55Well hello everyone. Here is chapter 2 of "What I Didn't Know" (as you can obviously see...) I see this as somewhat of a filler chapter. sigh But... I got an editor to read what I had written and they said it was fine. So maybe its fine. I don't know. - I think the next chapter after this things will get better. Hope you enjoy!
Kami: Lol, I knew you'd find it funny. Trust me, there will be much humour in this story. I hope...
DreamerDoll: Well... you'll like the 'stupid football player' eventually. It's all a big misunderstanding, so... don't worry too much:3 Cause... yeah. It'll work out. He's as 'mean' and 'stupid' as you originally think. - Thanks for reading by the way:D
Chapter 2- Getting Started
"And then he had the gall, the gall I tell you, he had the GALL to say:" Colby slumped on his seat on the couch as he lowered his voice to talk in an imitative slur, " 'Whatever man, it's your project,' Can you believe the nerve of that… that… that pop?!"
"God Colby you're such a drama king," his sister Meggy said from her seat at the computer. "Just do the freaking project then."
"No!" he cried indignantly. "Not only is that project too big for one person to do by themselves, but I refuse to do a good job and let him get a good grade."
"Maybe if you were more amiable the situation would get better," Meggy mused, her fingers flying away at the keyboard.
"Well Colby…" his dad said from his la-z-boy chair, "Maybe if you merely sat him down and told him that if he didn't put an effort, then he wasn't going to get the grade. And then you could talk to Seňor Cruz."
"I tried convincing Elizabeth to group with us but noooo she's gonna do one on her own," he muttered. He sighed, "I guess I can't blame her though. I'm a horrible friend."
"I thought you said the project was too big do by oneself?" his dad asked.
"It is, but Cruz told her that she had two choices: Do one country by herself with the information increased to two pages on everything instead of one, or do three countries with me and the pop," he sighed again, his head falling to one side. "And she said that she knew the probability of the pop helping would be slim to none and three countries between the two of us would be hectic. Even with a semester of time."
His dad looked at the packet of instructions. "So you're basically giving a history of these countries?"
"For each country we have to draw a geographical map, a political map, a… normal map, and a climate map. Then we have to have at least a one-page report on everything you can think of,and set up notes, and note cards, and we have to do a presentation that lasts at least the whole class hour!"
"I'm sure if you buckled down and worked really hard it wouldn't be that bad," Meggy mumbled, her eyes glued to the computer screen.
"Try doing something creative," his dad offered. "Something to make your project stand out. Like a piñata or bingo."
"Dad, piñatas were created in Italy," Colby said flatly.
"…No they weren't…"
"Yeah. They were."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. Cruz told us last year in Spanish II."
"Huh," his dad mused, laying further back in his chair, "I suppose you learn something new everyday…"
Markus Conwell stared at the brunette who sat before him with an unwritten challenge in his eye. The kid had spunk.
"Are you not going to say anything?" Colby practically wailed fed up already.
Markus sighed, "So basically you're telling me that if I don't do my half of the work you won't let me mooch off you to get a grade and you'll talk to Cruz, right?"
"Yeah pretty much," Colby said sarcastically.
"Give me your phone," Markus held out a hand. Colby hesitantly handed him his phone, his nerves ready to snatch it back if the other boy tried to keep it for himself. Markus merely opened it and went to the address book. He raised an eyebrow at the names: Lo-Lo, Lizzy, Jes, and SaVvy… What kind of people did this kid have in his phone!?
Markus took out his own phone and called his with Colby's, hanging up immediately and then saving the number. "There. Call me when you want to work," he said as he got up to leave. He needed to get to football practice. He snorted at the disgusted face Colby held as he looked at his phone.
Once the taller football player had left Colby got off the bench and headed for his car in a rather foul mood. For some reason he felt like he'd been bested in their conversation, even though it was supposed to be merely him setting a few things straight with the almighty jock king.
He heard someone yelling at him and turned to see Jessica trotting to catch up. "Hey, leaving?" she asked. He merely nodded. "Have you seen Elizabeth? I can't find her anywhere."
"Not since yearbook, why?"
"Cause its Wednesday, that's why!" she rolled her eyes. "Do you guys want to come? You know you always can…"
"Nah it's fine, go eat your enchiladas and chips and salsa," he taunted sadly, as if deeply hurt. Jessica just rolled her eyes and walked off in her search for her lost friend. The two of them had this thing where they went out on Wednesdays to eat at El Chicos. They had some sort of enchilada special on that day…
Driving home, Colby began to feel restless. He wanted to do something! Do something besides go home and work on unending amounts of homework. When he actually neared his small home his heart sank when he saw a familiar red corvette in the driveway. He took his cell phone out as he drove past his house to call his dad. Getting the ok, he headed to Books-A-Million that was further into town. He also called his sister, telling her to steer away from the house for a while. Probably till at least nightfall.
Driving into town didn't take much time, but it still was at least ten to twenty minutes depending on traffic. Their small town was on the outskirts of an actual city, not too far but not too close. When he finally got to BAM he immediately walked up to the Joe Muggs counter to get a frozen cappuccino. Once he had his treat in hand he walked back to the manga section in the very back. He lost track of time as he was immersed in the manga-fied world of backward reading, jumping when he heard someone exclaim, "Well well well, if it isn't the infamous Colby."
Colby smiled at Jessica and Elizabeth who stood at the opening at the end of the aisle. "It seems I have been found. What would two hooligans like yourselves be doing here?"
Jessica snorted, "Seeing if anything's new." Elizabeth didn't say anything, just nodded in agreement.
"Not really," Colby burst their expectations.
"Damn," Jessica muttered, obviously disappointed. She picked up a book and looked at it, "Well this came in…"
Colby looked up despite himself, seeing her holding one of their infamous yaoi mangas. Both his friends and his sister were into that stuff. They had even tricked him into reading the first volume of one series, something like Love… Love… Love-something. It had actually had an interesting plot and good artwork, but since they had never pushed another volume under his nose he didn't feel the need to seek it out and read it.
"The August Newtype is in," Elizabeth noted dully, pointing at the magazine rack.
"No! I didn't get the July one yet!" Jessica cried distraught.
Colby shook his head and returned to the book he had been reading. After a while the girls left, leaving him in solitude once again. He poked he head down the center aisle to the front and found that it was pitch black outside. He checked his watch – it was 9:30.
Cursing under his breath, he quickly stashed his book back on the shelf and headed for his car outside while he phoned his dad. He got the ok to come home after apologizing for losing track of time, and began to head back.
Once safely within the confines of his house once again, Colby spent his remaining wakefulness to finish his homework then went to bed. The next morning came too quickly as he rose, readied, and head to his Biology class. Colby basically slept through the beginning of his day, not paying much attention. When he reached Spanish, he intended to do the exact same thing. Apparently Cruz had other ideas, telling them to sit next to their partners.
Deciding to be nice, Colby rose from his seat, intending to move so that Markus didn't have to. He was somewhat miffed when the pop didn't even bat an eyelash, and just let Colby go out of his way of moving across the room. Colby let it slide; he was too tired to be angry. Cruz ordered them to take fifteen minutes of his precious class time to swap information with their partner, get to know them, and set up times to meet to work on their projects because 'he'd be damned if he wasted any of his teaching time on their laziness.'
Colby was starting to nod off again when Markus snapped him awake, "So, what do you want to do?"
Colby didn't say anything immediately, taking time to formulate an answer. "Get a decent grade on this thing?"
Markus lightly snorted, peering at him from the corner of his eye, "How are we supposed to work?"
Colby scratched his head, "Well… I don't know if I have any previous engagements this weekend, so I can tell you tomorrow or call you after school. I think it'd be best if we tried to get it done as soon as possible, that way we're not stuck crunching at the very end."
"Well duh," Markus sighed. "Fine, whatever."
"What is your problem?" Colby muttered.
"What's yours?"
Colby was about to reply the only problem he had was with the pop's increasingly annoying 'I'm better than you' attitude but said, "Not enough sleep," instead.
Markus's voice held a tone of humor and contempt when he said, "Oh, and what could you possibly be doing that would take your precious sleeping time?"
"What the-" Colby started to argue back when Cruz decided that was enough of getting to know each other, time for Spanish. Colby sat fuming all the way through Calculus about what that pop had said. He wasn't 100 sure that he was making the implication that Colby thought he was making, but if he was then that meant war. There was one thing that Colby couldn't handle being taunted or joked about, and that was it.
When he reached English (after effectively convincing Elizabeth to leave him alone) Jessica and Laura immediately assaulted him with the same question. What was wrong? Once he had replied with the ever more suspicious, "Nothing," they continued to batter him. They were forced to leave him alone when Mrs. K decided to start talking about Beowulf. Colby had never been happy to start a literature lesson.
Colby got a good long nap through Beowulf introduction, and felt considerably better afterwards. The girls seemed somewhat wary around him during lunch, making him realize he had acted in poor judgment towards them earlier. He always found sappy apologies to be embarrassing, and continued to act normal as his silent apology. They seemed to accept it, returning the normality themselves. He loved these girls. They understood him.
The rest of the day went by quickly, save for Yearbook where they had to get the computers set back up and reconfigured and reconnected. He was a major contributor of the Yearbook staff, heading up the technology part along with Jessica. His afternoon was spent in relaxation at home, until the next day came.
The first Friday of the year! Rejoices could practically be heard through the halls as people were already talking about plans of parties and drinking. Colby ignored the people around him, disgusted by their pettiness. He knew it was haughty and annoying to admit, but he saw himself and his friends on a different level than most people they were surrounded by at school. He wasn't afraid admitting it to himself, but kept quiet about it to most others. It would only cause conflict and drama. He hated drama.
He had found over the week that Markus was in a surprising few of his classes, and he spotted him throughout the day but never was able to talk to him. Once school was out, he tried his best to catch him in the hall, but he was no where to be found. Where the crap did he disappear to?! Whipping out his cell phone, Colby found the number titled 'Mark' as he marched out to his car.
After three rings there was an annoyed answer, "What?"
"Hello to you too," Colby grumbled as he unlocked his car door.
"Why are you calling me?"
"Well I told you I would talk to you after school today, but I couldn't find you."
"I'm at the field house. We have a Scrimmage today."
"It's the first week of school!"
"Your point?"
"You're already having football games, and we haven't even been in school a full week."
"It's just a scrimmage."
"So are you busy tomorrow?"
"Yeah."
"All day?"
"Maybe."
Colby held back an irritated sigh as he turned the ignition of his car. "So when are we going to work?"
Markus didn't bother to hold back his irritated sigh, "I don't know."
"Agggh! Nevermind then!" Colby practically yelled, hanging up. Wasn't the senior year supposed to be the best? That's what everyone had told him, and now he had to put up with this? His cell phone rang halfway home. Not bothering to look at the caller ID, he snapped it open with a, "What do you want?!"
"Uh…" Laura paused on the other end.
"Oh… sorry Laura," Colby sighed. "Didn't know it was you."
"… Riiiight," Laura dragged the word out. "Anyway, what are you doing tonight?"
"Nothing as of yet," he brightened. The highlight of his weekends was getting together with the whole group.
"Right. My house at seven, movie night."
"Will be there!" he promised. "What movie?"
"Eh… I don't know. We'll probably not end up watching one again and just playing around."
"Alright, see you then."
"Fine, see ya." They hung up.
Seven o'clock came and the five girls and Colby met up at Laura's house. Around the perimeters of their town there were three main sections where people lived: Britishmen's Curve and Catcher's Angle (mostly rich kids even though Laura and Jessica lived there), the back roads, and then the actual town of Silvington. There were kids scattered in other places as well, but those were the main three. They were now in the back left corner of Britishmen's Curve at Laura's house.
As Laura had predicted, they ended up not watching a movie at all. Instead, they played around in Laura's room (Elizabeth had some kind of obsession with trying on all of Laura's hats), slid across the hardwood floor in the living room, and played charades in the upstairs game room. It was merely one big laughfest.
When SaVanna was in the middle of trying to portray an elephant to the rest of them, Colby's phone rang. Just then Jessica had guessed it, and went up to take her turn. Colby answered his phone, trying to stop laughing enough to say, "H-Hello?"
"Uh… hey," Markus said on the other end.
Colby's good mood couldn't be ruined by something like this, "Hey! How'd the scrimmage go?"
"Uhm," Markus seemed somewhat taken aback by the joviality of Colby's speech. "We won."
"That's great!"
"Yeah… anyway, about the project…"
Just then Jessica had pranced across the room with a dazed look across her face, her arms swinging at her sides widely. She pretended to trip, falling harder than she had intended face first into the floor. The three other girls fell over in their seats with laughter, soon joined by Jessica who was trying to get off the floor.
"Hold on," Colby laughed into the phone, walking out to the staircase. "Ok, anyway, you were saying?"
"What… Never mind," Markus changed his mind. "What do you want to do about the project?"
"We could meet up tomorrow if you want," Colby offered, still in a happy mood.
"I might be busy tomorrow…"
"Oh, well I can call you in the morning and we'll see."
"We could meet tonight, it's only about eight…"
"I'm kind of busy right now, sorry," Colby leaned against the wall.
"COLBY!" yelled Laura. "Get your ass back in here!"
"I can see…" Markus muttered, his voice strained. "Whatever, just call me tomorrow I guess."
"Alright!" Colby hadn't caught the first statement. "Sorry about hanging up earlier by the way."
"Whatever," was all he heard before a click denoted Markus hanging up.
Colby shrugged. The guy was probably tired after a hard fought game. Colby sat back on the couch as Laura stood to take a turn. "Who was that?"
"Markus, we have to start that project," Colby said, placing his phone on the table next to him.
Elizabeth sighed, "That project…" She was stopped when a pillow hit her square in the face. She convulsed with a shriek.
"Don't talk about school!" Jessica yelled.
"You…" Elizabeth grabbed the pillow, attacking the smaller girl, "… shall pay for that!" Soon enough there was an all out pillow fight.
"Colby! Get your ass out of bed! It's ten o'clock!" Meggy yelled, jumping on the end of Colby's bed, jostling him more awake with every pounce.
"It's SATURDAY," he yelled, kicking at her. "I can sleep in!"
"You're only tired because you stayed up all night with your girlfriends!" Meggy walked over and turned the overhead light on, causing Colby to huddle deeper beneath the covers.
"You can't torture me because you're jealous of my life!" was the muffled reply.
Meggy snorted, "Whatever! I'll just tell your friend that you're too lazy to get out of bed and send him off."
"What?" Colby's head appeared from under the covers. Just then Larry walked in, "Oh Colby, your friend is here. He called earlier and I told him to head on over."
Colby shrugged the blankets off, his pajama bottoms denoting little Scooby-Doos with chili peppers with a waist band that read 'I'm HOT'. He pulled an extra large T-shirt over his already ruffled hair, heading into the kitchen. Who the hell would be here at this time on a Saturday?
Colby's answer was simple, and standing with a lost look on his face in the middle of their living room: Markus. "What are you doing here?" he asked through a yawn.
"You didn't answer your cell, so I looked up your house number and your dad said to come over," Markus said warily. "I have some stuff to do later though…" his eyes were observing Colby's messy appearance, occasionally straying to and staying fixed on his hair..
"Oh…" Colby merely stated. "Why so early?"
"… It's already ten," Markus pointed out.
"Colby was out late," Meggy chirped as she took her seat back at the computer. "And he's just lazy."
"Little computer freak," Colby muttered as he grabbed a doughnut. He offered one to Markus, who declined. "Well we can work in my room, but… let me clean it up a little bit. Come on I guess…" he walked back to his room.
Once he had successfully managed to look like he wasn't half dead, Colby hurriedly picked up the strewn clothes and tossed them into the basket in his closet. There wasn't much else he could straighten, deciding to leave the bed alone. He found Markus observing the room oddly carefully. "So… where do you want to start?"