Free A Life Like Mine by Jorie Saldanha Page A

in mock fear.
                  “I wouldn’t be laughing about those boots of yours.”
                  “Why?” Lena’s eyebrows went up.
                  “Because they might be shoved up your designer pants.” I explained.
                  “Huh?”
                  “Ahhh!” I charged at her. She screamed. I hit her with my head in the stomach, and we both went crashing to the floor.
                  Pause. Okay, I know that you probably think that this is really unrealistic, and as soon as you read on you’ll find it even less believable. This actually happened. I don’t know why either of us got so into it, but we did, and I just want you to know that this all happened. To tell you the truth I think Lena acted the way she did, because she was letting all the anger she had felt throughout the years. I think I was doing the same. Okay, so I had just charged into her when…
                  “You’re crazy!” Lena yelled.
                  “You’re a pain!” I started clawing at Lena’s clothes trying to rip them. I was hoping to ruin them, and have Lena feel has bad as I did at that moment. I had worked so hard at not telling my friends what happened to me. I couldn’t believe that Lena had destroyed it all.
                  “Cut it out! You’re nuts! You know that?” Lena shouted.
                  “Yeah!” I grabbed at Lena’s hair and pulled on it. Lena screamed in agony. She kicked me off her, ran inside, and went over to the concession stand. I got up, prepared to charge at her. As soon as I did, she threw a huge bowl of buttery popcorn on me. I fell over. Then to add to it, Lena dumped three huge cups of pop all over me. I was soaked and sticky. Lena laughed at me as heartily as she could. I swung my leg close to the ground and kicked her legs up from underneath her. She fell to the ground.
                  “Oh! My back. You *$%*&$#!” Lena started yelling tons of obscenities.
                  “Take that!”  I got up and ran to the bathroom filled my hands with soap. I ran back to Lena. She was still swearing her head off. “Hey, Lena! You shouldn’t swear so much. You better clean your mouth out.” I threw the soap into her open mouth. (Don’t worry it was non-toxic.)
                  “Ahhh! You!” Lena said. Well, she said more, but I couldn’t make it out from all the gargling noises.
                  “Get up!” I yelled.
                  “Bring it on!” Lena barked. She got up and ran over to the trashcan. She picked it up and threw all of the trash on me. I screamed while Lena laughed. I again charged at her. I couldn’t believe it. I, Ashley, was in a catfight. This was my first catfight. Lena and I went back and forth for what seemed like hours. In reality, it was ten minutes. I knew this because my friends came out. They saw us all of our scraped up and grimy. They broke us up.
                  “Ashley!” Jennifer ran up and pulled me away.
                  “Let me go!” I bellowed.
                  “No!” Jennifer was a lot stronger than I thought she was.
                  “What is going on here?” Keri asked.
                  “Lena deserves what she gets!” I replied. “I gave her a black eye!”
                  “What?” Lena grabbed for her eye. “You suck!”
                  “Hardly!” I shouted.
                  “Shut up!” Betty shouted at the top of her lungs.  I’d never heard Betty be so loud. It not only surprised me, but I actually did shut up. I stopped trying to fight Jennifer’s grip. She didn’t let go of me though.
                  “Lena, go to the bathroom and get cleaned up. We’ll all go with you. Ashley, sit right here. We’ll be back in about