It all started on a regular Tuesday. I was starving. Like, stomach-eating-itself hungry. I’d skipped breakfast, and lunch was still two periods away. So I scraped together all the change in my backpack, somehow a weird mix of sticky pennies and dusty quarters, and rushed to the school’s vending machine in the Science hallway.
Everyone at school knew the legend: the vending machine was haunted.
Not like boo scary. More like picky. Some people could get free snacks out of nowhere. Others (like me) would pay full price and get … nothing.
But today, I was desperate. I popped in my coins and punched “B7: Chocolate Chip Cookie”. The machine blinked.
Then it went black.
I groaned. “Come on, dude.”
I gave it a little kick. Nothing.
Then it lit back up.
Instead of a cookie, it dropped … a rubber duck.
I blinked.
“A rubber duck?!” I whispered. I looked around. Nobody was in the hallway, so I bent down and picked it up.
The duck squeaked. Then it quacked … loudly.
I nearly jumped out of my sneakers.
It wasn’t just a duck. It was looking at me.
“Um. Hi?” I whispered.
The vending machine blinked again. The screen said:
“TRY AGAIN. BE NICER THIS TIME.”
I gasped. “You can hear me?!”
It beeped twice.
I took a deep breath. “Okay. Please, may I have a snack, friendly vending machine?”
I put in another dollar. This time I chose “A4 Cheddar chips”.
The machine whirred and dropped something.
A bag of chips?
Nope.
A live cricket.
It hopped out and landed on my shoe.
I screamed, ran down the hall, and almost slipped. The cricket chirped behind me like it was laughing.
The next day, my friend Maya tried it. She walked up and smiled sweetly, and said, “Hi, Vendy! I missed you! May I please have some sour gummies?”
She didn’t even put in a dollar.
It dropped two bags.
“What?!” I shouted.
The screen flashed:
“SHE GETS IT. YOU DON’T.”
By Friday, I was determined. I made a friendship bracelet and looped it around the coin slot.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I called you ‘dude’, I kicked you. I’ll be nice now.”
I put in a fresh dollar—my last one.
I pressed D2. A brownie.
The machine went quiet.
Then … it dropped a bag of trail mix.
I opened it. Inside wasn’t a trail mix.
Instead, inside was a folded note.
I read it slowly:
“YOU’RE GETTING THERE. BE A BETTER FRIEND.”
I sighed. “Fine. Challenge accepted.”
Now, every week, I leave little thank-you notes for the vending machine. I’ve gotten gum, fruit snacks, and one time, actual money.
It’s still picky, still kind of creepy, but I think … we’re cool now.
And I never forget breakfast.
Sometimes, I wonder if the vending machine is watching me during class. Like, what if it has little cameras and it knows when I’ve been nice or not? I swear, one time I helped a kid pick up their dropped papers in the hallway, and later that day, the machine gave me two snacks at once. Coincidence? Maybe. But I’m not taking any chances.
I’ve even started saying good morning to it. Weird? Yeah. But the snacks? Totally worth it.
We’re not just cool now; we might actually be … friends.
