Life As Told By Nerdy

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Chapter 1 — I am Nerdy

I’m Sarah. But everyone in school calls me Nerdy. Only a handful; including teachers and my friends (there aren’t many of them) call me by my real name. Maybe because people actually thought some stupid parent would actually put Nerdy Littman on the birth certificate of her only child.

It wouldn’t be difficult to guess that I am indeed a nerd. But that wasn’t the only reason they gave me the nickname. It all started in the first year of high school and I couldn’t blame anyone but Matt Adams—the football team captain and leader of the populars—but that’s another story. After all the years of being called Nerdy, I didn’t mind it anymore. I take it more as a nickname rather than an insult.

“What is wrong with you people?” I muttered under my breath in pity for the new kid, only to catch cruel glares from the girls in the third row.

“Your face,” Charrie chided, her hair whipping as she turned away from me with a disgusted look.

Some of the girls on the other side of the room sniggered in unison and coughed a muffled “nerd”. I paid no attention to them as they threw small bits of paper at me. Instead I looked down, breathing in and out in silence despite the fact that my insides revolted with annoyance. Denial was my best friend.

Shaking my head, I sighed sheepishly at the commotion. I could only sympathize with poor Leonard Dunn. Being a nerd was hard enough but being bullied was another thing and it was just his first day here.

Leonard Dunn hesitated, then after about half a minute he slowly pulled the bonnet off his head, revealing very dark brown, almost black disheveled hair that covered almost half of his face.

“S-sure... I- I’m Leonard Dunn, f-from Oregon,” he said, revealing the pair of brackets on his teeth making his pronunciation of S sound funny.

“Definitely NOT Leon Walden,” Becky exclaimed and the class stared at her. “I didn’t just say that out loud, did I?” Her cheeks blushed as the class went into a laughing fit again.

“Okay,” Mr. Collins clapped his hands twice. “Settle down. Mr. Dunn, take the second seat to the left, third row.” Mr. Collins had this habit of calling us Miss or Mister to remind us all that we are already responsible adults.

“Err… Just call me Leonard,” he grunted as he pulled the beanie back on his disheveled head. “If it would not trouble anyone, I’d please like a seat near the window.”

“Mr. Jensen, do you mind?” The teacher asked the lanky red-haired boy seated on my left.

“Not if you give me an A plus on our next pop quiz.” Robbie Jensen sneered, slinging his rucksack on his back, and then headed to the third row.

“Very funny...” The teacher muttered with sarcasm.

As the class resumed with a bunch of math problems to solve, Leonard Dunn shuffled uneasily on his chair as he sat beside me. I tried my best to ignore him and focused on the word problems but he kept rustling every now and then. It felt like I was shouting the words inside my head but couldn’t understand anything because I could not keep the noise out of my mind.

Somehow he looked familiar, though I couldn’t be sure since I was practically blind all morning after a couple of jocks—Matt Adams’ cronies—threw slush balls at me, breaking my glasses in the process. As if being called four-eyes wasn’t annoying enough, I didn’t need people staring at the cracks on the lenses of my glasses.

I grunted then cast an ominous look at Leonard hoping that he had figured out that I was very irritated at what he was doing but instead, he met my gaze and threw a mind-your-own-business look at me.

I tried counting one to ten before I could throw a chair at him. When I finally calmed down, I tore a piece of paper from my note book and scribbled something on it.

Please keep it down, I wrote. Then I slipped the piece of paper on his desk.

He furrowed his brows when he read the note, then crumpled it, threw it onto my desk and sighed staring at the window uninterestedly.

Calm down, I told myself, then huffed and puffed focusing back on my seat work. After a minute or so, he started tapping his pencil on his desk. The rhythmic taps started to get on my nerves again. I glared at his direction and gestured for him to stop whatever it was that he was doing.