Reasons To Love A Nerd Like Me (Sample)

Chapter 4 - Girls And Games

The person I found myself colliding into was a strikingly pretty upper sixth girl with very short dark hair, gelled up like some kind of tomboy pixie. She was carrying a guitar case over her shoulder and she looked majorly pissed off with me.

"Jesus Christ, what are doing?!" she yelled into my face. "Move out my fucking way!"

With that, she gave me a massive shove with both hands, before stomping off down the corridor in her big clompy boots. She was following the direction of Vincent and I heard her calling out after him.

"Oi Vincent, wait up! Some little prick nearly knocked me over!"

I didn't say or do anything to defend myself from this rather scary girl. To be honest, I was still in shock that Vincent hadn't punched my lights out or something. Instead, I took myself out the way of the oncoming slew of students walking from class to class (so as not to cause any more corridor drama) and waited for the crowds to clear before entering Mr. Bicknam's classroom. Luckily for me, he was most understanding about me missing my maths lesson. I think he probably twigged on better than most other teachers that I was being bullied and tended to give me the benefit of the doubt in these kinds of situations.

Once I'd cleared up that confusion, I decided to make my way home. It had been such a long, horrible day and all I wanted was to get away from school and into the safety of my own territory. I went back downstairs and out toward the exit near the school reception. The hustle and bustle of lesson change seemed to have died down, greatly reducing my chances of knocking into anyone else and embarrassing myself all over again.

As I walked through the school grounds to the exit gate, I noticed Vincent Hunter and his tomboy friend sitting under the big tree in the middle of the courtyard. Either they had a free period or they were bunking off lessons (my guess was the latter). Vincent was smoking a cigarette as he rested against the tree trunk and the girl was getting a bass guitar out of her case. I couldn't help but stare over at them. I thought Taylor Raven and The Brainless Baker Boys were intimidating, but these two had heaps more attitude than all of them combined. It was just something in the way they carried themselves. I couldn't believe I'd bumped into them both and was actually still alive to tell the tale.

I thought I was being inconspicuous as I looked over, but suddenly Vincent caught my eye. I felt myself blushing bright red and turned my head slightly to the left, as though I was looking just beyond the big tree he was sitting under. To my total astonishment, Vincent started waving to me. No wait, surely it wasn't aimed at me? But there was nobody else around. Feeling thrown, I ducked my head down low and rushed out the school gate as quickly as possible.

Although he was fairly far away, I heard Vincent's laughter ringing out clearly behind me as I hurried off home.

---

That evening, Olive decided to pop round and hang out for a while. I was really glad she did. She was lounging on my bedroom floor as I laid on my bed. We both had our Gameguys in our hands and were battling each other on our favourite computer game, Munchy Monsters.

"Yes, I did it!" Olive cried as she obliterated my Pikamunchy with her Fire-Otter. "I've been levelling Flamey up all week so I could finally beat you!"

I didn't have the heart to tell her that I sort of let her win. I just didn't have the energy for a full-on battle after my rubbish day.

"Looks like it paid off," I said with a smile. "But I'm demanding a rematch later."

All we ever did most nights was sit around playing Munchy Monsters. Well, that or Dungeon Adventure, but that involved a lot of time and effort, which we couldn't be bothered with at that particular moment. We figured we would wait until Thursday's R.P.G. Club to play a more in-depth game. For now, beating each other up in monster form would have to suffice.