THIRD IS THE NERD with the HAIRY CHEST The dude in front of them had obviously seen the first two movies. He was dressed in what, to the untrained eye, might have been a gorilla costume with two curved golden horns poking from the top of his head. Black hairs blew off in the brisker winds and clung to their jackets and backpacks and Divinia’s fleece headband. Clearly Larry wanted to say something— he was doing that jig that he did in gym class when they were forced to play cooperative sports— but the guy was several inches taller than all of them and seriously bulky. Though maybe that was the Kuwakki suit, Fiore supposed. Then again, maybe not. Besides, he was with a fat man who, despite the mustard stains on his hoodie, look capable of at least threatening to get his buddy’s back. They were already out of chocolate bars, and the reason they didn’t sleep last night was the same reason they no longer had any Dew Drop left. The last of that green caffeine pulsed in Fiore’s bladder. He’d been to the bathroom three times in the past two hours, though, and each time the same creepy security guard, the one with the hunched left shoulder and the sloping face, had hobbled past the restrooms and given Fiore the same knowing grin. “Are you bored?” he asked Larry. Larry stopped jigging. “What?” “I have to piss.” “You just went,” Divinia said from behind them. She had a half-peeled banana in one hand, and a banana string webbed two of her fingers on the other. “Too bad it’s not permanent,” Fiore said. She sniffed and rolled her eyes, pulled another string from her banana and let it dangle from her thumb. “Come with me, Lar.” “Why?” Larry said. His feet began a sideways shuffle towards the Kuwakki. “I told you. That guard.” “Right now? The doors are gonna open in, like, twenty minutes.” “I’m gonna blow, captain.” Divinia said, “You’re foul,” but her mouth was full of banana, so it was excusable to ignore her. “Fine,” Larry said. He planted one foot and stomped the other down on a trodden spot of gum. “Vinny, you watch the goods. I’ll kill you if—” “Yeah, yeah,” Divinia said. “Just go away.” She was only there in the first place because Fiore’s mother had insisted that he bring his sister, but at least this way someone was watching their things. No Kuwakki fingers all over their Green Ranger hoods and masks. And since Divinia didn’t seem to be capable of making any permanent friends— she was currently in a solo phase, as their mother called it— there would be only one fourteen-year-old girl with them. Not chattering dozens. And she’d agreed to stand behind them. They were getting in first, because this was their idea. Instead of being dismayed at this news, she responded with a smirk and a playground rhyme: “First is the worst, second is the best, third is the one with the treasure chest!” The security guard was nowhere in sight when they reached the bathrooms. Larry said it was stupid that he’d had to come along just for the ride, but in the same breath declared that he had a Martian preparing for a soft cotton landing. “Good thing you came with me, then,” Fiore said, and Larry said, “Don’t listen, pervert.” So Fiore used the urinal and whistled “Yankee Doodle” while Larry occupied a stall, and then he hummed an invented tune as he looked in the mirror. The sight, as usual, was distressing. His hair flamed out in wild orange curls, and his smatter of freckles mixed with small constellations of acne on his cheeks to give him a permanent blush. He was the epitome of jock bait, the textbook example
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