Just gonna say right now, group therapy is awful. Especially when you shouldn’t be there in the first place, at least by your own opinion. My parents thought it would be good for me, I thought it would be awful.
As I walked down the hallway, I wondered if things would have been different if I had not cursed Jackson in the first place.
“It’s not normal to curse people,” my mom had said.
Clearly she has never been to middle school.
I slid down the stairwell railing to the basement room where group ‘therapy’ would be held.
It would not be enjoyable, but it’s only supposed to be an hour.
I opened the door, and, sure enough there were three kids and two adults sitting in chairs that made a half circle.
“Sit down!” said the adult female, way too happy for someone running a therapy class for middle school delinquents, which I was NOT.
“So, what are you here for?” asked the girl next to me.
She was pretty in a kind of plain way, everything perfectly symmetrical, besides her incredibly crooked nose, which looked like it had been broken several times.
She noticed me staring and said, “present from my sister,” she gestured to a short, skinny girl sitting across the room. “That’s why we’re here. Parents thought we fought too much. I’m Fish, you?”
“Uhhh, Caitlin?” I said.
The boy sitting next to Fish’s sister said, “Not your real name, dummy.”
“Umm, what?” I asked.
“We don’t go by our actual names, here,” said Fish. “We use different names. Like, my sister is Cricket, the old dude, we call French Fry-”
I cut her off, “French Fry?”
She shrugged, “It’s what his receipt said. We don’t know any of the adults’ names.”
The old man spoke up. “We need to name our new student. What are you here for, Caitlin?”
“Cursing a kid in my class.”
“What?”
“I cursed a kid in my class!” I yelled.
“WHAT?”
Fish’s sister, Cricket, leaned over and yelled, “She cursed a kid in her class!”
“Oh, okay,” said French Fry. “There’s no need to yell.”
The boy next to Cricket rolled his eyes, “Let’s just go around and say our names. I’m Cheezy Watermelon.”
Now I was the one yelling, “WHAT?”
He shrugged. “It’s my name. It doesn’t actually reflect what I’m here for, though.”
Cricket spoke up. “He’s here for arson.”
“And you already know what we’re in here for,” said Fish. “So now we chose your name. What exactly did you curse him to be/do/without?”
“I cursed him to turn into a pig,” I said.
Cheezy Watermelon snapped his fingers, “I’ve got it! Calypso from the Iliad cursed people into pigs!”
“It was the Odyssey and Circe,” said Cricket, rolling her eyes. “I’m eight and even I know that.”
“Whatever,” said Cheezy Watermelon. “Her name’s Circe now.”
I stalked home. Some group therapy session it was.
All we did was talk about strange and obscure names.
I highly doubt that the adults overseeing it are the sharpest tools in the shed either.
“So how was group therapy?” my mom asked brightly at dinner.
“Fine,” I said.
“What did you do?”
“Give each other strange nicknames.”
“What’s yours?”
“Nonya Bidness.”
She frowned, “Don’t act like that. It’s not like its juvenile hall.”
“It might as well be. There’s an arsonist in it, and both of the supervisors probably just busted out of jail themselves. I’m finished.”
I stalked up to my room, yippee for today, watch out Monday, Tuesday’s taking the lead as the worst day of the week.
School went fine the next day until I learned that group therapy was during lunch, EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. I was ready to make my idiotic nickname real and turn the whole thing into a pigpen!
I hate school now.
Yippee.
But after several interesting ‘field trips’ the group grew on me. We actually had one coming up. We were going to, I say and quote, “WE’RE GOING TO THE LARGEST HOME DEPOT IN THE WORLD. NOW GET IN THE BUS!”
Five. Hours. Later.

“We all love Home Depot!”
“Home Depot is awesome!”
“Let’s stop talking about Home Depot now.” Tomato flies over.
“NO MORE TOMATOES!”
French Fry shouted. “We are going to be a respectable youth group going to the world’s largest Home Depot, so we are going to stop throwing tomatoes!”
“Aw, come on! Throwing tomatoes is fun!” protested Cheezy Watermelon.
“Not for the rest of us,” said Circe. “Especially when you’re the ones getting tomatoes thrown at.”
“Personally, I agree,” said Cricket, pulling her hair back.
“Be quiet, Cricket,” said Fish, who was sitting next to her sister.
“Don’t tell me to be quiet, Fish!” Cricket shouted, and she pushed Fish.
“Hey! No fighting back there!” shouted French Fry, looking over his shoulder at us. “I’m trying to drive here!”
“Eyes on the road!” screamed Circe, as the van nearly crashed into the guardrail of the highway.
Fortunately, French Fry swerved in time.
Here they were, a middle school youth group, on the way to the largest Home Depot in the world. It was, plainly put, insane.
Circe, Cricket, Fish and everyone else was ready to at least get to Whataburger for dinner.
There were several more near accidents, but they got to Whataburger relatively unscathed.
By unscathed, there were no life threatening injuries, but Fish did end up with a busted lip (a gift from Cricket) and French Fry’s voice was hoarse from shouting at everyone.
Inside was even more chaotic, ketchup was thrown, hair was pulled, Fish returned Cricket’s present. French Fry tried to keep order, but it was a lost cause. ESPECIALLY when the Whataburger guy spelled Circe’s name wrong.
“It’s CIRCE not CERSY! C-I-R-C-E! IT’S NOT THAT HARD!” She shouted at him. “DISHONOR ON YOU! DISHONOR ON YOUR FAMILY! DISHONOR ON YOUR COW!”
“Circe…” started French Fry.
“HOW COME EVERYONE ELSE’S NAME IS SPELLED RIGHT? EVEN CHEEZY WATERMELON’S NAME WAS AND THAT’S NOT EVEN REALLY A NAME! BUT SOMEHOW, YOU CAN’T SPELL CIRCE? HOW?!” She shouted at him.
“Uhhhh,” said the order guy, he shrugged. “Sorry?”
Needless to say, they all got thrown out of the Whataburger.
They filed out of the Whataburger and back to the bus.
“Okay, now what was THAT about?” asked French Fry from the steering wheel. “Do I even want to know?”
“Eyes on the road!” shouted Cricket.
“Let ME drive,” said Fish. “And you can finish yelling at everyone else.”
French Fry considered this and he and Fish switched seats, sorta.
Fish took the wheel and French Fry stood at the front of the bus.
“Now, I expect no repeats of what happened in Whataburger. It was quite embarrassing to be thrown out for the fifth time,” said French Fry.
“He insulted me!” protested Circe.
“He spelled your name wrong,” said Cricket.
“SO?? That name is the definition of myself! Circe is more than a name, it’s me! If anyone’s at fault, it’s that cashier!” disagreed Circe.
French Fry sighed. “Please just don’t get us thrown out of Home Depot too.”
“I would be more worried about Cricket in that instance,” said Circe. “She’s more likely to get thrown out of Home Depot.”
“That one time in Walmart was an accident!” protested Cricket, standing up on her seat. “I didn’t mean to start the chain saw!”
“But you still did,” said Cheezy Watermelon. “We all saw you do it.”
“Whatever,” huffed Cricket. “You don’t know nothing, Cheezy Watermelon!”
“Seatbelts, people, seatbelts!” shouted French Fry.
Fish pulled into the parking lot of Home Depot.
“Praise God!” shouted French Fry. “I will no longer be stuck in this vehicle with all of you mental asylum patients!”
“Hallelujah,” agreed Fish.
“Freedom!” shouted Cheezy Watermelon, using a blowtorch to make a hole in the roof to get out.
Circe grabbed the blowtorch away from him and said, “You don’t need another account of arson on your record.”
He stuck out his tongue at her. “Whatever. Like you know anything, Miss I’m-turning-people-into-pigs!”
She blushed and yelled, “Get out!”
It truly was the world’s largest Home Depot, it could fit like a whole city just in the garden area.
French Fry whistled loudly. “Gather round! I have a few ground rules to set. Number one, no arson. Number two, no chainsaws. Number three, nothing that could get me fired. Number four, don’t get kicked out. Have fun!”
They all rushed inside. It was instant chaos. It turned out that Cheezy Watermelon had brought more than one blowtorch and was now lighting things on fire, though Fish followed behind him, putting the fires out.
“Let’s go look at the Halloween decorations,” suggested Cricket.
“How are we even friends?” asked Circe, rolling her eyes. “Let’s go look at the garden section!”
“But the Halloween decorations are so cool!” argued Cricket.
“No they aren’t, you can get the exact same look for your evil lair with a barbed wire fence, and not spend a lot of money,” said Circe. “Though barbed wire fences are incredibly tacky. I personally prefer an ocean.”
“Just go back to Aeaea,” said Cricket. “If you’re going to be that boring!”
“Me? Boring? IT’S YOU WHO’S BORING! I MEAN, WHAT KIND OF NAME IS CRICKET!?” screamed Circe.
“ONE THAT AT LEAST PEOPLE CAN SPELL!”
“PHSH, THEY SPELLED YOURS K-R-I-K-I-T!”
“YOU’RE ONE TO TALK!”
“Five minutes!” yelled French Fry, over the chaos.
“AARGH, WHATEVER!”