Frances and The Board of Doom

Once upon a time there was a girl named Frances. She was nine years old and was a rather smart girl. But, like many smart girls, she often kept to herself, lost in her own thoughts. This made many of the other kids want to tease her, which Frances did not like at all. And there was one particular thing she did not like most of all - when people made fun of her name.

One fine Wednesday, Frances was on her way to school when two bigger boys turned the corner across the street for her on their way to school - Steve who, well, after the fire ants Steve wasn't so much of an annoyance anymore, and Paulie, who had just moved to town from Brooklyn.

Steve waved.

Steve: "Hi, Frances."

Frances: "Hi, Stevie."

Paulie: [to Steve] "Her name is Frances?"

Steve: "Yes."

Paulie: "Frances? I knew a guy back in the city named Francis. He always made us call him 'Frankie'."

Steve: "Oh. I wouldn't do that. She doesn't like to be called Frankie."

Paulie: "She's a girl, man. You scared of a little girl? What's she gonna do?"

Paulie: [yelling across street] "Yo! Yo! Frankieeee! What choo dooooin'? I ha'n't seen you 'round much, Frankie. You been hiding from your good buddy Paulie?"

Frances: "Please don't call me Frankie. I know you're new here, so maybe you didn't know, but I don't like to be called Frankie. My name is Frances with an 'e'."

Paulie: "OK, Frankie with an 'e'. I'll certainly try to remember that. I hope it won't, you know, slip my mind, Frankie."

Frances looked at Steve, and Steve shrugged his shoulders.

And maybe he smiled. Just a little smile.

Well, all day long, Paulie was bragging about his skills on the skateboard. A regular Z-Boy he was, if you heard him tell it. In fact, at lunch, Frances heard him going on about how he would show all these country bumpkins (Paulie, being from Brooklyn, considered everyone who lived more than 20 miles from there to be a country bumpkin) what a real ripper looks like in action. So they should meet him at the back steps after school to be bathed in awe.

Frances may have smiled. Just a little smile.

Shortly after lunch, Frances asked her science teacher for a hall pass. He said something snarky, "Why? Do you find my class to dull for your big brain?"

"No. I just kind of have some...ummm...female..."

All the color drained from her teacher's face. He quickly tore off a pass and handed it to her.

She chuckled on her way out. Men were so easy. She headed straight out of school to pick up some supplies. Upon returning, she headed to Paulie's locker.

She dug in her backpack and took out an automatic lock pick that, for whatever reason, she had seen at a flea market and decided to buy. In 20 seconds, she had Paulie's locker open (it helped that the school had been built in 1952 and had 1952-vintage locks on the lockers). Her eyes lit up.

She found Paulie's helmet right on top. Digging in her backpack again, she came up with a can of 3M Super 77 and quickly gave a fine coating to the inside of his helmet. Then she was on to her next task in a flash.

She grabbed his skateboard, flipped it over, and removed all the screws holding on the trucks. With a small rat-tail file, she enlarged the holes just enough so that the screws could barely grip. Then, with a little dab of Super 77 on each screw to hold them loosely in place, she re-installed the screws.

Finally, she grabbed his knee pads. "What a big tough gumba. Did your mommy make you bring knee pads?" She took a small pocket knife and cut a slit in the elastic on the bottom. Then, she removed a box of thumbtacks from her backpack. Carefully reaching into the slit, she installed tack after tack into the knee pads, pushing them into the foam pad from the front, but the foam was just thick enough that they did not poke through to the back. She then sealed up the pads with a shot of the Super 77.

She really liked that Super 77. It was something she had stumbled across just by chance. One day, her father had come into the living room with a DVD and had said, "Honey, now that Obama is the president, I think it's time you learned about Illinois Nazis."

Except the movie didn't seem to be about Illinois Nazis. Illinois Nazis seemed to have a small role in a couple of scenes, but mostly the movie has been about a fat guy and a skinny guy who were trying to put a band back together to help someone they called "The Penguin" but who didn't seem to be at all related to The Penguin from Batman.

They had, however, at one point sprayed glue on the accelerator pedal of a pickup truck in order to take out a rival country-western band.

Now that was useful information. She liked her dad, even though he had a strange sense of humor and her mother was mean to him and complained about his drinking. She thought her dad was a genius. And a hell of a nice guy, too.

She closed up the locker and waltzed back to class.

After school, everyone gathered on the lawn outside the back steps. Paulie eventually crashed triumphantly through the door, holding his board above his head like it was the Vince Lombardi Trophy and his last name was Manning. Stevie came walking out behind him with his iPod carrying an iPod Boom Box playing The Beastie Boys "Sabotage".

"Oh, the irony. The delicious irony," smirked Frances.

Paulie blew kisses at the crowd. The he hopped on his board, ollied it into some air for a quick grind down the railing to a picture perfect landing on the concrete sidewalk below.

Or, well, it would have been if his trucks hadn't fallen off, dropping him hard to his knees. Knees that were protected by knee pads that, upon compressing, drove scores of thumbtacks into his kneecaps.

Paulie howled in pain, writhing on the ground. When he recovered a bit, he stood up and tore his helmet off.

Literally.

Much of his hair went with the helmet, thanks to the Super 77. He saw Steve out of the corner of his eye, and Stevie just shrugged his shoulders.

And maybe he smiled. Just a little smile.

Frances and the Misty Cloud of Revenge

Once upon a time there was a girl named Frances. She was nine years old and was a rather smart girl. But, like many smart girls, she often kept to herself, lost in her own thoughts. This made many of the other kids want to tease her, which Frances did not like at all. And there was one particular thing she did not like most of all - when people made fun of her name.

One fine Wednesday, Frances was on her way to school when one of the bigger boys, Phil, saw her from across the street. He started to taunt her:

Phil: "Yo, Frankie! How you doin' Frankie?"

Frances: "My name is France-ess, not France-iss! Stop calling me Frankie!" [Perhaps too subtle a distinction to yell across the street...]

Phil: "Whatsa matta Frankie, you don' know your own name?"

Frances: "Stop calling me Frankie!"

Phil: "OK, Frank. Sheesh. Touchy today, aren't we Frank?"

Well, poor Frances had had enough, so she stormed off to school, trying to ignore the continuing stream of babble coming from Phil across the street. By the time she got to school, she was practically in tears. She found she couldn't concentrate in math class even though they were doing geometry - her favorite subject. She asked if she could go see the guidance counselor and was given a hall pass.

Guidance Counselor: "Frances, honey, you look upset. Is there a problem?"

Frances: "Yes. A boy is making fun of me."

GC: "Really? What is he doing?"

Frances: "He's calling me 'Frankie'."

GC: [blank stare]

Frances: "You know, cuz my name is Frances."

GC: [nods, blankly]

Frances: "Cuz, like a boy named Francis would be called Frank or Frankie, but not a girl named Frances."

GC: "Oh! [chuckle] Yes. That's terrible!"

Frances: "Yes. I hate being called a boy's name. I can't get him to stop, and I don't know what to do!"

GC: [Eyes light up - at last a question she's trained to answer!] "You should tell an adult!"

Frances: "Ummm..."

GC: [on a roll now] "Yes. When a bully is teasing you, you should always tell an adult rather than taking matter into your own hands."

Frances: "OK. So what should I do, then?"

GC: [confused, but with conviction] "Tell an adult."

Frances: "Ah. I see. OK, thanks."

Frances returned to class while mentally checking off education major with a minor in sociology from the list of things she might consider studying in college.

But it festered. It festered like an open wound in a pile of week-old ground beef in the hot July sun. But, trying to make the best of things, she resolved to tell an adult.

On the way home, she stopped at Phil's house. She knew he'd still be in detention, so she was hoping to speak to his mother. She rang the doorbell, and a very large woman wearing a Hawaiian print mumu answered.

Frances: "Excuse me. Mrs. Phil's Mom?"

Mrs. Phil's Mom: [in a voice that sounded remarkably like McGruff the Crime Dog, if McGruff had been a 3-pack a day smoker] "Who wants to know?"

Frances: "Well, I go to school with Phil, and he's been making fun of my name. You see, my name is Frances, and he"

MPM: "Frances? OK, pleased to meet ya, Frankie. Now what is this about my little Phil?"

Frances: "Well, that's just it. He's been calling me 'Frankie', and I hate that."

MPM: "Do you now, Frankie? Well, I'd say it's time you grew yourself a set and stopped being such a pussy. Now get the f*&^ off my porch before I sick the dog on you, Frankie."

Well, this whole 'tell an adult' thing was simply not working out as advertised. Frances would need another plan. And she knew just the thing.

That Saturday morning she got up bright and early, stopped at the grocery store to pick up a couple cans of sardines, then swung by the hardware store to get a couple humane small animal traps. She then hiked up her favorite trail into the woods to her favorite serenity spot - the one that always smelled faintly like skunk due to the couple of skunks that lived under the old tree stump. It was fall, and Frances knew that this year's litter had grown and moved out already, as she visited her serenity spot a lot, but Maw and Paw skunk would still be hanging around.

She set the two traps on the ground near the stump, then opened each can of sardines and placed it carefully in each trap. Then she sat around for a while thinking serene thoughts in between her meticulous scheming. Finally, she went home for lunch. Revenge is hungry work.

The next day, she returned to her serenity spot with two large tarps. She found a skunk in each trap, and they were kinda not all that happy, excepting that they were also kinda lazing around with their bellies stuffed with sardines (a skunk's favorite food), so they weren't too argumentative when she covered each trap with a tarp and gently carried them home.

She stashed them behind the garage because her hillbilly neighbors always dumped all their dog's poo at the back of their yard, and thus the area behind her own garage always stunk so bad that no one went near it. She thought how the freedom from an HOA always came at some cost. Then she went about her bidness.

At 3am, she got up and silent snuck out - retrieving the skunks as she went. She tossed them some bacon coated with peanut butter (a skunk's second-favorite food) to keep them busy as she hustled off to Phil's house.

She was in luck - Phil's mom had not locked her car for the night. She had noticed that the car was unlocked when she had visited before, and she was very happy not to have to resort to the slim-jim she had gotten on eBay, as she didn't have a lot of practice opening 1976 LeBarons.

Frances eased the skunks into the backseat - enticing them out of the cages with some more peanut butter bacon (skunks, oddly enough, have a diet very similar to Elvis. Fat Elvis.), and then gently closing the door. She then proceeded to the next phase of the plan - she killed the electricity.

This was easy, because the main breaker panel was on the side of the house, and nobody ever locks those. Sure, they come with a little padlock loop, but no one sells a rust-proof padlock that small. So you can lock it and have the padlock rust closed and never be able to open it again, or you can leave it unlocked and hope the neighborhood kids don't play a prank on you.

Wrong choice in this case.

Frances went home and snuck back to bed. She arose a half-hour early, made some excuse about having to look at new stories for the school paper, and headed to school. On the way there, she stopped at a payphone and dialed up Phil's house. She let it ring three times - just enough to wake them up.

Phil: "OMG, Ma! The power is out and the alarm didn't go off. I'm gonna be late!"

MPM: "WTF are you making such a racket for?"

Phil: "Ma, if I'm late one more time, I'll get a week's detention!"

MPM: "Damnit, Phil, your daddy was right. You'da made a better abortion. Git dressed, and I'll drive you to school."

Phil got dressed as fast as he could, and they both ran to the car and jumped in without looking. As his mother started the car, Phil tossed his backpack into the back seat. Then, he looked at his mother and queried, "Do you smell bacon?"

The looked into the back seat and simultaneously let out blood-curdling screams. Screams that were answered with a misty cloud - a misty cloud of revenge.

Needless to say, Phil was late to school.