Your Not So Average Nerd

Chapter 1.

Chris and Will usually spend the ten minutes before we leave the house arguing over who gets to drive to school. Will always wins. I guess that's the advantage of being a few months older. Today was different. Chris threw me the keys to the beat up truck as he and Will argued over who got to sit upfront.

I hope we make it to school without crashing into someone. Actually, I hope I make it through the day without seeing anyone.... But really what are the chances of that? Especially after losing my invisibility cloak last week.

There's one great thing about being a nerd. No one will remember when your birthday is, so I have yet to have more than a total of six people remember my existence let alone my birthday. The entire school most likely saw my name on Facebook under birthdays and asked themselves "Who the hell is Ginny O'Connell?" Today I couldn't ask for anything more than being utterly invisible.

Once, we pull into the parking lot of the school, Chris and Will jump out of the car as quick as possible and fall to their knees.

"Oh thank god we're here," Chris says as he kisses the pavement. I spin on my heels and walk away as quickly as possible. I swear it isn't that bad to drive with me. I may have hit a squirrel in the 5 minute ride to school though.

Today didn't get any better since Chris and Will mocked me for being a terrible driver. After walking through the large, bright green front doors to our school, the day got even worse. I had an impossibly hard test in Advanced Biology. Chris and Will k screaming happy birthday whenever they see me in the hall. They've even got their friends to remind me about how today is my sixteenth birthday and a straight up awful day.

Lunch was not too bad, I guess it could have been worse. My only real girl friend is Kelly. She and her boyfriend, Phil, never usually eat with me at lunch. They're always too busy with some club meeting or community service event. Greg is the only other person I'd really consider my friend. By friend I mean that I hang out with outside of school and talk to him in the halls about something other than tests and homework. Greg is as much of a nerd as me maybe more so. That's why we have been friends since 6th grade. I guess I would consider Greg my best friend, so I always sit with him and his gamer buddies. Nothing can go wrong when I'm with Greg. He's like family, the kind that doesn't torture me every day. Of course, birthdays have to be different than every other day, and he had to initiate singing happy birthday to me in the café along as my brothers joined in.

Since my face is now turning the color of my hair, everyone feels the need to keep coming up to me. "Happy birthday dweeb," or whatever stupid nickname their intellectual mind can come up with. I really hate that Will and Chris's friends think they can just make fun of me.

Luckily, after lunch I have my elective computer class, which no one chose to take this semester. Mr. Mullen and I are the only ones in the back of the library during this period, which I couldn't be more thrilled about. This is the only time I can be entirely myself throughout the day. I wish this was the only class I had to attend especially since I'm leaving my fourth new programming language now, C++. But that period goes by all too quickly since I'm telling Mr. Mullen all about my life. He probably knows me better than my own mother.

Finally, it looks like there's an end in sight for this terrible day.

Although everyone looks forward to the end of the day, I can't help but dread my last class. I hate English class more than Biology. Who even knew that was possible? Mrs. Havranek would be classified as the best teacher ever to anyone else in this school or the hottest if you ask the guys. She's a petite 5'2" women that most likely graduated college last week, with long blonde hair and high heeled boots that reach her knees. She tries her best to make everyone pass the class. Despite all of this, this women cannot say a nice word about anyone's paper no matter how hard she tries, but I think I'm the only one to realize this.

Mrs. Havranek comes off to me as someone who will always consider her writing better than Charles Dickens but how can anyone even think of putting down Oliver Twist? She'll always say something along the lines of "It has an aspect or two that can make it a good paper, but it is not quite there yet." Sitting in the classroom waiting for the second bell to ring, a dark haired boy across the room catches my eye. His bright green eyes boring into my average brown ones. I turn away as quickly as possible. Maybe it wasn't Mrs. Havranek that made me hate this class.

Mrs. Havranek walks into the room and slams a large box onto the desk. I cannot tell if this is to get us to shut up, but it definitely worked. Looking around the room as all the boys drool over her blonde locks and the girls look at her as if she's an inspiration, I cannot help but roll my eyes.

Mrs. Havranek plunges into explaining our newest project, which sounds relatively interesting. I have to hand it to Mrs. Havranek, she usually picks really good books. This month's book? The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown. Seriously such a great book, but who doesn't want to read the first book in a series before the second?

"I'm going to assign each pair pages to summarize, interpret, and present. The presentation with explain everything you learned from this project, not only about the interpretation of the book but also about what you discovered about yourselves. I want there to be a creative aspect to your presentation in any way you choose. The catch is that I get to pair you up with whomever I choose, and to make it more fun, I'm choosing pairs based on how you act towards one another. In other words, I'm not pairing you with friends. Work never seems to get done that way," Mrs. Havranek says as the entire groans.

As the class nerd, everyone automatically wants to be paired with me. To them it means slacking off and a good grade, but they do not understand that English is not my strong suit. It's really the only time they acknowledge my presence. Personally, I'd really like to be paired with Greg, but I know that will never happen.

Mrs. Havranek starts calling off names from a crumpled piece of paper, "Molly with Kaitlyn. Joel with Lindsey. Greg with Alexandra. Jake with..." I realize how well Mrs. Havranek is doing with not putting people with friends. Joel is a football star while Lindsey is in band. That's two completely different worlds. Molly and Kaitlyn used to be best friends before they were in a huge brawl three years ago over some guy and have not talked since. Greg and Alexandra were the best yet. They used to date. Until three weeks ago when Greg found out Alexandra was cheating on him. And that can only mean one thing, "Virginia."

I hate Jake. I can't stand him. He's that guy everyone thinks is hot, but at the same time everyone is afraid of him. He's dark, handsome, and mysterious.

No, but really he is I'm not kidding. Impossibly dark green eyes that sparkle with mischief, long brown scruffy hair, a beat up leather jacket, converse, and a motorcycle. He barely says a word to anyone besides his two friends. He's impossibly tall and handsome.

Those aren't my words obviously... That's how everyone at school has been describing him for years.

Everything I want in a guy, except his personality. He's trouble. The kind of trouble that attracts every girl to a bad boy.

The bell signifying the end of the day sounded, and everyone raced out of the room with a dark cloud over their head as they realized how much time they would be spending with their partners. I looked around for Jake to talk about the project, but he was gone. How does someone sitting in the middle of the classroom end up being the first one out? I guess that was just part of his mysterious charm that everyone seemed to love.

Fortunately for me, his motorcycle was long gone as I reached the beat up blue truck. I couldn't wait to go home and spend the rest of my birthday curled up in a ball in the basement.