Some people might think that friendship is all about being supportive through thick and thin, about understanding the other person and knowing how to get them out of a funk. Stuff like that.
Those people are wrong.
The most sincere and staunch proof of friendship is thievery. Once someone has stolen your phone or water bottle, you just know you’re going to be life-long friends <3
The roots of this revelation first came to me in seventh grade. Or, well, I suppose that wasn’t when I figured it out, but rather, it was when those around me did.
There I was, sitting so calmly and peacefully in my chair, working on a math problem in MS Math Comp Prep. A hand sneaks slowly into my peripheral vision. Almost by habit, I duck down violently, knocking my head against the table: I thought it was my brother trying to rub my hair. I’ve developed far too good reflexes just to avoid getting my hair messed up. For once, though, it wasn’t my brother. It was a smiling, faux-angelic chaos gremlin monster I liked to call my best friend.
By the time I relaxed from my Head-Ducked-Under-Arms Hair-Protection Turtle Pose™, she’d snatched my eraser and gone back to work, all innocence. I glanced about warily, sighed with a breath of relief when my brother and his malicious designs on my hair were nowhere to be found, and went back to my math problem.
Across the table, my future friend’s eyes gleamed. We will refer to her as MHG (Muggle Hermione Granger) because she looks a lot like Hermione Granger should, I think, just prettier and smarter and nicer and non-wand-waving.
After that event, there was not a week that went past that whole school year when my camera didn’t end up in someone else’s hands or the end of my pencil didn’t mysteriously vanish. Sometimes, it felt as if the water bottle was growing legs and running to random, ridiculous places such as behind the frickin’ trash can, WHY IS MY WATER BOTTLE BEHIND THE TRASH CAN!?
MHG, being smarter and more perceptive than the rest of us mere humans, understood the truth about friendly thievery. It was something I would only realize after she told me, years into our friendship. But soon after I found out—and before I could truly return MHG’s friendship through the time-honored practice of stealing—the pandemic struck, and we were torn asunder for two long years.
Now that the pandemic is (kind of?) over, though, friendship thievery is back with a vengeance. This past year, in particular, I’ve had far too many, far too memorable, Incidents of Larceny.
Incident 1: Kindly Donations
Dec 6, 2022
An Incident of pure, rude treachery.
It was a lovely Tuesday morning. (dead) Autumn leaves danced through the grass, the sun was kind of shining, and it wasn’t as cold as it could’ve been. There I was, sitting at the round tables in the halls at school, chatting cheerfully with a friend. We’ll call him Pebbles, because I know a chihuahua named Pebbles, and his last name could be mispronounced as “Chihuahua.” You know, if you’re annoyed at him and want to annoy him, which I was and I did, rather a bit after this Incident.
One of Pebbles’ foibles is that it’s always quite difficult to tell when he’s being serious. Another one of his foibles is that one of the things that he is generally serious about is that, well. He doesn’t like STUCO (Student Council). I still don’t know exactly what he finds so shoddy about STUCO, but you can never account for taste. So when he began to complain about GECKO’s (Green Earth Community Knowledge Organization) donation bin, thinking it was STUCO’s, I just nodded and hummed with vague acknowledgment.
Technically speaking, he wasn’t complaining. He was simply praising it in such sarcastic, tortuous tones that it was clear that he was really denouncing it. I didn’t exactly understand why he would pick the donation bin, of all things, to heckle—after all, STUCO has so many other, more heckle-worthy events. In the end, I couldn’t understand his choice, so I just mentally shrugged and kept nodding.
“I’m just so glad that STUCO is doing a donation bin, you know? Like, some hobbies are just so hard to get started on, it’s so nice that STUCO is giving people an opportunity to get started!”
“Uh huh.”
“Like art, or photography! A camera is so expensive, people who aren’t as fortunate have no way of getting started on something like that, it’s just so nice that STUCO is helping them maybe find that kind of new interest!”
“Totally, yeah.”
As he continued delving deeper and deeper into the topic, I started tuning him out more and more. Ten minutes into his one-sided conversation, he asked a question that required a bit more attention on my part: “Like, Sophie. You like photography, right?”
“Hmm?” I raised an eyebrow. “Oh, I don’t know, Pebbles. I really can’t tell, because it’s not like I’m always lugging my yearbook camera around.” I reached my hand behind myself to lift my camera and wave it in his face. Not having eyes growing out of the back of my head, I missed my camera in my first attempt to grab it. I reached in a slightly different direction behind me, but still, I only grasped air. I turned my head mid-ramble, only to find an utterly blank and empty tabletop. Hmm.
I blinked at the table. Peeked underneath. Did I leave it in my classroom back when—wait. I spun around to glare at Pebbles. “You! I—you—I don’t—aargh!” With that bit of incoherent spluttering over, I stormed over to the donation bin and snatched my camera out.
“You, I, you, hahaha!” His cackles rang out from behind me.
My glower darkened. What excellent friends I have.
Incident 2: Stowaway
Some Friday or Other
An Incident rather more reminiscent of MHG’s original friendship overtures.
Before we start in on Incident 2, I must describe our cast.
Cast
First and foremost, for she was the one who began the chain of events, is Soar. She is so-called because (brace yourself for the most beautiful stream-of-consciousness reasoning here) she’s a Taylor Swift fan and loves lyric-spamming Swift lyrics. Swift is, according to Merriam-Webster, “any of numerous small plainly colored birds (family Apodidae) that are related to the hummingbirds but superficially much resemble swallows.” Birds soar. Also, our yearbook theme this year is Take Flight, and she’s the co-editor of the Yearbook with me this year. Also, her brother likes aviation.
Speaking of which, her brother, who will also feature in this Incident, will be named Boing, for he loves Boeing so much that he put a “virus” on many of his friends’ computers to continuously, never-endingly open Boeing.com tabs. However, I’m uncertain if I can actually call him Boeing because, like, copyright or something, so I’ll remove a letter. Besides, he’s bouncy.
Naturally, this Incident will also involve MHG, as it is an incident so similar to her original friendship overtures.
I had a bit of trouble with naming our last member of the cast. I rather thought her pseudonym should be related to shells, but it was a bit difficult settling on a good one. I can’t call her “Turtle” because Turtle is already Turtle, I’m not sure if she’ll be offended if I call her “Snail” because some people don’t really like snails, and “Gastropod” and “Brachipod” sound too much like some sort of nasal disease. Something about sand dollars and a reference to Percy Jackson might be clever, but I can’t quite figure out a good one (“Pollution” hardly sounds suitable, and “Anti-Pollution” was simply far too long). Or perhaps something about argonauts, but for one thing, “Jason” is already taken. For another, the only female on that ship was “Atalanta,” which I would constantly mix with “Atlanta” and then I’d just get stuck on thinking about Georgia and never get anything done. Eventually, I settled on calling her Pearl because pearls are contained in shells.
With that, let us dive into the Incident itself (though keep in mind, I did employ some small amount of creative licensing) (also, I’m sure the formatting is not quite right. So if you actually know screenwriting, just ignore the incorrect formatting).
Scene I
FADE IN:
EXT. SCHOOL BUILDING - MORNING
WE OPEN on a brick and concrete building. We see people rushing
to and fro through a pair of glass sliding doors. We push in
closer; the people slowly become distinguishable as children
lugging backpacks. A GIRL stands out from their midst because
she walks so slowly.
CUT TO:
INT. SCHOOL BUILDING - HALLWAY - CONTINUOUS
THE GIRL, YOURS TRULY (YT), lost to the world. Glasses askew,
frowning heavily. Her face inches from her computer screen as she
walks. She almost runs into another girl. Her friend, SOAR, steers
her clear.
SOAR
Maybe save bashing your head in for when college apps
are due.
YT
Yep.
SOAR
You know, Hogwarts has an absolutely torturous
application process. There’s five essays and you have
to write them all with quill and parchment.
YT
Uh huh.
SOAR turns to the other girl, PEARL, smiling faintly. Makes sure
she’s alright. Passes her something, but she rushes after YT too
quickly for us to see what it was. Perhaps something PEARL
dropped?
SOAR
And you need to steal an owl from the local zoo to send
it all to Britain, which is why none of the zoos have
any owls this time of year.
YT
Hmm.
The pair ascend the stairs to the seniors-only study area, --
ZEN DEN
YT collapses into an armchair. SOAR does the same across from
her.
YT (V.O.)
Did you know that the Jostens fonts aren’t actually in
Photoshop?
SOAR
Oh, I thought you could only say monosyllabic
sentences.
YT (V.O.)
And then someone said their favorite cuisine is sugar.
Sugar? What sort of cuisine is sugar? And then someone
else said they prefer American Chinese food. Do I count
that as American food or Chinese food? How am I
supposed to make a pie chart of this?
YT tries to take a sip of water. Her water bottle is not in her
backpack. Her attention is finally drawn away from the screen as
she looks around for it.
YT
Oh, remind me to get my water bottle back from the
classroom later.
SOAR
Of course. Go back to wrangling your photoshop.
YT
Mm hm.
FADE OUT.
Scene II
FADE IN:
INT. ZEN DEN - LUNCH TIME
YT stands from her armchair. Stretches. Scratches her head.
YT (V.O.)
I could’ve sworn there was something I was supposed
to do.
YT looks around. SOAR is no longer here: she left for a class
some time ago. YT shrugs and sits back down. Begins to eat her
lunch.
YT (V.O.)
Honestly, sugar of all things. Sugar! What sort of
trolls...
YT reaches for her water bottle. Blinks.
YT (V.O.)
Oh, right, water bottle.
YT takes a few more bites. Sits there, staring at the stairs.
YT (V.O.)
Well, it’s so far away. I don’t suppose it’s really
worth the effort to get up and get it, is it?
She looks up, plaintive. Begging. When no mysterious being
appears in midair to agree, she sighs and starts walking down
the stairs.
HALLWAY
On her way to the classroom, YT bumps into PEARL again.
YT
Oh, hello. How's life?
PEARL
I'm good. How about you?
YT
Mmmhm.
PEARL
Where are you headed?
YT
I’m going to the yearbook classroom. I left something
in there during first block.
PEARL
Ah.
PEARL shifts her backpack. It’s probably too heavy.
PEARL
Well, in that case, I think we’re here.
YT
Yep.
YT stares at the classroom door. The door does not stare back.
YT (V.O.)
Well. It’s locked. Clearly I’m not meant to get my
water bottle back.
YT looks up. PEARL is gone. YT shrugs and returns to --
ZEN DEN
A colorful backpack is propped on the stairs. Sticking out of its
side pocket is a strangely familiar chipped and battered water
bottle. YT bounces over to her armchair, where another girl is
already sitting.
YT
MHG! You’re here! Lovely. How’s life?
MHG
Alright. Want to see some more dresses?
YT
Yes!
YT finishes eating her lunch as they pore over MHG’s computer.
YT
I’ll go put my lunchbox away. I’ll be right back.
When she walks past the backpack, she stops and stares. There
really was something strangely familiar about that--
YT
MHG! Is that my water bottle in your backpack?
MHG
Huh? What do you mean?
YT
I mean--
MHG snatches the water bottle up and runs. YT stares after her,
momentarily befuddled, before letting out a shout and giving
chase, down the stairs and into --
Hallway
MHG turns the corner. By the time YT catches sight of her again,
her hands are empty. They’re in the senior locker block.
YT
MHG…
MHG
Yes?
YT
Where's my water bottle?
MHG
What water bottle?
YT scowls and stomps over. Checks her locker. MHG’s locker. Even
SOAR’s locker.
YT (sighing)
Oh, nevermind. I'm going to class.
FADE OUT.
Scene III
FADE IN:
INT. CLASSROOM - MATH COMP PREP - FINAL CLASS
YT leans back in her chair, trying to balance it on two legs.
PEARL sits across from her, pencil scritch-scratching on her
paper. MHG sits next to her, chatting idly with SOAR, sitting
across from her.
YT
Oh, by the way. Who does have my water bottle?
PEARL (looking up)
You still haven't found it yet?
YT
No…wait. You were involved, too?
PEARL
Yeah. I think I gave it to MHG.
YT (V.O.)
Honestly, are none of my friends innocent, simple,
non-stealing--
MHG
No, I gave it to you, you didn’t give it to me.
MHG
Oh right. The first time I got it I think I gave it to
you--or maybe BOING, actually--but then, wait, no,
BOING gave it to me, and then I gave it to you, and
then I gave it to BOING again, or maybe--
SOAR
That makes sense, I gave it to BOING that first time--
PEARL
No, you gave it to me, and then I gave it to BOING,
because--
SOAR
But it can’t be with BOING now, he leaves school early
on Fridays--
PEARL
Because it happened when he was in aviation class, so--
MHG
I gave it to you during lunch, why would he be in
class--
FADE OUT.
Incident 3: Chaos
Dec 9, 2022
An Incident where far too much was going on.
If you haven’t noticed yet, I’ve been trying a different writing format/style for each of these incidents. For this last incident, I decided to ask Chat-GPT to write it up for me, given a short description of what happened. I had two reasons for this: 1) I couldn’t figure out another writing format I could use; 2) because Boing is once more a large part of this Incident, and Boing really likes messing with ChatGPT; and 3) I was feeling lazy. And 4) apparently I can’t count.
ChatGPT’s story:
//with commentary from me 🙂
Sophie sat in math class, fidgeting nervously as she waited for the teacher to start the lesson. She had always struggled with math and was feeling especially anxious today. //ExCusE me, I have NOT always struggled with math! This is blasphemy! Horrid, evil, cruel blasphemy! As she dug through her backpack, searching for her calculator, she noticed that her camera and phone were missing. //You give my observation skills FAR too much credit, lol.
Panicked, she turned to her friends MHG, Boing, and Pearl, who were sitting nearby. “Have any of you seen my camera or phone?” she asked, trying to keep the fear out of her voice. //You think I would be pAnIcKeD about not seeing something in my backpack hanging around with ThIS group of trolls?
MHG and Boing exchanged a mischievous look and then burst out laughing. “We might have borrowed them,” MHG admitted, grinning. //They would not admit this so readily. Ofc, I also wouldn’t need to ask.
Sophie’s heart sank. She had always trusted her friends and never thought they would steal from her. //Loooooool. “Why would you do that?” she asked, fighting back tears. //Honestly ChatGPT, have a bit more faith in me. I don’t tear up this easily!
“We just wanted to play a little prank on you,” Boing explained, looking guilty. //gUiLtY??? ? GUILTY??! lool “We didn’t mean to upset you.”
Sophie took a deep breath and tried to compose herself. She knew that getting angry or upset wouldn’t solve anything. “Can you please give my things back?” she asked calmly.
MHG reached into her backpack and pulled out Sophie’s phone. “Here you go,” she said, handing it over. “I’m sorry we took it without asking.” //Aaaw thanks. Now tell me this in real life 😛
Sophie let out a sigh of relief and quickly called her camera to see if it was nearby. //Since when could I just call my camera?! To her surprise, the ringing came from Pearl’s backpack. Pearl blushed and apologized as she handed the camera over.
But as Sophie was distracted by her phone and camera, Boing snuck out of the room. He had hidden Sophie’s camera in another classroom, thinking it would be a hilarious prank. //Okay, two things (and this time it really is two): 1) I don’t think “this would be a hilarious prank” is what goes through any of their minds at moments like these. Instead, I think it’s something more along the lines of, “UNATTENDED FRIEND ITEM!!!!!!” and then it’s just an instinct sort of thing. 2) where is the cohesion in any of this? Didn’t I just get my phone and camera back, supposedly? How is Boing able to take my camera again???
Sophie was determined to get her camera back, so she asked the teacher if she could go and retrieve it. The teacher agreed, and Sophie set off to find Boing and her camera. She searched the classrooms and finally found Boing sitting at a desk, playing with her camera.
“Hey!” she said, surprised to see him there. //idk why I would ever be surprised “What are you doing with my camera?”
Boing looked up and sheepishly handed the camera over. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to take it for so long. I just thought it would be funny.”
Sophie couldn’t believe her friends had gone to such lengths to play a prank on her. //lool But as she took her camera back, she couldn’t help but feel a sense of satisfaction. She had outsmarted her friends and gotten her belongings back. //uh… outsmarted? how?
As she walked back to math class, she made a mental note to get revenge on Boing. And when she got home that night, she snuck into his bedroom and stole his desktop computer and backpack. //ok this is creepy. We don’t live together? How do i sneak into his bedroom?? She knew it wouldn’t make up for the stress and anxiety her friends had caused her, but it was a small victory. //I’m pretty sure losing the desktop is probably more anxiety-inducing than losing a phone tho. From now on, she would be more careful about trusting her friends with her belongings.
//In summary: maybe ChatGPT doesn’t quite work perfectly yet :pp
The real story:
I sat in Math Comp Prep class, most distinctly not fidgeting nervously and not always struggling with math or feeling especially anxious. As always, the first hour was relatively productive, by which I mean we probably spent as much as ¾ of the class working. By the second hour, though, our attention had turned to other topics than math. The first casualties of that distracted attention were my phone and camera.
My camera, if you haven’t realized yet, gets caught up in far too many thievery shenanigans. Whenever I leave it anywhere close to Boing, it invariably ends up in his hands. Sometimes he’ll take dozens of random shots. Other times, he’ll take the lens off and then take dozens of random shots, insisting that the camera can “wirelessly connect” to the lens that he was holding a foot away from the camera itself.
I don’t particularly mind either of those actions, though: the former is totally understandable because pointing the camera in a random direction and holding down the button is unbelievably satisfying. Meanwhile, the latter is just funny.
As such, I decided to focus on getting my phone back, first. Luckily, there’s a little-known feature of phones that makes it very easy to find one lost nearby. Namely, besides the primary purposes of music, TikTok, and Discord of teenagers’ phones nowadays, phones are actually also capable of being called, and ringing very loudly when that happens.
When I called my phone, the ringing chimed from inside MHG’s backpack. I wandered over and glared at her for a few seconds, but she just smiled and wouldn’t give her backpack up for inspection. I pouted at her. She pouted back. I decided this standoff was an insurmountable barrier I wouldn’t be able to overcome, so I sat back down and glared at my paper, instead.
Wait, no. This was utterly ridiculous. That was my phone, why was I just letting her keep it? I rang for my phone again, just to put off actually bothering to confront her for a bit—why was that ringing coming from Pearl’s backpack now? Wait, no, it was also coming from MHG’s general vicinity? Why are there two different ringings?
MHG grinned. I took a quick peek from under the table and, ah. She was using her phone’s ringtone to throw me off about where my phone really was.
…which brings us back to, since when did MHG even get the chance to transfer my phone to Pearl?
I glared at Pearl. She smiled. Smiled. Folded. Handed the phone over.
Gee, thanks.
I spun around with a dramatic flair, though my hairflip was probably not as dramatic as I thought it was. By which I mean it was practically nonexistent. In that moment, I saw Boing was sneaking out of the room, hunched over and looking rather silly. Naturally, I gave immediate chase.
By the time I got out of the classroom, he was coming back in, so I checked the nearby classrooms to see what sus things he could’ve done. In the first classroom I checked, I discovered my camera shoved into the bottom of a box in the corner of the room.
There were some more shenanigans by the time I returned to the classroom—I lost my backpack, then my water bottle, then my backpack again. By the time I lost my backpack the second time, basically everyone in that class (so, like, maybe ten people?) had joined in on the chaotic, friendly, thievery. Eventually, I decided that enough was enough and cowered in the corner of the room. Boing was also crouched hiding in that corner, guarding his desktop from everyone else.
But our retreat from the chaos did not save us from its reaches. Before we could even relax, MHG rushed over and snatched Boing’s water bottle from him. “If you don’t give me my pencil case back, I’m keeping this as hostage!”
Boing was like, “i DoNt HaVe iT!”
“I DoNt CaRe, HeLp mE FiNd iT!”
And then MHG’s brother popped up out of nowhere, took the pencil case out from under his desk, and was like, “I found it! Here you go MHG.”
And so MHG went all, “Boing You Didn’t Help Me Find It, Im Keeping Your Watter Bottle.”
And then she was waving around my water bottle, and then Boing somehow got the water bottles back but then he lost his backpack to MHG, and everyone else is just ignoring us, scrambling to get their various belongings back from whatever corners they were hidden in, and then eventually I stole Boing’s laptop and backpack?
Uh, and then at some point I went and ate some pancakes in Culinary Studies, and apparently Soar and Boing thought I’d already left the school by that point, so Soar started panic-texting me to ask me if I had Boing’s desktop, while I started panic-searching for Boing in the school because I didn’t actually want to take that huge block of plastic home, and then—
//Well, actually. Now that I think of it, ChatGPT really did a great job with its version. It really portrayed the lack of cohesion perfectly.
Best blog post!!! I’m looking forward to next semester c: c: