Free Short People by Joshua Furst

cheerleader up in Oconomowoc. She’s got really big boobs and she’s like in love with him and everything now.
    Once, I asked Jake if I could meet her and he said maybe, but I know he’s not gonna let me. Every time I say anything, he tells me all the things I can’t do in front of her. I can’t talk about Boy Scouts. I can’t talk about comic books or Jim Carrey movies. I can’t even talk about The X-Files. And that’s basically everything there is to talk about. Anyway, Jake’s even more into The X-Files than me, I didn’t even watch it until he explained to me how deep it was about all the important stuff people should think about. And his comic book collection’s like fifty times bigger than mine. And he knows every line of
The Mask
by heart.
    He won’t even tell me her name cause it’ll jinx it. Every time I ask him about her, he gets all nervous and mad and stuff and starts shaking his leg really hard.
    What it is I bet is that Chewy told him The X-Files and comic books and Jim Carrey movies and stuff were faggy and that his girlfriend would break up with him if he was into them. I bet Chewy told Jake I’m faggy too cause I’m into that stuff. Or else I bet Jake’s girlfriend’s fake.
    If I wanted to I could come up with a better fake girlfriend than Jake and maybe even a real girlfriend. But if I got a real girlfriend I wouldn’t tell Jake about it or anything cause that would be private . . .
    I’m not a fag. And I’m not a pud, neither. Fag and pud is like what everybody says about people in Boy Scouts, so Jake and Chewy should think about that before they start saying stuff like that. They should think about that and not be so much like people who aren’t Scouts. Otherwise it’s all two-faced and everything.
    I could stop being a Scout if I wanted but then I wouldn’t know what to be. And if I did that I couldn’t do all the cool stuff we do. And Jake and Chewy and everybody would all say I stopped cause they don’t like me and walk around at meetings saying stuff about how I’m a fag cause remember when I did whatever and I wouldn’t even get to say they were liars.
    Anyway, I got four merit badges already. I got the Swimming. I got the Fire Safety. I got the Knots. I got the First Aid. And one day when I’m an Eagle Scout, I’ll have more . . .
    Elkhart Lake’s cool. Except for the racetrack and the parking lot and the snack bar and the humungous shower place that smells so much like people went to the bathroom in it you can’t breathe, it’s all like woods and stuff with a whole bunch of trees in these really straight rows that people planted a long time ago after they chopped all the old ones down. The lake isn’t a real lake, though. Somebody made it. But it’s still way cool, with like fish and logs and stuff floating in it just like a real one has. Mr. Schultz says there’s deer and possums and raccoons in the woods, but I don’t believe him. I haven’t seen any, anyway.
    The best thing at Elkhart Lake is that it’s got girls that live on the other side where there’s houses and it’s not a Boy Scout Jamboree place with a racetrack and everything. They go out water-skiing and stuff and they’re really pretty too.
    When me and Jake went canoeing in the lake, there was this motorboat full of girls getting tans and laying on the front of the boat and stuff, and they had their tops undone, so I said, “Let’s row over closer to them, then maybe they’ll sit up and forget their tops are undone and maybe we’ll get to see their boobs.” But Jake said, “No, I can look at boobs anytime I want on my girlfriend.”
    “Not this week,” I said.
    “But any other time.”
    “Don’t you want to see other boobs, too, though?” I said and he looked at me all mean like I was the one being weird so I said, “And those girls are like really good-looking.”
    “So what,” he said.
    “So we should go try to see their boobs.”
    “That would make my girlfriend