< by Mitra >

Me, my bestie, and a crew of 6 boys.

These were my high school friends. It was otherwise an all-boys club. While they passed Halo cheat codes, we passed notes. It was a beautiful picture of group friendship.

Two of our club members, who shall remain unnamed, kept a diary they passed back and forth. It was the kind that held dangerous secrets about boys. There’s no telling what imminent doom awaited should this intelligence ever fall into the wrong hands.

One fine evening, during study group, Willy decided it would be hilarious to surreptitiously reach into my backpack, and steal our diary.

I looked up from my textbook just in time. From the look on his face, I deduced within a millisecond what he had done. His eyes widened, and then he did the only thing a boy would do.

He grabbed his car keys, sprang to his feet, and bolted.

They had long lanky legs; we had the supernatural speed of terrified girls. They were all piling into Willy’s long-suffering Oldsmobile ’88 and peeling (lumbering) out of the driveway when Jill and I hit the doors of my Honda. A high-speed chase was born.

Careening madly around tranquil bends, Jill and I located our prey, who were tumultuously backing up out of a dead end. Our girl car faced off against their boy car, trapping them. Willy and I made deadly eye contact through the windshield; I dared him.

We both punched the gas at the same time. I let off moments before collision, then switched and buried the brake pedal.

Except it wasn’t the brake pedal.

2 broken headlights, 1 destroyed front fender, and a round of parent phone calls later, Jill and I got our diary back. Our secrets are intact; my Honda, not so much.