Chapter 2

Science Partners

Well, I wasn’t exactly having the best week. That girl wouldn’t seem to leave me alone, no matter how much I tried. It was like I was a magnet or something and she couldn’t stay away. What’s worse, I was being teased along with her now. That was the last thing I needed: to be teased for more reasons than I already had. I was sick of everyone picking on me just because this girl wanted to sit with me, and talk with me, and spend time with me.

And she wasn’t only annoying me, but she was ruining my grading curve too. Everywhere she went, teachers called on her. I hated listening to her cute little answers, as she had a bright smile on her face, and how the teacher always responded, “Correct!” as if celebrating the fact that Track Middle School finally had a good student other than the smug Amanda Henley.

And now that everyone thought I had a girl chasing me (Daniel had spread the news) I was being teased for liking girls at home. My mother had thought that, even though I was in seventh grade, I still didn’t like girls. Maybe she supposed because I was an outcast it didn’t matter much to me. But Daniel went and told her all about the new girl trying to sit with me on the bus. I decided not to tell him anything about my days at school, because I knew he would harass me even more.

The second day that the girl came and I sat on the bus, I was a bit puzzled when the bus stopped a bit in front of the next stop. That stop was always at the little girl’s house, the one that I had pummeled into the mud. I let out a small moan as I saw whose stop it was. It was only a few yards away my house too.

The new girl came in another strange outfit, wearing a baggy blue sweatshirt and cargo pants. The torso of her sweatshirt was oddly covered with a striped tank top and the sleeves were rolled up to above her elbows. This time she was wearing no hat, but her face was the same, with her rosy cheeks, light blue eyes and white-teethed smile.

I prayed to God, even though I wasn’t a Christian, that somehow she wouldn’t sit with me. But I was wrong. Just as I tried to cover the seat next to me with a backpack, she sat down next to me with another big smile.

“So, where do you live?” she asked.

I only glared at the back of the seat in front of me, biting back a bunch of words that would probably get me expelled. If this girl was going to annoy me, maybe keeping quiet was a way to keep her away.

Sadly, that didn’t work. On the whole bus ride home, she talked and I was quiet. It didn’t matter to her that I wasn’t speaking. She didn’t care at all, which upset me a lot. What was it going to take to get her to leave me alone? For a moment when she talked about Social Studies and how great it was, I had to close my eyes tightly and bite my lip.

Finally I stared at her really hard, searching those blue eyes as she was quieted by my intensity. I found no other emotion than happiness, and I wondered how this girl could be so clueless about the rest of the world. “What planet are you from?” I exclaimed.

“Earth!” the girl replied, as if that was a normal everyday question. I raised my eyebrows and let out a groan. I knew it; maybe she was never going to leave me alone. Maybe this was another chronicle of “The Horrible Life of Aaron Fleener.” Theodore, if you will.

The rest of the day happened like that. She would sit with me, and I would recoil. But that wouldn’t stop her from trying the next time.

She became the bane of my existence that day, instead of Carnager and Fuller. But it happened in Science Class.

I sat down in a seat to the side of the room. I wanted to be out of the spotlight and to just fit in (that never worked for me, but it was worth a shot). Finally, the girl decided to sit with someone else. I didn’t have any idea who it was, but I was happy that it just wasn’t me. She could go an pester someone else for a spell.

“Alright class, as you know, the beginning of the year is when we choose yearlong science project partners!” Mr. Lumber said. I couldn’t help rolling my eyes. Everyone else loved to have science partners, but of course because the class number was always odd, I was always the one without a partner. It only added to my humiliation as a kid at Track Middle School. Frankly, I thought that Mr. Lumber was a bit enthusiastic.

Mr. Lumber was a tall and gangly man, quite the opposite of Mrs. Hanburg. He has a fuzzy black mustache matching his curly black hair and his bushy eyebrows. What surprised kids most about him was his big nose. But despite all these things, he ended up being the kids’ favorite teacher because of all the things he did for fun. He always acted so happy about everything they did, and when he yelled, he would usually do a cartwheel. The students all loved him, even though he was a teacher.

And there he went, flipping into a cartwheel. I heard a few surprised gasps behind me. “Alright!” Mr. Lumber exclaimed. “You can pick your partners…..now!”

Immediately, kids were jumping out of their seat and rushing to pick and choose and pair up. Of course, they knew that they weren’t going to be last; that was my job. I only sat in my seat, knowing that if I asked someone, they would say no.

Mr. Lumber waited until he saw that almost everyone was paired up before saying, “Now, if you don’t have a partner, raise your hand.” I rolled my eyes and raised my hand, prepared for the hidden giggling of the girls. I didn’t care whether or not I had a partner, but this time I was wondering why everyone was laughing, including the guys, and the laughter was loud.

“It looks like Mr. Fleener and Miss Beachem are partners now,” Mr. Lumber said. My heart sank as I looked behind me and saw the girl smiling, her hand raised. I closed my eyes, hoping that this would somehow make it all go away and I would be my own science partner once again.

She only smiled with her white teeth a me. I felt like stalking over to her and bashing her face in. Everyone except for her knew that you could never change your science partners. Not only that, but the projects weren’t completed during school. The partners had to go to each other’s houses. That thought made me sick. I was going to have to spend time with her out of school!

“Have a nice sleepover, Wiener,” Carnager laughed from behind. I knew what he meant. Usually, unless you were boyfriend and girlfriend, girls didn’t go to boy’s houses and vice versa. Now I was going to be teased even more.

I tried to breathe deeply, but it didn’t seem to calm me down.

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It wasn’t easy going to sleep that night. I knew that sometime the new girl was going to come over, and it only made me feel sicker than I already was. I hadn’t even wanted her to talk to me, and now we were going to work on a project together!

The next day, Mr. Lumber announced that we were doing a project on a system of the body. Because the new girl was the only one to get a hundred on the test yesterday—I got a forty-four—Mr. Lumber let her choose the system first. She chose the circulatory system. I knew what it was, but I wasn’t happy about it. I knew that we were going to have to hang out together, and that was the last thing I wanted. I would rather take an F as a grade than to spend time with her when I didn’t have to.

I was walking down the hallway when she strode over to my side from her locker. “You know, I think we’re going to have a great time together,” she commented. I only rolled my eyes, more than a bit annoyed by her. Why wouldn’t she just take a hint and leave me alone? The weird thing about this girl was that it seemed she had no idea I didn’t like her. She didn’t realize that I wanted her out of my life and that I didn’t think we were going to have fun at all.

“Oh really?” I said with gritted teeth.

“Yes!” The new girl seemed a bit too enthusiastic. “This is going to be so much fun! I can tell we’re going to be great partners.” I doubted this myself. What I didn’t know was that I was going to be even angrier at her that afternoon in gym class.

Coach Genghis was saying that we were climbing the rope today. A few people let out groans, but I kept quiet. I did hate the rope, and I wished we didn’t have to do it, but I never voiced my opinion in any class. Coach looked us all up and down, and decided to let Fuller go first. I couldn’t help rolling my eyes as he effortlessly climbed the rope and rang the small bell at the top.

“Coach Genghis! Coach Genghis!”

Everyone looked towards the door where Mrs. Parker was standing. She looked completely terrified, though I didn’t know why. An amusing thing was that Coach Genghis and Mrs. Parker had a “thing” for each other, and whenever she came running, Genghis would jump to her rescue as soon as possible.

“The copier machine is going crazy!” she exclaimed. I didn’t know what a Gym Teacher could do about this; perhaps it was just an excuse for the two to be together. Mrs. Parker was the secretary of the principal, so no one expected her to fool around. But Coach jumped to her rescue once again.

Before leaving he shouted over his shoulder, “Fuller, you’re in charge of the class!”

Everyone looked over to Fuller. It took me a moment to look over and realize he was staring right at me. I raised my eyebrows, prepared for whatever he had already cooked up. “Fleener Wiener,” Fuller said slowly, “climb that rope.” I sighed and grabbed the rope, ready for pure humiliation. I could barely climb to the first notch.

“Ten times.”

That I hadn’t expected. I let go of the rope and looked over at him, wishing that I could say something back to him. But my heart was pumping so furiously. I’ll admit it: I’m a chicken. I’m not strong enough to take on Fuller and everyone knows it. But I wished I could just stand up to him.

“You can’t make him do that!”

I prayed to God that her sentence was all in my head. I took a step back from the rope and gave the new girl a warning glance. She had stepped out of the crowd and looked Fuller straight in the face. “Oh yes I can. Coach said I’m in charge. Remember?”

“Of course I remember. I’m just surprised that you did,” the new girl said coldly.

“I don’t know if you just did, but I think you just insulted me, Wiener,” Fuller turned to me. I raised an eyebrow.

“Wha—What?” I stuttered. “But—But she’s the one that said it.” Now she was going to get me beat up by Fuller. What else did she want to do to ruin my life?

“So now you’re heaping the blame on your girlfriend?” Fuller took a challenging step forward, and I gulped out of fear. This was it, there was no going back now. But it wasn’t my fault…..it was hers.

“She’s not—” I was cut off by “Ohhhhs” and “Ooooohs” from the other kids in Gym Class. Carnager was the loudest, and to me he sounded like a chimpanzee.

“I’m not his girlfriend!” the new girl said defiantly, stepping in front of me and looking Fuller up and down. “Why do you have to be such a jerk? Just leave him alone!”

“What’d you say to me, Fleener?” Fuller looked angry now, and I wouldn’t have minded running for the hills at this point. What I didn’t understand was why he was taking it that I said all these nasty things. I would never be able to stand up to him like that.

“But I didn’t say anything!” I protested.

“That’s right!” the new girl said. “Are you gonna take that from him? Are you gonna sit by while he’s insulting you?” I looked over incredulously at her.

“I’d prefer if you didn’t taunt him!” I exclaimed. Everyone was watching with wide eyes, prepared for Fuller to punch me in the gut.

“That’s it, Fleener Wiener,” Fuller said menacingly, his teeth gritted. “It’s you and me. Let’s settle this.”

“Settle what?” I tried to say innocently. Fuller wasn’t convinced.

“You bet he will! And he’s going to settle it the hard way!” the new girl challenged Fuller. By that time I was practically burning and I would’ve rather punched her than Fuller. Why did she think she could just speak for me?

Fuller took a step forward. “You shouldn’t have opened that big mouth of yours!”

“But I—” I decided to give up as he came closer. He lifted his fist to show that he was serious. I glanced at the new girl, who had a look of horror on her face. Suddenly, Fuller gave a blow to my cheek and terrible pain shot through my whole body. I was suddenly dizzy, and fell to the floor with a thud.

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Blinking open my crusty eyes, I realized I was in the white interior of the nurse’s office. It was a very small room, with a bland taste to it. It was completely white: white tile floor, white painted walls, white desk. I was even lying on a white cot with a white blanket and a—wait for it—white pillow.

I looked around me and saw the nurse sitting at her desk. She was quite portly, with a handsome wrinkled face and short red hair. “Oh look,” Mrs. Urger (her name him her) said. “He’s awake.” I was wondering who she was talking to, but I wasn’t surprised when the new girl appeared from around the corner with a bright white-toothed smile on her face. Her short blonde hair was more of a mess than usual.

“I was worried about you,” she said softly. She sat down on the cot, looking down at me with those blue eyes.

“You should be. It was your fault,” I muttered, afraid the nurse would hear me and I would get in trouble. “What happened after he punched me?”

“He kicked you….” The new girl tried to say it calmly, but she took a deep breath before she said, “Six times.” I sighed and tried to sit up, not surprised when my side burned from the effort.

“Well?” I looked up expectantly at her. I thought that, being the polite girl she was, she would apologize already. But I guess she’d surprised me that day in Gym Class, so maybe she wasn’t as sweet as I’d thought.

“What?”

“Aren’t you going to apologize?”

“Why should I?” she asked innocently.

“Because it was your fault,” I explained. “I would’ve never talked back to Fuller like that.”

“Exactly!” the girl said, quite calmly. I narrowed my eyes and laid back down, unable to stand the pain any longer. “I was just doing what you couldn’t, and it worked out the way I planned.”

“You planned for me to get beat up?” This surprised me. I would’ve never thought that she would want me to get hurt.

“No, he thought that you were man enough to stand up to him.” She had a smile on her face until she looked at me again and saw that I was glaring at her. “I was just trying to help,” she said slowly.

“You know what?” I lost it. I couldn’t stand one more second of this girl. She was ruining my life. In a matter of a week, she’d become my science partner, gotten me beat up and gotten me made fun of about ten more times than usual. I was sick of her annoying me and following me around. “I don’t need your help!” I exclaimed. She looked taken aback, and I was glad to see that smile wiped off her face and replaced with a quivering little lip. “I don’t need you at all! All you’ve done since you came here is ruin my life! Why don’t you just take your big mouth and leave me out of your life? Because I certainly don’t want you in mine.”

The new girl took a moment to answer. Her eyes were watering for a moment before she said, “Okay. Alright. I’ll leave you alone.” She turned and left.

“Yeah, good riddance!” I called after her.

Aaron is being a jerk, huh? Just wait and see!