Spider Man

The doorbell rang and I rushed over to open it. It was my friend, Will, and he was being dropped off by his mom.

"Hey Will, hey Mrs. M," I said.

"Hi," they both replied.

"Where's your Dad?" Mrs. M asked me.

"Oh, he's downstairs, I'll go get him. Come on Will." Will came inside and we went downstairs. Dad was sitting at his desk. "Mrs. M is upstairs Dad, she wants to talk to you."

"You just left her there?" He asked.

"Yeah, so?" I was halfway down the stairs.

"Nothing," I thought I heard him say as he stood up. Will and I got downstairs, so I fired up the Xbox so we could play his new game that he brought over.

"You excited for the movie?" He asked me.

"Yeah, it's going to be awesome." We were going to see Spider-Man later. We'd been looking forward to it all week.

"I've been looking forward to it all week," Will said.

"I've been looking forward to it all month." I replied.

"Well I've been looking forward to it all year," Will said.

"Well I've been looking forward to it all decade," I said.

"Well I've been looking forward to it since I was born," Will said.

"Well I've been looking forward to it since before I was born," I said.

"Well I've been looking forward to it since before my Dad was born," Will said.

"Well I've been looking forward to it since before..."

"Hey, would you two keep it down?" Dad shouted from upstairs.

"Yeah, ok," I shouted back.

"Man, he's grumpy," Will said.

"Yeah, I know."

"Why's he so grumpy?"

"I don't know. Oh well."

We kept playing the game for a bit. We were halfway through the third level when we heard a knock on the wall behind us.v "Time to go," Dad said.

"Yeah, ok, just one minute," I said.

"No, we need to go now."

I sighed loudly. "Fiiiiiine." Will and I paused the game and rushed upstairs to go to the movie. It was going to be great.

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Will and I hunched down into our seats in the movie theater. Mom and Dad were sitting to my left and they were talking about something, I don't know what. Grown-up things, I guess. I pulled up my legs so that my knees were pressed against the back of the seat in front of me and started munching on my candy and Will started munching on the popcorn sitting in his lap. I reached over and grabbed a few kernels. He didn't say anything. Darn. After a few minutes the previews started. There was one for a new Lord of the Rings movie and one for a new X-Men movie.

"Those look cool," Will whispered to me.

"Yeah, way cool."

After that the movie started, and man, Spider-Man rocked.

ζ§

Will and I were jumping around in the parking lot after the movie ended. It was dark out now and tons of people were leaving.

"Dude, that rocked!" Will said.v "I know!"

"Check me out, I'm Spider-Man." Will ran over to the theater wall and pretended to climb up it like he really was Spider-Man. He sang out loud (really loud) "Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can..."

I joined in, belting out the tune while I jumped up the wall with him. Sadly, after a few seconds of it Dad yelled at us.

"Stop that, we need to get going," he said roughly.

"Yeah, yeah."

"Don't 'yeah, yeah' me, mister," Dad said.

"I was just trying to have some fun," I said. "Not that you would know what that is," I said too, but under my breath.

"What did you say?"

"...Nothing."

"No, you said something. Tell me what it was."

"I didn't say anything."

"Fine, if you're going to lie to me then you're grounded for a week.”

"What?"

"You heard me."

"No fair!"

"Totally fair."

"Honey," Mom said, "Don't be so rough on him."

"No, he needs to learn."

I got into the truck with Will. It was a long silent ride back home. When we got back Dad shut off the Xbox – totally losing our game - and carted it upstairs. Will and I sat on the couch in the living room and watched war documentaries while we waited for Mrs. M to get there. When she did, Will rushed over to the door.

"Hey sweetie, how was the movie?" Mrs. M asked Will.

"It rocked," Will said.

"That's awesome." She looked over at Dad, who was standing in the hallway behind him. "Thanks for taking him," she said.

"No problem." He smiled. I didn't know he could.

"I'll see you later."

"See you."

They left and Dad sent me upstairs because it was "past my bedtime". Whatever. I lay back in bed and closed my eyes and pretended I was Spider-Man, shooting webs all over the place and catching bad guys. I heard a knock on my door and Dad came inside. I turned away from him.

"Do you want to tell me now what you said?"

I stayed silent.

He waited for a few moments, then said, "Alright, I was going to take away your punishment if you told me, but if you're going to be like that then you're grounded for two weeks."

Whatever. I stayed turned around and a few moments later he flipped the lights off and I heard the door close.