Drunk on Coffee

By Caden Hill,

   “Gimme the next one!” Tyler roared. He was on his fourth drink so far, and had vowed on #3 that he would get past seven.

“Ok, I’ll give you this one, but ya gotta promise it’s the last one. Just quit the dare.” Louis was not so enthused about his friend’s caffeine high.

“What are you talking about? Last one? I’m only just getting started!”

Tyler snatched the latte from Louis’s hand and began pouring it into his mouth, promoting an “Eeeew!” from the third person at the table.

“Who the heck names their fall-themed coffee drink ‘Pumpkin Spider’?” Grace said. She was rather grossed out, but watching a middle-school boy chug a solid 800 milligrams of caffeine and then go nuts was always entertaining.

“Woohoo! I’m on a roll!” Tyler sucked down the last bits of insect-flavored foam and hurled the empty cup across the room.

The trio was at Flake’s Coffee Shop after school, their backpacks hanging on the chairs. Run by Archibald Flake, the eclectic little shop was adorned with the trappings of Halloween: fake spiderwebs clung to the stained glass windows, the old wooden tables now sported cardboard cutouts of Frankenstein and Dracula, and in the corner, by the bathrooms, a medical skeleton did it’s best red-carpet pose. At best of times, the coffee shop resembled an old stone chapel, but right now, it was more like an antique shop of horrors.

While Louis walked to the counter to order Tyler’s next punnily named beverage, Grace sat back in her chair and folded her arms.

“So genius, you want to answer a few questions for me?”

“Sure.” The hyperactive preteen answered.

“What’s four times four?”

“Twelve!”

“The year Columbus sailed?”

“1776. Give me a hard one!”

“How many legs does an ant have?”

“Easy! Eleventy-one!”

The caffeine was clearly inhibiting Tyler’s ability to think.

“Ok, I’m gonna give you a real brain-boggler, you ready?”

Louis returned with the next drink, something called a ‘Cinna-Organ Swirl’. Louis had considered trying a sip, but recoiled at the sight of mutilated gummy bears dancing in bloody looking fluids.

Grace put her forearms on the table. “What is thirteen times blueberry??”

“Gummy bears...” Came the muffled reply from inside the coffee cup, whose dripping lid was now lying on the floor a dozen feet away.

Grace smirked at Louis, who raised his eyebrows with a knowing look.

“Tyler,” Grace commanded, “Look at me.”

A sticky, dismayed face emerged from the foam cup.

Grace pulled a notepad and pen from her backpack. “When you stole my science workbook last month, where did you hide it?”

“Underneath my bed.”

Grace wrote on her notepad. Louis’s jaw dropped, and his eyes popped open.

“What about that time with the note on Jenny Dougal’s locker? Was that you?”

“Yes.” Tyler returned to gulping his Cinna-Organ Swirl.

It’s like he’s drunk! Louis thought.

“Did you put glue thumbtacks to the underside of Jeffrey Harding’s desk? So when the teacher looked for gum she’d poke herself?”

“Yep.” Tyler replied dreamily, face covered in shredded gummy bears.

“Now Tyler, I need you to focus.” Grace implored. “What is the worst thing you’ve ever done?”

“Oh that? I took Louis’s favorite teddy and flushed him. He really needs to grow up and stop cuddling with plushy toys.”

Louis went white, and then purple, and launched himself over the table at Tyler, who was flung backwards by the ferocity of the assault!

“Yaaah!” Louis cried, “No one touches Booshie and lives!”

“He was begging to get away from your hugging!” Tyler spat back.

The two began rolling around on the floor, smashing into chairs and table legs alike.

Grace walked up the counter and laid a fat fifty on the weather pine. She peered innocently up at the thin face of Archibald Flake, “This is for the coffee...and the damage.”

A loud snap, and the sound of something heavy falling made Grace wince.

She put another fifty next to the first and said hurriedly. “This is for anything else they might break.”

The spidery old man took off his thick glasses, wiped them with a cloth from his pocket, and returned them to their imprints on his face. Then he bared a toothy grin, framed by cracked lips.

“Are you kidding?” He wheezed, “This is the most fun I’ve had in years!”

Grace smiled. She walked back to her seat, slung her backpack over one shoulder, and walked out of the shop. Behind her, the two boys kept fighting.

And at the counter, the old man Archibald Flake sipped a Zombuchino and laughed.

Author's Note:

I decided at random to write this story this morning--thought it might be fun. Please comment!

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