Tread Carefully
 | This page is pretty raw LLM output. |
Paulo is barely awake, but Daisy has a game for him: step only on the crosswalk's white lines and you get to make a wish. Easy enough, surely, unless David has appointed himself the obstacle.
| Tread Carefully | |
|---|---|
| (Intermission) | |
 | |
| Chapter | "29.1" of 127 (list of chapters) |
| Published | November 16, 2009 |
| Page count | 1 |
| Major characters | Paulo, Daisy, David |
| Locations | Neighborhood sidewalks and streets |
| Collected in | Volume One, Omnibus 1 |
| Chapter navigation | |
| ← Midterm Time | Troubled Waters → |
| Read chapter | |
Synopsis
It's early in the morning when Paulo and Daisy arrive at a crosswalk, and Daisy brightly proposes a game — she's heard that if you only step on the white lines while crossing, you get to make a wish.[1]
Paulo accepts with a confident "Piece o' cake!" and hops from line to line, but he barely gets his wish started before he notices a pair of feet planted squarely on the line ahead of him.[1]
The feet belong to David, who drops into a fighting stance and announces himself as "I AM WISHING GAME HARD MODE". He advances on a horrified Paulo while Daisy strolls right past the pair of them and finishes her crossing with a smile, entirely untroubled.[1]
Trivia & observations
- Veronica's commentary under the page says the gag was inspired by a strip in Azumanga Daioh, combined with her own childhood habit of making wishes or setting goals when crossing zebra crossings. Finding the same superstition in a manga came as a bit of a relief. In her words, "Wow, I'm not the only one!"[1]
- The same commentary explains why these two got the gag. Daisy is "the type to encourage that kind of play", and Paulo is "absolutely eager to impress".[1]
- This isn't the first decimal-numbered interstitial to squeeze in between full chapters. Single-page shorts like Catty Remarks had been slotting into the gaps since much earlier in the series.[2]
- "Piece o' cake!" is a well-worn boast for Paulo, who once sized up his middle school teachers as "a piece of cake" too.[1][3]
Related chapters
- Carry Me: Paulo plays the wishing game again years later, this time at a crosswalk while carrying a deathly ill Lucy on his back. He tells himself not to play, plays anyway, and is congratulating himself on a "Perfect run" when a turtle trips him up.
- Unspoken Rule: David revives his self-appointed-obstacle routine during the dodgeball standoff between Mike and Lucy, declaring "Dodgeball Hard Mode!"
- Helping Hands: An earlier chapter that also sends Paulo and Daisy off on a walk together.