Gunther and Greta
Gertrude may have been five years younger than Greta and Gunther, but she fit right in with them. Gertrude was usually inventing, and her awkward actions often left her separated from everyone else. But that very same behavior was what interested Greta and Gunther the most.
When she hobbled out of Juvie, she didn’t notice her leg brace. She had it since birth, and it had become a part of her.
Gertrude was also odd, and even though she never meant it, she was often getting into trouble, which is what got her into Juvie in the first place.
Gertrude hopped to the gate and the magnetic door to the exterior of the juvie detention center. It buzzed, and she swung open the door, bashing it against the wall behind it, and somehow breaking the steel knob. She made an ‘oops’ face and walked through. That was Gertrude. She never meant it. Things would just happen. The guard at the door made a waving gesture as if to say, ‘don’t worry about it’, and let her through anyway. “Sorry!” Gertrude mouthed.
The woman at the door shook her head and waved Gertrude through again. Gertrude was one of the most accident prone people Greta knew. Gertrude never meant to break anything. She was just so spastic, and quick to do everything, things just broke around her.
Even her being in juvie happened from a series of accidents, and inside, people got used to her strange behavior. Even the most disliked people tended to enjoy being around her, and couldn’t help but laugh at the spectacle of the altercations into which she got herself.
Gertrude took out a lollipop, shoved it in her mouth, accidentally missed it, and stuck it to her hair. She grabbed it, attempted to remove it from it, and tried again, this time sticking it in her mouth along with a tuft of hair. She shrugged, and then hopped off. Her leg brace had become part of her demeanor, and as she hopped, it was almost like, if she had no brace, she would have looked strange. Plus, stickers were plastered along the metal on the brace all the way down to the bottom, where her foot was.
The day that got her put into juvie was the first time, Greta and Gunther attempted to go to the mall with Gertrude.
Greta looked up and down Gertrudes body, “Did you really have to get that 72 ounce cup of Icee drink? I mean, I doubt your body can hold that much liquid.”
“Nah, I’ll pee it out as I drink it. I thought about getting the larger cup, but my hands couldn’t fit around it. I’m just too dainty.” That wasn’t an untrue statement, considering she couldn’t have been more than four feet tall.
“Well I’m not going to hold it like last time… That’s on you.”
Gertrude looked at her half drunk drink. Greta knew what she was thinking. Gertrude just bought her drink five minutes ago. But five minutes was a record for her. Normally, after about 30 seconds, she would get bored of whatever it was that she started, quit, and move on to something new.
Gertrude shrugged, and tossed her drink at the trash can from seven feet away from it, and missed, hitting the mirror behind it, and shattering it. “Oops.”
A mall cop walked up to Gertrude, and took her by the hand. “Come with me young lady.”
“But it was a mistake! I was aiming for the trash.”
“Right. Just like the time you were aiming for the toilet bowl?…”
“Well, yeah…”
“Did you really need to stand on the pot’s seat like that, and squat?”
“Well, the seat was dirty.”
“You could have cleaned it like a normal person.”
“It still would have been dirty.”
“The seat and floor was a mess and had your galoshes’ prints on it.”
“See,” Greta looked at Gunther, “there is a use for them, after all.”
Gunther giggled, quietly.
“And the time you stole the food,” Said the cop.
“It was just sitting on the counter. How was I supposed to know it was already purchased? I would have paid for it!” Her voice began to have panic in it.
“And the time you stole that balloon from that baby?”
“It was already floating away! How was I supposed to know it belonged to a baby?”
“Sorry. Not this time. It’s the real police this time.”
“Aw, come on. It was just a drink!”
Gertrudes parents loved her and hurt for her, but didn’t know what else to do with her other than let the police take her away. Gertrude never meant to break things. She was just extremely accident prone.
Gertrude stood there outside the Juvie door, and hugged Gunther. Gertrude’s hair was significantly more erratic than Greta’s, which had to be really messy to be that badly kept, and she often stunk.
Gertrude hated taking showers, and her parents were lucky to get her into one three days a week. Often she would get covered in mud and soot, and at some point, often her parents would have to lift her and drag her into the shower, crying, and often with them in it, fully clothed, too. Gertrude was like a cat. She hated getting wet for some reason. Greta knew of cats that liked getting more wet than Gertrude.
Gertrude’s parents were also there, at juvie hall, and they picked her up.
Gertrude found Greta and Gunther at Gertrude’s home.
When they all got to Gertrude’s home, the kids all ran to Gertrude’s room, Gertrude hopping with her leg brace, and managing to keep up, taking up the rear.
Gertrude was also too smart for her own good, and she could often be found doing strange chemistry experiments that no seven year old had any business doing. Her walls were often stained with chemicals that she should have never been playing with. They often left either color stains, or stripes where the walls looked melted, from highly corrosive chemicals. Greta did her best not to touch those walls. Gertrude would often buy those chemicals online with her mom’s credit card.
“What are you doing now?”Gunther said impatiently, arms crossed, tapping her finger on her other arm. “You know you can’t mix those. The fumes are going to get us killed.”
“I am making a drug that I am going to feed to my mother, secretly, so she will become more fertile, so I can have a brother.”
“You don’t need one.” Said Greta. “And you are going to poison her like the last time. She had diarrhea for two days thanks to your last test, don’t you remember?”
“Well of course I remember! Sheesh. I’m not stupid!” Her white lab coat was actually a bleached London Fog coat, and it was several sizes too large. It very nearly reached to the floor. “Firstly, that test would have worked if Mars was in retrograde. I just forgot to make sure.”
Gunther slapped her own face. “Retrograde… seriously?”
“Look… forget that. The point is, If I had a brother, then maybe my parents would hand over some of my chores to him so I wouldn’t have to do them. And last time would have worked if you hadn’t gotten in the way because I wouldn’t have forgotten to check Mars.”
“That’s why you want a brother?” Said Greta. “You’re an idiot.”
“No. I’ve got the big brains!” She shook her hands, opening each one widely on either side of her head, and then she pointed her right finger to her right temple. “I know exactly what I am doing.”
“God.” Said the other two girls.
Gertrude was wearing that fat old mask that was two sizes too big for her, and was not even a science mask. It seemed to have some sort of prescription to the lenses. This was odd to Gunther because Gertrude didn’t need lenses. She must have found it in storage, along with the heavy knit rainbow gloves she decided to wear that offered no protection due to the thick weave. Gertrude bumped the table in front of her, just slightly, and turned to get around it.
Gunther put her hand to her head. “God. We’re all going to die when you blow us up, aren’t we?”
“I know what I’m doing!”
Gunther groaned. “No. You are a moron, and they are going to put you right back into juvie for trying to poison your mother.”
“Will you stop saying that! Besides, they aren’t going to do that to someone who just got out. And I’m not going to poison ma. Momma is going to be just fine. And I’m going to get the Nobel prize for inventing a drug that can impregnate a person.”
“Yeah?” Said Greta. “How is it going to do that?”
“By emitting stork pheromones that attracts storks. Then it’s only a matter of stealing the baby from it when it isn’t looking. That’s the part I haven’t figured out yet. It’s genius, and it’s going to work.”
“You really are going to jail, and at the same time getting an award for extreme stupidness.” Said Greta.
“The stupidness for not thinking of this sooner.”
Gunther laughed.
Greta looked at Gunther. “It’s not funny. She’s going to get someone killed.”
Gunther laughed harder, “I know! But it’s hilarious.”
“No…it’s not. Someone has to tell her.”
Gunther crossed her arms. “Well, I’m not gunna.”
“We both need to.”
“Her mother needs to tell her before Gertrude kills her mom.” Said Gunther. “I’m not going to tell her the birds and the bees. That’s a mom’s job!”
Gertrude raised a flask in a most delicate way that Greta never would have expected Gertrude could do. “Tell me what? That I’m brilliant? Come on! You have to admit, this will get at least an award.” She dripped a small drop of the fluid into another fluid, emitting the most vile smell Greta had ever smelled, causing Gunther and Greta to run out the door of the room and the house.
“Come back! The smell means it’s working!”
They both ran outside, and oddly enough, there were flocks of various birds hanging out in front of Gertrude’s parents’ home. Gertrude didn’t manage to draw in a flock of storks, but, what looked like half of the birds in the state were philandering in her front yard bobbing their tiny heads and whatnot.
Gertrude came out after the two others. “See, I told you. Now we just need to find some storks and steal some babies. I’m never going to have to do another chore again! Am I brilliant or what?”
Greta looked around, trying to think of something to say.
“You might want to close your mouths.” Said Gertrude. “I have no control everywhere these birds poop. I’m just saying.”
Gertrude wasn’t wrong. Somehow she managed to mistakenly mess up again. There was bird poop everywhere, and not just in her yard. The house was covered in it, and so was the lawn, along with most of the neighborhood. There were birds still flying in from everywhere, and on the ground, their heads were bobbing forward and backward as they meandered on the ground, seemingly searching for something. There must have been hundreds, if not thousands of them, and there was so much bird poop, that it had looked like it had snowed on the ground.
Gertrude licked her index finger and made a ‘one’ sign. “Well, that’s one for me, and one for the books.”
Gunther spoke up, “Seriously, Gertrude, we need to tell you something before you find a way to coat the entire town in bird poop.” She walked up to Gertrude, and whispered something in her ear.
“What?” Gertrude made an eww face, “That’s disgusting! You’re just messing with me. It’s storks! Storks! Someone should wash your mouth out.”
“Ask your parents if you don’t believe me.”
“OK, fine! I will!” Gertrude hobbled inside the only way she could with a leg brace, into her home, yelling all the way, “Mom! Mommy!” Do you do the sex with daddy, or was it storks? Its was storks, wasn’t it? Storks!”
After a very long minute, Gertrude came out of her front door again with her head held down staring at the ground. She never actually closed her door. But this time, she came out at a snails pace. “That is just so disgusting. I am-never-going to do that.”
Greta and Gunther giggled. “Someday you will want children, too. Trust me.” Said Gunther.
“So much for my award.”
“Well,” Said Greta, “You did manage to attract these birds. That has to count for something.
Gertrude’s mother walked out the door and looked at the mess. “My God! Gertrude Alexander Alvareta! What did you do this time?” She grabbed Gertrude’s arm and yanked her back toward the house.
“Storks, mommy, Storks! This time it really wasn’t my fault! Really, really! I swear!” She was still wearing those goggles that were two sizes to large for her head, and made her look like a bug, and she kept tripping.
“Do I need to send you to military school now?”
“I doubt they would take her.” Said Greta. Gunther giggled.
“But really, it was a mistake.”
“They are always mistakes, “ said her mother, “ you need to start taking more responsibility for your actions.”
“I just wanted a brother.”
Greta was trying desperately not to snicker, and she could tell Gunther was failing, too.
“So you attracted birds.”
“Storks. Storks, mom!”
“Well, you missed the mark, didn’t you?”
Greta was laughing out loud now.
“Well, science is trial and error. I’ll get it right next time.”
“You’ll what?”
“Right. I forgot. Ok. I’ll work on my other project.” Gertrude still had her oversized mitts on. She also had her ‘safety’ boots on, which consisted of useless galoshes for science that must have been two sizes too large. It was amazing she hadn’t fallen over in them.
“Your what? What other project?”
“Don’t worry mommy, it’ll just stop the chickens from clucking. It’ll be genius. Everyone who owns chickens will want this new drug. Imagine, silent chicken coops, the newest thing!”
“And I imagine we are going to need a test chicken for this experiment?”
“Just ten or twenty. But not even. It’ll be mostly roosters, anyway. So few chickens will be needed.”
“Gertrude Alexander Alvareta! ! There will be no more birds, especially a bunch of cawing roosters!”
“That shows how much you know! Roosters cock-a-doodle-doo!”
“Gertrude!”
“But mom-”
“None!”
She stomped her feet in her galoshes, lightly, and scraped the ground with them, pouting, “Oh, alright.”
Greta looked at Gunther. “Gunther, do you know what is so shocking about this whole thing?”
“What’s that?”
“She probably could have done it.”