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Learning to Fall: three aspirin.
Water dripped from both of Terry's elbows. The bag of ice Momma put on his nose earlier he moved up to his head when the headache set in, holding it there with both hands pulling down tight around his ears so the droopy, wet plastic bag full of melting ice made him look stupid. Both of us were near crying sitting at the dinner table when the headache hit us like a wild pitch. Breathing all that helium and laughing so hard gave us the worst pain in the brain ever, and even worse than that, Jillian and Alex were over for dinner and they kept making fun only it wasn't much fun for us.
"Follow the yellow brick road." Alex leaned over and whispered in a high voice in my ear and I thought maybe he wasn't as cool as I once felt, and maybe he was someone that I needed to get back at for this, especially since I never ratted him and Jillian out for all that fooling around on the couch and now this is what I get--him imitating a munchkin in my ear right when my head is about to burst open like a cracked egg in boiling water.
"Shut up!" I yelled, and the sound inside my head from my own voice squirted tears out of my eyeballs uncontrollably and made me want to kick something.
"Yeah, Mr. Suckface-on-the-couch!" Terry yelled and I saw his face flinch around the bloody nose that made him look like a boxer and then he cried a little like my dog does when it wants a treat. When the sound in his head kicked his brain like mine had when I yelled, Terry closed his eyes and tears ran down his face in streams way stronger than the drips from the melting ice on his head.
"You poor boys," Momma said, handing us each three aspirin.
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