fanfaronade
[fan-fer-uh-neyd]
1.
bragging; bravado; bluster.
*********************************
“I’m telling you, I did it.” Jason said with pride.
“No
way. It’s not possible for anyone.”
Chase said.
The
other two members of the group nodded their agreement. They all knew it was impossible to do what
Jason claimed.
“I’m
telling you, I did it.” Jason said again.
He would have puffed out his chest, if it were not for the fact that
doing so would make steering his bicycle difficult.
“No you
didn’t.” Another boy in the group, Tom,
said. “There’s no way you can jump over
a bus on that bike. Not even the short
way.”
“You
can’t, but I can.”
“Yeah,
right. You have a video of it?” Chase
asked.
Jason
suddenly got a lot quieter.
“Of
course he doesn’t.” Tom said. “Because it didn’t happen.”
“Did
to!”
“If you
did it, then why didn’t you record it?
You always record everything, even the lame stuff.” Said George, the last member of the group, as
he pedaled furiously to keep up with the larger boys.
“He’s
right. How come you didn’t record it?”
“There
was nobody around.” Jason said. “I
couldn’t leave my phone on the ground you know.”
“There
was nobody around a school bus?” Tom asked.
“What about the driver?”
“I don’t
know where the driver was. He just wasn’t
there is all.”
“So nobody
saw you setting up a really big ramp next to a parked bus, even though it would
take a really long time to set up?” Chase asked. He pedaled his bike closer to Jason.
Jason
moved his away. He told himself it was
to not hit his friend if anything were to happen.
“Nope. I don’t question it. I just do.”
Each of
the other boys rolled their eyes. Even
though they could not look at each other directly, each knew they did so at almost
the same time.
“Look,
all you need to know is that I definitely jumped over a bus on my bike. The long way over.”
“Look,
there’s a bunch of reasons why you can’t.” George said through deep
breaths. He had finally managed to ride
even with the others. More or less.
“Oh
yeah? Name one.” Jason asked defensively.
“I can
think of three.” George said. “One: Your bike isn’t made for jumps, so it’s too
heavy. Two: You’re too heavy.” The other two boys snickered at the thinly-veiled
jab. “And three, there’s no way you can
build up enough speed to make a jump like that.
Maybe if you were on a motorcycle, but even then, probably not.”
“I
started on a hill.”
“What
hill?” Chase asked. “There’re no hills
around here.”
“I don’t
know which hill. All I know is that
there was a bus with nobody around it next to a hill. I made a ramp and jumped over it. That’s what happened.”
“Do it
again.” Tom said.
“What?”
“Do it
again. Take us to the hill and make the
jump again.”
“There
probably won’t be a bus there anymore.”
“So? As long as jump high and far enough, what
difference does it make?”
“It…it
just does, okay?”
“Uh
huh.”
“What? It does.
It, uh, it sets the mood.”
“The
mood?” Chase repeated.
“Yeah,
the mood.” Jason said firmly. “I have to
be in the right mood, or I can’t do it.”
“So…it’s
like you have to wish really hard and it’ll happen?” Tom said. The other two started laughing at the
flustered look coloring Jason’s face.
“You
guys don’t get it at all. And if you don’t
get it, I don’t have anything to say to you anymore.”
Jason
rose up slightly off the seat, letting him pedal harder. He broke away from the rest of his group,
doing his best to ignore their snickering laughter.
*************************************
I think almost everyone knew at least one person like this growing up. Or maybe even now. That kind of bragging happens at all ages, even if the form changes slightly.
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