Into the Wild Nerd Yonder

by Halpern, Julie

  Ms. Norton tells the class that if we leave her alone and actually do silent reading like we’re supposed to, she should have our essay tests graded by the end of the period. I pull Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging out of my bag, which I have read about a hundred times, but I keep in my bag just in case I need something to read (or make me laugh). In it is one of my favorite lines of all times: “What in the name of Sir Julie Andrews?”

  I’m chuckling to myself when Polly slides into the seat next to me. She smiles as she puts her books on the floor, except for her favorite note-scribbling notebook and a purple sparkly gel pen.

  She begins writing a note that I know is to me, so I put the gum wrapper I use as a bookmark in Angus and wait. I can’t help but notice more about her today, particularly her legs. Great legs is a concept that I’ve never really gotten on women (I mean, I can totally see why lean, muscley soccer-player legs on a guy can be way hot), since it seems to be a lack of muscle and fat (or any shape at all) that makes a woman’s legs great, at least according to US Weekly. But when I look at Polly’s legs, I guess I can sort of understand. And still, there she is: band geek.

  What r u up 2 this weekend? She punctuates the message with a drawing of a face with questiony eyebrows. I know she’s probably dying to tell me what she’s doing this weekend, but I appreciate that she’s polite enough to ask me first.

  You’ll never guess, I write, without any texty shorthand. I reserve that only for use with technological things. Sometimes it actually takes me more time to figure out what letters and numbers stand for than just writing the actual words.

  Oooh—sounds kinky.

  Doubtful. Why don’t you tell me what you’re doing this weekend first—with as few kinky details as possible, thank you very much.

  My parents r letting me stay @ Jakes 4 the weekend, since it’s a 2 hour train ride away. Can’t wait! She draws little hearts around the whole note, and I feel happy for her.

  I assume your weekend will be filled with high culture: plays, art exhibits, opera, I tease.

  I’m not sure what he has planned. Lots of surprises, he said. But it’s the 1st time I meet the parents. Yikes!

  They’ll love you, I’m sure. How can they not?

  I know. Still scary! So I never guessed what you’re doing. Big date?

  No.

  Skydiving?

  No.

  Nude beach?

  As if. Give up?

  Sure.

  Playing Dungeons and Dragons with Dottie Bell and her friends.

  I’m secretly hoping that Polly makes fun of me, to prove that Dottie and her friends are even lower on the social totem pole than the band geeks, but Polly just writes, Fun! I tried once this summer, but it was way too complicated. My brother plays, and so does Jake. Who else is playing?

  Wow. That’s it? Maybe she’s just pretending she thinks it’s okay.

  I list the names of the few people I know, and Polly writes little comments next to them.

  Dottie She’s been going out with Doug forever!

  Doug is kinda cute!

  Kent Holt hilarious!

  Philip Shen I hear he reads a book a night. Way smart. Cute in a one-foot-shorter-than-me kind of way

  Henry Hathaway He dated this girl from band camp last year. She said he’s a really good kisser. Definitely cute.

  I stare at her comments in a state of shock. How is it that she manages to think everyone’s cute that I think I’m not supposed to think are cute? Are everyone’s brains programmed to think different types of people are attractive to ensure the survival of the species? I wonder what she’d think of Van. Yuck. I don’t even want to think of Van. Sometimes I still do, though. At least I can ram him with a sword in my dreams.

  Toward the end of the period, Ms. Norton starts calling out names to hand back our tests. Mine is an A, as predicted. Polly flashes her paper at me with a disappointed shrug. B –. I delicately show her my A with a guilty smile. She pretends to be mad at me by coming at my paper with her pen. I look around the room and catch glimpses of other people’s grades: C –, B –, B +, with the majority in the B range. And I got an A. I take out the sliding nerd scale in my mind and push myself closer to the side that reads “Official Bona Fide Nerd.” Now I just have to figure out if that’s a bad thing.

  chapter 24

  WAITING IN THE LUNCH LINE, I KICK myself for the extra-long shower that prevented me from packing a lunch. The lunch ladies plop tomatoey, meaty lumps onto trays, and I smell what I believe to be sloppy joes. My stomach lurches at the thought of the pile of mushy meat atop a soggy bun. I consider having a minimalist Little Debbie vending machine lunch, when a hand taps my shoulder. I turn around to find myself looking up into Henry’s curl-covered eyes. “I wanted to thank you for your help with precalc yesterday,” he says. “I think I aced it. Although, you never know. We’ll see this afternoon, right?” I nod and smile. He’s so freakin’ friendly, not like all of those aloof Denny’s smokers, and not like the pervy, showy marching band guys. “I don’t know if you have your heart set on a cafeteria lunch.” I violently shake my head no. He laughs. “Do you want to go out?” He asks almost like he’s asking a dog if it has to go out to pee. He catches himself and clears his throat. “To lunch, I mean. We could go to Burger King or Wendy’s. Whichever you prefer.”

  Whichever I prefer. Nice. “Burger King, definitely.” No more lunch Frosties for me, thank you very much.

  We walk over to Burger King, talking (when we can hear each other over the traffic) mostly about teachers and classes on the way. Henry holds open the door for me, and I head to the end of the busy line.

  “What’ll it be, miss?” He takes out his wallet and flips through his money. “It’s on me. For your help on the precalc test.”

  “No, don’t worry about it. You don’t have to pay.” Part of me fears that if he pays, I owe him something. What I’d owe, I don’t know, but I’d rather be debt-free for now.

  “How about I’ll pay this week, and you can pay next week. We can make this our weekly Friday celebration. If you want.” It’s very different being around Henry at lunch than being with Van. Van never really asked me about anything I wanted. It feels kind of chivalrous. A flash of Henry in surfer shorts pops into my head, and I tuck my hair behind my ears to push it away.

  “Okay. Lunch out on Fridays. Unless there’s a precalc test.”

  “But of course.” Henry orders a cheeseburger and fries for me (which I told him I wanted) and two Whoppers, a large fry, and a vanilla shake for himself. I look at him quizzically. “Growth spurt,” he explains. “It’s freakish. I feel like a science experiment. Last year I thought I’d always be the short kid, and now this.” He indicates his height. “Not that I’m complaining, but my mom can’t keep up with me when she buys my clothes. She said she’s giving up until I slow down a bit.”

  “Your mom buys your clothes?” I immediately worry that I sound bitchy, but it’s a valid question, right?

  He blushes as he collects our food and nods toward a booth. “I never really cared until they stopped fitting.” He sits down and immediately tears into one of his Whoppers.

  “But maybe if your mom didn’t buy them, you could get the right size?” I try to suggest delicately. “So they’re not so short?”

  He laughs through his burger and wipes his mouth with a napkin. “Yeah. I guess I’m just being lazy. I’ll think about it.”

  We eat and chat and laugh and smile, and I actually feel disappointed when he looks at his watch and says we have to start heading back. The traffic makes it nearly impossible to cross the street in time for the bell, so Henry yells over the noise, “Here—” and grabs my hand, weaving me in and out of the cars until we’re safely on the other side. He promptly lets go, and I think maybe he just did it out of safety concern and not at all in any sort of romantic way. So what if I’m a little disappointed.

  Before we part for our classes, Henry says, “So I’ll see you tonight? Around seven?” A
nd for a second I forget about Dungeons and Dragons and think we may actually have a date. “See if Dottie will help you make a character during study hall.” Right. A character. For Dungeons and Dragons. Duh.

  “What exactly does that mean?” I scrunch my nose in ignorance.

  “To play D&D you have to be a character. So you pick a race and a class—like fighter or wizard or whatever—she’ll help you. I’m guessing you’ll be an elf wizard. Or maybe a rogue. But definitely an elf,” he says in a knowing way.

  “Why an elf?” I ask, almost insulted, although I have no idea why.

  “Because girls like to be elves. Something to do with them being skinny and pretty.” We’re walking faster, so we’re not late.

  “Maybe I don’t want to be an elf,” I reply defensively. “May be I’ll be a . . . troll.” I picture the troll in the bathroom from Harry Potter and cringe.

  “You can’t be a troll.” Henry’s running down the hall now to his class, but turns around to yell back to me, “You’re too cute!”

  I blush and half smile, then catch myself and look around. Did anyone else in the hall see Henry Hathaway tell me I’m cute? Would it be so bad if they did?

  chapter 25

  AFTER I RECEIVE MY SECOND A of the day (A+, actually, on the precalc test), I run into Char in the hallway. Buzz kill.

  “Hey, Jess, Bizza really needs you to call her. She has to go to the doctor today, and I can’t go because of the twits. She wants you to go.”

  “What? Why? She said that?” I am totally thrown off by this. “Why do I have to call her? Why doesn’t she call me?”

  “She tried like a million times, but your phone was off. She really needs us, Jess.” Char puts her hands around one of mine, like a grandma.

  “Why doesn’t her mom take her?” I refuse to let Bizza ruin my straight A of a day by using her annoyingly charming persuasive abilities to make me do something somebody else should be doing.

  “She doesn’t want her mom to know.”

  “But her mom already knows she’s sick.” I thought I was so out of this already.

  “Actually, she thinks she’s better now. That it was just a sore throat. She came back to school today so her mom wouldn’t think that anything is wrong.” Char lowers her voice, like whatever it is should not be common knowledge.

  “What is wrong?” This is like one of those annoying sitcom conversations where no one is saying anything, yet they just keep talking.

  “She thinks she has”—Char leans in for a dramatic whisper—“gonorrhea.” I don’t say anything, but look at Char with a look that demands her to go on. “I heard from this girl in my bio class who knows this girl from another school who dated Van for, like, three seconds, and she said that she had gonorrhea and she got it from Van.”

  Ickickickickickick. “Gross” is all I can get out.

  “Yeah, no shit. She needs you to go with her to the free clinic after school. I’ll see her at lunch. Can I tell her you’ll go?” I sigh and look up at the ceiling, hoping to find an answer in the puckered tiles. Bizza may be a selfish bitch, but she was my friend and I know how afraid she is of doctors.

  “Fine,” I decide. “Tell her I’ll meet her at her locker after school. But I’m leaving right when we’re finished at the clinic. I have plans tonight.”

  “Thanks,” Char says, and she kisses me on the forehead. I used to find her kisses sort of ethereal, like a kiss from such a beautiful person would transfer whatever she had to me. Today, it just feels condescending.

  I don’t have much time to process before I reach Dottie in study hall. She’s expecting me, ready with an open hardcover book, a bunch of dice, and a pencil.

  “Henry told me I was going to help you make your character. Good idea, so we can get right to the adventure at his house.” Dottie is so serious and official, I press my lips together to hold in a laugh. I’m so glad she’s here to help me forget about this new and infectious Bizza business. “The first thing you want to do is pick a race. Here are your choices.” She holds open the book, which I learn is the Player’s Handbook, to a page of beautifully drawn male and female humans and creatures, all scantily clad in armor.

  “Henry assumed I would be an elf, so I should choose something else, right?”

  “Totally. Why not be a dwarf, like me?”

  I look at the picture of the dwarf, who is short, ugly, and asexual (but leaning toward extremely manly). Dottie looks at my face. “No on the dwarf, then? What about a gnome? Tiny and cute?” But the gnome is just as dudely as the dwarf, only smaller. I can’t picture her wielding a sword in a furry bikini (à la my dream). I shake my head. “You could be a human.” She says this like she just ate a brussel sprout. Even though the human in the picture does look kind of hot, I’m already a human. I shake my head. “Then how about a half-elf? You can always make up some story about how your parents were star-crossed, interracial lovers. . . .”

  “Fine. Half-elf. Nice compromise.” No lover (gross word) talk necessary.

  Dottie takes me through the process of choosing my abilities, which consist of six traits that will determine how strong, smart, athletic, charming, etc, my character will be. I get to roll a bunch of dice and Dottie helps me distribute the numbers so my character has statistics that make her very strong, relatively flexible, and most definitely attractive. I know it’s dorky that I want to pretend to be some hot, muscular chick, but as long as I’m going to be role-playing, I may as well feel like I look good doing it.

  Next I have to choose my class, which is sort of like my job (if wizards and thieves were career choices). “Fighter,” I say as I scroll down a list of choices.

  “You might have more fun being a rogue or some kind of magic user—”

  I interrupt Dottie. “I just want to fight. I don’t want to have to think, or twitch my nose, or wave my wand or whatever. I want a big sword, and I want to swing it.”

  “How phallic of you. Fighter it is.” She writes this down on my character sheet.

  The rest of study hall is spent choosing my weapons, armor, and all of my skills. Dottie says the skills don’t always help you in an adventure, but they give your character personality. I decide I’m going to be really good at gem appraising and oven-mitt knitting (which I said as kind of a joke, but Dottie said is totally legit if I want it to be). “Lastly,” she says, “you need a name.”

  I assume people in the realm of Dungeons and Dragons do not have normal names like Amy or Beth. “Well, what’s your name?”

  “You must call me Dungeon Master.” She puffs up and gives me a regal nod. “But when I’m a player, I am called Sofa.”

  “Like a couch?”

  “Yeah. I thought it sounded mysterious.”

  “A couch sounded mysterious?”

  “Shut up and pick a name.”

  I think for a moment before I decide. “Imalthia. Like in The Last Unicorn,” one of my favorite books and movies.

  “Oooh—good one.” I do feel kind of proud.

  The bell rings. “Well, Imalthia, prepare to kick ass. Or to get your ass kicked, depending on how I’m feeling tonight.”

  “Later, Sofa. I mean, Dungeon Master.” I bow to Dottie. Then I remember what I have to do before my Dungeons and Dragons extravaganza begins. Bizza, a clinic, a doctor—if only it were Imalthia going on the gonorrhea adventure and not me.

  chapter 26

  I TAKE MY SWEET TIME DIALING THE combination into my locker, slowly placing books back in, slowly taking different ones out, checking, double-checking I have everything in my backpack. When my locker section clears out, I know I’ve procrastinated long enough. I just know Bizza will be at her locker, and I’ll not only have to endure the torture of going to the doctor with her to find out if her fling with Van gave her gonorrhea but I’ll have to look at her back-stabbing face or her gonorrhea-y mouth. Eeeww. Unless divine intervention actually works and Bizza magically turns into a loaf of bread or a Twix bar (I’m kind of hungry. . . . ).

&nb
sp; I half expect to find Bizza and Van making out against the lockers, just because that’s kind of how things seem to work lately, but when I turn the corner into Bizza’s locker section, I find a solo Bizza sitting on the hard tile floor, knees curled up to her face. She looks up when she hears my approaching feet, and I panic with an obligation to say something. What do you say when your oldest, ex-best friend betrays you by going down on the guy you had a crush on forever and now she needs you to go to the doctor with her because maybe she has his sexually transmitted disease? Does Hallmark make a card for that?

  “Hey,” I say, half solemnly, half pissed. She looks like crap—crappier than when she had her wisdom teeth taken out and her face swelled up like a Red Delicious apple. Her hair is a little fluffy, growing out from last week’s buzz, and she has dark circles under her eyes. Instead of some elaborate punk ensemble, she’s got on a pair of black Lucky sweatpants I remember her buying on sale (I bought the same pair in gray, even though I really wanted that black pair she’s wearing now). Her sweatshirt is a completely unpunk Greenville High hoodie, which we also bought at the same time the summer before we started high school. Back when we thought it was cool to show school spirit.

  Bizza speaks slowly. “Sorry to ask you to do this. I would’ve made Char come, but her brothers . . .” It’s amazing how I can now analyze every word coming out of Bizza’s mouth as selfish and bitchy. Why is her only apology that I have to come with her to the doctor? And how obnoxious that she thinks—and she’s probably right—she can just make Char go with her. It’s like the whole anti-drunk driving campaign: Friends don’t let friends drive drunk, but tweak it to: Friends don’t make friends do anything. God, what am I doing here?

  Bizza acts the drama queen by crawling to her hands and knees on her way to standing up. The fighter in me wants to kick her while she’s down, but that seems a tad violent. Plus, if she does have gonorrhea, then I guess I could say Van burned her already. Not that that makes up for anything. And where is Van anyway?