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Ed found four large bags of Sour Patch Kids duct taped to his locker door. He wasn't creeped out until he saw the print out of the one tweet he had posted three months ago, about liking Sour Patch kids. Written in loopy pink ink were the words: From your secret admirers. PS please take us to Prom.

This is normal fan girl behavior, Ed told himself as he ripped off the topmost bag, internet stalking a stranger is a developmental thing, that a lot of otherwise normal girls do, remember Emily's One Direction phase four years ago? These Sour Patch kids couldn't possibly be poisoned...

"Holy Bacne, Batman, look at all that sugar!"

Ed jumped.

"Startled ya, did I?" Gina snatched the Sour Patch kids from Ed, "You're totally not cut out for celebrity."

"My 204 thousand Instagram followers would disagree with you," Ed spun the combination of his lock.

"You're up to 208," Gina ripped open the bag, "I checked during Civics."

"208 thousand?" Ed grabbed his lunch from his locker's top shelf, "Jesus."

"Don't take the Lord's name in vain," Gina scolded.

"Aren't you a Satanist?" Ed eyed Gina's black lace choker and the ornate, embellished cross dangling from her neck.

"You wish," Gina gnawed off the head of a green Sour Patch kid, "Come on, you're totally freaked out by the attention, right?"

"I'm freaked out by you," Ed slammed shut his locker door, "why are you here, anyway?"
"The mothership sent me to check up on you again," Gina now chewed on the Sour Patch kid's feet. "You wanna sit with us at lunch now, finally, or with the ravenous hordes of your devotees?"

"You mean Jesse?" Ed started walking to the cafeteria, "You can tell the mothership that I'm perfectly happy sitting with Jesse."

"You're not," Gina sprinted to catch up with him, "how could anybody be happy with that knucklehead? He plays covers of freaking Weezer. Oh, I'm Rivers Cuomo, I'm sexually frustrated in the 1990s wah, poor me-"

"Weezer's not that bad," Ed said, "and neither are my 'fans.' So they gave me some candy and want pictures with me. It's flattering."

"Pfft."

"I'm serious," Ed insisted, "I don't mind. Somebody's gotta be the Internet's boyfriend. You know, the meme that 'numbs us from the loneliness,' or whatever you said?"

"So you're complacently embracing your role in the new world order now?" Gina popped another Sour Patch kid into her mouth.

"How am I- those are literally your words?" Ed said, baffled.

"And you call yourself a man?" Gina lowered her eyelids, "We need a revolution,"

"I'm a big disappointment to Che, I know," Ed started down the stairs to the cafeteria, "I'm a big disappointment to everybody."

"Your parents love you," Gina paused, "probably too much. It's made you weak."

Ed didn't hear this last one of Gina's wisecracks. Waiting to greet Ed in the cafeteria was a swarming crowd of forty or fifty underclassmen, who all at once begged him for photographs.

"Janey Mac," Gina said. The bag of Sour Patch kids fell from her hands.

***

A sophomore was tasked with taking a photo of his twin sister, her best friend, and Ed.

"Make sure you get my shoes in," the friend had insisted, "they're Yeezys."

"Okay," the sophomore took a step backward and in between two lunch tables.

"Do you have my shoes in?" the friend asked.

"No, hold on," the sophomore took another step backward, into an aisle.

"Get her shoes in, Ben," the twin sister snipped, "they're Yeezys!"

"Okay," Ben the sophomore said, "I think I got 'em."

"Do you have the heels?" the friend asked, as she puffed up her brown ponytail.

"Not quite," Ben the sophomore took a third step backward, into the way of the towering tray cart of a very, very short lunch lady.

Ed saw the collision before it happened. The face he made in the photograph was proof enough of that. And then there was wet trays everywhere. And there was water everywhere. And as soon as Ben the sophomore stood back up, he slipped again, and knocked out his front left tooth on the back of a nearby chair.

"Did he at least get in my Yeezys?" the friend asked.

***

The walls of Mrs. Durante's office were lined with motivational posters. Ed had never been to a principal's office before, but he wouldn't have expected to see the words "WINNING IS EVERYTHING" framed and hung just above Mrs. Durante's Masters diploma.

"I'm just glad the Internet didn't decide to make you famous during football season," Mrs. Durante said, "Ben Ziegler is set to be quarterback next year. Apparently he twisted his ankle."

"Oh wow," Ed said, "I saw the tooth, but-"

"He'll be fine by September, obviously," Mrs. Durante continued, "but if you pulled a stunt like this mid-season, he definitely couldn't take Central to State."

"His sister asked me for a picture-"

"He's a strong kid. I said to Coach Filmore, I said, he's the one. He's the one to finally get us back the district trophy. East Linden think they've already got it in the bag, but not this time," she narrowed her eyes, "it's mine."

"Mhmm," Ed swallowed.

"So you see why it's very important there's not any more accidents."

"I don't think I'm responsible for the accident, though-"

"You're a distraction," Mrs. Durante played with the gold ring encircling her pinky finger, "We got a rising football star, now benched and missing a tooth; an upset tray cart; a lunch lady with a goose egg on her forehead; and probably a quarter of the student body would stop in the hallway and try to get a picture with you instead of going to class. Your teachers tell me your presence itself is causing a ruckus in the classroom."

"That's all true, and I'm very sorry, but I didn't ask for -"

"We've got to do something," Mrs. Durante tapped her desktop with her fist, "I'm going to have to put you on a non-disciplinary suspension until things settle down."

"You're gonna suspend me?" Ed asked.

"Don't think of it as a suspension. I realize that I can't actually punish you just because girls think you're handsome," Mrs. Durante appraised Ed with her eyes, "I personally don't see it, but whatever."

"But, it's May- I mean," Ed stuttered. "I'm gonna be a senior next year- you're gonna pass me through to the next grade level, right?"

"If need be, you'll finish the semester via correspondence. I talked to your guidance counselor and she said your teachers can sort something out," Mrs. Durante gestured dismissively. "Do you have any way of getting out of here? Can you drive?"

"I'm parked outside the humanities center-"

"Then go home and spare the rest of the children."

***

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