the time I was on top of him. In fact, near the end of the battle, I was about to pummel him like a landslide when a shrill shout went up from behind me.

  “Stop this nonsense, you two!!”

  Jordan’s sharp eyes were blazing with bonfire fury. I had never seen her face this mad before.

  “I have every right to leave, you know that?” Her threat struck me like a dagger. And instead of resisting my wound, I received it. Deep down, I didn’t want her to leave. I liked her. She was a loyal and valuable member of the Gangster Guyz. She was fast, smart, and witty. She had saved me from going into unnecessary ditches before. Her face was radiant-a beautiful Chinese face wrapped in a beautiful, Vermeer-style hijab. Her fierce pink aura was always present. She was the only member of her species in the Deep South. Losing her would be such folly. As my guilt settled into all corners of my body, I was compelled to soften my voice.

  “I’m sorry,” I began slowly. “For my attitude and my behavior. I promise I’ll never do this again.” I looked at her. Her face was turned away from me. She was giving me the silent treatment. “Look, I’ll follow God’s commandments.” Still, the silence continued. It was torturous-worse than being waterboarded and worse than being skinned alive. In desperation, I blurted (without my permission), “I repent! To God!”

  Finally, she turned her neck and said, “I’m giving you a last chance. If you continue acting like this, I will go home.”

  “I understand,” I spoke hurriedly. “Thank you-thank you very much for your mercy.” I was at the point of kissing her foot to show my devotion to her.

  The end result was that I slept with Jordan and Ethan in the tent. Andy dragged his sleeping bag to the far left corner where it was super dark. And before he began the dragging, he gave me a not-very-nice “to screw myself” phrase. I did not respond. I was just glad I retained my only female friend so I closed my eyelids and slowly descended into Slumberland.