"Who won the dodgeball game?"
I'm not entirely sure who the random girl who posed this question was, but on the other hand, I was kinda busy laughing at my sister Quill's expression. "Huh?" she eloquently inquired.
Abbey, Quill's roommate, did her best to explain. "Radar threw your squishy ball at me--"
I interrupted. "So she chased me down the hall and tried to hit me with it!" I nodded to the girl in the hall. "I won, by the way."
Abbey tried to glare at me. She failed. "You did not! I hit you once!"
"Yeah, and then you somehow missed at point-blank range," I pointed out. The girl outside laughed and wandered off to find someplace slightly more sane to hang out.
It was more or less a typical night for me at college. I had decided to stop by to see how Quill was doing, and she had vanished to go give some papers to friends, at which point the altercation with Abbey had taken place. Quill had returned roughly the same time my girlfriend, Sparrow, had showed up to visit as well and to partake of the sandwiches Quill had made. And then Christina, a mutual friend of all of ours, showed up...basically, Quill's room was getting a little crowded. Needless to say, all the newcomers were a bit miffed that they had missed all the fun.
"You chased him down the hall?" Quill asked enviously through a mouthful of sandwich.
"Yepp," I confirmed, tossing the aforementioned squishy ball into the air. "I think we confused most of the residents."
Sparrow poked me in the ribs. I promptly collapsed (I'm a bit ticklish). "You shouldn't throw stuff at people!" she admonished me.
I curled into the fetal position, trying to protect my poor ribs. "Ohh, Abbey's practically a sister at this point anyway. I can do that!"
Abbey shrugged. "Yeah, that's true." She heaved a fake sigh. "Brothers!"
"Just remember, this means you get all the privileges of a sister," Quill reminded her. "In other words, it's okay to hit him."
I sat up indignantly. "HEY!"
Christina had been mostly silent throughout this whole discussion, but now she sat up with a wicked glint in her eyes. "We should all chase him down the hall!"
I scrambled hastily up. "Whoa now...unfair!"
"How is it unfair?" Sparrow asked, getting up and pointing her "poking finger" at me.
I thought fast. Unfortunately, I couldn't really come up with a legitimate reason for them not chasing me, since I obviously had all my limbs attached. Oh well. "If I'm going to get chased, I want to deserve it." I lunged for the ball.
"Oh no you don't!" Christina squeaked and grabbed for it. I got it free, threw it at Quill, and ran for my life.
I will say this for the girls; they are pretty fast. They still wouldn't have caught me if I hadn't missed the exit to the stairs. One frantic backpedal later, I managed to trip and wipe out. Before I could get up, Sparrow was standing on my feet. I sat back against the wall. "Everyone happy now?"
Quill sat on my shoulder. "Hmm, I don't know. That was pretty short."
"I missed my exit," I explained.
"Let's do it again!" Christina urged.
"What is this, tag?" I muttered under my breath. "Nah, I'm good. You're wrecking my shoulder, Quill."
Quill jumped off. "Again. Come on, Radar, please?"
I stood up, wiggling my toes to get some blood flowing there. Sparrow had kinda cut off the circulation down there. "I don't think so--"
"Run or get tickled. You have five seconds," Sparrow informed me.
"Aww, come on!" I protested, then spun around and ran as they charged me.
This time, I made the exit to the stairs well ahead of the girls, opting to go downstairs first. I could hear them spilling into the stairway as I yanked open the door to ground floor. Abbey was in the hallway; apparently, she had not opted to join in the original chase and wandered down here instead. She burst out laughing as I flew past.
I hadn't lost the girls yet, so I decided to go up the back stairway. I raced up two floors; then, in a burst of inspiration, I yanked open the second floor door open as I shot past. The girls couldn't see me, but they heard the door closing; they all piled through into the second floor as I leisurely strolled through the third floor door and headed to the water fountain for a much-needed drink and a review of my options.
It was obvious that I couldn't keep trying to evade them like this; sooner or later, one of them was going to realize that they'd me more effective if two of them barricaded the stairways and sent the last one to flush me out. Or if (heaven help me) they recruited reinforcements. Sadly, my sense of honor (and humor) demanded that I not try to sneak outside. Fortunately, an alternate plan presented itself: I would sneak down the front stairs, draw them out, let them chase me around a floor, then duck back down to first floor and barricade myself in Quill's room.
Foolproof! With a capital F!
It went rather well at first. I drew the girls out and took off back up to third floor, than cut through second to get back to the stairway to first. When I reached for the door handle to first, however...
"Gotcha!!" Sparrow pounced. I was definitely not expecting that. I backed up, tripped, and hit the corner of the stairwell. Sparrow grabbed my wrist and yelled up the stairway to Christina, "I GOT HIM!!!"
"Excellent! Where's Quill?" Christina asked.
"I think she went to go guard the back stairs," Sparrow explained.
"Let's go get her," Christina proposed, grabbing my other wrist and pulling me through the door to first. We headed down the hallway with me trying subtly to see if I could managed to remove my wrists from their death grips.
Christina saw Quill first and waved. "Hey, Quill, we got Ra--"
I quickly yanked my arm away from Christina. Unfortunately, Sparrow had anticipated me and grabbed my other arm with both hands, preventing me from running. Christina quickly re-established her grip on my wrist.
"I feel like a prisoner!" I complained.
"You are," Quill informed me. "And I'm the warden."
"I caught him," Sparrow informed her. "Right when he tried to get though the door. He was not expecting me!"
I groaned, still a bit out of breath. "You're never going to let me forget this, are you?"
She smiled angelically. "Nope!"
Haha! This was most entertaining. And you're a good storyteller.
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