annoying,” said the tattletale. “We all are.”
“That’s an understatement,” commented the snarky one.
The curious one looked almost as if its feelings were hurt again.
I tried to focus on the announcements Mrs Bowers was reading out loud, but then I heard the SNIFF SNIFF SNIFF start again. I looked accusingly at the noisy one, but it was busy BEEP BEEP BEEPING. I cringed as I realised what had just happened. I turned round towards Otis’s empty desk, terrified of what I knew I’d see – another translucent glob of goo. This one had sprouted fur and arms and was stretching its body upward. It had a big, pink nose to go with its droopy, watery eyes and floppy ears. It sniffled and sneezed and wiped its nose in its own fur. For a moment it looked content, but then it sneezed and started the whole process over again. It was one sticky-looking, snot-hardened, green-furred, monster hallucination.
“Why does that happen?” asked the curious one, observing its new colleague.
“Because he’s easily annoyed,” chimed in the tattletale. “He’s also pissing off the teacher,” it added as Mrs Bowers gave me another stern look.
I slunk down in my seat, trying to ignore the sniffling one too. But that was hard to do. The noisy one had latched onto its sniffle sounds and they were sitting on either side of my chair back. It was SNIFF SNIFF SNIFF in one ear and SNIFF SNIFF SNIFF in the other. Like an echo chamber of grossness that prevented me from actually paying attention to whatever Mrs Bowers was going on about.
Science class afforded me a bit of a break since everyone was focused on a test and that meant they were unlikely to create any new annoyances. The room was quiet, at least to everyone else. Me, I was swarmed by monsters. And the relative silence amplified the sloshing, chomping, gulping sounds Mr Schwartz made while eating a messy tuna sandwich at his desk. Every swallow seemed to last for ever down his ostrich-like throat. And the noisy one’s exuberant mimicry of the sound caused me to shudder and gag.
“As if you sound any better when you eat,” noted the snarky one with a dismissive face. “Also, you’re totally failing your test,” it said without even bothering to look at the test I was too distracted to work on.
The curious one made its way over to the Evolution of Man poster. It looked at me, then the poster, then at me again, suddenly understanding something and wondering, “If that’s what you came from, then what did I come from?”
“Boogers!” shouted the tattletale. And, as if on cue, the sniffling one perked up and sneezed right in my face. I wiped it off, totally grossed out. But as I did, my annoyance suddenly morphed into remembrance.
“I got sprayed. With PVZ! They said it … absorbs irritation,” I said to myself, causing Mr Schwartz to SHUSH me from the front of the room, which got the noisy creature SHUSH SHUSH SHUSHING me too.
“Is that how we got here?” asked the curious one.
“He’s figuring it out right now,” said the tattletale.
And it was right. I ducked down closer to my desk, mind spinning, replaying the events in my mind, piecing together what little information I had. Everything that annoys me makes me sneeze. Then I hallucinate a creature that does that annoying thing. And this didn’t happen to me until I got sprayed. “It had to be the PVZ,” I reasoned to myself. Then I said PVZ again, but this time, I sounded it out. “The … peeves.” I sat up in my desk with a grand realisation. “They’re peeves! Real-life peeves!”
The creatures all nodded like this was news to them, but made total sense. They were furry little living embodiments of my personal peeves. Noisy Peeve – the purple one with the satellite ears and throat like a bullfrog; Asking Peeve – the blue one with massive eyes and perpetually perplexed expression; Telling Peeve – the pink fluffy one with a Muppet-like blabbermouth that spewed my actual thoughts and feelings; Snarky Peeve – the blue-horned red devil-looking thing with the bad attitude; and Sniffle Peeve – the sticky, crusty green one with the perpetually runny nose.
“I’m sneezing peeves,” I said out loud. “I’m—”
“Disturbing the class,” interjected Mr Schwartz, who was now looming over me as if he’d been trying to get my attention for far too long. The whole class was staring at me, snickering. And that’s when I realised I had been audibly mumbling like a madman. Mr Schwartz ended that with a definitive, “Stop it!”
As I made my way to social studies, I was still trying to wrap my head round the big revelation. I was seeing actual peeves. I had to call Dad. I had to let him know what the PVZ did to me! I stopped outside the classroom and pulled out my phone, which I knew was not allowed while classes were in session – but kids did it all the time. No one ever got in trouble. Seriously, no one – until, of course, I did. Principal Waters came round the corner and snatched it out of my hand as if this were his brand-new mission in life. “No phones, Steven. Or was it Steve?” he asked.
“Slim,” I corrected him. “And this is an emergency! I had an experimental anti-anxiety treatment blow up in my face and now I’m seeing …” I stopped myself because a well-worn “heard-it-all-and-doesn’t-buy-it” expression quickly crossed Principal Waters’s face. He never would have believed me if I had told him the truth. “I need to call my dad,” I said. “I’m … sick,” I added, with an unconvincing cough.
“Looks like a case of ‘new-kid-itis’ to me,” said Principal Waters as he turned me round and opened the door to social studies for me. “The only cure for that is to go back to class,” he concluded. “You can have your phone back after school.”
I watched him disappear down the hall and realised I’d just have to make it through the rest of the day on my own. Dad would take me back to Clarity Labs after school. They’d have a cure there. They had to, I figured. Because if they didn’t, I was pretty sure I’d really go crazy.
In the meantime, I’d been assigned to work with genetically gifted Chance Chandler on a project exploring the chapter on “Individual Development and Identity”.
“Do I develop? Do I have identity?” asked Asking Peeve as Ms Mayfarb walked around the room in her oversize cardigan and waist-length dreadlocks, spouting off her own questions to “help inspire” our projects.
“How do individuals grow and change? Why do they behave the way they do? What factors in society and politics and culture influence how people develop over time?” she asked as she pushed Chance’s feet off his desk and removed his baseball cap.
“Sorry, Ms Mayfarb. I just like having my thinking cap on,” he said with a flawless smile. And I swear half the class swooned. Even Ms Mayfarb softened and put the hat back on his head. Right before she looked at me and said, “Take notes from this one, Slim. He’s a charmer.”
And once she had moved on, Chance pushed his work my way and said, “She’s right. You should take the notes.” Then he reclined in his seat with another self-confident grin I couldn’t relate to and added, “I can tell from your expression that you’re more of the thinker type anyway.”
“More like an overthinker type,” snorted Snarky Peeve from below our pushed-together desks. And neither one of them were wrong. I was thinking so hard I had actually broken a sweat. How could I be expected to work with Noisy, Asking, Telling, Snarky and Sniffle Peeves on my case? And with no help from Chance, who was apparently so well liked he could get away with doing anything – and by anything, I mean he could get away with doing nothing. He might be popular, but he’s also lazy.
“Thanks, bro,” added Chance as he tipped his baseball cap over his eyes to nap. Good thing he did, or he would have got a sneeze in the face.
As I left social studies, I had roly-poly Lazy Peeve literally hanging off me. Three times the size of the other peeves with tiny ears and sleepy eyes, Lazy was like a gravelly-grey-coloured blob of extra-heavy deadweight. It couldn’t even be bothered to keep its own tongue in its mouth. It just lolled out of