Chapter 5: School, My First Day Back

Some of the time things were vastly different for me then they were before the parking lot incident, but sometimes they were not. Those times when they were not were almost a relief in many ways. I didn't get into the fight to try to improve my status at school or even to impress the girls. Most of the macho bull that guys do to impress the girls is all talk. Have you ever noticed that most of the fights guys get into are just pushing and shoving and maybe a bit of wrestling with each other to try to prove you are stronger or tougher then the other guy? Very few fights actually progress to where there are actually punches thrown.

My point is that although people seemed to be viewing the fight as some brave thing that I did for Leslie, I really just acted on instinct. I was scared shitless running into that crowd of guys, but nobody else had even asked me about that. They just assumed that I did it because I was some tough guy. Wrong. If had time to sit back and make a conscious decision about starting a fight against six guys I would never have even considered it. Fate had just thrown me into the situation before I could chicken out.

That being said, there were some VERY nice benefits to the situation. The girls in my classes were much friendlier to me now then they were before. I was gaining confidence talking to girls because, lets face it, I was doing it all the time now.

I made it through my first few classes and realized that I was going to be quite busy catching up on my school work. I was definitely getting hungry by the time lunch rolled around. I think the healing process must consume a lot of calories because I couldn't wait to get to lunch. Our school food wasn't very good, but I was hungry enough to eat anything at this point. I ran into Tom on my way to the cafeteria, so we walked in together and got in line.

As we approached the counter I could almost see the wheels turning in Tom's head. He loved giving the lunch ladies as much crap as he could get away with. They really were mutants. The one who actually dished out the food was particularly gross. She had a huge mole on her face that had at least five long and really thick, dark hairs growing out of it. Everyone called her Mole behind her back, but no one had the balls to say it to her face. They had pizza every day as a choice and today the choices were fish filet sandwiches or some strange spaghetti creation that was unidentifiable as any known dish. I went with the pizza because even though it was bad, at least I knew what I was getting.

Tom decided that the best way to get the lunch lady all bent out of shape was to make rude comments about the food and ask a lot of questions. "Hey, what is that stuff?" He asked as he pointed to the spaghetti dish.

"It's spaghetti lasagna," was Mole's reply.

"Excuse me if I'm wrong here, but isn't lasagna supposed to be made with lasagna noodles?" He asked.

"It's spaghetti lasagna." She croaked back at him.

"What's the point of that? Why don't you just use the kind of noodles that are supposed to be in lasagna?"

"It's spaghetti lasagna." She said once again, as if that really answered any question. "Do you want it or not?"

"You used those spaghetti noodles because they were left over from another day didn't you? You are just trying to pawn off the leftovers on us huh?" Tom said.

"No, that's not why we used them." She glared at him. "Now what do you want?"

It was all I could do not to start laughing so hard that I would piss myself. She was going to grow a new mole hair after this argument.

"I don't want the leftover noodles, so I guess I'll risk it with the filet of hook." Tom told her.

"What do you want?" Mole asked. She was clearly confused by his request.

"I told you. I am willing to risk it with the filet of hook." He told her and pointed at the fish sandwiches.

I have no idea how he went through this whole thing with her with a straight face, because I was almost doubled up laughing by now. That actually pissed Mole off as well.

"It's fish." She told him as she grabbed one and put it on the plate along with might be construed as french fries.

"I know it's supposed to be fish," Tom said, "but I heard that someone bit into a hook when eating one of these last year."

"That's not true." Mole growled as she handed him the plate.

"Do I get a prize or something if I am the lucky one who gets the hook this year?" He asked.

Mole glared at him for a few seconds and then barked, "next!" at the guy behind Tom.

I had already paid for my food and was waiting just after the cash register for Tom. I was still laughing when he got to the woman who took the money. She had very nasty greasy hair, so being the creative high school kids that we were, she was known as Greasy. She held out her hand and waited for Tom to hand her the money for his food. He pointedly put the money on the counter in front of her hand instead of in it. She looked exasperated and took the money and tried to hand him his change. He moved his hand away and pointed at the counter letting her know to drop the change there. She did it and he picked up the money and smiled at me as he joined me beyond the register.

"I wasn't going to let Greasy touch my hand. If her hair looks like that who knows where that hand has been?"

I just started laughing again. This was one of his best performances in line yet. Those lunch ladies must go home extremely tired and frustrated after dealing with kids like us all day.

"That was unbelievable," I told him. "I thought Mole was going to go ballistic on you. You just wouldn't let up on her."

"I know," he chuckled. "I love giving Mole shit. Where do they find these people?"

"The hell if I know." I told him as we sat down at an empty table.

A few minutes later we were still waiting for the rest of the guys to get through the line when three pretty hot looking girls approached out table.

"Can we sit here with you?" Asked a pretty little red head junior named Missy.

"Sure," Tom said before I got to say a word. The girls all looked at me though and I signaled my approval with a nod and "Yeah. Great." Or some other really witty response that I came up with.

The other two girls were Carolyn and Jessie. They were also juniors and I had been in some of their classes over the years, but not good friends with either of them. Carolyn was a tall and willowy blond girl and Jessie had dark hair and darker then average skin. She was of medium height for a girl and was actually very nicely built. Missy was a petite girl, but her fiery hair went right along with her personality. She was very self assured and always seemed to have a "won't take no for an answer" type of personality. She and I had talked in classes over the years, more than I had with the other two girls, but we were far from what I would consider good friends. She never ate lunch with us before. After the girls were seated my friends started to filter in and sit down among us. There were introductions going as the guys sat down, because only Tom and I were in the same year as the girls.

Larry ended up on my left and as he sat down he whispered in my ear, "See what I mean?"

I didn't have a reply to that since he was obviously right. I overheard Jack on the other side of Tom say, "You got the filet of hook too, huh?"

"Yep," Tom said. "I told Mole I would risk it with the filet of hook. She wasn't pleased. I asked her if I got a prize if I got this year's hook."

Jack laughed and said, "No wonder she was in such a foul mood when I got there."

"Jeff?" Jessie asked. "How are you feeling?"

"Not to bad. Pretty stiff and sore actually." I told her.

"I bet." Missy replied with a saucy little glint in her eye. Carolyn looked a bit disgusted by the innuendo that Missy was using, but quickly covered it up and joined into the conversation.

"It looks like you are healing up pretty well actually," Carolyn put in.

"Thanks," I said. "It's not the visible stuff that really bothers me too much. My cracked ribs and the stab wound are the hardest to deal with. Every time I move they get irritated."

"That sucks," Jessie replied.

"How long do the doctors think it will take to get back to full strength?" Missy wanted to know.

"I'm not sure really. They don't like to give you direct answers to that kind of question. The have too much chance of someone being mad if they are wrong, I think." The doctors really hadn't given me any time frame to shoot for.