Something Changed: Day 3

Word Count: 18,169

Summary of Events:

Luke was, to his dismay, dropped off at the Domino Group event, where he was given a piece of pizza before an opening game was introduced that involved the kids having to free an outfit frozen in five separate ice cream pails with hammers, crowbars, hair dryers, and small torches in twenty minutes. The game was chaotic and one of Luke's team members actually got hit by another teammate's wild hammer swing. None of the adult volunteers seemed interested in helping her — nor did they know where a first-aid kit was — so Luke did what he could with what he found in the kitchen before waiting with her as her parents picked her up and returning inside to discover his team had extracted most of their outfit; in fact, the five minute warning was given just as they were starting to work together on freeing the final item . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

With all four tools concentrated on it, the bucket soon released its captive garment, the holes torn and bashed into it leaking water all over the floor, where ice chips had already melted.

The garment the pail had been holding captive was, in fact, the companion to the upper underwear one of the girls was already wearing, and all five of Luke’s teammates turned to him as one. Luke knew what they were thinking, and was utterly revolted.

“Not on your life,” Luke swore before anyone else could speak.

He snatched the hat off the head of the boy whose bashed bucket had held the garment and placed it on his head, not flinching despite the fact that the coldness of the hat was more than a little unexpected.

The boy gestured rudely at Luke just as an air horn split the air.

“Time’s up!” Vance hollered. “Shut off the dryers and torches! I’m coming around to judge your efforts! Don’t forget that every piece of clothing needs to be on someone’s body!”

Immediately the boy put the pair of underwear over his head, and the team waited as Vance looked at other teams’ efforts, with the noise of the room lowered to an average level of chatter.

As soon as Vance reached Luke’s team he burst out laughing and went over to the boy with the underwear on his head.

“That is awesome!” he exclaimed. “What a man! I need a selfie with you!”

The boy posed for the picture with Vance placing one arm around his shoulders and using the other to hold his cellphone as far from them as possible in an effort to get them both in the picture.

“You’re the real man right here!” Vance exclaimed, punching the boy in the arm once the photo had been snapped. “And that’s awesome too,” he pointed to the split shirt. “You took it to the max guys!”

He continued on to the remaining teams before he returned to the centre of the room.

“Alright!” he hollered. “We have a winner! The only team to extract their entire outfit from the ice in twenty minutes — and ensure that every member of their team was wearing a piece of it — you guys!” he pointed to Luke’s team. “Come on over and claim your prize!”

Luke was surprised that a prize was being offered, but he followed his teammates and found himself more than a little disappointed when a small box of Smarties was placed in his hand. That was about the lamest prize ever.

Little chocolate bars and candy packets — such as were handed out at Halloween — were lame as a rule. The little box didn’t even hold a mouthful of candy-coated chocolate, and it was the prize? It was just 15g. If he was going to get Smarties he wanted a full-sized box. 45g was much closer to a mouthful than 15g would ever be of anything, except marshmallows or chips.