Free Dallas (Time for Tammy #1) by Kit Sergeant

and sniffed cautiously. The bathroom smelled of air freshener and bleach. I turned and breathed out a giant breath involuntarily as one of my dormmates stepped out of her room.
    “Do you smell that?”
    She gave me a funny look. “Is this your first time?”
    “What?”
    “The sewage treatment plant is across the street from the school. When the wind blows the right way, you can smell the sewer gas.” She locked her door.
    “Ewww. You mean it’s going to smell like that a lot?”
    She shrugged. “Welcome to Eckhart. It might be ‘the right climate for learning,’” she said with air quotes, “but it also smells like shit. Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.” With that she headed out the dorm door. I went back into my room.
    “Are you feeling all right?” Linda asked.
    “Yeah, why?”
    She sniffed. “I just thought you were having… bathroom issues.”
    “Oh,” I said. “You mean that smell? I actually thought for a second that was you.”
    “Me?”
    I told her about the sewage treatment plant. We were both still giggling when Jane came back. “This place really stinks!” she called as she walked in. “Are you ready Tammy?”
    “For what?”
    Jane grabbed some condoms and nodded at the ones on my desk before walking back out.
    I looked over at Linda, but she was absorbed in the book again. I grabbed the rest of the purloined condoms before following Jane. She walked downstairs and then to the back of the dorm to where the bikes were stored.
    “What are we doing?”
    She remained silent as she grabbed LaVerne’s bike out of the rack and began walking it toward the first floor lobby. That bike was LaVerne’s pride and joy. Whenever she rode by, Jane would hum the witch song from the Wizard of Oz.
    “LaVerne’s bike? She’ll kill us!” I half-whispered. It was probably expensive and specially made.
    Jane turned to look back at me and finally spoke. “You wanted to do some pranks so Dallas will respect you more, right?”
    “Only if they involve me not getting killed by my ex-roommate.”
    She wheeled the bike around the corner into the middle of the lobby and then set out the kick-stand with her foot. “Sometimes you gotta Sroot the Free, Tammy. Sroot the Free.” She threw a condom at me. “You do the first one.”
    I slowly peeled back the wrapper and took it out. I’d never seen a condom before. I gingerly pulled it out to maximize its size.
    “It’s greasy.”
    “Shit,” Jane exclaimed, looking at the package. “They’re lubricated.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “Really, Tammy? Really?”
    I shrugged.
    “They’ll probably leave grease stains. Oh well,” she said, glancing out the window of the dorm. “Hurry, we’ve got to move.”
    And so we decorated LaVerne’s prized possession. The piece de resistance was when we put the condoms coming off of the handlebars like flags.
    “Not bad,” Jane said admirably. “Hold on.” She ducked into her dorm room, which was right off the lobby, and came back with a disposable camera. “Now you have something to talk to Dallas about over dinner!” She snapped a picture.
    Just then we heard a door open on the other side of the hall. Both of us ducked into her room giggling as LaVerne’s thundering voice screamed, “What the hell?”
     
    Jane thought it would be a good idea to casually mention our prank to Dallas the next day. Linda had finally stopped shirking her roommate duties and tried to strike up a friendship with my crush. Or at least she had gotten his class schedule out of him, so we knew he also had Thursday afternoons—one of the few days a week when I also didn’t have a lab—off. Linda had a gen-ed class, but Jane was free, so she declared we’d pay another visit to his room.
    As soon as we arrived at his complex, we could see Dallas sitting on the couch in the common area of Ibsen. He didn’t look up from his book as we approached the glass front of the dorm. Jane had been walking in front of me, but she