Joy the Boy

O

My first memory was when I was six years old. I had caught the flu from hanging outside with my four troublesome older brothers and had been forced to stay in bed. Being a very active six-year-old, I was far from pleased to be stuck in a room all day.

“How come I’m the only one sick, Mommy? Steven, and Ryan, and Eric, and Chris all played with me!” I whined.

“That’s because you are a girl, Joy. Girls are more sensitive to sickness than boys,” she explained.

“Then I want to be a boy!” I demanded.

“Oh honey, but I wanted a little girl so badly. That’s why I named you Joy,” my mother replied softly.

I contemplated this seriously for moment and then said, “Alright, I’ll stay a girl just for you, Momma.”

Just then Eric, my nine year old brother stuck his head in my room. “Don’t be a retard, Joy. Even if you wanted to be a boy, you can’t you’re just a silly girl!” he taunted. “Besides, if you don’t stop playing with us, then everyone will start calling you ‘Joy the boy!’”

Eric stuck out his tongue and dashed away before my mother could grab him. Before he was out the door, I shouted at him angrily -

“Then let ‘em! I’ll be the best boy a girl can be!”

Although my mother chased after him to apologize, the damage was done. Ever since that day, my unofficial nickname became “Joy the Boy,” and I never minded one bit.

O

“I hate morning practices!” The newest addition to the Monroe High varsity girls’ basketball team, Alexis, whined as she came out of the locker room. I rolled my eyes at her antics while I stretched my legs; as if whining about morning practices would suddenly make coach stop them.

“And I hated the lazy and cocky attitude that you girls had last night. Now, I want ya’ll to run, princesses!” Coach barked from the outside of his office.

I bit back a smirk at Coach’s response to Alexis. Last night’s game was fun. Washington High always had the crappiest basketball teams, so we girls ended up goofing off the whole game. Coach said that it was rude to not play our best with them. In my opinion, we saved the Washington girls the humiliation of our A-game.

With Coach’s constant nagging, our small team of eight began our ritual suicides. Suicides, or “killers” as some called them, were our coach’s tactic to keep his team in shape by running them. The basic concept of a suicide is that everyone runs to a line, touches it, and doubles back to the starting point where she begins to run to the second line. This process repeats itself until the runner has doubled back from the free throw line, the half court line, the opposite free throw line, and the opposite base line.

I started my fourth suicide when Leslie caught up to me. I smiled at her. My long legs always kept me ahead of the others. Once Coach turned in to his office, I slowed up to more of a swift jog. “He just doesn’t believe in a mercy killing. He’s far too sadistic for it.” I whispered to Leslie.

Leslie snorted quietly and smirked. “Don’t let Coach hear you say that!”

Almost on cue Coach stuck his head out of the office and begin to yell. “Thomas, Carter – if you don’t shut up and run, I’m gonna make you both run until you throw up!”

Leslie and I shared a look and started running full speed. Coach was not the type to mess with in the morning.

O

Coach was a spiteful old man. Leslie and I were quieter than church mice, and he still made us run an extra two suicides. Perhaps he held a grudge against us. I shrugged off the thought – how ridiculous would that be?

I hit my locker door forcefully as I spun my lock - 34, 16, 7. Whacking the locker one last time, I managed to open the door. Even though I knew that I was making quite the racket opening up my locker, I didn't care. It was a daily occurrence to see me fight my locker open, so my classmates should just get over my daily battle with the persnickety metal box. How I treat my locker and how loud I am is none of their business. Besides, I had books to retrieve and classes to attend. I didn’t have time to play nice with my ridiculous, idiotic locker.

"Angry much?" Leslie questioned as I loudly searched my messy piles of papers, books and trash.

"Delayed grumpiness, I guess," I said sullenly. Morning practices were always fun, but the lack of sleep always seemed to hit after practice.

"Well, you practically ran out of the locker room showers this morning, and like a good teammate, I brought you your practice jersey." Leslie tossed it to me before she started to walk off. "I have to get going, but bring your game face to practice tonight. I want to do a one-on-one during warm ups."

"You can count on it, skinny," I yelled out after her. Leslie only turned to stick out her tongue before she disappeared in the crowd of teenagers.

After locating my desired book, I started to flip through the pages to grab my Government homework. Mr. Harrison kills all students who don’t follow his rules, and rule number one is “always turn in your homework before the bell rings”. Apparently class was not the place to do it as he only had fifty minutes to cram as much information as he could into our puny brains. I just think that it gives him an excuse to hand out zeros to kids that he hates.

I was jerked out of my thoughts when a hand lightly grazed my butt, and immediately I elbowed the prick’s upper body, moving away from him.

Shutting my locker door, I turned to mouth off the pervert but was confronted by Ben Matthews, who just smiled at me and said, "Aw, don't be like that. You wound me."

I rolled my eyes. “I'm warning you. I'm so not in the mood today.”

Ben was the most-ever annoying presence in my life. He was nearly six feet tall, the point guard for the boys’ basketball team, and a perverted jerk. My older brother Stephen told me that he had a “Tap That” list where he wrote out all the girls he wanted to sleep with, and two years ago, he decided to make a bet among the basketball players to see how many virgins he could corrupt. So I guess you could say that I felt far more than moderate disgust against this guy. I loathed guys like him.

"Pissy much? Fine, kill a man for trying to make a grumpy girl happier,” Ben said, with a dashing smile to boot.

"Oh please, what could you ever do that would me happier?" I sarcastically asked as I started to walk away. By now a fair amount of people had stopped their own conversations to observe my own personal “Ben attack.” Since last week, Ben had started to hound my every move and lay on his charm, and I was sick of it. In fact, I had even heard a few days ago that there was a betting pool going on about how soon Ben would crack me.

"A good screw would knock the prude attitude right out of you for sure,” he called out after me. I stopped short, and with the hallway emptying at a fast rate, I could hear his calm sucker punch finish with great clarity - “That's what your last boyfriend told the team, that is.”

I growled as I clenched my fist. My horrendous dating history was the line. I was tired of Ben’s insufferable morning attacks, and I wasn’t going to deal with his accidental “grab and feel” anymore. So I marched back up to his smirking face and did like all great boys (and my bumbling brothers) would do in similar situation. I pulled my right arm back and gladly broke his nose.

Ben cried out, clutching his broken and bleeding nose. I smiled.

"You insufferable litt—“ I kicked his shin before he could finish, “Ah! That bloody hurts, you know.”

"Oh, crawl under a rock and die, you pansy," I said haughtily.

"I-I think you broke my nose.”

"Oh, no worries, I definitely did,"

With a grin on my face, I turned to flounce off to class. A good fight always made a bad day a good one.

O

It wasn’t like I was under some naïve impression that I wouldn’t get in trouble. I had known as soon as I heard the knock on the door in my first period class that Ben had gone to nurse and told who broke his nose. The significant fact was that I didn't care. The idiot deserved it for his complete incapability to maintain a reasonable distance away from me.

The principal gave me a full stare-down, as he always did when I came into his office. The stare always reminded me of the cop shows where the cop tries to intimidate the criminal by staring him down and telling him how screwed he is. I shrugged it off though, because this office and situation, well, wasn’t that new to me.

"All right, Joy, explain to me why you decided to break Ben Matthew's nose,” the principal began.

"It was an accident sir. I just wanted him to leave me alone." As I protested with an innocent face, I forced myself to withhold a smirk. Like I had not known that I was going to break Ben’s nose once he brought my ex-boyfriend into it. Ben deserved it, but I certainly couldn’t get away with it if I didn’t at least feign some innocence.

"Joy, do you realize how many times that I've had you in this office this year alone for violent behavior?" He said with a sign, rubbing his temples.

"Numerous times, sir.” I bit back a grin.

"Well, it's now one too many.” I frowned at this comment. I always got off easy with the principal, considering how the tutoring I did for Steven, the most notorious of all my brothers with fights in school. Really, I was the only reason Steven managed to graduate.

"What do you mean, sir?"

"I mean three weeks of after-school detention,” the principal said, giving me a harsh look.

"After-school? But what about basketball practice? The team needs me, sir!” The principal continued to remain unmoved. "That is so not fair, Mr. Todd! He grabs my butt and makes inappropriate comments to me, and I’m the one who gets in trouble?"

"Because you broke his nose, Ms. Carter." The principal glared at me before continuing, "Besides, I have considered this factor before, which is why I've decided that instead of a normal after school detention, I will give you another option. The Student Council needs volunteers for its upcoming projects. You will be at the council's service until your three weeks are up, under President Kelly’s supervision, of course."

“But—“

“No buts! I'll have you report to Liam Kelly tomorrow morning. He'll be the one telling you where to go and what to do." I glanced down at my twiddling thumbs. “I’m sorry, Joy. You have to learn to control that temper of yours. I can’t let you punch every guy who asks you out.”

I nodded feebly to Mr. Todd and walked out of the room. Sure, the principal hadn’t been spot-on accurate with the situation with Ben, but I couldn’t convince him otherwise. I could just tell from the look in his eyes that his decision was concrete.

O

Author's Note:

Okay, this is a story that I whipped out over the past three days. I kinda had an epiphany moment where the angels sang and about twelve seperate ideas molded into one magnificant beast. I hope you stick it out, because I plan on some humor and fun. Besides, I'm so loveable and cute. :)

Now, this story wouldn't be half the amazingness that it is without Kristine, my beta for this story. She'll be one to thank when you get a good read without a flaw in sight. Oh, and Jules, who is the person who distracts me and inadvertantly inspires this madness from around 1 AM to 4 AM. Finally, Aurette is talking to me as I post this first chapter. Love her. She's writing "To Feel The Sun." It's amazing. GO JONAH!

OK. I'm done now. I have seriously chapters 1-5 done. So I'm just waiting for editing on those; don't be worried about the updates!

-- Terra

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