I circled this part of the list.
The next legendary thing from the sagas is:
THE HERO MUST WIN THE LOVE OF A FAIR MAIDEN IN DANGER
I looked up maiden and learned that it means “innocent woman” and added the word to my list of Words of Today, along with the definition. Most of the heroes of the sagas are men who saved fair maidens from villains and monsters, because the fair maidens could not save themselves. This was a problem. I did not want to be a fair maiden who needed to be saved. I wanted to be the hero doing the saving. Then I realized that I could win the love of a maiden who was not a woman but a man. And because I already had a boyfriend whose love I had won, I put a check mark next to this item on the list, which made me happy, since it meant I was already on my way to being a legend.
EVERY HERO NEEDS A WISE MAN
All heroes need a Wise Man or person to give them powerful advice. Dr. Laird was a Wise Man and he gave powerful advice as part of his job. I put a check mark next to this item.
PILLAGING RIVAL VILLAGES FOR TREASURE
Pillage was another word I had to look up, and I did not like the definition I found. It means “to steal, often with violence.” Stealing isn’t very honorable, and so I decided that I would need to find another way to get treasure. I put a question mark (?) next to this item on my list.
THE HERO MUST DEFEAT A VILLAIN WHO THREATENS THE TRIBE
This was my favorite item on the list. Under TRIBE I wrote “Gert” and “AK47” and thought about adding “Marxy” but since he was already in the list as the FAIR MAIDEN whose love I had won, I left him off.
Next I made a list of VILLAINS:
Uncle Richard
Dad
Cancer
I stopped writing. I thought of the poker game and added:
The Man in the Red Hat
I put Toucan’s name on the list too, but was not sure so I added a (?) beside his name.
There was one more item for my list that did not fit into any of the items from the sagas. I decided that the last part of my legend would be to get Gert and AK47 back together, in a relationship. If I am very good at my legend they will get married and have babies and our tribe will grow.
When I asked AK47 why she and Gert broke up, she said that my brother is a man-whore who needs to become an adult. When I asked Gert why he was a man-whore, and why he wasn’t growing up, he knew that I had talked to AK47 and told me not to believe everything I hear.
I know that they broke up because Gert got her pregnant and she had an abortion without telling him. An abortion stops a baby from being born. Some people think that it is like killing a baby. AK47 says that it is more like stopping a cake from being baked by taking away the ingredients you need to make the cake.
AK47 is one of the people I love. If she was ever in trouble I would defend her with all my might. The problem is that I am usually the one who does something stupid or gets in trouble, and AK47 has to be the one to save me.
AK47 is a chaotic person, which is one of the reasons why Gert and her fought a lot. I started calling her AK47, and not her real name, Annie, after Gert said that when she’s excited she talks loud and fast like a machine gun. Gert likes things to be clean and orderly, and even though he was kicked out of high school for breaking the rules, he actually likes when people follow rules. AK47 does not like rules. She is a free spirit who does not always act like women in movies and TV act, which is one of the reasons why Gert likes her. She used to run in high school on the track team so she has big muscles on her legs, and is almost as tall as Gert is and would be taller if she wore heels, which she doesn’t.
* * *
Since it was Wednesday, I was prepared for the Community Center. AK47 usually comes late on a bus that makes a loud noise and a lot of black smoke when it enters into the neighborhood to pick me up from in front of the apartment.
After getting out of the elevator I went outside. Alf was smoking a cigarette. Alf likes to have his hair braided like noodles on his head. He is one of those people who is not a hero and not a villain either. He is just a regular person who likes smoking and works as a janitor at a school.
Sometimes he also likes to get high and smoke pot on his balcony, and the smoke comes to my window and I have to close it so that I don’t get the air from him inside of me.
“Heard it was your birthday,” Alf said when he saw me coming.
“It was.”
He wished me a happy birthday and tried to give me a dab. I do not like dabbing with people who are not part of my tribe, so I did not dab with Alf. He put his hand down. Alf is also in love with AK47 so when she comes to pick me up he is usually outside, smoking, so that he can say hello to her and try to convince her to go on a date with him, something he would never do if my brother was around.
He asked, “How’s your brother?”
I said Gert was fine.
“Cool,” Alf said. “Still doing the college thing?”
I said that Gert was defeating college by getting good grades.
“I went to college. Lasted one and a half semesters.”
The smell of Alf’s cigarette smoke made me cough. One of my weapons is that people forget I am there, since I am not gargantuan. In fact, I am the opposite. AK47 always says that a good warrior turns weaknesses into strengths, and people who are almost invisible, like me, can sneak around enemies. The bad parts of being invisible are that people like Alf blow smoke on me accidentally and do not notice.
I wondered if I should add Alf to my list of villains.
He held out his cigarette and made the ashes fall on the sidewalk.
The bus pulled around the corner, past the other apartment building across from ours. It was a weird-colored bus. Most buses are yellow. The bus that AK47 drove was the color of mouthwash, since it used to belong to a hospital and was so old that it was only a little green.
Alf quickly threw the cigarette on the ground and covered it with his foot.
It was 8:55 a.m. The bus stopped and the front door opened.
“I know, I know,” AK47 said. “I’m late. I know.”
In the windows I could see my two friends Yoda and Hamsa waving. I waved at them. Yoda had his face pressed up against the glass. He looked like a pancake with a mouth.
“Hey, Annie,” Alf said. “Was just keeping the birthday girl company.”
He patted my shoulder.
“She doesn’t like being touched, you boob,” AK47 said.
AK47 has short hair like a man, almost buzzed, and doesn’t wear dresses or skirts. She is also half black, which makes a lot of people nervous, since Gert and I are white and all of Gert’s old tribe, from high school, didn’t like black people.
She waved at me. “Come on, Zee.”
I told Alf to have a nice day.
“Let me know when we can have some dinner together,” Alf called to AK47, who shook her head and closed the door.
If he continued trying to steal AK47 from Gert, he would definitely be added to the list of villains.
* * *
I got on the bus and went to sit down in the back with Yoda and Hamsa, who were in seats across from each other. We always sit in the back, since that’s where all the legendary people sit in high school. Gert used to sit in the back with his friends, and they were the coolest people, so we sit there too. We were never the cool kids on regular buses, so now, on AK47’s bus, we were allowed to be cool.