Jeremy

JEREMY By: Michael Zak

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1 He had his backpack hanging over one arm, just like the way the cool kids did it, or so he read. He wore a red baseball cap, a blue collar T – shirt, and jeans. And to top it off he had a brand new pair of Adidas shoes on to show that he was hip, cool, fashionable, and ready to start the ninth grade. As he walked down his street to the bus stop he looked at his feet and smiled. He had grown over the summer. He was now a proud fourteen year old who was exactly five foot two. He knew he was short for his age, but he had grown over the summer, and for that he was proud of it. As he stood next to Colin Chevnik, who would be going into tenth grade, he reflected on his summer. He had done the best things. He had, for almost half of the summer, looked at insects and birds and learned all about them. He had played tennis with his best friend Justin, and best of all, he had even talked to Jessica Fahrer, the prettiest girl on the planet. He was sure that they had definitely made a connection that summer, even though she was a tenth grader. “Watcha dreamin’ about Chance, kissin’ your dog?” Oh crap, thought Jeremy, Not this. Not now! Two of the biggest boys Jeremy had ever seen came walking down the street toward him and Colin. Well mostly him, Colin was just standing there, pretending not to notice anything. The two boys went over to Jeremy and picked him up by his collar so that his face was now directly in plane with theirs.

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“Well, well, well, looks like shorty is finally coming to high school. See here Dave, he looks like he could still be in the second grade.” The two boys looked at each other and laughed. “What are you doin here Jeremy, shouldn’t you be at home, lookin’ at your stupid bug collection?” Jeremy tried to wriggle free but the Dave and Timmy wouldn’t let Jeremy out of their hands. Dave was a massive boy, who was only in tenth grade. He had jet black hair which was combed strait back over his head. He wore a baggy grey shirt and gabby khaki shorts. And around his belt loop hung a silver chain with tiny spikes on it. Timmy, on that other hand, was not as massive as Dave. Timmy was in eleventh grade and looked as if he had been brought up in a decent family. He had dirty blonde hair that crept over his ears and wore a green shirt and jeans. In his belt loop, he just had a regular brown leather belt. “What do you think I’m doing,” said Jeremy, dangling from the grasp of the two boys, “I’m going to school. High school as a matter of fact.” He knew that he had been a little too smart because Dave and Timmy not only let him go, but they threw him into the side of the hill and he hit his back off a jagged rock. “You two are jerks!” He screamed at them, but they pretended not to hear him as they turned away from him and began talking quietly to one another. “Here let me help you up.” Colin offered his had to Jeremy, who gladly took it and was forced up onto his feet where he put a hand to his back and winced in pain. “Are you okay?” asked Colin. “Yea, I’m fine.” Said Jeremy, and he gave Colin a small smile and then turned around and picked up his backpack and slung it over his shoulder, just like the cool kids did. “Hey, I think I know you.” Said Colin waving a finger at Jeremy. “Really?!?” Said Jeremy, or maybe shouted, in astonishment because few people besides his mother and father, and his dog Buster, really know who he is. And to hear this coming from the basketball captain of the Newcastle Sharks, he was very excited. “Yea, yea, I do. Weren’t you the kid who fell in the lake last year and then when the rescued you, you walked over to your dog Buster and kissed him on the lips?” Colin wasn’t trying to be funny either; he wanted a strait answer from Jeremy. Jeremy heart and stomached dropped. He knew it had been too good to be true. How could I think that someone like him would actually talk to a wimpy little freshman like me. Thought Jeremy. He looked up at Colin who smiled at him. “Are you trying to be funny or what?” “No, no, I’m serious. Are you?” “As a matter of fact I am.” Jeremy looked up at Colin. “WOW! DUDE! You were like all over the papers…and the thing about you kissing your dog was like all over the school. Woa! How did it taste?”

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You’ve gotta be kidding me! Thought Jeremy. “It tasted wet…now can we talk about something else.” Jeremy rushed because he didn’t want to get into the fact that he had been naked when he fell into the lake. Well all the papers said he fell into the lake when really it had been Timmy and Dave who had deliberately pushed him into it because, well he really didn’t know why, they just did. So it was because of them that his whole high school reputation was ruined. Maybe even college. “Wait, so why did you fall in…?” Continued Colin. “I said I didn’t want to talk about it…” “I know, I know” said Colin, overlapping Jeremy. “I just wanna talk about how you fell into the lake. So the story that got told in our school was that you fell off your bike and like went tumbling into the water. And then when you were in there you like hit your head on a huge rock and that’s why when you came out you…well…” “Kissed my dog” finished Jeremy, “Yea, that’s pretty much it.” He really didn’t want to tell Colin about the whole Timmy and Dave thing because he really didn’t want anyone to know that he was a big, well short, wimp who got thrown into a lake by two high schoolers. “Woa, that’s awesome man. By the way I’m Colin Chevnik.” Colin outstretched his hand so Jeremy could shake it. “Oh, I know who you are.” Jeremy said, shaking Colin’s hand. “Everyone knows who you are.” Jeremy smiled up at Colin. “You’re the best basketball player in about fifty years and you are currently the captain of the high school basketball team.” “Huh, I didn’t think everyone knew that. Well, all I gotta say is well… welcome to high school.” He looked around to make sure that Timmy and Dave weren’t listening to him. When he saw that they weren’t, he turned around to Jeremy again. “To start off, just make sure you make friends early, because in like a month, everyone will probably already be friends. Oh, and of course, just make sure you watch your back because the sophomores, juniors, and seniors tend to dislike the freshmans.” Jeremy looked down. “Oh, and are you catholic?” “No.” replied Jeremy, looking back up at Colin. “Why?” “Well what are you?” “Jewish.” “Oh.” Colin turned around and looked at Timmy and Dave, again, just to make sure that they hadn’t heard what Jeremy had said. “Well, a lot of people in this high school are catholic, and well, a lot of them are sort of proud of it. So really, I wouldn’t go boasting around that you’re Jewish.” “I wasn’t planning on it.” smiled Jeremy. He looked down at the rocks near his feet and saw an unusual insect; one that he had not really ever seen before. “Hey, look at this!” He said to Colin, who had apparently not been paying attention for the sound of Jeremy’s voice made him jump. “What?” Colin answered, not seeing what Jeremy was seeing.

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“Look at this bug. Weird huh?” The bug was very weird. It was defiantly and insect, Jeremy knew that, because it had a three part body. But still, it was the weirdest thing he had ever seen. The head of the insect was more like a triangle shaped head that was reddish brown. Protruding from underneath the eyes were two spiked tentacles that, halfway, bent into a ninety degree angle. The head looked as hard as a rock, but then the middle section, which was the abdomen, looked as if it was made out of jelly, and even had a sort of pinkish red color. It was even sort of see through. And then where its legs were, only legs; no arms, it became hard again. And it went back to the reddish brown color. Jeremy stared at the bug with amazement and awe. He cupped his hands together and let the insect crawl onto his hand. “What are you doing!?!” shouted Colin. “It could be poisonous!” “Awe, it’s nothing” With all the commotion the insect had scurried out of Jeremy’s hand. Timmy and Dave had obviously heard the commotion and had now positioned themselves next to Jeremy. “Alright, what’s all the fuss about?” asked Dave. “I found a really cool bug and…” started Jeremy. “He was gonna pick the thing up!” finished Colin. “It could have been poisonous!” He looked down at the bug that was crawling around Jeremy’s foot and shivered. “Ah, here, I’ll fix that!” And Timmy picked up his foot and brought it down hard on the insect’s body. It made a loud crunch and white fluid oozed from underneath Timmy’s shoe. “No!” Jeremy screamed. He bent down and knocked Timmy’s foot out of the way. After examining the poor insect he looked up at Timmy. “You killed it.” He said, and looked back down at the insect. “Awe, is little baby Jeremy sad that I killed his little bitty insect. You better watch your back kid, because it’ll be your dog I’ll squash next. Ha!” He looked at Dave and let out a big laugh. He brought his foot backward and kicked Jeremy hard in the ribs. Jeremy squealed with pain and curled up in a little ball as the pain that the foot inflicted spread pain throughout his whole entire pain and he rocked back and forth. “You just better watch your little butt in high school. Because you ain’t allowed to call mommy when something goes wrong. Ha!” This time it was Dave who kicked Jeremy in the ribs and again he squealed and rocked back and forth with pain. Once the two boys had walked away, Colin walked over to Jeremy and offered him a hand and Jeremy took it. Jeremy stood up and, privately, wiped the blood and tears from his face. Jeremy wondered why Colin hadn’t stepped in for him. Colin seemed the type of person who would do something for someone, but he didn’t. He just stayed there and watched the whole thing. “So….” said Colin not knowing what to say. “Ha, well you kinda look like you were in a fight. Umm…yea, umm, maybe you could tell people you won. It might work.”

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“Yea, yea, I think I’ll pass.” He pushed his brown hair off his forehead and picked up his backpack just as the bus pulled up next to the four of them. Jeremy breathed in and exhaled, long, and then he entered the bus. The bus was a typical school bus. The seats were a puke brown color and on hot sticky days when your shirt stuck to our back, the seats smelt like puke to. Paper airplanes flew over Jeremy’s head as screams of crude words drifted their way from the back of the bus, the seniors, and reached the front which made the bus driver turn around and yell at the top of his lungs. Once Jeremy had found a seat, and empty seat, he prepared his journey to school, alone. The first two or three minutes were peaceful and he sat there and reflected on his summer again. He was sitting in silence until someone from the back of the bus called, “Hey, dog kisser!” Jeremy pretended not to notice. In fact he actually slid down in his seat a little. It wasn’t until a paper air plane hit him in the back of the head until he turned around. “Hey, you, yea, I heard you French kissed your dog and then went up to your mother and did the same!” Jeremy turned around, annoyed, and continued to look out the window. “HEY! LOOSER!” Another voice from the back shouted. When Jeremy turned around he found out that the kid was right in front of him. He picked Jeremy up by the collar and threw him down in the middle of the aisle. The whole entire bus burst with laughter as Jeremy curled up in pain on the cold, dirty floor. “Now listen,” the kid had bent down and picked Jeremy up by his hair so that Jeremy was looking him strait in the eye. “When my friend asks you a question, I want you to answer it!” He grabbed Jeremy’s hair with two hands and dragged him to the back of the bus. Blood was now running from his nose and mouth and was staining his new shirt that he had tried so hard to keep clean for this particular day. The kid, who Jeremy now recognized as Timmy, jerked his hair back so he made a high pitched squealing noise. He put his other hand under Jeremy’s chin and steadied it so that Jeremy was now looking at a pure jock. A kid who probably bled the school colors. “Now, I want you to say ‘What was that kind sir?” Timmy laughed. He steadied Jeremy’s jaw and Jeremy uttered the words. The whole back of the bus laughed. The jock now stood up and looked Jeremy right in the eye. “I said, ‘wasn’t it you who kissed your dog and then did the same to your mother’? Well kid, huh?” Jeremy shook his head with pain, and kept telling himself that he was not going to mutter another word. “Well kid?!?! HUH?!?!” Jeremy shook his head again. “I said answer me!” He swung his fist and it connected with Jeremy’s face. Jeremy was now being held with both of his arms behind his back so when the jock hit him he nearly fell over. The only thing that was keeping him standing was Timmy.

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“YES!” Jeremy shouted. Timmy let him drop to the floor where his head smacked off the floor. He lay there for a few seconds until two hands closed in around his stomach and lifted him up off the ground. The hands carried him back to his seat. When he looked up he saw a beautiful blonde girl sitting in the same seat as him. Jessica Fahrer was looking at him with big blue eyes. “Are you okay?” she asked him. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” He laughed. Only he didn’t feel fine. His head felt like it was going to explode. He rubbed his head and looked at Jessica and smiled again. “Those guys are jerks, just don’t listen to them.” Said Jessica. “I already tried that and looked at what happened! Maybe I should just switch schools.” “NO! Ha, I mean, well, I’m sure you’re mom wouldn’t want you to, after, well…I don’t know.” She smiled up at Jeremy who didn’t smile back. “I haven’t got a mother.” He stared down into his pants. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t know. Well I’m sure your dad wouldn’t want…” She started. Jeremy shook his head. “Oh, well then, pardon, but who do you live with?” She looked up at Jeremy with inquisitive eyes. Jeremy looked back at her and then made a sour face. “My aunt.” said Jeremy. “Well, what’s wrong with her?” Jessica asked. “Nothing, just, well, she hates me.” Jessica gave Jeremy the eyes again. “She thinks I’m too much of a wimp. “I don’t think you’re a wimp.” She looked at him, embarrassed and then looked away. Jeremy smiled to himself. Maybe his ninth grade year hadn’t started out so well, but maybe; just maybe, it wouldn’t be so bad after all.

2 “Ok now, when I call your name I want you all to raise your hand. If you don’t raise your hand, I will assume that you are not here and mark you absent.” Mrs. Gerelli was looking at her clipboard, which had each students name written on it, while every student in room 304 sat upright in their desks, making sure that they were paying attention. “Ok umm…let’s see…Marchine Adler?” She looked around the room. A girl with bright green eyes, short brown hair, and a one piece blue jumper on raised her hand and literally yelled out, “HERE!”

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Mrs. Gerelli looked at Marchine in a curious way and nodded her head. “Aikus Aféanté?” A boy in the corner of the room with brown glasses and a white T shirt raised his hand but didn’t say ‘here’. “Jonathan Biggs?” Another boy raised his hand. “Michelle Canteninni?” A girl with long curly blonde hair raised her hand and, like Marchine, she said ‘here’ Jeremy sank into his seat. “Jeremy Chance?” The whole class looked in the direction Mrs. Gerelli had her eyes. When they saw Jeremy some looked at him in shock. Others either laughed or made pucker faces. Reluctantly, Jeremy raised his hand and when the teacher nodded her head he quickly put it down letting her follow on her name chart. He looked down at his desk as she called out “Jeremiah Figg.” The boy in front of him turned around to look at him and smiled. “Hey, I know who you are.” The boy smiled and jerked his head toward Mrs. Gerelli just to make sure that she wasn’t paying attention to him. “You’re not the first.” Jeremy replied, flatly. The boy looked like he didn’t understand but he didn’t say so. “Yeah, you’re the kid who…” “Yeah, yeah, kissed his dog, we all know what I did so why do you have to bring it up?” Jeremy looked away hoping that the boy would catch a hint that Jeremy did not want to talk right now, not on his first day of high school, where, if the teacher caught him, he would be in big trouble. The boy didn’t catch the hint. He went rambling on and on about whom he was and about how he was completely fascinated that Jeremy actually kissed his own dog, in public. When he asked Jeremy why he kissed his own dog, he knew that he couldn’t just let this one go unanswered, or at least lied, and then there would be a serious rumor that wasn’t true and might even be worse than what actually happened. “Umm, actually I,” he decided just to go with the story that was over the school; Colin’s story, “I fell of my bike and hit a rock. And when I came out, I was well sorta out of it and that’s when I…” “JEREMY!” The sound of Mrs. Gerelli’s voice made him jump up in his seat causing his had to fly upward and smack the kid in front of him right in the nose. The kid put both hands on his face and then laid his head on his desk. The whole class looked at him as if he had committed a murder. When he looked up at Mrs. Gerelli she was wearing a face that he had only heard rumors of how the high school teachers would look. Her eyebrows were pushed together as if they were attracted by heavy duty magnets. Her eyes were focused on him, him and no one else. He was singled out; small, alone, and very scared. She strode over to his desk, picked him up by the collar of his shirt, which was pretty worn out by now, and hurled him out of his desk. “How dare you talk in my class? And then, to make it worse, you deliberately punch another

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student in the nose just because he has a sickness and he wanted to make a friend before he goes.” “He’s gonna die!?!?” Jeremy blurted the words out before he could even think about what he was saying. Mrs. Gerelli looked at him in disgust and the kid who now had blood dripping from his nose, ran out of the room crying. Jeremy looked at everyone. Everyone looked at him, including Mrs. Gerelli who looked as if she was a panther ready to jump. “HOW DARE YOU!?! NO! He is not going to die. For your nebby information, Jacob has a severe tonsil problem and next month he will be transported to a professional medical center in California. He won’t be back this year and he just wanted to make at least one friend. And, you, you little dog kissing punk,” the class sniggered, “had the nerve to punch an adorable kid like that. Shame on you Jeremy Chance.” Jeremy felt like breaking down and crying. That was it. His reputation was ruined. He would now be known as the dog kissing kid who punched a sick kid. Great! “But I didn’t…” He started, but the teacher didn’t let him finish. “I don’t want to hear another word out of you! You drag your little butt to the principal’s office, and I don’t want to see your face in my class until you learn how to respect your fellow classmates.” She grabbed his collar once more, before he had time to defend himself, opened the door, and pushed him out. He stood in the hall, fuming, wondering what to do. He stood in front of the door wondering if she would let him back in once she cooled off. She didn’t. Somewhere down the hall he heard another door open and he saw a man in a new black suit striding down the hallway. He ended up right in front of Jeremy and told Jeremy to come with him. He looks like the CIA, thought Jeremy. The man led him to a door with a silver plaque on the door that read, ‘JAMES A. HAYFIELD – PRINCIPAL’. Jeremy shivered. The man opened the door and motioned for Jeremy to go inside. The man did not follow. “In here Jeremy.” A voice said from behind a door across the room. How does he know my name?, thought Jeremy. He walked over to the door, opened it, and walked in. “Holy crap! You’re going to detention on the first day! Woa, dude, this is like total school newspaper material.” Colin was holding his first assignment of the year in biology, but he wasn’t at all worried about that. He was more interested in the news that Jeremy had just told him at lunch. “Okay, okay, hold on, explain!” “What’s there to explain, you know that I got detention, what else is there?” Jeremy eyes the group of kids that were looking at him. He would’ve asked what their problems were but as he looked closer he saw that they were

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huddles over the crying kid he had accidentally hit. “Hey Colin, what’s that kid’s name?” Said Jeremy as he pointed to the kid. “Oh, him, yea, his name is Walter Kimms. He used to be the most annoying person in the world, when I was in eighth back at county. But, well, I learned, from my folks, that he has like this mutating throat sickness, and, well, since that, everyone has been like,. ‘Oh, how bad’, and like, ‘Oh, you poor baby’. It’s soooo sickening!” Colin looked at Walter and shook his head. “Why do you want to know?” “Well he’s kinda the reason I got detention.” Jeremy told Colin what had happened in Mrs. Gerelli’s class and Colin sat and listened with astonishment in his eyes. “And she sent me to the office, I got detention, and that’s that.” “Wow.” Colin looked up at Jeremy and shook his head in both amusement and disbelief. “That’s really funny.” “Yeah, well, everyone else seems to think that I’ve committed a huge crime or something. I mean I didn’t even…” Just as Jeremy was going to tell some more of the story a group of muscular boys with white T- shirts over their chests and baggy basketball shorts covering most of their legs. Jeremy knew who they were at once; the jocks. “Yo! Colin! What the hell are you doing with that nerd?” the main jock, turned and looked at Jeremy in disgust. “Come on Colin, I’ve got you registered for an appointment with Chelsea at twelve thirty in the library, and dude, you do not want to miss this one.” Colin didn’t even look at Jeremy; he simply got up and left Jeremy alone on the bench while he and his buddies walked into the school laughing and jeering the school chant. Jeremy was alone, again. But he didn’t mind. He had pretty much spent his whole life alone.”

3 The rest of the school day wasn’t all that bad for Jeremy, except for the occasional hiss or head turn in his direction. The kid who sat in front of him in Calculus was a kid who looked kind of lonely himself. If Jeremy didn’t really care at all about his reputation he might have just talked to the kid, but he already learned in middle school not to talk to the lone drifters. ‘Tease Alley’. The teacher bored Jeremy to death because it was the original welcome speech and they got all their books and special graph paper. The day flew by, class by class, and before Jeremy knew it the bell was ringing in his head and it was time to get on the bus to go home. He walked very slowly to the bus, hoping that it would pull away. He did not want to endure the horror of a high school bus ride again. Sadly, the bus

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waited for him and he was forced to climb up the black spiked stairs and into the fowl leather smelling bus. He hurried up and took the first seat available, right in the front. He gave a heavy sigh and then sunk low into his seat. The big boys were already in the back of the bus so they couldn’t bother him. His house was the second stop. The bus bounced on every pot hole, but Jeremy got to his stop in one piece. As the doors of the bus screeched open he grabbed his book bag and slung it over one shoulder. He walked off the bus and looked around. Strange, he thought, I wonder where the assholes are? He shrugged his shoulders and then just kept on walking, not thinking of anything except of the Superman marathon on tonight.

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