Growing up, I had a hard time making friends. Mother would insist it was because I was too handsome, but somehow I never bought into that particular hypothesis. Don’t get me wrong, I conducted several experiments based on her observations, but the results were always inconclusive.

“You’re a flipping weirdo,” seemed to be the more popular theory among my peers.

I suppose that’s why I gravitated toward the less desirable social circles, namely the so-called “freaks”. In our school this clique consisted of the weird kid (me), the creepy girl that’s always staring at you (Diana), and the compulsive liar (Henry).

Because none of us enjoyed the state of the public educational system, we’d usually sneak off to the old quarry instead, where we’d spend our days throwing rocks at other rocks – as was the popular pastime of yore.

“Did you know, Boogums,” Henry would often start – and you’d instantly know a massive lie was about to manifest, “that your intestines have memory?”

“Fuck off,” Diana would interject.

“No, it’s 1000% true,” Henry said. “They’ll rearrange if you mess around with them. My uncle Perry told me, and he’s pretty much a doctor.”

“Isn’t he the one they locked up?”

“Yeah – in a hospital.”

“You’re lying,” Diana snarled.

“Prove it,” Henry chuckled.

And so our days would pass – rocks being thrown, Henry telling one tall tale after the other, Diana getting increasingly annoyed, and me trying to stare back at her to collect data for my mother’s hypothesis.

But it all came to an end one fateful day.

Henry was particularly riled up that day – allegedly because his long lost twin brother was visiting.

“Did you know, Boogums,” he said. “That you swallow eight spiders in your sleep every night. And up to twelve frogs!”

“Balderdash,” I suggested. “Utter hogwash.”

“Nuh-uh. Read it on the internet.”

Unlike Diana, I rarely argued with Henry. Instead I shrugged, and sauntered off to class. Mother had requested me to at least try to pass the grade, so I’d planned to meet them later.

I arrived at the quarry after school, my mind fried by Greek mathematicians long dead and buried. Turning the corner to our usual spot though, I quickly lost control of all bodily functions.

I swallowed down some emerging upchuck, and edged away from Diana nervously, her creepy stare amplified by the accompanied scenery.

Henry was lying face-up on the ground, limbs spread out and tied to surrounding boulders – a deep gash in his exposed abdomen. Weirdly enough it wasn’t until that exact observation I put all the pieces together. The blood on Diana’s clothes. The strangely off-putting rope she held in her hands.

“See?” Diana said, pulling and yanking and dragging ever more of Henry’s intestines out of his body, inch by endless inch. Then, with a creepy stare in my direction, she let it go – the foul thing dropping to the ground with an audible schloormph.

“It doesn’t rearrange itself at all.”