Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (eBook)

Chapter 2

THE FIRST DAY
OF SENIOR YEAR
IN CONVENIENT
SCRIPT FORMAT

So I guess we should start with the first day of senior year. Which was actually awesome until Mom got involved.

I mean, “awesome” is a relative term. My expectations were low, obviously. Maybe “awesome” is too strong a word. The sentence should be: “I was pleasantly surprised when the first day of senior year did not make me want to freak out and hide in my own locker pretending to be dead.”

School is always stressful, and then the first day of any school year is especially insane because the hangout spots have to be realigned. I failed to note in the previous chapter that the traditional groups of Rich, Jock, Smart, Theater, etc., are further subdivided by grade: The sophomore gothy dorks live in resentful terror of the senior gothy dorks, the smart juniors are dismissive and mistrustful of the smart freshman, etc. So when a class moves out, all of the spots that they used to occupy before school are up for grabs, and there’s usually some weirdness as a result.

Mainly it made for a busy morning for me. I showed up stupidly early to see how things would play out, and there were already some kids staking out their ground. These tended to be representatives of Benson’s more dicked-upon groups.

INT. HALLWAY IN FRONT OF THE LIBRARY — MORNING

JUSTIN HOWELL is hovering nervously near the door to the library, hoping to claim it for the theater kids. He is pacing back and forth humming THE THEME FROM RENT OR MAYBE CATS. With visible relief, he notices GREG approaching.

JUSTIN HOWELL

clearly relieved that it is not a
jock or gangbanger or anyone else
who will immediately call him a
faggot

Oh hi Greg.

GREG GAINES

Justin, good to see you.

JUSTIN HOWELL

Good to see you. Greg how was your summer.

GREG

It was hot and boring, and I can’t believe it’s over already.

JUSTIN HOWELL

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.

OH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.

This seemingly innocuous JOKE has caused Justin Howell to completely lose his shit. Perhaps it is the MIND-DESTROYING ANXIETY of being back at school.

Meanwhile, this was not quite the response Greg was hoping to get. He had intended to say something bland and unmemorable. Now he is SHRUGGING and FIDGETING AWKWARDLY and attempting to avoid EYE CONTACT, which he usually does when people are laughing at a thing that he has said.

JUSTIN HOWELL (CONT’D)
turning his eyebrows into
a weird shape

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.

MRS. WALTER, the librarian, arrives. She is glaring at both of them. She is almost definitely an ALCOHOLIC.

JUSTIN HOWELL

Hi Mrs. Walterrrr.

MRS. WALTER

with dislike

Hhngh.

JUSTIN HOWELL

Greg that is too funny.

GREG

All right man, I’ll see you later.

I was obviously not gonna go into that library and have a lengthy bro-hang with Justin Howell, for reasons I’ve already explained to you. It was time to move on.

INT. HALLWAY IN FRONT OF THE BAND ROOM — MORNING

LAQUAYAH THOMAS and BRENDAN GROSSMAN have not been let into the band room yet. Despite not having instruments, they are poring over some SHEET MUSIC. You can sort of tell that they are doing this to show everyone that they are good enough at music to just casually sit around reading sheet music.

BRENDAN GROSSMAN

Gaines. You doing orchestra this year?

GREG

apologetically

Couldn’t fit it in.

BRENDAN GROSSMAN

Whaaaaat.

LAQUAYAH THOMAS

incredulously

But you woulda got timpani this year! Now who’s gonna play timpani?

BRENDAN GROSSMAN

mournfully

It’s gonna be like Joe DiMeola.

GREG

Yeah, probably Joe. He’s a better percussionist than me anyway.

LAQUAYAH THOMAS

Joe gets the sticks all sweaty.

GREG

That’s because he’s so focused.

INT. AUDITORIUM — MORNING

Two senior gothy dorks, SCOTT MAYHEW and ALLAN McCORMICK, are camped out in some seats near the back playing Magic cards. GREG enters cautiously, his eyes darting from side to side. The auditorium is perhaps the school’s most valuable real estate. It is highly unlikely that this little goth colony will survive the WAVES OF JOCKS, THEATER KIDS, AND GANGBANGERS that will doubtless arrive later this morning.

GREG

Hello, gentlemen.

SCOTT MAYHEW

Good day to you.

ALLAN McCORMICK

blinking rapidly and forcefully
for probably no reason

Yes, good day.

The gothy dorky kids are very low in the social hierarchy, but at the same time they are almost impossible to infiltrate. Maybe it’s because they’re so low in the hierarchy. They’re insanely suspicious of everyone who tries to talk to them. This is because pretty much all of their characteristics are targets of ridicule: their love of elves and dragons, their trench coats and long un-groomed or maybe-too-well-groomed hair, their habit of striding around way too fast while breathing really hard out of their noses. Getting them to accept you is difficult without becoming a gothy dork.

Actually, I feel kind of a soft spot for them because I completely understand their worldview. They hate high school, just like I do. They’re constantly trying to escape it and instead live in a fantasy world where they can spend all their time striding around in the mountains, jabbing people with swords under the eerie light of like eight different moons or something. Sometimes I feel like, in an alternate universe, I could have been one of them. I’m pasty and chubby and completely insane in social situations. And if I’m being honest, attacking people with swords is awesome.

That was what I was thinking a little bit, crouching there with them in the auditorium. But then I had a realization.

SCOTT MAYHEW, after much deliberation, plays a CARD entitled “Horde of the Undead.”

ALLAN McCORMICK

Curses.

GREG

Scott, great horde.

My realization was that I could never actually live a life where I had to be constantly doing things like praising a dude’s horde.

So that made me feel better about myself.

It did not take me all that long to respectfully get the hell out of there.

INT. AREA IN FRONT OF THE SOUTH
STAIRWELL — MORNING

All four members of MIDDLE-CLASS AFRICAN AMERICAN JUNIOR SUB-CLIQUE 4C are positioned near the doors. Meanwhile, a lone sophomore church kid, IAN POSTHUMA, has spread his stuff farther down the hall and is grimly waiting for REINFORCEMENTS.

This is a classic situation in which you try to engage people as little as possible, because if you look like you’re part of one group, the other group will take notice and ostracize you. I mean, being ostracized by sophomore church kids would not be the worst thing in the world, but my one goal in life was to not be ostracized by anyone. Were there times when this goal seemed like the goal of a moron? Yes. But honestly, name one life goal that does not occasionally seem like the goal of a total moron. Even being president would completely suck, if you really give it any thought at all.

GREG gives IAN POSTHUMA a low-key head-nod greeting. Then the RUBBER BALL that JONATHAN WILLIAMS has been flinging against RANDOM SURFACES ricochets into one of GREG’S TEETH.

In previous years, there would have been no dignified way to deal with this. The ball-throwing group would have burst into raucous laughter, and my only course of action would have been to stride briskly away, probably while being further pelted.

But pretty quickly, it became clear that this year, things were different.

Instead of glorying in the fact that his ball has bounced into GREG’S TOOTH, JONATHAN WILLIAMS tucks his head into his shirt with embarrassment.

DARNELL REYNOLDS

visibly annoyed

I told you you would hit someone.

DONTÉ YOUNG

Dude’s a senior.

JONATHAN WILLIAMS

mumbling

Sorry.

GREG

It’s all good.

DAJUAN WILLIAMS gives Jonathan Williams a shove.

DONTÉ YOUNG

cleaning a fingernail

Can’t be throwing shit.

Basically, being a senior means that when people throw things at your teeth, it’s accidental. In other words, being a senior is awesome.

All morning before school, and then all day, that was how things went. It was kind of a perfect day in that regard. I spent a few minutes in the parking lot with a gaggle of ill-tempered foreign kids led by Nizar the Surly Syrian, then exchanged some hellos with the soccer team, and this year none of them tried to grab and injure my nipples. Dave Smeggers, noted stoner, began telling me a long and excruciatingly pointless story about his summer, but was soon distracted by some birds, at which point I made my escape. Vonta King tried to get me to sit with him across from room 318, so I pretended I was on my way to a meeting with a teacher, and he accepted it without argument. And so on and so forth.

Also, at one point I almost walked into one of Madison Hartner’s...