The Pretty Marco Mask

2012

I am in third grade and I go to a school called We Hate Kids Elementary. It’s not actually called that; I just can’t remember the real name. My teacher’s name is Mr. Alex, which I think is really stupid, because Alex is a first name, not a last name. He is very lucky his first name isn’t Alex, because then he would be called Alex Alex, and that would have been especially stupid.

I hate all the kids in my class except for two people. I don’t hate Donny, because he is in a wheel chair and needs a respirator to breathe, and I think it would be really unfair of me to hate him. I also don’t hate Maggie. The reason I don’t hate Maggie is because I have never seen anyone so beautiful in my entire life.

The kid I hate the most is Marco, and that is simply because he too finds Maggie exceptionally desirable. It is devastating that Maggie seems to like him a lot more than she likes me. Part of the reason for this, I imagine, is due to Marco’s advantage: he is not a koala, and I happen to be.

Sometimes in school, when we’re supposed to be doing our spelling test, or practicing arithmetic, I like to just sit in my seat and daydream about being a person. Sadly enough, it’s my favorite fantasy. I imagine that we are in gym class, and we are all playing Frisbee on the big field. I am always the one who catches the most passes, and Marco is always the dumb cluts who drops the Frisbee every single time. And Maggie cheers for me, jumping up and down, shouting, “Nice catch, babe.” Then when Marco says to her, “Hey, did you see me out there?” she spits on his face and runs over to me and she hugs and kisses me. 

And then stupid Mr. Alex drops a couple of heavy books on my desk and I snap right out of it.

For all of third grade, all I wanted was to be a person just like everybody else, and I always thought there was nothing I could do about it – until I got a six-inch hunting knife for my ninth birthday. The day I got it I was so excited, I didn’t go to sleep at all that night. Instead, I stayed up all night plotting my master plan. The next night after dinner, I put that plan to action.

I took with me my prized hunting knife, my school knapsack, and a little blue flashlight. I knew where Marco lived because my house is on his paper route.

One Saturday, curious to see where the newspaper came from, I followed him until he was finished. But he just led me back to his house, so the whole afternoon was a complete waste of time.

When I got to Marco’s house on the night of the master scheme the front door was locked, which I was not counting on, so I had to do some quick thinking. I walked around the house and peered into one of the windows. Sure enough, right there in the window, fast asleep and looking like a dork in his dinosaur pajamas, was Marco.

I looked around for a large rock, but the backyard had nothing but grass and flowers and a sickly-looking pear tree. I stared hopelessly at him through the foggy window for a few seconds before realizing that it was open a tiny bit. I looked around to see if anybody was watching me before crawling through the window like the sneaky cat burglar that I am. On the other side I fell through with a very light thump on the carpet.

I got up and looked at Marco, asleep and perfectly still, and reached for my blade. The sound of the knife sliding out of the leather case was not nearly as dramatic as I thought it would be. With my left paw on Marco’s throat and my razor sharp weapon in my right, I raised the blade above my head and glared at the boy with the most intimidating death stare I could manage. My heart started beating like a time bomb about to explode. And then, as carefully as I could, I made a small slit in his skin, starting at the heel, and began peeling it off, taking caution to keep it all in one piece. Once I had finished and had the whole thing packed up in my knapsack, I quietly crawled back out the window and sprinted home as fast as I could.

The next morning when I woke up I quickly shovelled down my breakfast and got dressed in my new Marco skin outfit. I had a feeling this was going to be the best day of my life.

When I arrived at school Maggie came up to me right away.

“Hey Marco,” she said, smiling an extremely pretty smile.

“Hey honey,” I said back in a deeper than usual voice. “What’s good?”

“Pardon?”

“What’s good – what’s crackin’? Yah know? What’s up?”

“Your acting weird. Are you alright?”

“Yeah, baby. Jus’ chillin’. How ‘bout chu?” But before she could answer, the real Marco, without his skin, walked into the classroom, and with his muscular, bloody mess of a skeleton attracted everybody’s attention, including Maggie’s.

“Who’s that?” Maggie whispered to me. “He’s really cute.” She looked at him and then at me, and back at him, then once more at me. “He’s even cuter than you.”

Who knew the bastard looked even better on the inside?

THE END