It was the last ‘Nilla wafer, and I swore on my Great-Aunt Ethyl’s (kind-of) dead body that it was mine. I know, it’s not cool to swear on living people, but she smelled like old people (my guess was formaldehyde), and Fred was about to take the last cookie. It was dire circumstances.
       I deserved that cookie. I kept quiet about Will sneaking out to party on Friday night when he was supposed to be babysitting me. But there it was, my promised cookie dangling in front of my face in no other than his slimy fingers.
       “Betcha want the cookie? Huh, Mary, Mary Quite Contrary?” Oh God. The smirk on his face was killing me.
      “If you value your existence, you vile worm, you. Will. Give. Me. The. Cookie,” I kept my eyes locked with his. If looks could kill, the sweet ‘Nilla would be mine.
       “Oh ho-ho! Such strong words coming from such a puny weakling!” It was his last words before the dreaded crunch.

       OH. NO. HE. DID. NOT.

       My vision went as red as I leapt at him.

       My weak effort was easily deflected into the corner of the fridge, followed by a loud snapping in my right arm. My vision was really red as I screamed for all I was worth. The kitchen spun as Fred cussed a blue streak in the other room. How was he all the way over there? He was just right next to me, for Pete’s sake.
       Oh, never mind. I had important questions to answer, like who is this Pete, and why do I care about his sake?
        The world tipped upside-down, and I flew through the air. My eyes focused on Fred’s extra-white and now sweating face.
The realization of what happened was too sweet, “You are so done for, Ol’ Freddie boy!”
       “Woah there, Mar. Cool it. I’ve got ya. Shoot. You really wrecked yourself. Didn’t ya, you little puke?”
       “Drop dead, Fred,” I mumbled as my vision blacked out and I floated away.
***
       My eyes cracked open only a minute or two later and everything was white. There were people clad in crisp white clothes surrounding me, and each of them had a halo! Oh dude, I must have died! I really did it and crossed over to the other side! Wait ‘til Emmy and Susie heard about this!
In shear wonder I quickly sat up only to realize my arm was connected to some big beepy machine. My other arm-oh, the horror- was all bandaged up. I pulled at the tube in my good arm.
       Ow ow ow ow ow!
       One of the angels spoke, “Hold on there, little girl. Don’t do that. You’ll pull your I.V. out.”
       A few things became clear then. First, Heaven didn’t hurt. Next, what good-for-nothing angel didn’t know my name? Come on, I had yet to receive a lump of coal at Christmas yet! There was no way this was Heaven.
       I thought I might as well clear it up then and there, “I’m not dead, am I?”
       All of the faces scrunched up into laughter and one of them stepped forward, tears streaming down their smiling face, and said, “Oh no, little lady. You are very alive,” they said as they flipped through their clipboard, “and it looks to be you’ve only got a broken wrist.”
       Only? A broken wrist? Oh man, this was golden. Absolutely golden!
       As the doctors left, I plotted my certain and sweet revenge. It would be as sweet as ‘Nilla Wafers. Oh Yes.
       I had only seconds before my family came pouring in the room. Mom and Dad were all teary eyed and Fred was dragging his huge clown feet behind them. This was too good.
I took turns hugging both parents for at least ten minutes. They also surprised me with my beloved Teddy from home. This whole hospital gig wasn’t looking too bad, after all.
       “What happened?” was all they (I mean Mom and Dad, definitely not Fred) could ask.

      Oh I had the answer, I did.

       While hugging Teddy, I looked up to my close-to-fainting brother, Fred and said, “I was playing leap-frog with Freddie, and I went smack right into the fridge! I don’t really know how it happened,” I hammed it up even more, “but the last thing I remember was Freddie picking me up, begging me not to go into the light, and promising to buy me a giant box of cookies!”
My hand flew up to my forehead: a total sucker move. They were going to believe everything I would say. I knew what I had to do.
       As both Mom and Dad were sitting on the edge of their seats, I settled my doe-like eyes on Soon-to-be-Dead-Fred and delivered the precious line, “I believe he said they’d be ‘Nilla Wafers!”
       My eyes fluttered and both parents sighed in awe. They thought Fred was a hero. I looked up at his pained face trying to tell him what I couldn’t say out loud:

CHECK MATE.