Lydia Takes the Leap
Chapter 12

After school the next day, Lydia hurried home on her bike avoiding Veronica’s greetings as she zipped by. She parked her bike around the corner of her house and ran in before Veronica or any of her jerky siblings could see her. Heading straight into the kitchen to check on the slime, she cracked the lid to take a peek and saw the slime still as jiggly and squishy as before. Ripping the lid completely off, she gave it a couple of pokes.

“PFFT BURAAAAAAP!” Fart sounds belched out causing a fit of giggles at the disgusting sounds coming from the container.

She knew it was just air bubbles, but she liked to imagine a gassy orange blob flopping around in her kitchen. It made life more enjoyable that way. Pleased with the results, she hauled out more supplies to make a triple batch. Only this time she planned to break it up into three pieces to make a variety of colors.

While Lydia was in the middle of kneading her second color, the phone rang and she could hear her mother answering it in the other room. Mrs. Wyley came into the kitchen and saw her daughter elbows deep in what appeared to be purple goo. Her eyebrows shot up to the ceiling at the state her kitchen was currently in.

“Hello, Veronica? She’s preoccupied at the moment, can I have her call you back later?” she hung up the phone, content with Veronica’s response and eyed Lydia with a look of disgust.

“Mom! Thank you for answering the phone.” She squished her hands around in the purple slime and decided it was a good enough consistency. “I know the kitchen looks completely trashed, but I will have you know that I already created this mess yesterday and cleaned it up so well you didn’t even notice.” Handing over the day old batch, Lydia knew her mom couldn’t disagree.

Mrs. Wyley gave the orange slime a squelch in her hand, “Hey squishing this slime is actually sort of relaxing, maybe I’ll keep this. Thank you for the gift!” She gave her daughter a wink, then waved her hands around the kitchen’s counters and pleaded, “Please, daughter of mine… please promise me you’ll clean this up before dinner!” then she spun around and traipsed away, orange slime still in hand.

“Hey! I consider that shoplifting from me!” Lydia jokingly shouted after her mother and went back to her project.

The last color made was a lovely teal shade and she experimented by adding a tiny amount of glitter eye-shadow leftover from Halloween. The effect created an almost magical sparkly swirl through the slime and was nearly too pretty to put down. She put her newest creation in a Tupperware container and it gave a loud fart sound as she patted it down to fit.

“That noise will never get old,” she snickered.

After tidying up the mess as her mother had requested, she headed back to her room with the three containers stacked onto each other. She set the packaged slimes aside in an empty shoe box and grabbed the notepad to pick another product idea to sell. The phone rang out again, and her mother called for Lydia to answer since she was in the middle of a video chat with a potential client. Lydia sprinted out to the living room and in her haste to answer before the last ring; she forgot to check the caller ID.

“Hello?” she answered cheerfully into the phone.

“Hi, is Lydia available? It’s Veronica again, her neighbor… club alliance partner... and we used to walk home together, but I think she hates me now.”

Lydia sighed with defeat, “I don’t hate you. I don’t even think I hate Michael.”

“Well why are you avoiding me then?” demanded Veronica.

“I guess I feel embarrassed for thinking such a junky tin can could be something a customer would want and I was avoiding your brother more than you. I would prefer he didn’t replace out about my newest idea.”

“You came up with a new idea already? That’s really great, friend!” Veronica gushed. “What is it?”

“Um, well I would rather wait to show you at the meeting on Saturday. I really like this idea and I’ll share it in a more private, professional setting.” Lydia was eager to avoid anyone’s negative reaction after what happened at Veronica’s.

“Oh, Lydia you should just ignore him. He doesn’t know how to interact with other girls and he always resorts to tricks or teasing when I bring a friend home.”

Veronica’s reassuring words put Lydia at ease and she wanted to open up to her friend by giving her a hint. “Thanks, friend, I really appreciate it. In honor of our growth in friendship, I will give you a small clue.”

“Oh, goody! It will be like a riddle, I love riddles!”

“Ok, my first hint is – farts are a regular sound that comes from this item,” Lydia said mysteriously. “That’s all you get!” She chuckled and asked, “Do you want to walk home together tomorrow after school?”

“Oh I can’t tomorrow…” Veronica then informed Lydia of her mom’s plan to take her and her brothers to the dentist after school for their annual checkups. Lydia cringed in sympathy and they agreed to walk home Friday instead to discuss final details before their second business meeting with Lydia’s dad.