Ping Pong: Chapter 1
CHAPTER 1
The majority of teenaged interests and hobbies mostly consist of incredibly overrated pass-times that no one actually cares about. Like gossiping about who sucked who’s dick or blowing your parents’ debit cards on shoes or just telling the internet exactly what your life is like all the time. The teenagers in this story, however, could proudly tell you that that’s exactly the opposite of what they spend their time doing. In fact, these teenagers probably participate in some of the least normal things a teenager could participate in. These unlikely heroes prefer spending their time visiting run down, highly unsafe, potentially life scarring, abandoned amusement parks for hours on end without anyone knowing where they were. And so this tale begins in a bedroom covered in dirty clothes and table tennis trophies with a boy leaning over his laptop. With a smile spreading across his face, he stretched off his bed to grab his shitty phone off the edge of his desk.
It was exactly 4:38 PM when Rissa McGall’s cell phone started vibrating between her bra and her tit. She sat herself up from lying down on her home’s flat roof and pulled the phone out of her bra and hit accept call.
“Yo asslicker, what’s up?” she started the conversation while staring off the roof of her house, watching some minivan drive down the road.
“Hi Rissa, nice to talk to you too.” Liam Sobolewski’s oh so familiar dorky voice responded.
“Come on Liam, what sort of creepy haunted house did you find? Or theme park, or whatever. Also, may I mention how much you sound like Michael Cera today? It’s astounding.”
“Hey, I could be calling you to say how I fucked up my wrist practicing for my table-tennis competition that’s in like 3 months and how I have a massive boner right now and I need some ginger-dread-head to come help me out.”
“We both know I wouldn’t give you a handjob even if my life depended on it.” Rissa smirked.
“Sadly that is a truth that we both know. Turns out my boners aren’t actually why I’m calling. I think I found a theme park we can check out.”
“Sweet. What’s this place called? Is it super fucking lame? I mean, you picked it out, so it’s basically guaranteed to be super fucking lame.”
“Well, the name is super fucking lame but really. It’s an amusement park. The names for those things are basically a promise from Jesus himself to be the lamest thing to have ever been born into existence.”
“Dude, I’m pretty sure- and by pretty sure I mean I’m totally sure- that names can’t be born.”
“Not the point. It’s called the Neverland but the savvy 1970’s kids just called it Coolzone- which really doesn’t make sense but y’know. Whatever.”
“Rissa, stop laughing.”
“Rissa, please.”
“Rissa, Coolzone is funny, but holy shit. Stop. You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“Okay, Rissa, listen to me. When and if you get yourself together, call Matt and Alice for me. I’ll be over in a bit to pick you guys up. Also, don't forget to bring your camera like last time, you giant fucking ass.” and the line went dead.
It took Rissa a good while to stop laughing and actually get around to calling the others. First Matt, because he’d be the quickest to tell (the conversation went something like “Stop swooning over Orlando Bloom for a second, Liam found a new theme park.” “FAB! I’ll bring snacks and be over in 5!”), and then Alice because that would need a conversation longer than 5 seconds to explain what was going on.
“Yo, Alice-kun.”
“Hey Rissie!”
“So, I’d ask if you’re doing anything but I know you’re about 3 seconds away from reblogging something from your animes, so why don’t we skip that bit and fast forward in the conversation?”
“It was actually just some cats... but okay! What’s up?”
“So Liam found a new horrible dorky theme park and he’s gonna be at my house soon. So you know the drill, come over soon.”
“Awesome. I’ll be over ASAP!”
Rissa ended the call as she stood up, gathered her things off the roof and crawled back through her bedroom window. After kicking off her pyjamas and putting on a random pair of nylons and some denim shorts, she grabbed an old backpack off the floor. She tugged on some shoes while checking the backpack to be sure it had her things in it. Running out of her room, she quickly grabbed her camera and started downstairs.
Just as he said, Matt was already sitting in her front yard when she walked out the door. He turned around and smiled and waved.
Matt Romenelli is certainly an interesting character, with such a flamboyant air of boyish charm and snark, it was practically impossible to not like him. Well, at least a little bit. He wore his hair in a bad faux-hawk and had a polo on about 99% of his waking hours. Today’s was neon lime green with green stripes. With a lavender backpack stuffed to the brim with baggies of healthy snacks slung around in shoulders, he stood up and hugged Rissa tightly and then did this sort of air kiss on each of her cheeks. He greeted everyone this way.
“So please tell me about this new theme park!” He demanded excitedly.
“I don’t actually know that much. It’s called Neverland or something and it was closed in the 70’s and the savvy kids back then called it Coolzone.”
“Wow. So this place is basically guaranteed to be really ridiculously not at all snazzy?” He asked, his cheerful-ness suddenly turning into a dry sarcastic voice.
“Basically. So what sort of snacks did you bring?”
“Baby Carrots, some ranch, for like, dipping and stuff, celery, and these cute little finger sandwiches but oh my god hang on you need to see how tiny these things are.”
He then proceeded to get the sandwiches out and showed Rissa just how tiny they were.
“Those are indeed very tiny sandwiches Matt. What’s the green pasty stuff in there though? ”
“Hmm? Oh! You silly little girl it’s Avocado! It’s really really good. It’s full of vitamins and all that wonderful stuff.”
“...What did you say and why is it my sandwich?”
“Avocado, Rissa, and it’s a fruit. They are mushy and yummy and they make nice spreads on sandwiches?”
“OH. Oh, dude are you serious? They’re green and mushy on the inside?”
“Yes Rissa, Avocados are green and mushy on the inside.”
“Dude. I swear to god I thought they were like a melon or something.”
“Rissa, promise me that you won’t major in fruitology or whatever when we’re older.”
“You mean ‘Pomology’.”
“Don’t major in it.”
“Didn’t plan on it.”
Matt laughed and the two sat on the curb of Rissa’s street until a very tall and very Chinese girl sat down next to them.
“Hey guys!” She smiled at them.
“Hey Alice.” Rissa smiled back, and Matt went over to hug her and go through his overly dramatic air kiss greeting. They both sat down and Alice immediately asked about the park as well.
“It’s calle-” Rissa began.
“It’s called the Coolzone. I mean, please. What sort of a name is COOLZONE?? It sounds sooo lame. I’m going to screw Liam sideways up his cute little ass with like, 5 different vibrators at once if this place is as lame as it sounds.” Matt said instead.
“Oh my god. Matt, please! I didn’t know you had to sound so heterosexual! God, I might actually be scared by how straight that last sentence sounded. And Alice, it’s called Neverland.”
“Kay!” Alice giggled happened and began furiously mashing buttons on her phone.
“Teryssah, honey, I love you but you know the only straight I am is straight up bisexual.” Which was a lie. Matt was so utterly homosexual for every boy on the planet that it was actually terrifying. The bisexual thing was a lie to not freak his parents out.
“Wow. Okay, fine. Just go ahead and be a total baka, Wikipedia, that’s fine. It’s not like we wanted to know about Neverland or anything,” Alice muttered angrily.
As the three of them stared down at the tiny screen of Alice’s smartphone, there was a rumbling that quickly turned into a never ending roar of terror from the deepest pits of Satan’s colon. “Our ride’s here guys.” Rissa smiled and helped pull Matt and Alice up as an ancient, maybe once blue but now a sun-bleached teal colored hatchback barreled around a corner and skidded to stop in front of Rissa’s house.
“Hey dorks,” Liam said to them with a grin and a pair of mirrored aviators on as he rolled down the window.
“Liam, take those off they make you look more stupid than you usually are. I’m ashamed to not be dating you.” Rissa snorted as she climbed into the passenger’s seat and Matt and Alice in the back.
“Well I’m glad to be assured that your shit car still is alive. I was really worried about it for a while.” Matt said as he got in the backseat with Alice.
“I’m sorry that E.C. Goode What has the automobile equivalent of lung cancer.”
E.C. Goode What was the name of Liam’s car. Named in honor of the creator of the modern day ping pong paddle, E.C. Goode Who, the car itself had been passed down through Liam’s family for about 5 or 6 generations now. Granted, Liam was the only one out of five brothers who had it the longest, but it was still an extreme piece of crap. In fact, the E.C. stands for Extremely Crappy. Rissa insisted the name at least be somewhat truthful.
“Liiiiaam! I couldn’t find anything about Neverland on my phone! What’s this place like?” Alice asked excitedly, leaning forward and leaning on the shoulder rests of the front two seats.
“Oh man, okay, so this amusement park was built in 1959, and like it was the hottest shit to have happened to this town like an hour away from here and it was totally great and business was booming and then one day it just closed down in 1972. Just in the middle of it’s prime for no reason at all! And so there are like no stories about why but I found a rumor it was because someone died on one of the roller coasters or something and everyone was like well fucking shit can’t have a park anymore nope nope gotta close fast and it’s gonna be so cool you guys. Also it’s in like some forest so hardly anyone knows it’s there so we’re basically going to be totally alone.” Liam spewed out the information quickly as he pulled off the road onto the highway.