“You’re never gonna get a boyfriend you know. You’re way too fat.”
There was a high pitched shriek, a banshee like wail that could have broken glass and shattered ear drums, if it were in fact in possession of a supernatural quality. Bart nearly lost his hold on the thing in his arms when he heard it, and feeling the fingers loosen the ball of fur gave a cry of her own, managing to join in with the very human like one that came from in front of her. The woman was standing with her hands to her hips— her rather wide hips to be exact— and with eyes that could have melted metal, she sent a glare his way, hoping to make him shake in his skin, like a calf recently branded.
He sputtered, his eyes gone wide, his mouth open. He wore the image of a child who had just been caught with his hands in the cookie jar, after being told not to dare attempt it so close to dinner.
“You , how dare you say such a thing to me. Do you have any idea who I am, insolent boy?” Her fat, stubby index finger was pointed at him, a gun waiting to fire, waiting to impale with the pure harshness of her voice. She was like one of those large, ogre-like women who scared small children into keeping their voices down and their hands to themselves, less she come stalking towards them with a booming reprimand.
She hadn’t scared him, but her bellowing had surprised him and when he found the ability to speak, he knew that he must have sounded unsure of himself, maybe guilty. Guilty wasn’t good. Not at all.
“I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to my cat,” he said, looking down for good measure, to where the animal was supposed to be fidgeting in his arms. To his horror, she was no longer in place, no longer shrieking her dislike for the world to hear and take pity from. She had gone, had jumped away from him like a feisty minx, hoping to see her boy in trouble, so that she could sit and take pleasure while perched safety in the shadows that were— to her delight— away from the rain.
His accuser was about to spit out something else when her beady eyes twitched to the girl in the sheet. Her mouth curved into a nasty sneer, her head shook in displeasure. Both he and the woman were close enough to the girl, close enough to be both seen clearly, and heard without trouble.
At the sight of her, Bart latched onto his salvation and took it without thinking twice. “Don’t yell at me, miss. At least I’m not running around in a sheet, possibly naked underneath.” He lifted his shoulders, stared right at the teenage girl, feigning absolute disgust. “What a stain on our generation. Don’t you agree? I wonder where her mother is.”
That did the trick. The ogre/woman huffed to herself, glared at the girl, forgetting all about the boy who she believed had called her fat right to her face. Muttering to herself, about the manners that young people did not possess these days, she lumbered away, her red umbrella held high like a shield meant to keep all forms of teenage pests from eating at her skin. Like mosquitoes possibly carrying disease.
Bart strained to keep himself from laughing at her, and while trying to achieve this he began his walk closer to the sheet and the girl who had used it to wrap herself up. He’d probably pissed her off, what, with calling her a stain to their generation and all. That almost made him laugh again.
“Is that like, some kind of new fashion trend that I’m unaware of?” He sounded mocking, and he could just hear his mother's voice, crisp in warning.
You'll never get a girlfriend that way, you know. You're way too rude.