Water Is Wet

• Sofia Khokhlenok, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2015

DID YOU KNOW WATER IS WET?
That was all that was written on the withering grey wall.
Did this complete moron have nothing better to do than to write on walls? Did he think it was a fun idea?
I turned to Stephen, “Which idiot do you think wrote that?”
He twisted the tap and listened for the low gurgling sound that churned from the monstrous depths below the innocent floor panels. As liquid cascaded out, he shoved his hands beneath the cheerless murky water that slipped down his hand in to a shapeless grotesque mess before restlessly crawling towards the retched pipes of which it had momentarily escaped from.
“Didn’t you write that?” He asked, flummoxed, his steely cold eyes still firmly fixed on his hands, his back rigid.
I turned my gaze on the limonitic rust that was building itself up along the sooty edges of the walls. The once lively malachite paint now exfoliating. I stared, remaining very conscious of the fact there was an uncomfortable silence hanging malevolently in the air.
I thought about it. Had I written the message?
I had! In the fourth grade! I had mistaken idiocy, senselessness, and stupidity for being cool? No wonder I had pushed such a ludicrous version of myself, a younger version, so deep into the distance of the great swirling abyss of a black hole where all my bad memories went to reside in perpetuity.
I’m no vandal anymore, not now anyway.
“Well?” The sharpness of the word cut into my thoughts like a stiletto.
“Well what?”
“Well are you an idiot or you an idiot?”
Before I could answer, a pair of year twelve boys walked in, one of them laughed, the other grinned at his friend mischievously.
“Lord!” One vociferated in surprise at something the other had said.
Laughter…
Unhappily, the word hung in the air like a stalled thought.
It was uncomfortable… for us, at least.

“You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain”

Coughing, I turned away dismissively.
“Yeah, whatever, I forgot,” I muttered, pressing my palms against the side of perturbed frigid steal of the sink, which more closely resembled a trough.
I could clearly hear the vexatious older boys. Their strong, voices ringing out, bouncing off the chilled tiles, echoing through the deep cracks that probably led all the twisty way to the girl’s bathroom. They didn’t even look in our direction, treating us like some kind of irrelevant non-persons.
Curses slipped through their mouths.
I cringed.
THIS IS A CHRISTIAN SCHOOL. CAN’T YOU READ?
Noticing my utter disgust, Stephen leaned over to me looking as equally awkward. I could tell we were thinking the same thing.
“Don’t worry…” He whispered softly, nearing inaudibility. A smile crawled, like a centipede, onto his face. “We can kill them first.”