Nish spent the rest of the trip south hounding poor Simon. At the next washroom stop, he took the opportunity to help himself to a pocketful of paper towels. He waited until Simon dozed off to sleep, and then got busy. He carefully laid out several of the brown paper towels on the seat beside Simon. Then he took a bottle of water and sprinkled the towels and had Wilson pull out his rubber vomit and set it carefully on top of the dampened towels. He then took two more paper towels, soaked them, and laid them partially over the vomit so it appeared as if someone had tried to soak the disgusting mess up.

Then Nish really went to work.

He squirted the bottle of water directly into his face, took a paper towel, wet it, and placed it so it was partly sticking to his chin, partly lying over his shirt front. Then he turned toward Simon, made a horrible, sickly face, and began to moan.

“Ohhhhh…ohhhhhhhhh…ohhhhhhhhh!”

Simon shifted slightly in his seat, half awakened.

“Oooohhhhhhh!…Oooohhhhhhh!…Oooohhhhhhhh!”

Everyone was watching now, and Nish twisted violently and moaned even louder.

“OOOOHHHHHH!…OOOOHHHHHH!…OOOOHHHHHH!”

Simon’s eyes blinked open. They turned to Nish. They blinked again. Nish twisted and moaned.

“OOOOHHHHHH!…OOOOHHHHHH!…OOOOHHHHHH!”

Simon jumped. He looked down at the seat between them. He instantly went white.

“Nish has thrown up!” he shouted.

Wilson was instantly into the act. “Oh my God!” he said, as he looked over from the seat directly behind. “Has he ever!”

Simon reached out, frightened almost, and very carefully touched Nish.

“Nish. You okay?”

Nish opened his eyes and groaned. “Ohhhh!” He groaned again, louder. “OHHHHHHHH!”

Nish jerked toward poor Simon, his eyes rolling, his mouth opening as if he was going to throw up on him.

“HHHELPPPP!” Simon shouted, and he jumped so fast, so far, that he scrambled clean over the seat in front and landed on Data and Andy, who were crouched there giggling.

Nish was howling with laughter. With the wetted towel still stuck to his shirt, he was on his feet and squawking and flapping his arms like a chicken.

“Wakkk-cluck-cluck-cluck-cluck-cluck!”

It seemed everyone was laughing at Simon. Even Travis was kind of half-laughing–it was, after all, pretty funny. But it was also pretty cruel.

Sarah wasn’t laughing at all. Nish didn’t even notice her, though; he was laughing uproariously, his eyes closed and his mouth wide open.

Sarah reached down and snatched the rubber vomit off the seat and stuffed as much of it into Nish’s open mouth as she could–which was more than you might expect.

“AAARGHHHHH!!” sputtered Nish as he spat it out.

“Nish gonna hurl?” Sarah asked sweetly.

“Yuck!” Nish spat, wiping his mouth with one of the towels. “Whatdya do that for, Sarah? Geez!”

“A taste of your own medicine,” Sarah said.

“We were just having a little laugh,” said Nish, sounding like he was the one who’d been hurt.

“Fine,” said Sarah, “we’ll all remember to laugh the next time someone pulls a mean trick on you.”

“Get a life!” Nish snapped.

“Grow up!” Sarah shot back.

 

 

The rest of the trip passed uneventfully. Nish sulked. Simon and Sarah played cards. Travis dozed off and on and stared out the bus window as summer came ever closer.

Nish had glanced over at Travis while Sarah was ripping into him. Travis knew that his friend was looking for support, any support, but he had felt powerless to say anything in Nish’s defence. Yes, it had been pretty funny. Nish, after all, was a good actor–he really looked like he was going to hurl. But if he was going to play practical jokes, he needed to spread them around, otherwise he was just being mean, not funny. Nish had been picking on Simon since Simon had started coming out with the Owls.

Suddenly, Mr. Dillinger began honking the horn. Once, twice, a third time, long and loud.

“State line!” he shouted back. “We just passed into Florida!”

“Yay!” the bus cheered as one.

“We’re there!” Data shouted.

“I wanna meet Goofy!” Nish shouted. He was bouncing back.

“Look in a mirror!” Sarah shouted in reply.