Muffy And Me

Muffy hit me with her field hockey stick. I'd like to skip over this portion of the story, but I shouldn't. She hit me because I was rooting for the other team. It was at this point that I decided Muffy and me should no longer go out together. She was just too vicious.

I wrote previously about my relationship with Muffy. She was competitive and tough and hard to get along with, but I could never resist her bright red ponytail. Besides, being her boyfriend raised my esteem in a lot of people's eyes, since she was easily the best female athlete at Seneca High. But the stick incident opened my eyes, really wide.

Muffy's brother had been taken to the hospital when he passed out at the mall after sniffing paint. Yes, her brother was the opposite of everything Muffy represented, but nobody had the guts to bring this point into the open. I knew her brother well. When I was at Muffy's house, I snuck into her brother's room next door and had a look. The kid was into plastic assembly models, and had a large gallery of them on display. They were all done so well, painted and everything, it was professional and impressive. Myself, I was a lousy model maker, though I always tried. The glue got all over and the pieces fit together sloppily, and my mother wouldn't let me buy paint because of the mess so my models looked clumsy. Apparently, Muffy's brother worked for hours on his, and his attention to detail, the great paint jobs, showed. Maybe he was doing it just to sniff the glue, but what did that matter? I was impressed.

After the hockey stick fiasco, I got a call from Muffy, even after thinking I had seen the last of her. I was wrong, the junior prom was coming up, and the class trip. I would feel bad if she didn't have a date for the prom, being the compassionate sort I was, but I'd be damned if I was stuck to her for the class trip. So I relented to her request to come over to her house and talk about our relationship.

Now I'll tell you about the best model Muffy's glue head (or paint head) brother had. It was a German submarine, a U-Boat, all painted up grey and red with a little nazi flag on a wooden pedestal. I longed to have this for myself. I could never hope to match his modelling skills, but this sub would look great in my room. I had dreamed of that sub. It was more exciting to me than Muffy's ponytail or even her short plaid field hockey skirt.

Muffy begged me to keep going out with her. She was sorry for hitting me, she said. I made her feel less lonely, she said. I had always told her she was beautiful. She was, but she was mean, too. I listened to her and even hugged and kissed her, but I only reassured her about the prom, and not the class trip, after which my position as Muffy's girlfriend would be cemented for the summer. I left her in her room, but on my way out to her garage, I darted in her absent brother's room and stuffed the U-Boat under my sweatshirt.

It was a very happy time of year for me. Not only did I no longer have a girlfriend named Muffy, but I was the owner of a German U-Boat.