"The thing about slow dances," I said to Seth, "is they're psychologically twisted." The corner of his mouth twitched upward.
"Mm? How'd you figure that, Codz?" he said, refilling his punch cup.
"Well, of course there's the whole leader-follower thing," I pointed out. "I mean, why does it have to be the guy leading? Is it because of their primal need for control? Or because men have predominantly controlled history? If you ask me, if women led history, there'd be a lot less conflict."
"Mm," Seth said. I could tell he was struggling not to laugh. I smacked his shoulder for it.
"And," I said, pointing at him.
"And?"
"And if half the songs slow dances are set to are sad, hurting ones, why dance to them? It's as good as telling someone, 'You broke my heart, but I still care.' I mean, who says that? If someone breaks your heart, way I see it, you break their jaw! It's just plain and simple logic!"
Seth was visibly shaking with laughter now. I narrowed my eyes. "If you know what's good for you, you'll shut up. Now." I growled. He nodded and choked out a high pitched "Mm hmm." between bouts of laughter. I rolled my eyes. We were in the back- or rather, the side, of the class, watching couples circle around on the carpet. For as long as they had been dancing, we had been snickering and joking around about it.
It had been "our thing" for as long as we had known each other to make each other laugh when everyone else was serious. Like now. Past moments including having a inconspicuous tickle war during a fire drill, making funny faces across the room during finals, and imitating a variety of animals (I'm pro at raptor) while one of the older students was giving a depressing monologue. And I'd be lying if I said we weren't good at it.
Me and Seth were natural comedians. Then again, most of the theater kids- and most of my friends in any elective, for that matter- were. Our generation (that is to say, the sixth graders) was one of humor and comedy. Odd, considering half an hour ago I had been running through the halls crying my eyes out and wallowing in darkness, but that was another thing: class of 2016 bounced back like itsy bitsy rubber bouncy balls.
Wait, did I just compare myself to a rubber sphere?
Good Lord, I'm going to have to watch what I think.
The song on my iPod jumped to a Seether song (I think it was Remedy) and Seth sent me a sideways glance. At the same time, we sang, "If you want me hold me back!" We promptly began flailing (a mixture of headbanging and flinging your limbs about, as far as I could tell) under the guard of a shadow created by the vaulted ceiling. I think Seth may have shot the Running Man in there somehow. I'm honestly not sure.
Exactly as the slow song ended, ours ended, and so we were caught singing "YOU'LL BE THE DEATH OF ME!" very loudly. As soon as we realized we had been heard, we both clamped our mouths shut. And then, at everyone's expressions- and our own- we cracked up and started rolling on the ground. I clenched my stomach and Seth pounded the ground.
"Oh....my.... GOD... that....was....hilarious....pfshahahahaha!" I choked out.
"Hahahahahahahaha.....se....prahahahahaa.....secon....bwahahahaha....seconded...bahahahahaha..." Seth gasped. Eventually our hysterics were reduced to wistful chuckles.
"What?" I asked the staring eighth graders. Seth hauled me to my feet. As soon as I was standing, Rose grabbed my arm and dragged me to a crowd of loudly chattering girls. I shrieked, "Heeeeelp!" to Seth, who smirked- until Jake tossed him over his shoulder and carried him over to an equally excited group of guys. In case you didn't know, fighting off Jake is just about as easy as defeating Nadia.
Which meant only Nadia could do it.
And yes, I'm being perfectly serious.
"Blue or yellow?" Rose asked me.
"Blue," I said rather absentmindedly.
"Right then." I felt something cold and wet being smeared onto my arms.
"Hey!"
"Relax, Codz, it's paint. Neon glow paint."
With a burst of realization, I grinned. I took the paint jar from Rose and shooed her away, telling her to work on her own. I ran some green through my hair, some red on my collarbone. I did three dots curving under one eye, three over the other, a line down my nose, two horizontal lines on either cheek, and two vertical lines on my chin in purple. I added circles on my hands and coated my lips. We all put our handprints on someone else; by the time we were ready, I had handprints in every color of the rainbow pressed onto my arms and neck.
Simon (who had dashed some blue on his headphones and streaked the records with green) called, "Are we ready?" to which he received a roaring "YES!"
He placed the needle down and Ms. Jedd flicked off the lights. We all oohed and ahed- the room was now solidly lit with a thousand patterns in a thousand colors. Nadia had green lines wrapping around her head to toe, Seth smeared all over with blue and red, Rose dotted and streaked with orange and yellow. The first keyboard-esque notes of I Gotta Feeling played jubilantly and I saw several tears streak down everyone's cheeks, including my own.
I Gotta Feeling was the song everyone agreed was our theme. It expressed such... you know what? I'm not going to explain why it meant so much to us. Suffice to say it just did, and Simon was a genius to play it.
So there we all stood, and there we all danced, covered with glowing neon designs, singing along loudly to the song that defined us, right down to the last ounce of easygoing joy.
