Breakdancing Potatoes

He pointed to the tray. “You want food?”

Kathy bawled out, “NOOOOOO, I WANT A PONY, AND A LOLLIPOP, AND A DOLLY, AND--”

I could see his face turning purple. It appeared Rob had a temper. He snatched a cup of water from the tray and threw it straight in her face.

Simultaneously, Leah and Jon and I burst out laughing. Kathy bent her knees, swung her arms, scrunched up her face, and pretended to start bawling. The result was strongly resembling a constipated gorilla. I was almost crying, I was laughing so hard. Jon and I leaned on each other and while we laughed, but I fell over flat on my back, which practically sent everyone into convulsions of laughter. Kathy was lying on the floor kicking her feet and howling, Leah was on her knees holding her sides, I was sprawled on my backside, and Jon was on his back next to me. The sound of our laughter echoed all over, which made us laugh more, just to hear the sound.

Rob shoved the tray of food through a little cat door in each of our cages in disgust and stomped out again. We couldn’t stop laughing.

Leah was the first one to stop laughing. She grabbed her bowl of macaroni and cheese and started shoveling it in. When the rest of us saw what she had, we attacked the bowls. It was microwaved, but tasted wonderful. Once we were all done, we sat in silence for a minute. I gazed at all my friends. Jon was looking back at me and smiling that crooked half smile that I loved, Leah was yawning and...um…picking her nose...looking away now...Kathy, on the other hand, had an evil grin on her face. As I watched her, she drew in a huge breath and screamed at the top of her lungs, “DAAAAAAAAAAAADDYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY, I NEED MY DIAPER CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANGED!”

I whooped with laughter and chimed in “WHERE’S MY BAAAAAAABAAAAAAAA, I WANT MY BOTTLE!”

Leah shrieked, “BATHY TIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIME!”

Jon made his voice crack up and down and yelled, “I WANNA STORY TIME, AND A LULLABY, AND A NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!”

We heard something smash against a wall and burst out laughing again, then simultaneously, Leah and Kathy and I pretended to start crying, wailing loudly. Jon just sat down and laughed.

After about two long minutes of solid wailing, we sat down and panted. Jon put his arm around me and patted my shoulder. “Good job.”

I grinned at him and bowed sitting down. After we had our breath back, I beckoned Leah and Kathy over as close as they could get between cages.

“Next,” I said, trying to keep my voice quiet, “operation Aly & AJ/Linkin Park/Avril Lavigne.” I listed off our three mutually favorite music artists. Wicked grins came onto everyone’s faces. I knew hearing pop music sung badly was on the list of the top 20 most annoying things for people in their forties, and with Leah, Kathy, and me trying to sing in the deep voices of Linkin Park and Jon trying to singing about having a broken heart and other female emotions, well, it might drive him slightly insane.

“I vote ‘Something More’ first,” Leah said.

We all nodded, still grinning. Kathy held up three fingers and put them down slowly, giving us time to go through the introduction in our minds. Then we started singing.

We all had decent voices, and I’d taken voice lessons for 9 years, so we could be good when we wanted to. This wasn’t one of the times we wanted to sound nice.

“IIIIIIIIIIIiiiiiiiiiiii DIDN’T KNOOOOOOoooooooWWWWWW WHAT WAS IN STORE,

WHEEEEEEEEEN I WALKED RIIIIIIIiiiiiiiiiiiIIGHT THROUGH THE DOOOOOoooOOOR”

We began the love song off key and loudly. For the next few hours, we went through almost all the Aly & AJ songs, several of Avril Lavigne’s biggest hits, and our few favorite Linkin Park songs. We had saved our glasses of water, so our throats didn’t get too sore as our voices soared through the entire house. I was having an extraordinarily good time for being kidnapped.

After what seemed like only half an hour, Robert came down and snarled at us, “Are you planning to shut up any time soon?”

“NEVER!” Kathy howled.

“WE IGNORE OUR RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT!” Jon proclaimed.

“HE DIDN’T APPRECIATE OUR SINGING!” Leah wailed, supposedly dismayed.

“YOUR MOM’S GOING TO SHUT UP!” I yelled.

I swear his eye started twitching.