The Fairweather Friendships of Myrtle B. Jones

The Character Flaw of Myrtle B. Jones

2010-10-30T18:22:00.000-06:00

Myrtle stood up from the typewriter and stretched.

"Landsakes!" she said. "What a morning's work! Taff, would you read this?"

"Sure," Taffy said. She took the piece of paper Myrtle handed her and read:

Myrtle B. Jones is an authoress from New Jersey. She has earned multitudinous educational degrees in things that haven't done her any good at all. She is fluent and in a previous life was probably quite fluent in German. She has spent the last decade working on a biography of Benjamin Franklin and hopes to finish it within the next half-decade.

"I didn't know you were writing a biography of Benjamin Franklin," Taffy said.

"What?" Myrtle said. "I'm not."

"It says you've been working on one for the last decade," Taffy said.

"Working on reading one," Myrtle said.

"You've been reading a book for the last decade," Taffy said. "What you've written here is pretty misleading."

"Not my problem," Myrtle said. "I can't help the conclusions people jump to."

"I think this whole thing is ridiculous," Taffy said. "You're fluent. Which languages? It doesn't say."

"I'm fluent in language, it doesn't have to say anything else."

"And it seems pretty dismissive of your education."

"My education hasn't done me a damn thing, you know that. We were architecting and traveling and putting on world-class exhibitions before we even graduated from high school. All education has done for me is make me a bad speller."

"'Multitudinous' isn't a word," Taffy said.

"You know what it means though, right?"

"I suppose I do."

"Then it is a word and you shut up about that."

Taffy sat at the typewriter and typed for a few minutes. Then she cleared her throat.

"How about this," she said, and read:

Myrtle B. Jones grew up in New Jersey. A child prodigy, she had traveled around the world by the time she was 13. After receiving degrees from Princeton and Harvard and honorary doctorates from Cambridge and the University of Oslo, she moved to Fort Lauderdale, where she now lives and writes. In her spare time she enjoys hunting, racing Shetland ponies, and tending her garden.

"No," Myrtle said. "I don't want anyone finding out about the ponies."

"Why not?"

"They'll steal them or make fun of me. It's impossible. Leave my bio the way it is."

"You won't get any work, Myrtle."

"You're on drugs, go to bed," Myrtle said.

Taffy crumpled a sheet of paper and threw it into the trashcan. She put another sheet of paper into an envelope and sealed it.

"Here's your bio for the magazine," she said, handing the envelope to Myrtle.

Buffingham and the Put-Upon

2010-09-01T19:14:00.003-06:00

December 11

Dear Taffy,

If I had the wiles, I would not be here - I would be in Botswana, or Innsbruck or Civitavecchia. I would be in Queensland, sitting on a porch with a notebook on the table in front of me. I would have arrived by train.

I woke up at 2:51 this morning and decided that if I'm going to live in the same house as a bartender I'm going to have to get hypnosis. It's now a bright sunny day and that idea doesn't necessarily make as much sense as it did at 2:52 this morning, but I think it might have some merit. Does it? I can't tell, my grasp on reality has become increasingly tenuous. To me, hypnosis sounds more appealing than earplugs.

If I were more practical, I wouldn't have gone to college at all. I learned nothing. Or, I would have majored in botany and become a gardener. This idea never occured to me until three weeks ago. I constantly squander opportunities and am probably squandering them right now while I write this.

Please advise.

Myrtle

-----

NewYork Dec 16

Myrtle B. Jones

Fort Lauderdale Fla.

Muytle, stop your whinging, why do you burdne me so

letgg stop

-T

-----

December 17

Dear Taffy,

I received your telegram yesterday; thank you. Although I found them rather incoherent and frighteningly misspelled, I recognize the wisdom in your words - I do need to let go. I must accept my lot in life, which isn't as dire as I sometimes imagine it to be. I have decided to give Buffingham a raise so he can quit his second job and serve as my manservant full time.

Taffy, I am concerned that you are using drugs again. Yours is a brilliant mind. Will you waste your entire life away? Please try to forget about what happened; it was not your fault. If you need a stable place to live, please consider my offer, which still stands, to stay with me. With the proceeds of my novel, I have purchased a lovely, sturdy old home, with polished wood floors, a library, and a wrap-around porch - just like we always dreamed about. Please, Taffy, come down south, and get away from those enablers in your life.

Best,

M. B. Jones

-----

Dec 21

M - just who the sam hell you think you are to be accusing me of being on drugs, just because you can't read, you don't know me! you don't know me! pls send $50, will pay you back on arrival in fla. - t

p.s. Jack Kerouac's house isn't in Ft Lauderdale dumby!

-----

24 December

Enclosed please find $75 to be used for busfare and comestibles for T. Black's journey to Florida. Please be advised that Ms. M. B. Jones is aware of the location of Mr. Kerouac's house, having discovered the fact after purchasing her fine homestead in Fort Lauderdale.

Sincerely,

Buffingham, Esq.

Manservant

-----

Jan3

Newyork

Buff you keys happy new year!!! to ype the small keys. arrive 7jnaauyr in ftlad. pls tell myrlte to get off her high horse!!! i have a sarprise and plase also to sened $75 more as busfare has gone wayyy up. -T. Black, ABD

Buffingham read Taffy's latest telegram and shook his head. He put the missive on a silver platter and walked down the hall towards the library, out of which the tapping of typewriter keys and various curses were emitting. He knocked gently at the door and waited for admittance, knowing that the message and its resultant hijinks would change the lives of him and his employer forever.

The Continuing Adventures of Myrtle B. Jones

2010-04-27T21:42:00.001-06:00

"I've got my heart set on the town journalist, Taff," Myrtle said. She giggled.

Half of Taffy's mouth lifted into a derisive sneer. "A journalist? Don't you think that'll be the most boring thing ever?"

"No!" Myrtle said. "Taff, think about it. The town journalist. He's got his finger on the pulse."

"The pulse, his finger on the pulse," Taffy said. "You disgust me, Myrtle B. You know how I feel about metaphor."

"You can't escape metaphoric use of language," Myrtle said. "It permeates. Anyway, you know how I'm a sucker for brown eyes."

"Hmm," Taffy said. "Tell me more."

"He's got a dog named Sir Charles."

"That sounds okay. Anything else?"

"And he likes me."

"Well, just wait until he gets to know you, that'll change soon enough."

Myrtle looked at the ground and sighed. "I know."

Myrtle and the Graveyard of Broken Dreams

2008-10-10T19:54:00.007-06:00

Our heroine, Myrtle B. Jones, and her best friend, Taffy Black, sat on a low brick wall in a vacant lot, cussing and spitting seeds like they always did. Myrtle was wearing all black and chains. Taffy, who had decided to become a children's book author, had abandoned her goth look for a sweater vest and long denim skirt. She was writing with a red colored pencil in big loops and swirls on notebook paper stuck in a clipboard.

"Myrtle," Taffy said, "what's another word for 'decapitate'?"

"Like for a person or for an animal?" Myrtle said.

"Either."

"Behead."

"Thanks."

Myrtle spit some seeds and cussed. She looked out over her kingdom. The parking lot to the south was faded and cracked, the weeds in the vacant lot were tall and dried out, but the gypsies who had set up camp the week before had moved on, and peace was restored.

A boy in a red windbreaker was walking up the sidewalk.

"Hey," Myrtle said, "look at that fat kid."

"Get out of here!" Taffy shouted at the kid. She jumped off the wall and picked up a rock to throw.

Myrtle stood up and folded her arms. "You're in our territory, Corleone. You better get out of here."

The boy turned and started running away. "You guys are stupid and fat," he yelled over his shoulder. Taffy threw the rock and hit him between the shoulderblades. He fell down, squealing.

"You know what we need?" Taffy said to Myrtle.

"What?" Myrtle asked. They sat down on the wall again.

"We need a sidekick," Taffy said.

Myrtle guffawed. "We have a sidekick. You're the sidekick. You're my sidekick."

"Excuse me?" Taffy said. "I am incredulous."

"It's true though," Myrtle said.

Taffy sighed. They sat quiet for a while. Finally, Myrtle said, "Well, maybe an orphan boy."

"I know!" Taffy said. "That's exactly what I was talking about!"

The girls placed an ad in the local paper and put up posters around the neighborhood. WANTED, the advertisements said, BOY AS SIDEKICK, PREFERABLY NAMED JOEY OR TINY TIM. MUST BE ABLE TO RIDE BIKE FAST/CRIPPLES OKAY TOO.

A week later the line of boys applying for the position stretched from one end of the vacant lot to the other. Myrtle and Taffy interviewed applicants all morning and then went to the diner down the street to discuss and make a decision. Taffy ordered a coffee, as usual, and Myrtle ordered steak and eggs. Myrtle began eating ravenously, but Taffy just sat with her hands cupped around her coffee cup.

"There's so many great applicants," Myrtle was saying between bites. "It's going to be so hard to pick just one."

Taffy didn't say anything. Myrtle said something else and Taffy still didn't respond. She was smiling, looking into her coffee.

"Taffy, excuse me, would you listen to me?" Myrtle said, snapping her fingers in Taffy's face. "I said, I think we should make a short list of applicants to ask back for second interviews."

Taffy smiled and sighed. "Second interviews," she said. "Oh, good idea, yeah. Let's interview that Edgar kid again."

"That Edgar kid, are you kidding? He's so inappropriate."

"What's wrong with him? He's perfect!"

"He's not a cripple, he's not an orphan, he doesn't even have a Gatsby. Absolutely not. Moving on..."

"Not moving on," Taffy said. "We're interviewing him again or I'm never talking to you ever again."

"Fine," Myrtle said. "But that doesn't mean we're hiring him."

On the day of the second round of interviews, Taffy had on a long red dress with a navy blue belt. She remained silent through the first interviews and kept looking off into the distance. When the boy Edgar came into sight, she jumped up and smoothed out her dress.

"Hi sunshine," she said to him when he arrived.

"Hi," Edgar said.

Taffy smiled and looked at the ground.

"Edgar," Myrtle said, "we'd like you to tell us why you think you'd be the best man for this job."

"What's your favorite color?" Taffy said.

"Blue," Edgar said.

"Mine too!" Taffy said.

"Edgar," Myrtle said, "what would you do if you were our sidekick and a young hooligan came up and tried to steal our lunch money?"

"Do you like tacos?" Taffy said.

"Yes."

"I do too!" Taffy said. "I bet your parents love you. If you were my baby boy I'd never let you go."

"Knock it off," Myrtle hissed out of the side of her mouth. "You're scaring him."

"I need to go," Edgar said. He turned and left.

Taffy watched him walk down the block, her head tilted to the side and a dreamy smile on her face. She sighed and then giggled.

"He's hired," she said.

"No he's not," Myrtle said. "What's wrong with you?"

"Oh, Myrtle," Taffy said, "the boy's got eyes that are like pools of coffee, if pure coffee sprang up naturally in high mountain lakes, clear sunshine sparkling on the surface. He's got a smile that could feed the hungry, he's got curly hair that-"

"Taffy!"

"My heart is a hammer beating at my breast."

Myrtle slapped Taffy across the face. "Simile! Metaphor! Get ahold of yourself, Taffy Black. He's only seven years old."

"Almost eight," Taffy said. "And I'm only twelve."

"Almost thirteen!" Myrtle said. "You're old enough to be his babysitter."

"I don't babysit," Taffy said. Tears welled up in her eyes and spilled onto her cheeks.

Myrtle rolled her eyes. "This has got to stop and you know it. Okay, moving on. That Gary kid is pretty good, amputee and all, but I think Jimmy Jones-"

"Edgar has a skateboard and a 19-year-old brother," Taffy said.

"Forget him."

"Never!" Taffy said. She began sobbing.

"We're hiring Jimmy," Myrtle said. "He's got a good name, and plus he has that scrappy little dog. We'll find a suitable hat for him and he'll be perfect."

"I guess," Taffy said. She looked in the direction Edgar had walked, looked at the dirty skyline in the fading daylight, looked at her hand, looked at Myrtle.

Taffy Black held terrible grudges.

Myrtle and the Beautiful Friendship

2008-01-05T19:09:00.002-07:00

The situation was quite dire. It had been three days. Taffy's parents whispered with the doctors who came to see their daughter - the doctors, too, had been shut out; Taffy was refusing to speak.

In the corner of the living room, Mrs. Black sat upright on the new green upholstered chair, weeping silently.

Dr. Watson shook his head. "I'm sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Black," he said. "There's nothing I can do."

Mr. Black swore and punched the air.

"The only thing I can recommend..." Dr. Watson began - Mr. Black froze, Mrs. Black wiped her eyes and looked up - "...is calling Myrtle B. Jones."

"Myrtle B. Jones?" Mr. and Mrs. Black said together.

"Yes," Dr. Watson said. "Myrtle B. Jones. A smarter child I've never seen in all my days."

"Except Taffy, of course," Mr. Black said.

"Of course."

After the old doctor had left, Mr. Black said, "Well, I guess I'd better walk over to the Joneses."

"Really, Mr. Black," Mrs. Black said. "You're actually going to do it? Myrtle B. Jones?"

"Her father's a lawyer, Bunny."

"But her mother!"

"I know, but what else can we do?"

Mrs. Black sighed. Mr. Black walked out the door.

Two hours later he came back, disheveled and out of breath, with a ruddy rotund 11-year-old girl in tow. Her hair was a mess, sticking straight out in every direction. Her dress and pinafore were filthy, and she had only one shoe.

"You're Myrtle B. Jones?" Mrs. Black asked her.

"Indeed I am," the girl said. "Show me to the invalid."

"Myrtle," Mr. Black said, "I told you on the way over, she's not an invalid, she just refuses to get out of bed. Do not use that word around her. We don't want her thinking anything's wrong with her."

"Yes yes yes," Myrtle said. "Where is she? Show me to her."

Mr. Black took Myrtle down the hallway to Taffy's door. Before he opened it, he whispered, "Remember, no invalid talk." He knocked softly and then opened the door.

Myrtle stepped into the room alone. It was dark and musty.

"Peww," Myrtle said. "No wonder you're dying, I swear there's toxic fumes floating around in here."

There was movement under the sheets of the bed but Taffy didn't speak.

Myrtle's eyes adjusted somewhat to the darkness of the place. The bedroom floor was covered in clothes, shoes, My Little Ponies, a portable stereo, piles of paper, and a printing press.

"Geesh," Myrtle said. "What a mess. What are you, some kind of pig?"

Taffy stuck her head out of the covers. "Who are you?" she demanded.

"Who are you?" Myrtle said.

"What are you doing here?" Taffy said.

"What are you doing here?" Myrtle said.

Taffy rolled her eyes, Myrtle did the same. Taffy growled, Myrtle just stood there. Finally, Taffy sat up.

"Fine," she said. She got out of bed, walked to the window, and raised the shade. She pushed open the window and got back into bed, pulling the covers up to her neck. "There, I hope you're happy now, I'll probably catch my death from the draft."

"You will not," Myrtle said. "Anyway, I'm here to find out what your problem is."

"They sent you?" Taffy asked.

"Yes."

"They're just mad that I won't talk to them."

"I know," Myrtle said. "Parents are so dumb."

"I know," Taffy said. "It's just that I'm so tired of everything."

"So you think this helps?" Myrtle walked over to the foot of the bed and sat down on it.

"I guess not, but I can't stand seeing it, all the mediocrity."

"Yeah. Did you see that snot Britney Whitney's dance recital? Barf!"

"That's why I'm here, that's what sent me over the edge."

"I nearly had the same reaction. But then I thought, you know, the mediocrity is nauseating, but there she is up there in her sequins and spandex doing something."

"Something crappy."

"Yeah, but at least it's something. She's doing something. What are you doing, Taffy Black? Tell me that."

"Shut up," Taffy said.

"You shut up," Myrtle said.

They sat in silence for a few minutes.

"You're Myrtle B. Jones," Taffy said finally.

"I know."

"Fine," Taffy said, "I'll get up. But only if you promise to be my best friend."

"Fine," Myrtle said.

"Good," Taffy said. "Go call my priest."

Myrtle left the room and marched into the living room. "Call her priest," she said. Mrs. Black burst into tears again and Mr. Black fell to his knees.

"Oh knock it off," Myrtle said. "She's not dying, I'm sure. She just wants to talk to someone with half a brain."

Mr. Black got to his feet. "Very well," he said. "I'll call Father Josh."

Myrtle and the Homecoming, or: Revenge of the Earthworm

2007-12-17T20:24:00.000-07:00

The worm world was turned on its head with Modern Vermeologist's publication of "She Smelled of Lilies: Love on the Palouse," Taffy's paper detailing the mating rituals of the Giant Palouse earthworm. The preeminent oligochaetologist Dr. Herschel Yetsinberg was forced to retire in shame, 15 years after declaring the species extinct, and Dr. Yetsinberg's lab assistants, the brothers Igor and Homer Vaslinsky, were found dead in an apparent murder-suicide.

Taffy was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Oslo and invited to appear on Good Morning America. She couldn't go to either event, of course, having been grounded for a month for the cross-country crime spree she and Myrtle had embarked on. Taffy stomped and whined but her father would not relent.

Myrtle, meanwhile, was happy the authorities had only found out about their domestic adventures - their time in Shanghai, Casablanca, and Ouagadougou had not been discovered so far.

Myrtle's marketing genius kicked in, and, to capitalize on Taffy's newfound success, she started a line of Taffy Black-endorsed products - t-shirts with caricatures of smiling worms, white dreadlock wigs, backpacks, toasters, even a lily-scented perfume.

One afternoon in late August they were sitting on Taffy's porch, the farthest Taffy was allowed to venture from her bedroom. (Myrtle had not been grounded - in fact, her parents had only noticed her absence enough to think that she was finally doing her own laundry and feeding herself.)

"Wow, Taff," Myrtle said, "can you believe school starts in a week? Just think, in a week we're finally going to be in high school."

Taffy looked at her hands. "It seems weird," she said.

"Weird? What do you mean?"

"Well, I mean, we've done so much these last five months - slept under the stars, been chased by dogs, married Maasai warriors, made great scientific discoveries, committed god-knows-how-many felonies. Compared to all that, high school seems a little..."

"Terrifying?"

"Exactly."

"Well," Myrtle said, "I don't know about you, but if I'm not homecoming queen I'm going to die."

Taffy smiled ruefully.

School started and things seemed to be going well. The girls had been kicked out of only one class by the end of the second week. One day, however, the other girls at school found out that the Taffy Black perfume they were all wearing was derived from essence of worm - "Eww!" they shrieked, "eek!" - and Myrtle's chances of becoming homecoming queen were shot.

"You really couldn't have been queen anyway," Taffy said, trying to console her. "Freshmen can't be queen."

"Shut up," Myrtle said.

Myrtle and the Deathbed Confession

2007-03-04T13:30:00.000-07:00

Mrs. Jones-McGillicuddy coughed again and then croaked, "Myrtle, there is something you must know."

Myrtle leaned closer, determined to catch every word. Excitement enveloped her - maybe now she would finally learn the secret that had haunted her all her life. "Yes, mother?" she said.

"Myrtle, darling," her mother wheezed, "you are not a Jones."

Myrtle sat in stunned silence for a moment. "You mean I'm a bastard?" she asked. She felt a small seed of joy begin to grow inside of her. All these years, her father - her bastard father - was not really her father.

"No no no, don't be stupid," her mother said. She began hacking uncontrollably.

Five minutes later, after Myrtle had brought in a new box of kleenex, her mother continued.

"No, your father is your father," she said. Myrtle felt a little deflated. "But his last name isn't Jones. It's Johnson."

"Johnson?"

"That's what I said, weren't you listening? Or am I talking to a brick wall here?"

"No, I just - I heard you, I just - Johnson? Then why Jones?"

"Because your father couldn't spell."

"Couldn't spell?"

"Jesus, Myrtle, would you listen? I'm dying here, I've only got enough breath to tell this story once."

"Sorry. Okay. So he couldn't spell? But he was a famous lawyer! I mean, before the accident."

"Yeah yeah, lawyer schmawyer. Do you think lawyers do anything? Jesus, get your head out of your ass, kid. They got people that do all their work."

"Paralegals?"

"Paralegals? Oh my god." Myrtle's mother's laughter quickly turned into another fit of coughing. After she had recovered, Mrs. Jones-McGillicuddy said, "Paralegals are too dumb to wipe their own ass. No, I'm talking about secretaries. Legal secretaries. They're the ones that do all the work."

Myrtle was quiet for a minute. Finally she murmured, "My father, what a great man to have risen above illiteracy, to have achieved what he achieved being unable to read or write."

"Myrtle, christ, he wasn't illiterate. He could read, he just didn't spell. He always got bored after a few letters. So his last name, he'd just write the J and the O, and people just filled in the rest."

"Good thing his first name was Al," Myrtle said.

They laughed. Then Myrtle said, "So I'm really Myrtle B. Johnson? Wow. Johnson. Johnson as in Johnsonville?"

"Yup. The town you grew up in was named after your great-grandpappy."

"Johnson as in Buck Johnson, the boy I dated for two years in high school? The boy I nearly married?"

"Yup. He was your first cousin."

"Mother! Mother, why didn't you tell me? I nearly married my first cousin!"

"Nearly, honey child, nearly. No harm done."

"Mother, I could kill you!"

"Too bad I'm already dying." The two dissolved into laughter, upon which Myrtle's mother started choking. Five minutes later she was dead.

Five months later, the prosecuting attorney repeated his question. "I said, what were your last words to your mother?"

Myrtle glanced around nervously. Sweat trickled down her forehead.

"I said -," she began, then cleared her throat. "I said, 'Mother, I could kill you'."

The courtroom gasped.

Myrtle and the Anchoress

2007-03-04T13:24:00.000-07:00

"You have to say the rites as you wall me in," Taffy said.

"How can I read and brick at the same time?" Myrtle said.

Taffy rolled her eyes. "One-handed," she said. "And hurry up. I'm getting cold."

Myrtle held the book in her right hand and continued building the wall with her left. She looked at the pages and squinted. "How can I read this? These aren't even letters. What's this weird half-P thing?"

"Thorn," Taffy said. "Don't you have any imagination at all? It's thorn!" She rolled her eyes again.

"Thorn, okay, great," Myrtle said. She began reading the enclosure rites, making up sounds for the characters she didn't know, all the while trying to smooth out globs of mortar with a stick. Taffy knelt on the forest floor and closed her eyes.

"Hurry up," she said a few minutes later. "My knees are hurting. And don't forget to make the window big enough and low enough for me to climb out of."

"You can't climb out," Myrtle said. "You're not supposed to ever leave your enclosure. I just gave you Last Rites. You're supposed to die in there."

Taffy smiled. "You lay people are so sweet," she said. "You really think we actually stay in our enclosures without ever leaving for the rest of our lives?"

"Isn't that the whole point?" Myrtle said. "And anyway, you're a lay person yourself."

Taffy stopped smiling and narrowed her eyes. "Don't forget to build the servant's quarters for yourself. And remember, it should only be like half the size of my place."

That first night Myrtle fell into an exhausted sleep in her half-finished room. The second night she was kept awake by the hoots and hollers of the raucous revelers in Taffy's cell. The third night she was awakened by a siren and flashing lights.

"Oh my god!" Taffy was yelling. "Everybody out! We're being raided! Run for your lives!"

Myrtle squeezed herself out of the hole in her wall and ran blindly through the woods. Not fifty yards from the anchorhold, she tripped and fell. She crawled next to a fallen log and hid behind it, listening.

"What in the sam hell is this?" a man said.

"Looks like some kind of orgy house," another man said.

"Orgy house? Come on, Sam, you think them little girls is having orgies in the woods? They're just 13 years old."

"They're 13-year-old armed bank robbers."

"I guess."

A third man joined the conversation. "They certainly aren't ordinary 13-year-old girls, and this certainly isn't an orgy house."

"What do you think it is, detective?"

"I don't know. But remember who we're dealing with: Taffy Black, a reclusive genius and expert on medieval religion, horticulture, and endocrinology. And Myrtle B. Jones, heiress to the largest artificial flower fortune this side of the Mississippi and the youngest certified architect this state has seen in over one hundred years. Together, these two little girls are responsible for three explosions, five carjackings, the introduction of black tar heroin to Johnsonville, armed robbery, and blackmail, all in the last two weeks."

"What are you saying, Bob?"

"What I'm saying is, we're dealing with two criminal masterminds. Two dangerous criminal masterminds."

The Winter Cometh

2007-03-04T13:19:00.000-07:00

The season had turned, the weather had broken, the chill in the air was no longer ignorable. Taffy shivered and pulled the hood of her parka over her head. Myrtle added some more twigs to the fire.

"Yup," Myrtle said, smacking her lips. "Yup."

"What?" Taffy said.

Myrtle didn't seem to be paying attention anymore.

"Yup what?" Taffy said louder.

Myrtle snapped out of it. "Yup, yup, I've done some things in my life I have, yup."

"What are you talking about?" Taffy said with a sneer.

Myrtle stirred her beans contemplatively for a minute or two, and then began to speak.

"Yup, I've done some things in my life I have, yup. I've seen some things, I've got some stories to tell."

"Oh jesus, Myrtle, come on. Don't start this again."

"Taffy, come on, just listen to me."

"You're not thinking about movie scripts again, are you?"

Myrtle said nothing. She stared at the flames.

"Don't you remember how this turned out last time?" Taffy said. "Myrtle, answer me!"

"Oh Taffy," Myrtle said. "It won't be like that again. I'm sure we've all grown up a bit, changed, learned things."

Taffy snorted.

"Besides, listen to this, seriously. It's so good. Okay, so you start out, big city, there's this businessman in a suit, works in a downtown highrise. It's the end of the day, he takes the elevator down. Everything seems normal, but then he becomes aware of someone pursuing him, another man in a suit. He walks down the sidewalk, quicker and quicker. The man follows. He gets on the back of a crowded bus, the man does too. He tries to fight his way to the front of the bus, he gets off, he starts running. The man is behind him. He runs, the man runs. He gets in a cab, the man gets in cab right behind him. Cab chase, ending in a spectacular fiery crash, from which the man escapes unscathed. So does the other man. Our guy runs, makes it to the shore, finds a raceboat with the keys in, races away. BUT SO DOES THE OTHER MAN. A water pursuit ensues. In the background we start noticing other boat chases going on, helicopters, crashes, things like that. The man gets across the body of water to where he lives, the suburbs, gets to his house, and it turns out the man pursuing him was his neighbor. The neighbor goes to his own house. Normal commute home. Turns out, everyone's doing this, pretending they're in movies, you know? Like, it's this comment on the bullshit of modern-day life. Like, our jobs are bullshit, the movies we watch are bullshit, you know? You know? Like what if everyone decided to live like a movie, you know? Modern-day life. Suburbia. You know?"

"God, Myrtle, that's just idiotic," Taffy said. "I'm bored just thinking about it."

"What's wrong with it?" Myrtle protested. "I think it's funny. You know, like a spoof on action movies, you know?"

"God," Taffy said.

"I got the idea watching Face-Off."

"Nicholas Cage makes me want to puke."

"Me too," Myrtle said. "Okay okay, if you don't like that, how about a movie set, like, fifty, sixty years from now, with like old people talking modern-day slang. Like us in fifty years talking like we do now."

Taffy made a grunting noise, then said, "Ugh."

"Come on, Taffy, tell me what's wrong with these ideas," Myrtle said. She was getting whiny, so Taffy complied.

"Myrtle, first of all, you have absolutely no plot. You just have maybe a setting, you have a detail, and you can't make an entire movie out of that. What's the actual plot? You know? You can't expect anyone to want to make a movie about nothing, can you?"

"I suppose not," Myrtle said sullenly. "But I can work on the plotlines."

"And that's the other thing, Myrtle," Taffy said, annoyed. "You're sitting here heating up pork and beans in a billy can over a campfire. When's the last time you took a shower? When's the last time you washed your clothes? Myrtle, you're destitute! Look at yourself! You think you're going to be a screenwriter? Seriously?"

"No, I'm sure," Myrtle laughed. "I was just kidding."

"Good," Taffy said. "Don't kid again. Okay, Myrtle, I need to get going. I have to get ready for my pedicure."

Taffy went home and began typing. Ninety-two hours later she emerged with the scripts to what would become her second and third summer blockbusters, one of which would win her an Academy Award.

Stinking Epidemic

2007-03-04T13:12:00.000-07:00

written and directed by Taffy Black
produced by Taffy Black
starring Taffy Black

Taffy: Hey whuts up Chuck.
Chuck: Hey sexy mama you so hott.
Taffy: Yeeeuh.
Chuck: Yeeeuh.
Taffy: I say whuts up Chuck.
Chuck: Nothing man I suspect however that my boss is full of shit yo.
Taffy: Yo whut up with that yo.
Chuck: I don't know man something ain't right he say the epidemic is being spread by underarm deodorant.
Taffy: Deodorant wtf dude.
Chuck: He say whut the one thing everyone use dude think about it
Taffy: True dat man, even in Costa Rica, a Central American country of four million people situated between Panama and Nicaragua, people regularly use underarm deodorant. It makes perfect sense, Chuck. What's your beef with you boss man yo
Chuck: Yes, Taffy, at first I too was in agreement, and I pursued this underarm deodorant theory for months with the relentlessness only a true believer could muster, until one day...
Taffy: Yes, Bill?
Bill: One day... Have you ever ridden the bus, Taffy?
Taffy: Yes, Bill, I rode it all winter. Why? What does this have to do with the price of tea in China?
Billy: The smell, Taffy, the smell! Not everyone wears deodorant!
Taffy: No!
Bill: It's true!
Taffy: Oh say it isn't so, Bill!
Bill: Hold me, Taffy.
(They embrace.)
Bill sends a memo to his boss.
Bill gets shot on the way home from work by masked CDC assassins.
Taffy at Bill's funeral: Damn dude Bill was so hott and now he done die on me man
Myrtle: Yo whuts up with that.
Taffy: His boss man man. Bill find out about the deodorant conspiracy.
Myrtle: Why yes it all makes perfect sense. Bill's boss, Harvey de Cologne, is heir to the greatest perfume fortune in the world
Taffy: Yes and with the advent of modern anti-perspirants...
Myrtle: ... and the wide array of scents we have to choose from these days
Taffy: such as Sun-Kissed Peach, for example
Myrtle: less perfume is used
Taffy: the de Cologne family fortune is shrinking
Myrtle: so what better way to stop that than...
Taffy: move to the United States from the family estate in the perfume country of France, rise to the top of the CDC, spread a deadly virus around the world, and...
Myrtle: frame underarm deodorant for it.
Taffy: People will turn to the bottle and shun the stick.
Myrtle: I know I have.
Taffy: Me too. I stink so bad yo!
Myrtle: You are a goddamn genius Taffy Black
Taffy: Thank you Jones watch out oh no!
Myrtle gets shot and dies.
Taffy: Aww damn man not again. Shucks.

MBJ 5

2007-03-04T13:11:00.000-07:00

The rapid clicking of typewriter keys and occasional eruptions of laughter woke Taffy from her drug-induced stupor. She staggered blindly down the hallway to the library.

"Mrffa uwwa uhhhh," she mumbled.

"Good morning, sunshine!" Myrtle said.

"Ahhh rgggah quiet," Taffy mumbled. She finally opened her eyes but had to shield them from the dim library lighting.

"I'm working on my new novel," Myrtle said. "Late night? I heard you come in an hour or so ago. So sorry if I wakened you."

Taffy sat down in a heap on the polished hardwood floor.

"So do you want to know what my book is about?" Myrtle asked her. Taffy said nothing. Her eyes were closed again.

"It's this great thriller about this epidemic going around the world killing all these people, and there's this detective guy who figures out what's spreading it. Do you want to know what's spreading the disease?"

Taffy said nothing.

"Deodorant!"

Taffy said nothing.

"Think about it! What is the one thing everyone uses?"

Taffy said nothing.

"It's deodorant!"

Taffy said nothing, but her eyes were open.

"Well, it's a really great story. The movie will be better than the book, actually."

"Then why don't you just write a screenplay?" Taffy said.

"Taffy, you have no idea about the creative process."

"Maybe not, but I also find your premise troubling. Have you ever ridden a bus? Not everyone uses deodorant. In fact, most people don't."

Myrtle huffed, and then she puffed, and then she got up and left the room. Taffy remained on the floor for a few minutes and then got up and sat at the typewriter. She began typing, not realizing that the words flowing out of her fingertips would spell disaster and ruin for everyone she knew, excluding herself.

MBJ 2

2007-03-04T13:01:00.000-07:00

The car was badly damaged but Taffy was relentless. She spun the tires again, adding to the smoke that was still thick in the air.

"Taffy, maybe we could go get some lunch now," Myrtle suggested gently.

"Not until he's paid for what he's done," Taffy said through gritted teeth. She took her foot off the brake and the car jerked forward into the battered garage door, which finally fell from its hinges. The windshield spiderwebbed, the car stopped moving, the garage door enveloped the car.

"Crap," Taffy said as a burglar alarm started going off.

The engine started to squeal and flames began shooting up from the edges of the hood. Myrtle screamed and tried to find the door handle. Taffy narrowed her eyes and glared at the flames.

"Aggh!" Myrtle screamed. Her door was held shut by the garage door. "Aggh! We're stuck! Oh my god!"

"This is perfect," Taffy said quietly. "I'm going to die in a fire in my lawyer's car in stupid Fischratt's stupid garage."

"Taffy! Taffy! Aggh!" Myrtle screamed.

"Okay, fine," Taffy said. She looked around. "Don't you have a fire extinguisher with you?"

"No! Why in the world would I have a fire extinguisher with me?"

"Luckily I do." Taffy opened her purse, pulled out a personal fire extinguisher, crawled over the seat, and smashed out the back window with the fire extinguisher. "Come on, Myrtle," she said, but Myrtle was frozen to her seat, terrified. Taffy rolled her eyes, crawled out the back window, walked to the front of the car, and extinguished the fire. She pushed the wet sooty garage door off of Myrtle's side of the car and opened her door. Myrtle's legs were shaking badly but she managed to get out of the car.

"Where do you want to eat lunch?" Taffy said.

"Arby's," Myrtle said. They began walking down the street. Sirens screamed in the distance.

"Where's that fire extinguisher I sent you last Christmas?"

"I don't know," Myrtle said. "In my kitchen, maybe, along with all the others you've been sending me the last ten years."

"Myrtle, they're for your purse, not your kitchen. Please carry one with you at all times."

"Who carries fire extinguishers in their purse?"

"Me, obviously."

"Weirdo."

"Myrtle, if I didn't, you'd be dead right now," Taffy said. "And you never know. SHC will get you when you're least expecting it."

"That's an urban legend."

"Tell that to Dr. John Irving Bentley," Taffy said.

"Oh Taffy," Myrtle said. A cavalcade of police cars and fire trucks roared by, making conversation impossible.

Book 5, Verses 31-64

2007-02-12T22:49:00.000-07:00

Myrtle's only dress was yellow with blue butterflies on it. The bees were attracted to it. Myrtle always had to run screaming back into the house. It did not help the situation any that she had no shoes.

Myrtle's mother would laugh at her, and then get annoyed, and then yell at her to get back outside. This was back before televisions. This was back before Myrtle's father won the lottery, which was before he ran off with his boss's secretary, which was before he got run over by the car driven by his boss's secretary's uncle, who was Mormon. This was before there were laws against that, at least in Myrtle's town, so the uncle got off scot-free. This was before Myrtle had met Scotty the Scotsman and learned the art of revenge.

This was when Myrtle's house was painted the color of a swimming pool. The other kids laughed about it. Theirs were respectable colors, theirs were white or cream-colored or mauve. Also, theirs had doors, and Myrtle's did not, just curtains, even on the front door. The other kids threw mud pies at the house and Myrtle and her mother were always having to sweep the living room floor.

Myrtle flunked kindergarten but skipped first grade. Her intellect was very odd. The teachers couldn't figure her out. "I just can't figure her out," her kindergarten teacher Mrs. Flick told Mrs. Jones. "Sometimes she's the smartest kid in here, but sometimes she's the dumbest. I'm going to have to hold her back a year."

"I just can't figure her out," her first grade teacher Mrs. Hazelwood told Mr. Jones. "She flunked kindergarten, and frankly you have to be pretty dumb to flunk kindergarten, but her test scores so far in first grade are at the eighth grade level. She's bored. I'm sending her to second grade."

By the time Myrtle got to third grade, though, her intellect had leveled off and she was pretty normal. By this time her house had been repainted, her mother had found another dress for her, and someone had given her their old shoes to wear. She had also gotten a kitten, which she named Myrtle Jr.

Her father told her the name was dumb. She said to him, "Father, many children name their pets after themselves. Please just indulge me, okay?"

"Don't talk back to me, you hear?" he said. "You hear me, Myrtle?" Then he called her Myrtle the Turtle and felt the fury of her indignation for the first time.

Book Three - The Failed Friendship Experiment

2007-02-12T22:46:00.000-07:00

Taffy shrieked and pointed. She jumped up and down and clapped her hands.

"Taffy, jesus, you've been a world-renowned ornithologist for 32 years now, could you calm down a little?" Myrtle said, annoyed.

"But, baby ducks!" Taffy squealed. "Tiny baby duck bills! Oh my god!" Taffy laughed and jumped and clapped some more.

"Every time you see a baby duck you freak out," Myrtle said. "It's old, it's disingenuous."

"You are a cold woman, Myrtle B. Jones." Taffy finished her yogurt and threw the container into the lake.

"Me!" Myrtle shrieked. "Me! What about you? What about you, Taffy Jones? You just threw away a pink lid!"

"A what?"

"Pink lids save lives! Don't you care about breast cancer?"

"No."

"And you call me cold."

"That ten cents wouldn't have done anything."

"How do you know? That could have been THE ten cents."

Taffy reached into her pocket and pulled out a dime. "Here you go, Myrtle, go save lives with this." She threw the coin at Myrtle, hitting her on the forehead.

"Ow!" Myrtle cried. She looked in the grass where the dime had fallen but didn't see it. "And now it's lost. Look at what you've done. The dime is the most value-packed of the coins, and you've lost one."

"I feel real bad," Taffy said. She looked at her watch. "My break's over. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Kay bye," Myrtle said. She went back to her encampment, sat on her log, and watched Taffy walk back into the research center.

Don't miss next week's episode, when Myrtle's mother's mysterious past comes back to haunt her!

Episode 11

2007-02-12T22:44:00.000-07:00

"The tall man with the jacket, what's his name?" Taffy asked.

"Buffingham," Myrtle answered. "He's my manservant."

"Nice," Taffy said. "What time is it?"

"Nearly fourteen hundred."

"Okay. Get ready."

Myrtle and Taffy hunkered. Taffy adjusted the tail on her coonskin hat to keep the rain from dripping down her neck. The silence around them would have been deafening were it not for the howling wind.

A few minutes later there came a loud hubbub and a ruckus. Water splashed, weeds and reeds were trampled, wings were flapped.

"Fire!" Taffy yelled, pulling her sword from its sheath and pointing it at the sky. Myrtle stood up, aimed the rifle at a dark spot, and pulled the trigger. A few seconds later a thump and a quiet squawk were heard.

"Woohoo!" Taffy yelled. "Duck tonight!" She and Myrtle high-fived.

"I hope Buffingham got a lot of ducklings," Myrtle said. "I can eat five of them little buggers myself."

Three hours later there was a rapping on the ramshackle cabin's main door.

"Buffingham, the door," Myrtle said.

Buffingham shuffled across the floor.

"Hurry up!" Taffy shouted.

"Taffy don't you dare boss my manservant around," Myrtle said.

The door opened before Buffingham could reach it. A goose honked. A figure loomed. Buffingham screamed, then fainted.

Vol II. Chapter iv

2007-02-12T22:39:00.000-07:00

Myrtle scanned the room nervously. She finally found Taffy in a corner that was lit up only by the glowing red eyes of a bull's head mounted on the dark purple wall. Taffy was talking and laughing with a man in a black ribbed turtleneck who was smoking a pipe.

"Taffy, we really should go," Myrtle whispered, pulling Taffy's arm.

"Excuse me," the man in the turtleneck said. "Tafitha and I are engaged in conversation and you, miss, are being very rude."

"Tafitha?" Myrtle furrowed her brows.

"Myrtrude, go get me another drink," Taffy said haughtily, pushing her glass at Myrtle and spilling the remnants of her mint hachitori on Myrtle's cashmere sweater.

Myrtle, pissed, grabbed Taffy's arm and pulled her away from the corner. The man in the turtleneck exaggerated an exhalation and turned to face the bull, mumbling.

"Tafitha? Myrtrude?" Myrtle hissed at Taffy. "What is this crap?"

"I just thought it would help us blend in better," Taffy said.

"Going by stupid names? That only makes us stand out even more than these matching sweaters you stole for us. If you hadn't noticed, we're the only people wearing pink in the entire city. Everyone else is in black."

"Stop being so mean," Taffy said, tears welling in her eyes.

"Oh please, stop crying," Myrtle said. "You're always such a crybaby."

Suddenly the man in the turtleneck came up.

"Tafitha, oh my god! Why do you cry?" He pushed Myrtle away and put his arms around Taffy. They walked towards the door together. Myrtle watched for a few seconds, then ran after them.

"Hold up, you pedophilic pervert, where are you going with my best friend?"

"Myrtrude, Tafitha may be your best friend, but you certainly aren't hers," the man said without stopping.

"My name isn't Myrtrude, moron!"

The man stopped walking.

"And her name isn't Tafitha either." Myrtle felt triumphant as she watched the man's hold on Taffy loosen.

"So I thought," the man muttered grimly. "So I thought. It's Taffy Black and Myrtle B. Jones, isn't it? The juvenile outlaw duo from New Jersey, on a crime spree across the country. Now you've made it to San Francisco. You're at the edge of the continent. Where to now, Myrtle? Now what? What's your big plan now? Huh, Myrtle the Turtle?"

He was taunting her like the bullies from school, tempting her to punch him in the face.

"I'll tell you where you're going next, big shot," the man continued. "You're going to the clink, the big house, yes." He was laughing menacingly, and then he pulled two pairs of handcuffs from his back pocket. "On the ground! SFPD!"

Myrtle and Taffy remained where they were. The man looked at them, they looked back. Then he pulled out a gun and began shouting. "I said on the ground! Everyone on the ground!"

Stoned beatniks turned their heads. No one was impressed.

The turtlenecked man shouted again, the pitch of his voice getting higher. "Come on people! There's a gun here! Come on! I'm a police officer!"

"That guy's so lame," someone across the room said.

"Yeah, that turtleneck stinks," someone else said.

The man fired at the ceiling. Plaster rained down. People began jumping around, yelping.

Taffy looked at Myrtle, Myrtle looked at Taffy, and they rolled their eyes.

"This party sucks," Taffy said.

"No shit," Myrtle said. They walked out the door into the night. It had stopped raining. The small dog they had left near the fire hydrant was still there guarding the sack full of hundred dollar bills. The vase of tulips, though, had been kicked over, the vase shattered, the tulips pilfered for their opium.

Join us next week, when Taffy's philanthropic work is recognized by the Queen in a grand ceremony at Buckingham Palace! But will Myrtle's ex-fiancé, the evil Dr. Fischratt, ruin the party?

Parental Advisory: The above story contains tasteless profanity, needless violence, and uninformed drug references. Please do not let your children read it. Hopefully they haven't already. Perhaps we should have placed this warning before the story but it's such a pain to have to go back and retype the whole page.

Chapter 14

2007-02-12T22:35:00.000-07:00

Myrtle and Taffy stopped running once they got into the woods. Taffy fell to the ground. "My inhaler," she croaked between gasps for air. "It's in my jacket."

Myrtle frantically rifled through the candy wrappers, BBs, and business cards in Taffy's pockets as Taffy's lips turned an alarming shade of blue. "I can't find it, Taff!" she yelled. "Don't die on me!"

"It's in my jacket, you idiot," Taffy whispered.

"I'm looking in your jacket, jerk," Myrtle said. "Fine." She got up and stomped away.

"Fine!" Taffy sputtered. "I'll find it myself!" She sat up and emptied out her pockets.

"Dagnabbit son of a guppy!" she yelled a few minutes later. "That dog must've gotten hold of it." She stood up, walked over to Myrtle, who was sitting on a log, and began kicking her in the shins.

"Knock it off," Myrtle said. Taffy kept on kicking. Myrtle stood up and pushed her away.

"Let's go," Myrtle said. "Our parents will be here any minute."

"I'm so sick of running away, Myrtle," Taffy said. "We do this like every week and the drama's starting to get to me. It's always this huge thing, with the cops involved, shoplifting and drugs and assaulting people and stuff. Why can't we just go home and watch TGIF like all the other kids at school?"

"Because those other kids are stupid," Myrtle said. "Are you coming or not?"

"I'm not," Taffy said. She sat down on the log and crossed her arms.

"Fine," Myrtle said. "I'll see you on the flip side. If I even survive." She started walking into the woods.

"Hold on!" Taffy started shouting two minutes later. "I'm coming too!"

Myrtle and Taffy spent that night high in the boughs of an ancient oak tree after eating a chicken that they'd taken from a small farm. The next morning they began their trek west.

Week four

2007-02-12T22:34:00.000-07:00

It was a hot and sweaty night. Myrtle lay wide-eyed under her covers with only a nose-sized hole for ventilation. The cow lowed and snorted outside her window. Myrtle's manservant Buffingham had gone home to his family for the weekend, and so she was alone. What a fool she had been to grant him leave at such a time as this!

Next week: Myrtle's Halloween party is a raging success, until the DHS shows up!

Week 3

2007-02-11T12:48:00.000-07:00

The door burst open with hurricane force and the behemoth figure standing in the doorway was silhouetted by the blinding light of the coastal sunrise. The figure paused and then squealed.

"Oh my god! Myrtle? Oh my god!" And it squealed again, a noise that chilled Myrtle to her bones and raised the hairs on the back of her neck. She took a step backward as the figure advanced toward her into the room. The face of the creature, although squashed and stretched in alarming ways, seemed vaguely familiar.

"Taffy?" Myrtle said quietly and tentatively.

The creature squealed again and then lunged at Myrtle, trapping her in a suffocating bear hug.

"Myrtle Jones, oh my god!" Taffy shrieked.

"Taffy Black, oh my god," Myrtle said, prying herself out of the embrace.

"It's Taffy Jones now, just like you!" Taffy convulsed into snorts and giggles.

"Oh, Taffy Jones, great." Myrtle wanted to leave but Taffy had her backed into a corner.

"Myrtle Jones, you're so funny. I remember how hilarious you were. Remember when your clarinet exploded and you killed that boy? Oh my god!"

"He didn't die, and it wasn't very funny."

"Oh yeah, I heard you got run out of town because of that. Eek. Sorry."

Next week: Myrtle and Taffy sit in an elegantly decorated room! Don't miss it!

The exiciting dramatic tragic conclusion

2007-02-11T12:43:00.000-07:00

The silence in the gymnasium was deafening after the cacophony of shrieks and screams and scrambles that had followed the frantic crowd outside.

Principal Fisker scowled as he pulled another black shard from the lifeless boy's leg. "The clarinet is an odious instrument," he hissed at Myrtle.

"But it's the gateway to the saxophone!" Myrtle protested.

"That's no excuse," said Principal Fisker, wiping his bloody hand on his pants. "Now, thanks to you, I'm going to have to call this boy's parents. And an ambulance." He exhaled loudly and dramatically and then marched out of the gymnasium.

"Come, Taffy," Mr. Black said.

"But my dress is ruined," Taffy said through her tears. "What will Mother say?"

"Don't worry about your dress," Mr. Black said. "We'll get you a new one. And Mother is dead, remember, honey?" He put his arm around his daughter and they headed for the double doors.

"Get that girl some counseling," someone yelled from a corner.

The circle of people who had remained inside stood staring at Myrtle. Myrtle stood staring at the shattered pieces of her clarinet. Finally, she bent down and started picking them up. "I will never play the clarinet again," she said sadly and softly.

"Obviously," someone said.

Chapter one

2007-02-11T12:31:00.000-07:00

Myrtle B. Jones wasn't the most popular girl in her eighth grade class but she certainly wasn't the least popular either. She was invited to parties at regular intervals, had the odd boyfriend or two, and was as knowledgeable about school gossip as anyone. She played volleyball, basketball, and softball – although not particularly well – and was second chair clarinet (out of 37 clarinetists) in the eighth grade band. She got good grades – mostly Bs with enough As thrown in to make her feel smug – and she rarely got in trouble at school.

Myrtle B. Jones's best friend was a girl named Taffy Black and if ever the word 'mousy' applied to anyone it applied to Taffy Black. While her name suggested someone with a certain amount of vibrance, poor Taffy Black was about as unvibrant as a person can get. She never laughed, she rarely smiled, and she only spoke to teachers, her priest, and Myrtle B. Jones. Her own parents hadn't heard her voice in almost two years, not since they'd tried to make her wear a dress to her sixth grade graduation ceremony. Taffy Black held terrible grudges, and she did not wear dresses.

Taffy Black was thin and a dingy shade of pale – Myrtle B. Jones was round and reddish and sort of shaped like a turtle. It was her sore spot, being called Myrtle the Turtle – but none of the kids had dared call her that (except behind her back) since first grade, when she'd punched two boys in the face for the offense. One boy's nose had been broken – he'd moved away the next year – and the other had a black eye for two weeks. Myrtle had mellowed out considerably in the seven years since, but her classmates would never forget, and each new kid was warned: "Don't call her Myrtle the Turtle! Just don't!"

Myrtle and Taffy had been best friends for a year and a half, since the great Best Friend Shuffle of sixth grade. Prior to that, Myrtle's best friend had been Sarah Barrera and Taffy's had been Bawbi Jo Walker. Now, Sarah was best friends with that snot Britney Whitney, and Bawbi Jo Walker was best friends with boys.

... Don't miss next week's episode: Myrtle and Taffy join a motorcycle gang!