Geeks
Chapter One
By Paul Schroder
As read from Michael's journal:
I guess I'm sorta what you would call a bookworm. I don't mean the type of larva that inhabit the bindings of old books and subsist on the mucilage. I mean the sort of worm that inhabits the interior of libraries and devours the books... one word at a time. I am a thirteen year old, pre-pubescent, (that means larval form) of the genus homo sapiens. And, oh yeah, I get really good grades in school and I like science. The word that most kids in school use to describe me is 'geek'.
That's sorta what I am. What I am not is one of those Neanderthal, jock types that score high in basketball and low in I.Q. And, I guess, one of the reasons I don't score high in basketball is because I am stature deficient. (That means I'm short). Another would be my propensity to trip over my own feet while trying to dribble and run at the same time. My friend Jeremy says I am lucky I can chew gum and walk at the same time. Ha ha, Jeremy. You are such a comedian. Geek.
Another thing, that I am not, is 'brave'. Ok, Ok, I guess you have to be somewhat brave to be a short geek in the lower echelons of Jr. High School. That means I get picked on for both reasons. You know, short and geek. And, I am not brave enough to stand up for myself when I do get picked on. Why should I add physical injury to verbal abuse? Like I say, I'm not dumb. I may get shoved into a locker or get the books slapped out of my hands in the hallway, but that is usually the extent of any physical abuse. (Well, maybe the occasional wedgy.) I am not going to use my tongue as a catalyst to precipitate extra violence at the hands of a bully. Nah, I just quietly take it and wait for them to get bored & move on to their next victim - which often enough is Jeremy. He is usually right beside me in the hallways and the bullies don't have to shift very far to claim their next victim.
Now you might wonder why Jeremy and I don't band together, in brotherhood so to speak, to try and intimidate these lower life forms. The answer is simple, they often tend to travel in packs. Such is the nature of the predator. Cheeze, just watch the Nature Series on the PBS channel and see for yourself.
Now Jeremy could be my clone. We are both short and have black hair with brown eyes. Well, not clones exactly. This is kinda where our physical similarities ends cuz Jeremy also has this beaky looking nose and an overbite. He is what my older sister refers to as...butt-ugly! Of course I would never even hint of these attributes within ear shot of Jeremy. However, I am sure he must be aware of his visual defects; he does have mirrors at his house. Now I, on the other hand, am what my sister refers to as a 'dream-boat'. She says I could be a hit with the girls in school if I weren't so short and geeky. Thanks sis...you Troglodyte. Girls haven't attracted me yet anyway. I haven't reached my pubescence yet. That means I don't have the hormones that cause you to moan for the ore's...get it, ore's? Think about it. God!
A typical day for Jeremy and I at school might go something like this. We'll be standing at my hall locker ,or his, since we share the same one, exchanging books for the next class. One of the innumerable bullies would waltz up and shove me, head first, into the open locker and say something like..."how's it going frog breath?" Then he would turn to Jeremy and say "what you looken at four-eyes?" (I forgot to mention that Jeremy wears glasses. Big, horned-rimmed, ugly suckers that are perpetually sliding down his nose.) Then he would knock Jeremy's books out of his hands before continuing his ape-like shuffle down the hallway, dragging his knuckles on the ground like the Simian he is. Damned Neanderthals.
Now Jeremy and I might be short, weak and cowardly, but what we lack in brawn and bravery we more than make up for in intelligence. None of these bullies are really a match for us because we usually find some way to get even. We are pretty good at laying 'monkey-traps' as we refer to the surprises we set for these apes. Of course we can never let them know who set them up or the results would be disastrous for yours truly.
Last week's monkey-trap was the brain child of Jeremy. It involved the purchase of a large quantity of India ink at the office supply store. Now this is the type of ink that is referred to as permanent ink. That means that if you get any on your clothing there is absolutely nothing that will remove the stain. And, if you get it on your skin you need to wear it off because you aren't washing it off. Then we went to Zamzows, a veterinary supply store, and bought two large hypodermic syringes. We took them into my Dad's wood working shop in my garage and put together two ingenious devices. These consisted of an arm of wood with a syringe and some lead wheel weights taped to one end and a clamp at the other end. The clamp was attached to an old door hinge thingy so that the arm could move up or down when clamped to something. We used Dad's band saw to build a plywood trigger that would depress the plunger on the syringe. We loaded up the syringe with water to give it the big test. Jeremy attached the clamp to the front of Dad's workbench and then attached a string to the trigger. The other end of the string we duct taped to the wall behind the bench. When Jeremy let go of the arm, the weights caused it to swing downward on its hinge and the string caused the trigger to fully depress the plunger. It may sound complicated, but it was really a simple device. For the test, I stood directly in front of the thing when Jeremy loosed the arm. The result was a large stream of water that sprayed me from my forehead down to my crotch as the arm descended. "Yes," we shouted and did our end-post victory dance in the garage. We high-fived each other and proclaimed ourselves geniuses. We then proceeded, very carefully, to fill the syringes on both devices with ink. Carefully, I say, because to mark our fingers with the stuff would be a dead giveaway as to the perpetrators of our revenge. We put caps on the syringe ends to prevent leakage and stuck them both into an old grocery bag.
Monday dawned bright and beautiful for the brainiacs intent on creating mayhem on the school's two biggest bullies - the Jones brothers. Now Mark and Steve Jones were twins of another dimension. Twilight Zone assholes, as it were. They were 9th graders who made it their purpose in life to make anyone smaller than themselves the target of abuse.
When we got to school we stashed our monuments of mayhem in our locker. The next part of the plan was my responsibility. I got myself excused from my 3rd period History class, ostensibly to go to the rest room. I complained of a touch of nausea. Nausea was a common occurrence at our school due to the school cafeteria. I choose this particular class because it was closest to our locker. Luckily, Mark's locker was just across the hallway from ours and Steve's was just two lockers away from Mark's.
I grabbed the bag from our locker and walked over to Mark's. Then I slid the blade of my Swiss army knife into the crack just below his locking lever. I have to tell you now that the lockers in this school are a total joke. While you had to use the combination lock to release the lever, you could also just lift the damn lever up with anything skinny enough to slide inside the door frame. I had Mark's locker open two seconds after I had opened my pocket knife. Slipping one monkey-trap out of the sack, I clamped it to the bottom book shelf of his locker. Then I stuck the piece of duct tape, attached to the string, to the back of his locker. I carefully pulled the cap off the end of the syringe and held the arm up, while closing the door. The closed door was now holding the monkey-trap up in its 'cocked' position. After this I sidled over to Steve's locker and did the same. Throwing the end caps back into the sack, I placed the sack in our locker. Grinning like a cannibal that had just consumed a missionary, I walked back to class. I was careful to wipe the grin off my face before entering the class room though. Not many people can come back from a good puke with a smile on their face.
It took forever for that damn bell to ring. But, when it did, I was the first one to burst out the door. I quick-stepped to my locker. Jeremy wasn't too long in joining me so he must have really hauled ass from his gym class. Anyway, we stood there at our locker, pretending to be absorbed in rummaging through our books and stuff while our peripheral vision searched for our victims. Mark was the first to arrive. He did the combination on his locker, popped up the lever and swung the door open.
The arm of the monkey-trap dropped down flawlessly and sprayed Mark with India ink from his forehead, down across his AC/DC sweat shirt, and then clear down the crotch of his baggies. Mark just stood there for a moment, trying to absorb what the hell had just happened. (He definitely isn't the sharpest tack in the box.) He was still standing there, dumbfounded, when the guy right next to him burst out in laughter. This was a kid even bigger than Mark and had no fear of Mark at all. He was laughing at the top of his voice and pointing to Mark. This caused everyone else to turn around and see what the commotion was. Mark slowly turned around, spread his arms and looked down at his midriff. What he saw, and everyone else in the vicinity as well, was a thick line of very black ink running down the center of his shirt and his pants. What he didn't see was the beginning of the ink line. The beginning was his hairline, continuing down the forehead, down his nose, lips, chin and his bulbous adams apple. Everyone else had the benefit of seeing the whole package. In a few seconds the entire hallway erupted in laughter. Everything from 'titters' from the timid 7th graders to uproarious belly laughs from the 9th graders. Mark just sort of looked up with this scowl on his face and then did the stupidest thing ever. Realizing that the stuff had also sprayed him in the face, he reached his hand up and wiped it across his brow and then brought his hand down to look at it. Of course he smeared the stuff clear across his forehead... and his hand as well. The laughter in the hallway kicked up two more notches when he did this. Some guys were laughing so hard they were sitting down in the hallway, holding onto their stomachs with both hands. And of course, one of these merry makers was Mark's own brother...Steve. Steve was holding his stomach with on e hand, pointing at Mark with the other and laughing so hard there were tears on his cheeks. (Whole lot of sibling affection in that household I guess.) Mark, obviously not receiving any sympathy from his twin, turned on his heel and stormed off in the direction of the boy's bathroom, probably to see if he could undo some of the damage at a sink.
The laughter was slowly tapering down when Steve started doing the combination on his own locker. Now, I guess you could assume that neither of the brothers are future contenders for any Nobel prizes. Hell, they were still putting their shoes on the wrong feet clear through the fourth grade. Anyway, nothing in Steve's brain-pan warned him to be careful and check for booby traps prior to swinging his own locker open. The second monkey-trap arm swung down with the same graceful arc as the first. It laid a stripe down Steve's center line in a perfect duplicate to Mark's! Steve did have a faster reaction than Mark, however, and managed to jump backwards a couple of feet. It was this movement that caused the people on both sides of him to glance over.
Oh my God! You should have heard that place erupt!!! People were now in total, absolute hysterics! Guys were literally rolling on the floor now! And I have to admit, Jeremy and yours truly were on that floor with them. Jeremy was laughing so hard you would think Mother Nature was tickling him with the same ugly-stick she beat him with at birth. I wasn't any better off. I was clutching my stomach so hard, laughing so hard, that I was in danger of spewing. Then...you are not going to believe this...then the dummy did the same thing his Einstein brother did. He wiped his forehead with the palm of his hand and then just stood there, staring at his hand. I hope there was some kind of logical thought running across that pea-brain, such as, "why the hell did I just do that? I just watched my idiot brother do that."
I don't have to tell you what happened to his audience after this brain fart. I don't have to tell you...but I sure as hell will! People, who had already laughed so hard that they were in pain, just sort of looked at him in soundless amazement. Then everyone looked at each other, unbelieving...and then the roof nearly blew right off the building! The laughter was pitched so high now that people's dog's, a mile away, were probably cocking their ears towards the school. The cackles, chortles and guffaws were causing immense pain to Steve's poor audience. Some guys faces were contorting and not a single sound was coming out. Diaphragms were just shutting down, right and left. A few guys were slapping their palms on the floor, right where they were laying in heaving convulsions. The guys that were leaning against the lockers were now butting their heads against them and sliding to the floor. I was on my hands and knees and truly in danger of hurling now. I could hear Jeremy wheezing next to me. I looked over at him...his face was a puddle of tears. He looked at me...we started bellowing again! "Oh God, stop me. Please stop me! I think I'm dying!" Oh...but it felt so good. Vengeance is mine, sayeth Michael.
End of journal transcription.
Oh yeah, by the way, that's my journal and I'm Michael. And this is my story. Well, Jeremy's in it too. And, this was just kind of a typical day in our lives. Anyway, that was last week. School administration finally gave up looking for the culprits of the Jones bashing. They even checked everyone's hands looking for signs of ink...hehehe. The brothers were told to stay at home till they could get the ink scrubbed off their faces. That should take about a week and two layers of skin!
Anyway, today is Saturday and the adventures begin anew. Come on along. We will make you an honorary geek. But, you have to pretend you're short cuz you want to blend in don't ya? Oh yeah, Jeremy would probably prefer it if you were ugly to boot. You know why.
Today is the day that Jeremy tells me his big secret...and shocks the living shit out of me! Well, if shit's alive that is.
There you go, you've met our Michael. You've met our other budding genius... butt-ugly Jeremy. Only, truth be known, it's only those damn glasses that mar his features. That curve to his nose is really kinda cute. Michael just likes to pretend he's the pretty one. Well, that's our geeks, take em or leave em. By the way, what is your suspicion about Jeremy's big secret? What ever it is, it sure floors our little Michael.
Looking for your comments or criticism. Send your cards and letters, well, make that your e-mails go to the address at the head of each chapter. Michael likes mail. (It's his damn ego you know.) Flamers will be extinguished, ass kissers will receive XXX's.
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