Cruddy - Lynda Barry [15]
The Turtle tossed it back to her. He said, “Why don’t ya check it ouuuut and lock it dowwwwn!” Every time he talked he changed his accent. I was getting interested in him.
Vicky sat down and pried off the lid. Inside was a dark flaky substance that looked like hairy mud. She sniffed it and pulled her face back. “Smells like horse piss. What is it, Turtle?”
I sat down next to her. I said, “It’s Copenhagen, Vicky. Chew.”
“What, like hash?” she said. “A kind of hash?”
“No,” I said. “Chew. Tobacco.”
She said, “But it does have, like, hash oil in it, right? Because I have a very sensitive nose. I can tell hash.”
The Turtle propped himself up and did a French accent. “Like, I want shit, man, hey. Will you stone? I want to smoke shit for example. Is it?”
I was getting more and more impressed with him. He reached into the same shirt pocket and pulled out a bent white paper twist. Club-shaped and very fat, which he held out to Vicky.
“Trade ya,” he said. “It’ll talk to ya.” He wiggled the twist and I watched Vicky try to figure out if she was being tricked or not. Vicky looked at me for my opinion. The father would have fallen on the floor laughing.
All three of us held in and exhaled our clouds. The Turtle called it the Ancient Substance, something I’d been hearing about in Health, something featured in the film our 1,000-year-old teacher Mrs. Fields showed us called What Are Drugs? When I started laughing, Vicky said, “What? What?”
I said, “What Are Drugs?” I said, “Getting a trip is groovy, man. I am groovy. I can flyyyyy.” I told them about the movie. About how it started with warped music and a close-up of water that someone was dropping food coloring into and what looked like some little balls of aluminum foil. I told them about the whispering voice. “I am groovy. Getting a trip is groovy.”
“Getting a trip is groovy,” said the Turtle.
“Oh yeah!” said Vicky. “I saw that movie in second period! And it was so fake! And people kept cracking up! And Mrs. Fields turns on the lights and says, ‘Shut up or you have to go to the office!’ And me and these two black guys could not stop laughing and we got sent to the office.” She inhaled another cloud and passed me the twist. I was staring at her. In a pinched back-of-the-throat voice she said, “What?”
I took my inhale. I wondered was she just being a very bold liar or did she really not know I had that class with her. I was sitting two rows behind her. And I knew what she said never happened. Mrs. Fields turned on the lights and told us to shut up but she didn’t send Vicky Talluso to the office. She didn’t send anyone to the office.
“Hillbilly Woman,” The Turtle timed it so that Vicky was on an inhale when he spoke to me. “You must continue your story.”
Vicky blew her cloud out. “What story?”
“The murder,” said the Turtle. “Little Debbie.”
Vicky pulled her head back and looked at me. She said, “What Little Debbie?”
“The Hillbilly Woman killed the people with Little Debbie. I heard her say so.”
“Oh,” said Vicky. “That. She was just bullshitting.”
“Were you?” The Turtle was looking at me and his black eyes were like sucking holes.
“No,” I said.
From the back of her throat Vicky said, “Lie,” and some little wisps of smoke curled around her teeth. She was hogging on the roach and it was burning her fingers. The Turtle tossed her a beat-up cough drops tin with a flip-top lid.
“What’s this?” she said. “Another fake-out?” Vicky shook the box and there was a dry rattle.
“Careful,” said the Turtle. “Don’t bruise them.”
Vicky opened the lid. She sniffed and said, “Chocolate mesc! Is it? Is it? Is it chocolate mesc?”
“Is it?” said the Turtle.
She took out a clear cap filled with what looked like powdered cocoa and held it between her fingers. “It is,” she said. And before the Turtle answered she closed the tin and slipped it into her purse. “I’m keeping it for you, OK, Turtle? You are very wasted, OK? It’s easy to lose things when you are wasted, so I’ll keep it for you.”
He was fast. He was holding the stash box before Vicky could even finish shutting her purse. She