Chapter 8c: Gordon
“Nobody takes me seriously!” Gordon fumed. Actually, he was smiling, but you could tell he was annoyed just the same.
“I’m sorry, did you say something?” Kushal said in his usual inflection.
“See, that’s what I…!” Gordon trailed off as he realized that he had been made the butt of a joke. Again. “Come on, guys, this isn’t fair.”
They were sitting in a dingy cafeteria that seemed to derive its business purely from the tournament, drinking Naked Juice. The usual round of jokes had run its course and they were deciding what to do next.
“I don’t know, Gordon, you want to get Naked with me?”
Well, almost run its course. Oh yeah, Andrew was there, too.
Gordon sighed, but before he could continue, Kushal spoke up.
“Oh yeah. Guys. I think I have a talent.”
“OK, we’ve been through this before,” Gordon said long-sufferingly, “There was the never-tripping, the ‘rhyme time’…”
“Money breeding, banana finding…” Richard put in.
“Remote shoelace untying…”
“The Orange Vest of Doom…”
“The Mustache of Mystery…”
“Licking your elbow…”
“The ‘chick magnet’ one,” Andrew interjected. All three of the others stared at him.
“How did you know about that?” Kushal demanded.
“I didn’t, I just made it up.” Andrew’s eyes widened slightly. “You mean it’s true?”
“ANYWAY,” Kushal fairly shouted, “I’m serious. This time it’s for real.” He could tell the others totally didn’t believe him, and he hadn’t even told them what he thought it was. “When we were back on the bridge—”
“Oh yeah,” Gordon said seriously…but still smiling, “He did start to say something about it then.”
“Will you guys shut up for a minute?” Kushal fumed a bit while the others tried to keep from laughing. “OK. So, when we were on the bridge—” He stopped, waiting for an interruption, but the others watched him with exaggerated expressions of interest. Kushal gritted his teeth and continued. “Every time we fell off, I would snap back like 30 seconds or so. I couldn’t stop us from falling off the bridge, but it was a lot worse the first few times.”
“Hold on,” said Gordon, “We only fell off once. You can’t fall off a bridge more than once.” Richard nodded vigorously in agreement. “Well, you could, but you’d have to be pretty stupid. And we’re not that stupid.” Gordon stopped as he realized this was pretty beside the point.
“I know we only fell off once. It’s because my talent lets us go back in time a bit. It was a lot worse the first few times…” Kushal trailed off as he realized it wasn’t working. “Punch me.”
“What?” said Richard. Gordon shrugged and threw a punch at Kushal.
Andrew sneezed.
The punch caught Kushal on the shoulder. “Ow!”
Gordon shrugged again. “That clears that up. Wouldn’t you have avoided it?”
Kushal winced. “I did avoid it. The last three times you got me in the face.” Richard and Gordon exchanged glances. Andrew tried but of course he had no one to exchange with. He stared incredulously at Kushal instead.
“OK, look at it this way,” Richard said, laying his hands out on the table and using them for effect, “If you can do this, and we can’t tell that you’re doing it…why do we care?”
“Uh…” Kushal was stumped on that one.
“Oh, shoot, it’s nearly time for postings to go up.” Richard stood and knocked over his juice bottle, spilling the last few drops on the table. “Oops. Oh well.”
“You know, this is just like the time we were all in Fi Zix and you spilled your drink all over Kushal’s pants,” Gordon remarked brightly but nostalgically.
“Yeah…” said Richard, remembering.
“He did the first time today,” Kushal said sourly.
“Guys? Guys, wait for me.” Andrew scrambled to collect his few belongings and catch up.
The four of them emerged into the bright sunlight and began walking up the hill.
“Ow,” Kushal complained, “Wasn’t it overcast when we got here?”
“Heh, tournament weather.” Gordon shrugged.
There was a muffled thump and a pain star (the kind that normally circles around one’s head) floated past the three. None of them seemed to notice.
In fact, it was another four and a half minutes before any of them said anything. “Hey, Gordon’s never been to Fi Zix,” Kushal remarked to Richard, somewhat suspiciously and confusedly, “And neither have I.”
Gordon squirmed uncomfortably as Richard digested this. “Yeah…” said Richard, “And where’s Andrew?”