1
My name is Dollop Hinky, and I am the cutest little patootie on God’s green earth.
I am three inches tall, I love to snuggle, and I like to speak in a “widdle accent wike dis.” Everybody loves Hinky because Hinky is the cutest. I am as small as a gumdrop. My voice is very high. I am not allowed within 40 feet of any Outback Steakhouse franchises within the state of New Mexico. Don’t worry about that.
I am 43 years old, but I live in a high school because I’m so tiny and small. Everybody here loves me. I sleep in the cage with the gerbils in Classroom C and every morning, when I wake up and do a big stretch and yawn, everybody sighs in adoration. I’m like a mixture of the school mascot, prom-king, and just regular king.
Once there was a mean little boy named Jared who didn’t say I was the cutest. As a hilarious prank, I made one of the football players stuff him in a duffel bag and shove him in the crawlspace under the locker room, teehee! We sure got him! The janitors didn’t find him for a whole week! Nobody said anything about it too, they’re all so loyal to Hinky.
The school year starts today, so I’m especially excited. A whole new group of kids who get to appreciate how cute I am.
The day starts off exactly as it should. Children oohing and aahing at me, they don’t even pay attention to the teacher because I am so cute. I feel so good. I bite a child.
Then the next class arrives and they don’t even notice me. They’re all huddled around something in the middle of the class. I do a big somersault and a teensy tiny mime routine. Nobody looks at Hinky. Slightly worried, I pull out the big guns; I grab a miniature hula-hoop resting by my feet and begin to hula-hoop while reciting Shirley Temple lines. A few heads turn towards me but quickly turn back.
In that movement, however, I see the thief of Hinky’s attention. We make eye contact, and then there is someone between us again.
2
His name is Tinsel Peppercorn. Up until I locked eyes with him, I had not known of his existence. He is my nemesis.
He is the size of a jellybean, he only wears bumblebee outfits, and, I shit you not, he speaks in a high-pitched cockney accent.
He is worse than Adolf Hitler.
Since that consequential meeting, nobody has given me even a passing notice. They’re all focused on that wretched little Tinsel. I was walking along the hallway the other day and some oaf picked me up and put me in a damned blueberry! He said he did it for Tinsel. I didn’t even understand what the intended insult was supposed to be. But I was insulted anyway.
I am at my wit’s end. I have tried every trick I have in the book to get some attention back and nothing’s worked. It’s unbearable.
I called ICE on Tinsel the other day, and the officers didn’t even ask him a question. He hopped on a June bug and flew around their heads singing show tunes like it was amateur hour. They laughed and clapped like Neanderthals seeing fire for the first time. It was moronic.
There’s nothing left for me now. Nothing but whiskey and my gerbils.
3
I was lying down, sipping a miniature old fashion in my gerbil cage wallowing in self-defeat, when Tinsel and his coterie of thugs came shambling into my class. I pushed up onto my elbows in response, but apparently, they didn’t even notice me. How typical.
I focused on my drink, trying to block them out.
“Ello boys and gulls, Moy name’s Tinsel, and oim just a li’l ole grub don’t ya’know,” Tinsel called to the class. He could see me, I knew it. I tried to block him out harder.
“Oi like biscuits, sometimes Oi like to foll asleep in one and be covered in hone–SHUT UP!” The class went deathly quiet, looking for the source of the interruption. I was too. Until I realized it had come from me.
Too late to take it back now.
I climb unsteadily over the cage wall. I think the old fashion may have had more alcohol than I realized (it’s hard to measure when all you drink is a drop). I land heavily on the other side of the cage.
“Don’t you go running your mouth, this was my turf before yours!” I yell. We’re standing across from each other on a desk. Tinsel’s goons are surrounding us like spectators at a colosseum.
“Whateva do youi mean mayte?” Tinsel asks in that ridiculous accent. To be honest, I don’t know what I meant either, but it is past the point of reason.
“Shut up bitch,” I say. Tinsel’s eyes narrow;
“Make me cunt.”
“Gonna be hard to fake that stupid accent with a mouth full of blood,” I say, rushing forward.
I’m to him and I swing first. Slow and unsteady. I’m 42 and I’m drunk, so grant me some leniency. Tinsel ducks under the fist and throws an elbow into my spleen.
I go down hard.
I sprawl on the ground, and he jumps on me, reigning wild blows.
I flip over and bite his nose. My favorite move. He screeches and rears back.
I scramble out from underneath him and clamber up, sobriety returning as adrenaline courses through me. Tinsel charges at me like a madman, bowling me over.
I knee him in the groin, and he comes up spluttering. I grab his hair and pile drive him till his face is a red mess.
I stagger backward from the scene, sick with battle madness and triumph. Tinsel lies whimpering at my feet, he’ll never be as cute as he once was.
I face the crowd, their faces stricken with shock and horror.
“Who’s the cutest?” I ask them.
They look at the ground.
“TELL ME!”
“Hinky,” they mutter.
Dat’s wight.
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