Free Bite Me by Christopher Moore

didn’t even know it was hooked up.”
    And she was all, “It’s probably Mom checking up on you, so you might as well get it.”
    And I’m all, “Ronnie, answer it or I will murder you in your sleep and dump your body in the Bay.”
    And she’s all, “’Kay.”
    Then, “It’s for you. It’s some girl named Jody.” And Ronnie is all standing there with her shaved head and her nonexistent hip thrown out, like “So there, ho.”
    And I’m all, “Fucksocks!” And I take the phone and I’m like, “Hi, I have amnesia and don’t remember anything for the last two months!” Because what do you say to someone who you had bronzed?
    And the Countess is all, “Abby, I’m not angry.”
    Which was a total lie, because I could hear that she was angry. She had that “I’m not angry” mom voice, even though she’s only, like, twenty-six in real years.
    “So you’re not going to kill me?”
    “We’ll talk. Right now I need you to get a power drill and a hacksaw with extra blades and come to the loft.”
    And I’m all, “I don’t know where to get stuff like that, and Foo’s at work, and I’m on restriction, and I have to go to school tomorrow. I have a test, so I totally can’t cut class, and besides, what do you need that stuff for?”
    And she’s all, “Find the tools and come now. Tommy is stuck in the statue and we need to get him out.”
    And I’m thinking, Oops. But I’m chill and I’m like, “Can’t he get out the same way you did?”
    And the Countess is all, “Tommy doesn’t know how to turn to mist. That’s how I escaped, but Tommy has been trapped in there for—how long, Abby?”
    “Oh, like a couple of days. It’s all so foggy, after the head trauma.”
    Then I hear her saying, like, “Jared, come over here. I want Abby to hear your neck snap.”
    “Okay, like five weeks. Fuck, Countess, overreact much?”
    “Come now, Abby.”
    And she just clicks off.
    So I text Foo: COUNTESS OUT, NEED HACKSAW PWRDRILL NOW
    And he’s all: WTF? WTF? WTF? OUT? WTF? ACE HARDWARE, CASTRO ST
    (I know. Four WTFs! Foo has deep intellectual curiosity. Last week he quizzed me for twenty minutes on what it was like to have a clitoris. I just kept saying “nice.” I know, I’m such a tard, I couldn’t think of anything else. I so have to learn French. They have like thirty-seven words for clitoris. They’re like snow to Eskimos, only you know, harder to build an igloo out of.)
    ’Kayso, I text him: KTXBYE <3
    And I tell Ronnie to tell Mom that I think I got some anthrax on my toothbrush and I have to go to Walgreens to get a new one so I’ll be right back. Then I put on my jacket with the sun warts, in case of vampyre kitties and whatnot,and I take the F car up to Castro Street and go to Ace Hardware. And I’m totally feeling the animosity coming off the Builder Bob guy in the red apron, and I’m like, “What? You’ve never seen a wedding dress?”
    And he’s all, “No, I love the dress, the jacket, the whole ensem is fabulous.”
    And I’m like, “Really? Thanks. Your apron rocks. I need a hacksaw and a power drill.”
    And he’s all, “What’s it for?”
    And I’m all, “You want a note from my mom? A fucking hacksaw and a power drill. I’m on a schedule.”
    And he’s all, “I asked because we have over thirty different kinds of power drills.”
    And I’m like, “Oh. I need to release my Dark Lord from the bronze shell in which I imprisoned him.”
    And he’s, “Oh, you should have said so.” And he leads me to the drill boutique and I picked out a red and black one that matched my dress, and Bob picked out a hacksaw which totally clashed, but I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, so I said it was très beau, which is French for sweet.
    ’Kayso, as I’m paying for my stuff, I go, “So, why are you guys still open at midnight?”
    And Bob goes, “Well, you know how it is, you never know when someone is going to need to free their dark lord in the middle of the night, or