8WATERLOO
chapter oo2
This was not exactly how Joel had expected things to go.
It was the next day, Thursday, and Schafer had brought them to the media center (i.e., the library-slash-computer lab) to look up information on their historical figures of choice. Joel was at Napoleon's Wikipedia page. Kenny was playing a game on his computer.
Joel had a feeling that if his partner had been the biology lab's clownfish, it would not have been any less useful than Kenny was.
"You know," he said (for what must have been the fifth time that hour), looking sideways at Kenny, who was at the computer next to his, "this is the only day this week that we'll be in the computer lab."
Kenny glanced at him but said nothing.
"And," Joel pressed on, still feeling pretty awkward, "we have to have this entire packet filled out by Monday." He tapped the papers sitting on the desk between them that Schafer had given them to fill out. It was full of various biographical questions and other things they needed to know about their subject. In the thirty minutes they'd been there, Joel had only managed to fill out the first five. All Kenny had managed was to get to level six of his game.
There was a moment of silence between them. Then Kenny groaned, "Man, this class is so fucking stupid."
And then he went right back to playing his game.
Joel was dumbstruck. He honestly had no idea what to say. Sure, he'd had slackers for group mates before—heck, he was probably one himself sometimes—but most of them at least had the decency to pretend they were pulling their weight. He'd never had someone just flat-out refuse to work on a project.
And now he was stuck finishing this entire packet by himself. Probably the entire project by himself.
He continued to stare at Kenny, speechless. His partner, oblivious to this, kept his eyes glued to the computer screen, clicking away at that stupid game.
Only adding to Joel's irritation was the fact that he was not used to not being liked. He realized that might sound a bit conceited, and it wasn't as if he expected everyone to love him, but he usually got along with people pretty well.
So Kenny's standoffish behavior was not something he knew how to deal with. In fact, it felt kind of like a slap in the face.
"The bell's about to ring," Ms. Schafer informed the class, "so start logging off. Make sure you have that packet finished by Monday; it's worth forty points."
Forty points. No way could he just let it slide, Joel realized. That would make quite a dent in his grade. Especially since there was nothing else in the grade book yet—that would automatically take his class grade down to an E. And since Kenny refused to help, he didn't really have a choice but to finish the entire thing by himself.
He finally found the words to say to his partner.
"Dude, you're an asshole."
And with that, he logged off his computer and headed out the door just as the bell rang, leaving a rather bewildered-looking Kenny behind.
Joel managed to get a pass to go to the library during his study hall that day, so during sixth hour he was able to get all the way through question twelve. He was still on the front side of the first page, though, and there were four pages in all, both front and back.
This, he realized, was going to take him the entire weekend.
Also, he was revising his opinion of Ms. Schafer. The woman was obviously on something. Probably the same stuff as Mrs. LaRue. It would explain a lot.
His parents should be proud, really, that he was going to all this work to keep his grade from plummeting. Normally, he didn't even bother with his homework half the time. Not that they needed to know that. The point was, they'd told him he needed to get better grades this year, and he was actually making an effort to do so. An especially remarkable feat, considering that, thanks to Kenny, he had to do twice the amount of work everyone else had to.
Honestly, his parents ought to throw him a parade, or something.
Still, the knowledge of how completely awesome he was wasn't enough to lift his spirits, and by the time he was pulling out of the school parking lot, he was still in a bad mood.
"What's wrong?" asked Haley from the passenger seat. Joel explained his predicament to her, making sure to add that, on top of the project, he also had math homework and a sociology assignment and had to read the first three scenes of Macbeth by Monday, not to mention he was starting his new job tomorrow.
"Ask Ms. Schafer for another partner," Haley suggested once he'd finished. Joel frowned.
"I don't think I can," he said switching on his turn signal. "Everyone else already has a partner."
"Then ask to work on it by yourself."
"But I don't want to work by myself, that's my point," he said crossly. "Then I'm stuck doing all the work without any help, like I am now. And then I wouldn't have anyone to blame if I didn't do a very good job on it."
Haley shook her head. "...How did you even manage to get to the twelfth grade?"
"Guesswork, copious amounts of procrastination, and an endearing personality," he told her. "You should try it sometime."
The next morning, Ms. Schafer had them doing something completely different. They could not, she explained, work on their projects every day; they did still have a curriculum to follow, after all. So instead they were taking notes as she went through a PowerPoint about the Renaissance.
After they were done with the notes—Joel had already stopped ten minutes earlier, since his hand was cramping up, but he'd been doing his best to listen—Schafer told them to read the section about the Renaissance in their textbooks. Joel, in what he thought was a very valiant effort on his part, got nearly halfway through it.
"Alright, settle down," Ms. Schafer said, since everyone was just chatting at this point. "I guess everyone's finished reading, so you can use the last few minutes of class to meet up with your project partner and make sure everyone knows what they're doing for Monday."
There was the sound of desks scraping as people went to sit by their partners. Joel looked up and saw that, once again, Kenny was showing no sign of moving anytime soon, so he reluctantly stood up and took the desk next to his partner.
He rested his chin on his arms, which were folded on his desk, and didn't bother saying anything, knowing that, at best, he could expect useless one-word responses, if anything. So he was more than a little surprised when Kenny was the first one to speak.
"Dude, what the hell were you so pissed about yesterday?"
Joel glanced up, startled. "What?"
"Yesterday. In the library. You just called me an asshole and left."
Joel raised an eyebrow. Was it really that much of an enigma? "Because," he said slowly, "you're totally hanging me out to dry on this project."
Kenny stared at him blankly.
"Dude, Schafer gave us a four-page packet to fill out, and you're making me do the whole freaking thing," Joel said with a glare. "How would I not be pissed?"
When Kenny said nothing, Joel plowed on. Normally he would have been worried about hurting feelings or making an enemy of someone, but he really didn't respect Kenny enough to care. "You haven't been any help at all so far. You didn't even help come up with who to do the project on."
"Hey," Kenny objected, "I tried to help come up with project ideas. I made suggestions and stuff."
Joel snorted. "Yeah, one. And it was Hitler."
"I didn't say that because I think Hitler's cool," Kenny said defensively, correctly interpreting the look on Joel's face, "just that there'd be a shitload of stuff to do a report on. It was just an idea." That did make Joel feel a little bit better. He didn't think he could deal with having a Neo-Nazi for a partner.
"Well, still," he said, "yesterday you were playing a computer game the entire time."
Kenny was silent. Joel wondered what he was thinking. Was he sorry? Had it honestly not occurred to him to help out with the project? Did he think Joel was a whiny little loser? What was for lunch in the cafeteria today?
"Fine," Kenny said after a moment. "What do you want me to do?"
Joel's eyebrows went up. Was Kenny serious—he was actually going to help? "Uh, well..." He didn't want to just give Kenny part of the packet, because he didn't really trust him to get it done. "I guess...we could work on it at my house this weekend."
Kenny shrugged. "Okay. When?"
Joel racked his brain. Was he doing something tonight? He honestly didn't know. He wasn't very good at keeping track of his own schedule. Saturday was free, he was pretty sure.
"How about one o'clock tomorrow?"
Kenny nodded. "Whatever." Taking this to mean "yes," Joel scrawled his address on the corner of a page of his notebook and tore it off. But as he headed to English class a minute later, he couldn't help but wonder if this was really a good idea.
It was a good thing Joel hadn't scheduled their work session for that night, because as it turned out, it was his first day at his new job.
Not that he'd completely forgotten about it, or anything.
To be honest, having a job wasn't all that important to Joel. In fact, he'd kind of needed a bit of a push from his parents just to get this one. And in this case, "a bit of a push" translated to "getting set up with a job working for his dad's buddy."
Not that he was complaining. He had doubts in his ability to complete a résumé very well. Or a job application, for that matter.
And he really could use the money. When his parents had bought him his car (well, technically it was for him and Haley to share, but she was a couple years away from driving), the agreement had been that he would pay for gas. And last year's birthday money wasn't going to buy him too many more miles.
So at quarter to seven—technically twelve to seven, but that didn't really count as being late, did it?—Joel parked his car in front of his new place of employment and went inside. He put his game face on and reminded himself that he was now a serious working man.
"Hi, welcome to Lazer Land!"
...Yep. A serious working man.
"Uh, hi," he said to the beaming woman who'd welcomed him. "Is D—"
"Joel!" boomed a jovial voice. A tall, mustachioed man came forward and clapped Joel on the shoulder. "Ready for your first day on the job?"
Joel grinned back. "I sure hope so."
"That's the spirit."
Dave Castellucci was a good friend of Joel's father—in fact, as a kid, Joel had known him as "Uncle Dave." He was also the proprietor of Lazer Land, the one place in town you could play laser tag, do a round of mini golf, amuse yourself with arcade games, and grab a slice of pizza.
"Hey, Mr. Castellucci?" said someone on the man's other side, an employee probably. "The ticket counter's jammed again."
As his new boss grumbled about faulty equipment, Joel wondered vaguely if he was supposed to call Uncle Dave "Mr. Castellucci" now that he was working for him.
But those thoughts flew out the window when he saw who the employee who had just spoken was.
A/N:
DUN DUN DUN. Cliffhanger! Okay, so not really.
So did that totally bore the socks off you or what? I'm sorry if it did. But if it didn't, you should tell me, yeah? In a review. That would totally boost my ego and let me know that this isn't just an epic fail.
Though if you do think it's an epic fail...well, tell me anyway, because how else will I get better?
Am I right?
Thank you so, so much to those of you who reviewed, as well as those who favorited this or put it on story alert. I am totally gratituditational to you dudes.