Calvin Hensley was awake in cold sweat long before the alarm clock buzzed annoyingly on top the drawer. He only got a little, if at all any sleep the previous night. He rolled over and knocked the stupid thing off the drawer. It didn't stop buzzing and he didn't bother picking it up. He just laid there thinking about something about the Swiss being pretty confident in their chances of victory if they included a corkscrew on their army knife or something about penguins.
High school was really difficult, especially for a nerd like Calvin. When they were in junior high school, he and his friend Rich made a map of the school lunch tables according to popularity. This was easy to do because kids only ate lunch with others of about the same popularity. They graded them from A to E. A tables were full of football players and cheerleaders and so on. E tables contained the kids with mild cases of Down's Syndrome, what in the language of the time they called "retards."
They sat at a D table, as low as they could get without looking physically different. They were not being especially candid to grade themselves as D. It would have taken a deliberate lie to say otherwise. Everyone in the school knew exactly how popular everyone else was, including them.
It was on a Monday morning, the first day of senior year. Now, normally, it would have been like any other day, but It wasn't. You see, Calvin was about to enter a scholarship program. He had just moved from the US to Canada to live with his aunt, Martha. So, in a way, it was like the first day of high school all over again.
It was the A.B. Noel Endowed Scholarship for Wood River seniors or graduates, or current Central Community College-Grand Island science students into Oxford University in England. Applicants must attend CCC-Grand Island or Concorida Community College and have a 3.0 high school GPA or 2.8 college GPA. Preference was given to majors in chemistry, physics, and electrical technology.
He had maths class that morning. It wasn't that bad although many of the students were looking at him funny, which said a lot because, in his former school, he didn't get more than a glance or two his way. He thought he tied his shoelaces properly and he knew for certain he didn't have food stuck in his hair.
"I've seen nuns dressed better than you." Said a chubby student behind him.
That got a few other students giggling in class. He thought of a witty comeback, but he had nothing to say to him. Calvin managed to turn and get a good look at the chubby student behind him. He had a round face with freckles on both cheeks. His inhaler was peeking out of his chest pocket. He wasn't a bully, Calvin thought. He didn't look like one, especially with the dorky glasses he had on.
It was lunchtime and Calvin was seated alone. Apparently, he didn't have any friends and of course, no one wanted to sit with the new kid. He didn't particularly crave for social acceptance, but he wouldn't mind if he had someone to talk to, it was only natural. He tried to grasp the contrast of the social groups in his new school while he ate his lunch.
"I'm embarrassed to be seen with you and that's coming from me." Said the chubby kid from math class as he sat beside him.
"Then sit somewhere else." Calvin shrugged.
"I think you're attracted to me in a weird and homosexual way."
"What?!" He almost choked on his sandwich.
"This is where I usually sit. Well, me and my mates."
"Honestly, this isn't going to be too hard of a sell." Said a tall, skinny-looking fellow taking a sit across the table from him. "Of the top 10 highest grossing movies worldwide, 9 out of 10 of them involve superheroes. Star Wars: Episode 1, Avengers, Avatar, Boy-Wizards, Pirates and Toys. The lone holdout? Titanic. Expand it to the top 20? Even more superhero movies."
Calvin nodded lightly in a way that showed he and the skinny fellow knew what they were talking about and he showed genuine interest.
"Who are you?"Asked the skinny fellow.
"Oh, he's the new homosexual weirdo." The chubby kid chipped in.
"Are there other homosexual weirdos?" Calvin gave him a stupid look.
"Does that question justify the fact that you accept being a homosexual weirdo?"
At that moment, Calvin realized his stance in the social paradigm of events.
"How's this for a pickup line? If I had a star every time you brightened my day, I'd have a galaxy in my hands." The chubby one asked.
"Are you seriously gonna go through with it?" Asked the skinny one.
"Yeah. It's not good enough?"
"I think it's neat," Calvin said.
"Yeah. If you're looking to chat up your second cousin who had so much pity for you she would let you screw her." The skinny kid said with a full mouth. "You're talking about chatting up Merrily Summers, right?"
"Yeah." The chubby one replied.
"Get her a red matching Victoria Secrets and she'll go out with you. Turns out flowers or crappy pick-up lines don't mean a lot from where she comes from. She's kind of a slut like that."
That was Barry Griffith and Irwin Jones, respectively. They were members of Calvin's new social group or clique if you will. Every group of friends was diverse and its members each held a unique role. While every clique was different, there were common roles in which members tend to fall into, example, the funny one, the eccentric one, the introverted one, the superficial one, the list went on. Perhaps the most appreciated and what Calvin believed to be the best role he could have in a group, or in life for that matter, is the cool-headed one — Arthur Wolfe.
Arthur was a guy who had all of the qualities of a nerd such as playing video games, reading comic books, liking Star Wars, and so on but also had a social acceptance, sense of personal style, and great confidence when expressing his intellect.
After a few number of days that were surprisingly passable for fun times, Calvin became familiar with the going-on of things and events. He hung out a lot with Irwin, Barry, Arthur. Arthur was the flagship and most important member of the group. Now among the four of them, Calvin was often regarded as the good looking one. The others weren't unattractive per se but He had always been labeled as generally cute in a youthful and fun-spirited way.
"Have you ever been with a girl before, Calvin?" Arthur asked once when they were in the library.
"Once or twice, I don't keep a record," he said not taking my eyes off the book I was reading.
"It's a wonderful feeling when you're with a girl, especially if that girl is Mia."
"I can only imagine."
"You know Mia, she's one the sweet girls."
"Okay." He hoped Arthur's choice of conversion would change. It didn't.
"Last year I almost asked her out, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. She has a way of telling guys off without actually saying anything." He sighed. "She's probably gay, but that only makes her hotter."
"I thought you were dating Lucy."
"I broke up with her."
"Why?"
"She said she didn't want to see me anymore and I found that insulting."
"I thought things were going well. What happened?" He set the book down.
"I don't know, she didn't even give me a reason, but it's okay I'm fine."
"Of course you're fine." Calvin continued reading. "Not every member of a species finds a mate. Sir Isaac Newton died a virgin, look at the contributions he made to science."
"I'm not a virgin, Calvin."
"So now you think you're better than Isaac Newton? Oh, no wonder women don't like you."
"You can be a prick sometimes."
"What? You said you were fine."
"Sometimes people say things they don't mean."
"Oh, that's a paradox. I mean if you meant what you just said, then that means you may not have meant what you just said."
When Calvin got home, he thought hard about all he had accomplished socially. It wasn't much but it gave him a sense of satisfaction. He had kissed a girl before and it wasn't awkward in a way that they didn't talk to each other when they stopped being intimate which was only after a few days they kissed. The closest he came to the sexual satisfaction that didn't involve his right hand and his mind was when Megan Blake gave him a hand-job in a dark movie theater after he caught her with a jock from college. When he asked for sex, she dumped him. She reluctantly went out with him because he helped her with her homework.
The following day in class, Calvin could smell wet wool, because it had been raining with a little hint of sun ray peeking over the gloomy clouds. Every student wore a green, woolen jersey. The girls wore oatmeal swollen tights. No doubt some of the students stuffed their waste between the bar heaters and the wall because it was after lunch and eleven students ate their lunches in class. He heard the rain outside started to drizzle and students from an adjacent classroom about to visit the library. He heard someone at the back of the room tapping a ruler on the desk absentmindedly.
The sun that reflected through the water drops after summer rain was beautiful. A painting, painstakingly drawn from blood, tears, and passion, was beautiful. Love was beautiful. To say that Mia Monroe was beautiful was an understatement. She was like seeing the last single beam of light from the sunset illuminating the surface of the endless ocean. She was like a painted masterpiece, with its greatness so absolute making the artist go mad with the realization of never achieving anything nearly as perfect. She was like love. The one and only love. The kind of love that one would find themselves lucky to perceive only for a blink of an eye. The kind of love artist and musicians had tried to pinpoint since the dawn of art. Mia Monroe was simply gorgeous beyond proper comprehension. She was the girl that just walked into the classroom and Calvin's sense of reasoning found its way out.
