Revenge of the Nerd (The Edited Edition)

“LET ME OUT! PLEASE, SOMEBODY LET ME OUT OF HERE!” I shrieked in panic, “I’m Claustrophobic!” Ugh! I bashed my head on the inside of the locker door. I should NOT have said that, now Garrisen would keep me here longer. I’d certainly learned my lesson; never call Garrisen a dimwit, if though he is…
I was walking out of English class, alone, as usual, and Garrisen came trudging toward me with a foul expression on his face. He shoved me into the rough, brick walls.
“Michael!” he growled.
“What?”
“You know what!”
“Garrisen… I really do not know what it is you’re talking about,” I replied innocently. He pushed me again, but this time, I fell to the floor and knocked over a nearby trash receptacle.
“OW!”
“YOU!” he pointed his long, meaty finger at me, “you made me fail my English exam!”
“I apologize for being the cause of your distress, but I don’t comprehend why you are distressed. I tutored you as requested.” I replied weakly, “didn’t you utilize any of the more challenging words I taught you? What happened to bequeathed? Cornucopia? Honorificabilitudinitatibus*?
“Oh, they happened all right! Too bad you made those words up, you slime ball! I got every question wrong!”
“What? This is a catastrophe! An outrage! A quagmire of epic proportions! I absolutely did not make those words up!” I found myself breathing heavily, the last kid that made Garrisen fail a class was so brutally mauled that he was now hiding somewhere off the shore of Mexico.
“Well then, Smartie, how do you explain the zero I got on this test?”
I didn’t understand how could possibly have failed, I thought I did an excellent job tutoring him.
“May I view your exam so I can see where we went wrong?” I made sure to use the word ‘we’ in my query so that he wouldn’t think I was blaming him. Garrisen then removed his backpack and extracted a crumpled page from within. I grabbed it reluctantly from his outstretched hand.
“What?” I laughed in both relief and disbelief, “The Bequeathed uninhabited *Honorificabilitudinitatibus oxymoron cornucopia-ed, propaganda-ly?” I snickered again, “this doesn’t make any sense, you dimwit!” Then, like an angry mother to her naughty son, Garrisen scolded,
“Michael, The Dork, Greene! You are going to wish you never said that!” and that I did, without any time to retreat, he punched his monstrous fist into the center of my tiny face. I was out like a light. 1

Which now leads us back to the beginning of my narration, obviously while I was out cold, Garrisen locked me inside a locker. By this time, I wasn’t certain that my day could get any worse, until it did.
Kiera, the tall, blonde, love of my life
started walking—no, floating in my direction. At first, I saw this as an opportunity, a blessing, if you will. I could watch her every beautifully fluid motion, and never would she know of it. Absent mindedly, I started drifting into a fictional world where I, Prince Michael, saved Princess Kiera from the fire breathing dragon. She was so grateful for her rescue, she granted me a kiss. Unfortunately, right in the middle of my fantasy, Kiera finished her long drink at the nearby fountain and strutted up to me and opened the door to HER locker, right in the middle of my kissy face fantasy. Imagine what your first thoughts would be if you opened your locker—your only expectation being to find your books that corresponded to your next class—and you discover the nerdy boy who is notorious for his childish crush on you, making kissy faces. My overall summary: Not Good.
“AAAH!” she screamed a blood curdling scream, “Michael! What are you doing in my locker?”
“I…I…uh, uh…” Think of something Michael, THINK! “wanted to ask you what type of fruit you prefer. MICHAEL! Is that the best you can come up with? You’re so stupid!
“Garrisen! THIS DWEEB IS BOTHERING ME!” she shrieked. What? Garrisen? Why is she calling him? Before I could even process my thoughts, I saw a tall, bulky, ninth grader headed my way. He bore his teeth in a sly smile.
“Hey Geekasaurus, what you doin’ with my girl?” I hated Garrisen, I hated him with all my being. Why that filthy, no good, rotten, nerd torturer… then a new idea interrupted my train of thought. Did I really have to be a nerd? I was only as nerdy as Garrison said I was. I concluded that I had been far too safe with my actions lately. I felt like I had something to prove now, I could be cool, I could even be cooler than Garrisen, I could be the coolest kid in school. It was decided, from that day forth, I, Michael Lancelot Greene, would be cool. I would no longer bake cupcakes for my teachers every odd Tuesday, I would no longer wash behind my ears, instead I would lie and say I did, I would never again achieve a one hundred percent on an exam, rather, I’d score ninety-eight or a ninety-nine, and lastly, I would never play runescape in my spare time again! Whoa! Maybe I went a little far on that last one, I told myself it would be fine, there were several cool dudes who play runescape.
“So?” Garrisen asked, interrupting my montage of cool thoughts. It was only then that I realized that I had, quite possibly, been staring blankly in the face of my arch enemy for the past two and a half minutes, “What you doin’ with my girl?” Think fast Mike, what would the cool me do? (I would like to forewarn you that I most certainly do NOT believe that any my actions that I was about to perform were any definition of the word ‘cool.’) I’m not sure why, but I grabbed each of Kiera’s shoulders, and gave her a big, fat, slobbery… kiss! My first one!
“That, I guess,” I shrugged in an attempt to look calm, but I was unsure of how well that turned out, for looking calm tends to be a little tough whilst hyperventilating. Kiera looked bewildered, that put a whirlwind of worry on my shoulders. What did I just do? Did I make her pregnant? Then Logic hit me, You know that’s not how it works, dude.
“Well, that was.. interesting.” Kiera finally said, her lips pressed into a thin line.
“Yes, it was, wasn’t it Michael? You are gonna get such a beating, you’re gonna wake up on a boat in the middle of the Specific Ocean!” Garrisen came at me with a crazy glint in his eye. Lesson Two: Never mess with Garrisen’s girl.
“Excuse me Garrisen, but the word is pronounced Pacific, not specific…” his crazy stare turned into one of pure anger, “I’m just sayin’ ” I finished weakly. Wait, I thought be cool. I winked at Kiera, she started blushing. What could this mean? Obviously Garrisen disliked something I did, he scowled at me and trudged away. I was left, miraculously, unscathed.
“Kiera, let’s go!” he growled over his shoulder.
“I’ll see you later Michael,” she said in a musical tone.
“Goodbye,” I answered in disbelief, was it just me, or was Kiera Quetzal- the most popular girl in school- flirting with me?
“Oh, and by the way…” DING! the bell sounded. It was time for our next class to begin. The old me, the nerdy me, would have run to class with a basket of, “I’m so sorry!” muffins. But the new, cool me, wanted to know what Kiera had to say.
“I prefer peaches.” What the heck was that supposed to mean? I shot her a confused look.
“You asked me what fruit I liked.” She winked and floated away dreamily. So, Kiera Quetzal digs the peach. That’s fuzztastic! That sounded cool enough, I was soo using that line in our next encounter!
I decided that it would be cool of me to skip the rest of school that day. Besides, I had an idea that was simply too ingenious to be put on hold! My body pumping with excitement, I ran the ENTIRE half-block journey to my house and blasted through the front door. Firstly, fixed myself a large glass of water. Was I sweaty or what? Then I crept to my bedroom and poked around to make certain that the coast was, in fact clear. After five minutes of ’poking around’ I was confident in the fact that I was alone. So I opened my closet door and wheeled out my Cart of Inventions, as I had titled it. My desire was to invent something that would make me effortlessly cool without putting my life on the line.
I worked all through the afternoon, and all through the night. I failed too many times to count.
By the end, I had sixty-seven failed prototypes. Prototype number one was in the form of an “I’m a dork” t-shirt, though I did chuckle at the irony of an “I’m a dork” t-shirt that makes you cool, I went back to the drawing board. I was almost certain things would work out on my thirty second try, a Mr. Potato Head, but then I realized how stupid that was and threw it away.
At approximately three ‘o’ clock p.m, my sixty-eighth prototype, the successful one, was finally in existence. I had invented a ring that gave me an irresistibly cool attitude. Also, for Garrisen, I added a button that could potentially tear the fabric of space and time to create a black hole that was attracted to mean dimwits. I was a genius! Now I couldn’t wait to go to school! Instinctly, I grabbed a cool shirt and a cool pair of pants to wear. Afterward, I styled my medium length, chestnut brown hair into a cool Mohawk. Then with much excitement I dashed down the stairs to eat a cool breakfast of frosted flakes and chocolate milk. What was totally uncool was when I checked the clock and saw that is was only four ‘O’ clock a.m. My ring started vibrating painfully. On the positive side of things, my nerd detector worked! Every time I did something dorky, it would vibrate, the magnitude of the vibration depended on how nerdy the situation or behavior was. I knew that even though the ring provided me with cool instincts, I was bound to slip up sometimes, and I would need something to help me out, like now, for instance. I had originally planned to go to school early and organize the teacher’s desk, but the ring kicked in before I could even take a step towards the door, my ring vibrated again. Oh yah, cool people are never early, I remembered, a cool person would play video games. I turned and walked coolly to the television and switched on the X-box ® that my younger brother received for Christmas. Noah, unlike myself, was a very cool nine-year old. I thought any one of his games would be safe to play. So I fingered through them. I pulled Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 out of the game crate that Noah stored under the TV screen. Superlative! Anything that is based on silly rabbits has to be cool! I began opening the protective case. ‘BUZZ!’
“OW!” I cried, clutching the finger that bore the weight of my new ring. ‘BUZZ!”
“I can’t even use fancy language now?” This angered me, proper execution of the English language was my passion in life… ‘BUZZ’ I guess my new passion was acting cool. I sighed, this was going to be much more difficult than I anticipated. My new cool instincts told me that I should be playing Call of Duty®. I popped in the disk and picked up the controller. My word, there are an abundant number buttons on this thing! ‘’BUZZ!’ I supposed my ring was telling me not to worry, my instincts would guide me through those treacherous buttons, and it probably didn’t want me to use the word abundant anymore. The game title flashed boldly on the screen. Somehow, I knew I need to press the start button, and I knew exactly which button this was.
The game went by so quickly. I had no clue what it was that I was doing, but I saw my hand flying all over that controller, and I saw that I was winning.
I was glued to the screen until around eight-thirty, which, evidently, was a terrific time. I would be just in time to be fashionably late for school.
I dawdled the whole way, as if it were nothing more than a leisurely walk (normally I would have been running to school-crying the whole way- with a big plate of freshly baked brownies and enough extra homework to cover the next week of school, just to make up for being tardy.)
When I finally did arrive, I felt everyone’s eyes on me. I was irresistibly cool.
“Hey Michael,” was a common noise to be heard throughout the hallways that day, and thanks to my “Coolinator” (the name I decided to title my invention) I knew to answer them with a simple emotionless,
“Hey,” and a quick, cool, nod of the chin. Today, I felt like the alpha dog, I ruled the school, nothing could bring me down. That is, until Garrisen showed up. For reasons I couldn’t explain, Garrisen wasn’t convinced in my amazing capacity of cool. He saw through my façade, which made me very nervous. I started having second thoughts about how well my silly invention would work… ‘BUZZ!’ … how well my terrific invention would work.
“Hey, Sir Dorks-a-lot, you ready for your daily beat down?” Before I could oppose… or say something stupid, my ring vibrated. It was very soft this time, like it was nudging me to argue on, I shook my head. Then I noticed the black hole button starting to flash a brilliant shade of red. I took a deep breath and pressed down on the button,
“Say goodbye, Garrisen Van Oetker!” The surrounding spectators gasped in awe as they witnessed the fabric of time being torn right in front of their very eyes.
“What’s going on here Michael? Whatever it is, you’re going to pay for it!” Garrisen looked almost as if he were… frightened. As if he were trying to hold back tears. I got a sharp feeling that possibly, I had gone too far. He was petrified, and he may have been nasty, but I certainly didn’t think that he deserved to be forced into a black hole. Involuntarily, I stretched out my hand in an attempt to keep him close to me, to keep him away from his end. Unfortunately, I couldn’t hold on for long, because my ring vibrated again. It vibrated so painfully and ferociously, that it forced me to let go of the hand that had been holding and I collapsed onto the linoleum floor.
The last thing I remembered before I blacked out was poor Garrisen, being sucked, with a force impossible for any earthly being to withstand, into a black hole. The first thing I saw when I awoke was Kiera’s beautiful face staring at me.
“Kiera, I’ve been looking for you,” my voice sounded weak.
“I’m here now. What do you need?
“I wanted to ask you…”
“Yes?” she hedged
“I wanted to ask you if you would…um… consider going out… with me?”
“I thought you knew…”
“Knew what?” I asked desperately.
“Garrisen and I… we’re sort of… you know… already… doing that.”
“Oh, don’t worry about him, he got sucked into the black hole I created.”
“Well in that case… sure!” And there it was, she didn’t even question the black hole story. It’s so hard to find a beautiful, and smart woman these days. And we all lived happily ever after.2


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“You’re not serious? Are you?” The girl asked with wide eyes.
“No, not exactly, but all fact or fiction aside, do you understand the moral of my story?”
“I’m afraid I don’t quite grasp any sort of ‘moral’ Mr. Greene.” Taking a look at this girl, she wasn’t my everyday appointment. Most of the kids I was scheduled to ‘ guidance council,’ were either the perfectionists, who stressed themselves out so much that they needed to breathe into a paper bag every two thousand-two hundred and thirty- six breaths. But then got so stressed out about counting their breaths incorrectly, that they started missing the greater picture in life, or the kids addicted to drugs that were forced here against their will to try to “work things out.” (unsuccessfully, I might add. They ditched a lot.) No, this girl was average height, and very wiry, she had a long, extremely disheveled mane of dirty blonde hair, and she wore thick, black spectacles that magnified her eyes in a very awkward fashion. It really bothered me to think it, but she looked a lot like I once had. I felt very inclined to help her out. She deserved a much better future than the one I was living. Finally, I could teach someone the lesson that I never learned.
“Never let being cool or uncool be an obstacle in getting where you want to be in your life, trust me I… Excuse me, but would you mind removing your finger from your nostril?”
“Sorry sir… what were you saying?”
“Ummm… where did I leave off?” I pondered that for a moment, “oh yes, I want your only worry right now, to be being yourself and having fun. If you are confident in yourself, no one will be able to push you around. Worrying about your social status in comparison to others will only make your life miserable, and you may end up living with it for the remainder of your life, believe me.”
“That’s great Mr. Greene, but I don’t have any problems with my social status. I have four thousand, five hundred friends on Facebook, I’m fine.” So I was wrong about her guidance needs, that was disappointing.
“Then why are you here?”
“Constable Perry sent me here, it was either this, or a facility for juvenile delinquents.”
“Were you doing drugs?”
“Yes,” she confirmed. My head collapsed onto the desk. What did I say? They were always the same. I found myself feeling especially angered about this girl though. I thought that this was finally going to be my chance to help another nerd to stand up for themselves, and I wasted a perfectly good story on someone who couldn’t even benefit. That story took me so long to come up with too, it tied my childhood story with an inspirational moral. Those kinds of stories don’t grow on trees, you know!
“I’ve kept you here long enough, Martha, come back tomorrow at three fifteen.”
“Okay, see you then,” she waved as she walked out. It was obvious that she was not coming tomorrow. Don’t worry Mike, I thought, you’ll find your nerd in need someday soon.
RING! I quickly grabbed the phone before it could ring again.
“Hello?” I answered.
“GREENE! Get your butt in my office, NOW!”
“Yes, Principle Garrisen,” I sighed and rose from my chair. It was three ‘o’ clock; time for my daily beat- down. Like I said, if you don’t solve your social issues, you could end up living with them for the remainder of your life.3