The Gasmask Girls were so into smoking cigarettes that they had constantly burning tobacco rigged into these old gasmasks. They struck terror up and down Sorgum Ave. until the Emphysema Boys showed ‘em what time it was.
They had really good taste in music, though. They always won the annual Zaghaven Talent Show, when they would finally remove their masks and sing a doo-wap rendition of Somewhere Over The Rainbow.
That’s Deenie and Lourdes. Deenie stuck a lit match in her little brother’s ear, then did it again and again until she was sure she’d broken it. Lourdes just watched as her 6th grade camp councilor fell of the back of sailboat, hit his head, and drowned.
Esther and Barb. Esther convinced her little sister that she was part tree. Thank God they dug the little dummy up before her heart stopped. Barb made a lovely soup using the family parakeets.
Trixie and Patty. They were the worst. Trixie carved her initials into every single guy she ever made out with and ate all the scabs.
But Patty, she was the don. While slowly poisoning her parents by sneaking bits of wild mushrooms from her backyard into their oatmeal, she slowly convinced them that she’d never existed. The story goes that, after putting them through an excruciating 3 years of pain and delusion, when she finally had them near-dead in their beds, she just evaporated into thin air. Some people say that she was never real and that her parents had forced her into being using witchcraft, voodoo, and some magic beans. In support of this there is no record of her being born at Zaghaven General, and there are no aunts, uncles, or grandparents to ask about the birth.
Everyone does remember the summer when she killed all the dogs in Zaghaven, and when she burned down the day camp, and when she went on a graffiti binge in 1955. There was’t a wall that didn’t say FUCK YOU on it.
