This Is War - Chapter 21 – Codpieces and Turtlenecks
“Princesses, please join me to determine our first event,” said Ocelot into his megaphone. He had gotten off the platform and was now standing in front of a giant prize wheel. Each brightly colored slice of the wheel had a different event written on it.
I tried to read them as I approached. There were a few standard events, like Tug of War, Dizzy Bat, and the Sack Race.
But then there were some that I didn’t recognize.
What the hell is Angry Swans? And Codpieces and Turtlenecks?
Surprisingly, none of the events sounded like things that would make me end up naked.
“Since the blue team are the reigning champions, red gets first spin. Princess Raven, please get us started.” He stepped aside so everyone could see the full wheel.
I was worried I’d look like an idiot and not be able to spin the wheel properly.
But after spending way too many afternoons of my childhood watching The Price is Right, I knew the proper technique.
I stood on my tippy toes and grabbed as high up on the wheel as I could.
And then I put all my force into spinning it downward.
I was relieved when it actually worked. The wheel spun and spun and spun. It almost landed on Codpieces and Turtlenecks, but instead it clicked over to the Egg Relay Race.
Okay, I can work with that. I’d been a beast at egg races back in elementary school. As far as I could remember, I’d never dropped the egg. And I wasn’t about to break that streak now.
We had to field two girls and two guys, so I volunteered to be one of the girls.
Isadora volunteered to be the other. I was a little worried that she’d severely injure her giant breasts by running in a bikini rather than a sports bra, but if she thought she could do it, then I guess I had to trust her.
There was no shortage of male volunteers, but ultimately I chose Tanner and Diablo. The running order was: Diablo, Me, Isadora, and Tanner as our anchor. My reasoning was that I wanted to get out to a quick start.
It didn’t quite work out that way.
The second I saw the spoon in Diablo’s hand, I knew I had made a mistake. His hands were so big that him holding the perfectly normal sized spoon looked like an average person holding one of those little plastic spoons that you’d get with an easy bake oven.
I must have given him a worried look, because he turned to me and winked. “Don’t worry, Princess. I got this.”
No. No, he didn’t.
Especially because he was staring suggestively at my breasts instead of focusing. Oh. He was saying he was going to get me . Or maybe he was talking about the egg race. I had no idea.
Ocelot fired the starter gun. Diablo took off in a dead sprint, while the blue team’s first guy took a much more measured approach.
Unsurprisingly, Diablo’s egg fell off his spoon before he had taken three steps.
I cringed as the egg splattered on the ground.
What kind of monster decided to have a race with raw eggs?
Why not like…water balloons? Or stress balls? Or literally anything else?
“Dude, what the hell?” I yelled as Diablo came back to get another egg. “You can’t go full speed!”
“I only have one speed. In both egg races and fucking.”
Damn it, Diablo! “Please just slow down.”
“I got this,” he said. But he took my advice a little too seriously.
Instead of sprinting for his second try, he walked at a pace that was slightly faster than an old dude with a cane.
To his credit, though, he did keep the egg on his spoon.
But come on! Why did he volunteer for this if he was so freaking terrible at it?
“This is a nightmare,” I said to Tanner. “Do you have any spy tech we could use to turn the tide in our favor?”
“Nope. But I have something even better.” He snapped his fingers and Nigel rushed over to his side.
I hadn’t seen him before. But now I don’t know how I’d missed him. He was dressed in a red cotton onesie that looked straight out of the early 1900s.
“Nigel, what are you wearing?” I asked.
“My workout outfit.” He ran his hand down the fabric. “I’ve had it for decades but it’s still good. They don’t make things like they used to.”
“Decades? Aren’t you like…twenty something?”
“Me?” He looked confused for a moment. “Oh, yes. I’m a young lad. I meant it’s decades old. I stole it from an old person. I’m a little thief.” He wiggled his fingers.
“I’m sorry, what?”
He turned to Tanner, ignoring me. “You called for me, Master?”
“Did you bring your slingshot?” asked Tanner, not at all phased by Nigel admitting to stealing clothing from old men.
“Of course.” He pulled one out of his back pocket.
What the hell? “Why do you have a slingshot?” I asked.
“Cougars.”
I spun around and stared out into the woods. “Are cougars a big problem here?”
“Oh yes,” said Nigel. “But really they’re a problem for me everywhere. Older women love my boyish charm. Although technically they’re not older…”
“Nigel!” yelled Tanner. “Let’s stay focused, please. I need you to shoot the blue runner’s egg off of his spoon.”
Nigel grabbed a stone, aimed, and let it fly.
I could have sworn he missed by like three feet, but the egg still exploded as if it had been hit.
“What the hell?!” yelled the blue runner as he wiped raw egg from his face. “My egg just exploded!”
I started dry heaving at the sight of the egg on his face. But I was pretty pleased with the lead it earned us.
“How’d that happen?” I asked. “Nigel missed, but…”
Tanner and Nigel looked at each other.
“I don’t think he missed,” said Tanner.
“I never miss,” agreed Nigel.
“You definitely missed.” I’d even seen the grass move where the rock had landed.
“Then how did the egg explode?” asked Tanner.
“Magic?” I suggested.
Nigel’s eyes got big. “I’m not a magical boy. I’m a normal boy. Right, Master?”
“Indeed. Nigel is a very normal boy.”
Is he? Is he really? There was absolutely nothing normal about Nigel. And I still had my suspicions that Tanner was a vampire. Could vampires make eggs explode? I didn’t remember seeing anything about that in the literature, but I’d have to double check.
Nigel turned and shot a rock at Chastity too. Right at her butt.
“Ow!” she shrieked and grabbed her ass. She turned and stared daggers at Nigel.
But Nigel had tucked the slingshot into his pocket.
“What did you just throw at me?” Chastity said.
“Who, moi?” Nigel pointed to himself. “Why would I throw something at you? I don’t even know who you are.”
Nigel was so good at sick burns.
Diablo finally made it back to the starting line.
Isadora was all ready to go with her egg and spoon.
Despite her lack of a sports bra, she was awesome at it.
In fact, not only was she awesome at it, but her very bouncy display distracted the blue runner enough to make him drop his egg and have to go back to the start again.
Cole and Chastity both yelled obscenities at him like they were dads at a six-year-old’s soccer match.
We had a nice lead by the time it was my turn to run. I took off at a cautious but respectable pace. There was no need to hurry. Thanks to Nigel or Tanner somehow making that egg explode, we were a full runner ahead of them. I had plenty of time…
Where did she come from?!
Chastity sped past me.
Gah!
I hated her ridiculously long legs. It wasn’t fair that they looked so good and were so fast. And why was she so good at balancing that egg on a spoon?
I picked up the pace, but there was no way I could match her speed. It was going to be up to Tanner to make up my lost time on the final leg against Cole.
But Tanner was busy jotting something down in a notebook.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said and quickly put his notebook back in his pocket.
“Tanner, focus. I need you to do whatever it takes to catch him,” I panted as I made it back to the starting line.
Tanner snapped his fingers and Cole’s egg rolled off his spoon.
“How’d you do that?” I asked.
“Magic,” he said with a wink. And then he took off.
I didn’t have time to be annoyed with him for messing with me. I was too busy watching the photo finish.
“Come on, Ryder!” I yelled as Tanner and Cole both leaned forward.
Everyone standing around the field looked to Ocelot in his ridiculous referee outfit.
“That one was too close to call. I’m gonna have to check the photo…” He glanced down at his phone. And zoomed in. “And the winner is…red team!”
“Yes!” I screamed and high-fived Tanner way harder than I should have. I turned to Cole. “Take that, sucker!”
Instead of coming back with a snarky comment, he just laughed.
“Well played, guys. Well played.” He shook hands with Tanner and patted him on the back.
“That was one hell of a race. It’s nice to finally have some real competition here.
” He flashed me his cocky smile and walked back over to his team.
Well that was rather sporting of him. It was really quite shocking. I expected him to be the sorest of losers. But instead he took it like a man. It almost made me feel bad about Nigel cheating with that slingshot. Or was it magic? No. Magic doesn’t exist.
Ocelot called us back over to the giant wheel.
This time it was Chastity’s turn to spin. Her boobs came dangerously close to popping out of her cut-off T-shirt, but somehow she managed to keep them covered as she spun. Round and round the wheel went until it landed on… Salmon ladder?
All the girls in the crowd cheered.
I turned to Tanner. “So what’s happening here?
Do we have to carry a bunch of salmon up a ladder?
And more importantly…is it raw? Or cooked?
Or alive?! And why are all the girls so excited about any of that?
” Incorporating salmon into a race was a worse idea than using raw eggs, and that was really saying something.
“Just wait and see,” said Isadora. “You’re gonna love it.”
Am I?