Extend the Story - Add a Room

What's the point? Shoving him into the machine, while momentarily entertaining, will only make things worse for you down the road. And let's face it; things aren't exactly good right now.

You shake you head and walk the other way, trying not to draw any attention to yourself.

It doesn't work.

From behind you, Robert calls out. "Hey Denny, you all done crying in the bathroom?" His friends, never missing their cues, laugh hysterically.

"Christ, man. We could hear you in the lunchroom."

You've been down this path before. You stop to talk or say anything back to him and a fight starts, a fight which you will invariably lose. Using your survival instincts, you continue walking without saying a word to him. The chorus of laughter soon fades into background noise as you head to your next class.

History class picks up where it left off from yesterday, and based on that alone, you come to realize that you didn't miss much of anything on your day off. Mr. Sanders talks about the fall of the Roman Empire and the many "barbarian" tribes that contributed to fall of the strongest empire in history.

Part way through the class you sense a spitball sailing through the air at the back of your head, and you move to the side to see the wad of saliva soaked paper fly past you to land on Mr. Sanders foot.

The teacher looks down at his foot and looks up at the class. His eyes fall on Nate, who still clutches the straw in his hand.

"Nathan," Sanders calls out, "Come to the front of the class for me."

Nathan stands and does as he is told. Mr. Sanders gets a pink slip of paper form his desk drawer and begins writing on it. He hands the paper to Nate.

Nate reads it. Everyone knows the pink paper means you're going to see the principal and you barely contain a snicker.

"A spitball?!" Nathan cries out. "I didn't hit you with a spitball!"

"Spare us your lies, Mr. Connelly, you still hold the straw in your hand," Sanders says.

"But," Nathan replies, looking down at the straw, "I wasn't aiming for you. That was an accident."

"That doesn't make it any better for you, I'm afraid. Go to Mr. Kelly's office. Do not stop along the way."

Nathan leaves the class with his head down. There is a moment of silence after he leaves before Mr. Sanders resumes his lesson. He wipes away the spitball as he talks.

Class ends not long after and you make your way from History to Calculus, somehow managing to avoid any confrontation in the hall. Calculus goes by rather quickly and afterward you head to your last class of the day, Art.

Art class would be the perfect way to end the day, you often think, if not for all the assholes in the class with you. The art teacher, Mr. DiMarra, is not the most attentive of men and allows for plenty of social interaction among the students. This, of course, means people having ample opportunity to mock you and push you around.

Today is no exception, you note as Robert walks over to you with his lackeys trailing after.

"Does anyone else smell gravy?" Robert says to the amusement of his groupies.

He sits down next to you. "Hey, what's up asshole?" He asks, in as close to a friendly tone as he can manage.

"Hey," you say in response.

"You get all those potatoes out of your hair and stuff?" He asks.

"Yeah," you respond.

"Cool. Sorry about that. But you have to admit it was kind of funny." He says.

"I guess," you reply. Something is going on. Of that you are certain. You wonder what his agenda is, but don't have to wonder long.

"Hey listen, Stacey is having a party and she wanted to give you an invite. It's tonight at about seven o'clock at her house. You interested in coming?"

So there it is. A party. They've never pulled this card before. But you can imagine what will happen. You agree to go and they all take turns beating the shit out of you and utterly embarrassing you. There's no way you want to go to something like that.

You also realize, however, that saying no will likely result in a beating as well.

Shit. What do you do?

Accept the invitation.