Overheard at First Lunch Period

Sophie Miller barely got in one bite on her watercress-on-wheat sandwich before Drew Klein flopped down on the chair beside her. His elbow almost knocked her juice box over. He paid no attention to her or the disaster he’d nearly caused, simply dumped his own lunch, a pile of fresh fruits and veggies, out on a tray. He began to chow down as if he was all alone at the lunch table.

“Hey!” Sophie said. She edged her chair and her tray out of harm’s way. “Watch where you’re sitting, you big ox.”

“Buffalo,” Drew corrected with a carrot stuffed into his mouth. “Can’t you tell the difference by now? I thought you goats were supposed to have good eyesight.”

“It’s pronghorn,” Sophie informed him archly. “Can’t you tell the difference by now?”

“Whatever.” He continued to chomp loudly.

Sophie wrinkled her nose. “Gross,” she proclaimed. “You always graze with your mouth open?”

“You don’t like it, go sit somewhere else.”

“I was here first. You sit somewhere else.”

“There wasn’t anywhere else. You think I’d sit with a skinny little pronghorn if I had a choice?”

“There’s the buffalo table. Go sit over there with the rest of your zit-faced herd.”

“We’re not zit-faced.”

“Are too. And you’re scruffy. How do you see with all that hair in your eyes?”

“Yeah, well, your breath smells funny. I heard you goats graze in landfills.”

“I’m not a goat. But you’re a cow. A big, fat cow with a hair condition. And zits.”

“I take it back. You are a landfill. Who else would eat a lettuce-on-lettuce sandwich?”

“I’ve smelled the stuff your herd leaves behind. That’s not chips, that’s toxic waste. You couldn’t even get into a landfill. Maybe if you ate more grains and less sagebrush, you wouldn’t have that problem.”

“Yeah? Well, you’re the stuff that comes out of the sewer drain.”

“You’re the stuff that overflows when the sewer drain backs up.”

“Fart for brains.”

“Pimple face.”

“Barf breath.”

“Rug hair.” She added triumphantly, “And you shed.”

Drew set aside the pickle he’d been gnawing on. “Your mama grazes in garbage dumps.”

Sophie’s eyes narrowed. “Your mama does it with carnivores.”

“You’re gonna get trampled.”

“That’s all those big feet of yours are good for. You don’t even trample. You just trip over people. It’s because you can’t see where you’re going with all that hair in your face.”

Drew took a swipe at her chin-length cut. “Jealous much, baldy?”

“You’re gonna get poked.”

“Don’t you mean butted? Goat.”

“Cow.”

“Go eat a tin can, Bahhhhhh-bee.”

“Go stampede off a cliff, Spitting Bull.”

Over at the horse table, Edgar Paloosa shook his mane. “What’s up with them?”

His sister Sheila didn’t even look up from her barley soup. “Isn’t it obvious? They like each other.”

“No they don’t. They’ve been arguing since they sat down.”

Sheila snorted. “You boys are so clueless.”

“Got it!” Kerry Danes added one last hasty scribble, then triumphantly held up a sheet of paper. “Finally, new material. Next time my cousins gang up on me, I’m gonna let ‘em have it. I love high school.”