My mom comes home from work that night with pizza and soda for Mary Ellen and me. I tell my Mom and Mary Ellen and I had a 2on2 after-school fight with Andrea from across the street and Andrea's cousin. My Mom doesn't want to hear the details--if she asks too many questions, she'll have to deal with whoever the adults ('guardians', we called them in the 1970s) are at Andrea's house--and agrees to let Mary Ellen stay overnight--and miss school on Thursday-- as long as Mary Ellen calls her Mom.
Mary Ellen and I chug the soda and devour the pizza. Fighting has made us both thirsty and ravenously hungry.
Then we pick up the landlines in our separate bedrooms so I can eavesdrop on Mary Ellen's call to her Mom.
> Hello?
> Mom, it's Mary Ellen.
> Oh, hey baby. How'd Monique's fight go?
> Mom!! She won!!! And I got in a fight too!!!
> You fought Andrea too?
> No. Andrea's bitch cousin was there and started shit with me.
> Well, if SHE started it....I hope YOU finished is, like my sister and I taught you.
> I smacked her around. The main fight was Monique and Andrea. I didn't want to steal Monique's thunder.
> Probably the right call. Nothing like the two seconds scrapping, tho. Now you and Monique are blood sisters.... there WAS blood, right.
> Oh, shit Mom, so much.....Monique and Andrea were scratching each other everywhere....the face, the chest.
> She won, tho, right?? Your friend? The other girl will give up the boy now?
> The other girl GAVE, Mom.
> That's a good sign. Two girls having a draw when a boy involved....that just leads to more fighting.
To be continued....