Page 44 of My Life with the Walter Boys
“Yeah, whatever,” Lee said, storming out of the room. When he saw me standing a few feet away, he shoved past me, his shoulder ramming into mine. “Bitch,” he coughed out and kept walking. Two seconds later, his bedroom door slammed shut.
I contemplated walking back to my room after the encounter, but Alex poked his head out into the hall.
“Oh shit,” he said, running a hand through his messy hair. “You heard all that, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, kind of,” I said, looking away from him. “If you want to hang out with Lee, I understand.”
“No, Jackie, don’t worry about it,” Alex said and pushed his door open all the way. “Come in.”
I wavered for a moment, not sure what to do, but then Alex took my satchel from me, so I had no choice but to follow him in. His side of the room was just as messy as the last time I saw it, if not worse. Clothes were scattered everywhere, and empty bags of junk food covered his desk. Nathan’s half looked like aBetterHomesandGardensmagazine, but he was nowhere to be seen.
“I didn’t really get the chance to tidy up,” Alex told me, kicking a pair of shoes out of the way as he led me over to his desk.
I laughed. “Alex, you’d need a SWAT team to clean up this mess,” I said, picking my way across the floor and being careful not to step on any dirty laundry.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he said, pulling out his computer chair so I could sit down. On the seat was a moldy plate that had turned so green I couldn’t even tell what type of food was on it. Alex looked at me sheepishly before grabbing the plate and shoving it under his bed. “I’ll take care of that later,” he muttered. “Have a seat.”
“I don’t know,” I said, eyeing the chair suspiciously to see whether or not it was molding as well. “It might be dangerous.”
Alex shot me a look. “Funny.”
“What?” I said, but sat down anyway. “Can’t be too careful.”
After dragging a chair over from Nathan’s desk, Alex sat down next to me and pulled out his textbook. “So what’s our plan of attack?” he asked.
It was just a figure of speech, but Alex had no clue how seriously I took his question. I’d never been one of those really creative kids who could dance and sing or paint a pretty picture. There weren’t any doodles in my notebooks at school because I couldn’t even draw a stick figure. But the one talent I could brag about was my ability to study. It didn’t matter what type of test it was. As long as I had a decent amount of time to prepare, I could ace anything. This anatomy test would be no different. After all, it was my first academic performance at my new school, and I wanted to set the bar high.
“We should start by going over the review sheet and defining all the terms,” I said, pulling the important piece of paper out of my organizer. I handed it to Alex to look over since I knew he’d already lost the one we were given in class. “I’ve color-coded my notes and arranged them by lecture to assist us. If we can’t find a specific answer in my notes, which is highly unlikely, we can turn to the textbook as a last resort.”
“What about my notes?” he asked, glancing up from the review sheet. He set it down, and I tried not to cringe as the paper soaked up a tiny puddle of mysterious liquid—probably one of the Kickstart energy drinks that I saw him drinking every morning—that was spilled on his desk.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, snatching the paper back. “The only notes you took was the picture you drew of Mr. Piper where you labeled all the facial bones. And those weren’t even accurate.”
“Point taken,” Alex said, scratching his head in embarrassment.
“All right,” I said, glancing at the first category listed on the review sheet. “Let’s start with the appendicular skeletal bones…”
Half an hour later, we had only covered the first twenty of the seventy-five terms we needed to know. I was trying to keep Alex focused on studying, I really was, but that was easier said than done. Every few minutes his e-mail would beep, causing him to glance at his computer. By the time I focused his attention back on anatomy, another e-mail would ping and the process would start all over again.
Finally I gave up.
“Just check it,” I said with a sigh as another message drew him out of our textbook. Either Alex had a serious problem with junk mail, or someone was really trying to get hold of him—and apparently whoever it was didn’t know how to use a cell phone. This was the tenth e-mail in the past five minutes.
“Check what?” he asked, his eyes darting back to the passage he was supposed to be reading.
“Your e-mail. I know you’re dying to.”
“Sorry,” he said, but he quickly pulled up his inbox. He double-clicked on the first little blue envelope, his eyes scanning the message. “My guild is going on a ZG raid.”
He’d lost me in one sentence. “Guild? Raid?” I asked. “What’s that?”
“It’s gamer talk,” Alex said, as he went through the rest of his e-mails. “You know, forGathering of Gods.”
“Oh, right. I’ve heard Kim talking about it before,” I said absentmindedly, “but I didn’t really get it.”
That was possibly the worst thing I could have said to Alex. He turned to me as an unsettling smile crept onto his face. “Put your notes away, young padawan. Much to teach you, I have.”
Alex was so enthusiastic aboutGathering of Godsthat he couldn’t just explain it to me. He had to show me. And by showing, I mean he forced me to play. After explaining that game play consisted primarily of completing dangerous quests, he helped me create a character, which took quite some time.
