Because Abigail yelled at me

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Joan. Joan woke up one morning and found that she couldn't NOT tell the truth. Not only that, but she was unable to stop all the thoughts flying through her head from FLYING OUT OF HER MOUTH.

You can see how this might create some problems.

When her mother woke her up, Joan said, "I would rather set my bum on fire than go to school today." Her mother grounded her for saying bum and for implying that she might play with matches.

Joan's mother left her room with a frown and Joan threw herself off of her bed.

"BUT MY STOMACH HURTS!" she yelled at her mother. No answer. Joan sighed and stomped to the bathroom as her father was walking out.

"Phew, it stinks in here!" Joan exclaimed and her father just chuckled as he walked away. She fanned the door back and forth as she brushed her teeth. Once finished, she went back to her room to get dressed for school.

"All of my good clothes are dirty!" she shouted. "I'm not wearing a stupid stinky dress to school!"

"You'll wear a dress or you'll wear nothing," said her mother as she hurried past the door with Joan's baby brother, Bob, in her arms.

"Rather go naked," Joan mumbled, and pulled the least girly dress she could find out of her closet. She shoved it over her head and put on her favorite Chuck Taylors, the ones so worn there were holes by both of her big toes.

Joan grabbed her bookbag without looking to make sure that the homework she didn't do was in there. She raced down the stairs and flopped into her seat at the table. Her mother and father were already sitting down, both trying to trick Bob into eating some oatmeal.

"That oatmeal looks like bubotuber pus," Joan said and poured herself a bowl of Cheerios. She poured milk all the way up to the bowl's rim and took a heaping bite. She looked up to see both of her parents looking at her, mouths hanging open. "Whaa?" she asked, a stray Cheerio freedom-leaping out of her mouth back to the bowl.

"What did you just say?" her mother asked.

"The oatmeal...looks...like bubotuber pus," said Joan and took another bite of cereal. "Doesn't smell like it, though. Smells more like barf."

"EXCUSE me?" her mother said. "What's gotten into you today?"

"Dunno," shrugged Joan. "Just talking, is all." She took another big bite of cereal so she couldn't say anything else that might get her yelled at. It sort of worked and instead of saying anything bad, she said, "Mmmf aeea fowuur weww."

Her parents just looked back at her, blinking rapidly. Her father shrugged.

"She seems OK to me," he said, a twinkle in his eye. "Perhaps a little more truthful than necessary, but I think she's still our little Joanie."

"I'm not so little!" she shouted. "I'm the tallest in my class, except for the teacher, and she's like a giant, she's so tall. She looks like a giraffe but her tongue isn't purple."

"OK, dear," said her parents in unison, then they went back to feeding her brother bubotuber pus.

Joan finished her cereal and took her empty bowl to the sink. Her older sister, Beverly, just 14, came skulking to the breakfast table, sat down, and grabbed a handful of cereal straight from the box. As she munched on it, Joan walked up to her and stuck her face in front of Beverly's.

"What?" Beverly sighed around her mouthful of cereal.

"What's that thing on your nose?" asked Joan. "Is that a zit? That's the biggest zit I've ever seen! We should take a picture and put it on the internet, I bet you'd be famous."

Beverly threw the remainder of her cereal on the table, pushed Joan out of the way, and ran up the stairs crying.

"Weird," said Joan and picked up their cat, Fluffy. "Fluffy is so soft! Sometimes I rub my face on him."

"Joan," her mother sighed. "Go to school."

"OK," said Joan, and put Fluffy back in his bed. "But I'm probably going to be late. I'm going to go throw rocks at old Mr. Fitzgerald's house, and if I remember, I might look for fairies down by the riverbank."

"Joan!" her mother exclaimed. "That's ridiculous, fairies don't live by the riverbank, they live in that big oak tree in the middle of the woods." She clapped her hands to her mouth. "Crap, I wasn't supposed to tell her that, was I?"

"No," said her father. "You really weren't, but perhaps this truth-telling is catching. Anyway, since you did spill the beans, we might as well all go. I'd rather set my bum on fire than go to work today."

Note: I don't know why all (or most) of my stories end up featuring dragons or fairies or time traveling dinosaurs IT JUST HAPPENS and I'm sorry.