the hated child

chapter seventy-seven

Shed slowly zoned Mistake out of his mind and allowed his neurons to make connections.

"Umm, let's see... TOELUS NAILUS EATERIAMULUS!!!!!" he shouted, facing his palm to Ronald in the same way you do when you tell someone to STOP bullying you about your music taste (when it's completely deserved).

"Ummm Shed? What kind of spell is that? WHERE DO YOU EVEN LEARN THESE, WE'RE NOT ATTENDING A MAGIC SCHOOL??"

Shed had a smugly smug expression on his smug face as he smugly said, "Well, I'm actually SUPER SMART and I instinctively know all the magic spells in the WORLD!!!!"

Mistake side eyed the GINGER. "YOU want me to believe that YOU'RE super smart?????"

"Yea..."

"It's already hard to imagine the smart, but SUPER??? I literally can't fathom the possibility of you suddenly obtaining knowledge."

"Well, fathom it! Because it's real!" Shed put his hands on his hips like a kindergartner who's trying to be a supermodel but ends up tripping on their untied shoelaces but is too embarrassed and tries to make everyone think they did it on purpose. "2024 is my year!"

Mistake examined Shed up at down. "I think you have to wait a bit longer for 'your year'."

"BUT WHYYYYYYY!!!!!" Shed started throwing a tantrum like a kindergartner who's trying to be cool and a bad boy but ends up tripping on their untied shoelaces but is too embarrassed and tries to make everyone think they did it on purpose.

"BECAUUUUUUUSSSSEEEE!!!"

"Because WHAT."

M"BECAUSE THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS 'YOUR YEAR'!! THE CLOSEST THING TO 'YOUR YEAR' IS THE YEAR YOU WERE BORN!!!" Mistake bellowed.

"NO! I'M IN MY IT-GIRL ERA. YOU CAN'T DENY IT. LIKE I'M GOING FROM NICE TO MEAN TO NICE WHICH MEANS EVERYONE HAS TO LOVE ME AND PRAISE ME FOR DUALITY!!!!!!!"

"THAT SOUNDS A LOT LIKE LOVE-BOMBING, THE PSYCHOLOGICAL MANIPULATION TACTIC..."

Shed shook his head and wagged his finger. "Nuh-uh! No it's not! You're just lying and bringing out big boy words!!! Stop spreading false rumours!! Gaslighting isn't real. Sickness is only created by people who want attention. Evolution is just a way scientists trick us into thinking that we're not just humanized piles of dirt."

"Well, technically, we are just humanised piles of dirt," said Mistake matter-of-factly.

"What. BUT MY YOUTUBE SHORTS-"

"You have shorts with the YouTube logo on them?"

"Mistake, you are SO BEHIND THE TIMES!!! I'm surprised you even know what YOUTUBE is. Now go on, give me a whole Wikipedia definition on what your understanding of the Youtube platform is blah blah blah..."

"Okay!" Mistake brightened. "YouTube is an American online video sharing and social media platform owned by Google. Accessible worldwide, it was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim, three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States, it is the second most visited website in the world, after Google Search. YouTube has more than 2.5 billion monthly users, who collectively watch more than one billion hours of videos every day."

"What do you have in that brain of yours? Are your little inside out characters actually just all dictionaries?"

"Are yours NOT?"

"HOW WOULD YOU EVEN KNOW??? ARE THEY SO SMART THAT THEY CAN JUST TELL YOU THEMSELVES??? Ok, now give me a description of the movie Inside Out."

"Emotions. In my head. Chaos. BING BONG!!! Sadness. Happiness is sadness..."

"Wow... so beautiful..." Shed wiped a tear away.

"Thank you, thank you." Mistake bowed. "My name actually stands for Mindblowing Incredible Smart Toe and Kangaroo Encyclopedia, therefore, I have a lot of knowledge on toes and kangaroos."

"Wow... so wise... tell me about toes."

"YOU CREEP! I BET YOU'RE ALWAYS ON FOOT FINDER AND YOU WATCH VIDEOS OF PEOPLE LATHERING LOTION ON THEIR FEET ALL DAY."

Shed retched. "EWWWW, NO!"

"Then why are you requesting such a creepy service..."

"YOU'RE THE ONE WHO SAID YOU HAVE A LOT OF KNOWLEDGE ABOUT IT!!"
"IT'S HUMAN ANATOMY! I WANTED TO BECOME A PEDIATRICIAN WHEN I WAS 5." Mistake began massaging her crunchy foot skin, flakes flying all over the room. "NOW KILL RONALD!!!"