Part 1 is here
Thorson was crushed. He felt betrayed…like his heart had been cut out with rusty surgical tools, dragged through gravel and stuffed, unceremoniously back into his chest. It continued to beat, but it felt all wrong.
Despite the fact that he couldn’t really say that he knew Bertha (he had received one twitter message from her), he still wanted more…a friendship for sure, but ultimately, she was the girl for him…he just knew it. So how could she have a boyfriend? Who was this Sam guy? How could he convince Bertha to get rid of him? Thorson was so distraught that he avoided looking at his twitter account for a whole week…he couldn’t possibly bear to see any more of what Bertha and Sam were doing together…so he didn’t know that the day after “Sam” had taken Bertha out for Coke and icecream, she had sent him a direct message: “Hey Thord! (can I call you Thord?). What is your email address? I want to answer your questions, but not enough room on twitter messages.”
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Bertha wasn’t sure what to do. Her one-and-only fan (and based on his letter, admirer) seemed to have cut him off. He had asked her questions, but now that she had requested his email address, he wasn’t getting back to her. She had waited a whole week…but nothing! Had her rather superficial twitter reply turned him off of her? Should she send him another message? Should she wait a bit longer? Whether or not there was a future for her with Thorson, she definitely didn’t want to lose her one and only fan!
Later that day, she received a Skype call from her best friend, Samantha. When the conversation eventually turned towards Thorson, Bertha mentioned how Thorson was ignoring her message.
Samantha laughed and said, “he likes you, you dolt, but he’s jealous of your boyfriend.”
“What boyfriend? Why would he be jealous of a boyfriend that I don’t even have?”
“Last week, after I took you out for Coke and icecream, you tweeted that ‘Sam’ had taken you out. I suspect that he thinks I’m a guy.”
“What should I do?” asked Bertha. “I don’t want to insult him by saying, ‘by the way, Sam is short for Samantha!'”
“You might not have to. Just mention me in another tweet. Use both ‘Sam’ and ‘Samantha’ in the tweet so that he knows that Sam is short for Samantha…or use ‘Sam’ in a tweet and then talk about ‘her’ or ‘she’.”
After ending the call with Samantha, Bertha logged on to twitter and wrote “Had a good skype call with Sam. She gave me some good advice (Thanks Samantha)” Then she logged off and hoped against hope that it was just a misunderstanding, and that Thorson would actually read that tweet.
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Her timing couldn’t have been better. When Thorson finally decided to log back on to twitter, he saw Bertha’s tweet of only 1 minute ago. He just about ignored it when he saw that it was about Sam again, but then saw the “she” part immediately after. He still didn’t know who “Sam” was, but as long as Sam was a “she”, and that Sam was short for “Samantha”, then just maybe there was some hope. When he checked his direct messages, his heart skipped a beat or two…but this time, it felt just fine. He replied to her direct message with “Yeah, feel free 2 call me Thord! My email is the_thord@hotmail.com. Sorry I didn’t get back 2u sooner, I was off my computer for a week.”
He logged off and went to the kitchen where his dad was carving a fairly accurate replica of the Venus de Milo out of a potato while his mom was busy making dinner. His dad took one look at him and said, “judging by that smile, I’m guessing that something good just happened?”
Thorson’s mom also commented, “You’ve been moping around all week…what’s been going on?”
Although Thorson had told his dad about Bertha, he didn’t quite want his mom to know yet. “Um, nothing.” He looked towards his dad, hoping that their secret would be safe. His dad winked at him, and he knew that the secret was safe…for now at least.
~~to be continued~~ (click here for part 10)
Quest for Whirled Peas 