There was no color in the room darker than a grandmother's hair: pastels everywhere, like Halloween fingerprints. The fan was on low to prevent the coolness from growing cold, and the floor was carpeted. It was very comfortable.
Andrea was in charge: there was a smear of mashed something on her lower lip but she had been told to wipe it off so many times and had failed to do so properly so many times that at this point it was basically a tattoo. She leaned into the fake plastic microphone to address the board.
"Ladeez and gentle men, today we must disgust what has been on olive our minds. The Islamic State is probably like the biggest thread we are currently facing and if all of us in this room can't beat them then I guess we're just doomed."
Alexander scoffed from all the way across the massive table, off-white plastic and borrowed from Jeremy's dad's sundeck. "This is redone dent! You don't need to bring us all here to figure out, what to do, with the Islamic State! Meetings are pointless. I want to go home."
"And what do we do, Alex?"
"We need ta like bring everyone over there to fight them in a big battle and win!"
"Duh! That's what we've been dooooing! And it doesn't work, Alexander!"
Damien raised his hand, an action which resembled a camper lifting their marshmallows back up from the fire pit. "If eyemay, Andrea, you have to admit that this is a fight, and that these people need tah be destroyed! I know you don't want a big battle with epic deaths and stuff, but if ISIS isn't dead then how will they stop doing what-all they're doing?!"
Andrea huffed. She knew what to say: she did not know how. "I just know... (Ugh, boys.) I just know that fighting won't solve the problem! Even if it is a fight!"
Marlene, sitting next to Andrea with five layers on because it was October and that's what you do, leaned into Andrea and whispered so that only everybody could hear. "I think Alex is a bad guy!"
Andrea gasped and Alex leaped to his feet, maintaining balance for an astonishing eight seconds before collapsing back onto his rear. "Marlene! How dare you! We suckled from the same breast!"
Marlene: "Eeeeeewwwww!!!!!!!!"
Andrea: "Ugh, boys."
Damien: "Get it suhn.
Alex: "And besides, if we don't kill them, someone else will! Because bad guys always lose. Have I lost? NO. So therefore, I am not, a bad guy!" He crossed his arms, the creases of his joints resembling a particularly layered lasagna.
"Nobody is a'cusing anyone of anything!" Andrea insisted. "Marlene just got out a hand. She tags it back." Andrea shot her a glare. Marlene scoffed.
"If we don't get ISIS into big trouble," Alex went on, "Then they'll get us into trouble! That's how it works, Andrea!"
"And once they're in the principal's office they're gonna rat on us ALEX!"
"Not if we get them into SO MUCH TROUBLE that they PUT ON SILENT LUNCH, INSIDE THE PRINCIPAL'S OFFICE!"
There was silence for a brief moment. It was only a few minutes but it felt like a significant portion of their lives (which it was). Finally Damien spoke up.
"What the hell kind of parent names their child Damien? Why mine?"