Today's work count: 1,777 words
Running total: 1,777 words
Summary: Our intrepid hero meets Chase. The entire first 1777 words are spent in a single class period.

Also, there is chiroptophobia.
Also also, note that I end each night mid-sentence. This might feel strange, and that's because it mostly is, but it makes it easier for me to start the next day.

Scene 1
This Is Certainly Going to End Badly for Everyone Involved
Kenneth

When the day begins with you barely managing to catch the bus to school, then getting heavily rained on as you walk into your new school, then tripping down the staircase, then finding out you have to spend the rest of the day with a nerd, you know it isn’t going to end well.
Perhaps I should explain that, from the top. My name is Kenneth White. I’m sixteen years old and I’m finishing up my sophomore year of high school. Sort of. It’s mid-March right now, but June will be here before you know it. We—my mom and I, that is—just moved. We’re in this little city called Rochester now. No, not the one in New York—this is in Minnesota. Yeah, I didn’t know there was a Rochester in Minnesota. And why Minnesota, anyway? What’s out here? Nothing important ever happened in Minnesota.
But apparently, my mom found work here, so Minnesota it is. It hasn’t been too bad so far. Our neighbors seem friendly enough. A few days ago they made us lasagna, with no prompt at all. I was expecting to see that kind of hospitality at school, too.
But the day didn’t start off so well… you see, last night, I was rudely awakened when my mom found a bat in the house. She was too scared to get rid of it, so I had to do it for her. But I had trouble finding it, so I stayed up almost an hour just trying to do that, and it took another fifteen minutes or so before I killed it. But right before it died, it started this high-pitched squeaking thing, and my mom felt really bad about it then, so I gave it a proper burial to ease her thoughts. But then, as I was digging a hole in the back yard, I somehow managed to hit some kid’s time capsule from the 1960’s, so when I had laid the bat to rest, I took that inside. It was really rather fascinating, but it kept me up at least another hour, so I didn’t sleep very well.
I didn’t make any of that up, I swear. That’s exactly what happened the day before I went to school.
As you can imagine, I was exhausted and I made it late to the bus stop. Fortunately, it was about ten minutes late. Unfortunately, it was pouring down rain that morning and I hadn’t yet bought a proper coat (I lived in Florida before moving out here and didn’t really know what to expect), so I ended up getting soaked. I’m sure I’ll be catching a cold later. Out of a combination of tiredness and wetness, I slipped on the staircase to the sophomore floor and fell into some huge kid.
Fortunately the huge guy was pretty nice. He helped me up and led me to the principal’s office, where I was supposed to go for orientation or something.
That’s when things started to turn bad again.
There was this other kid already in the principal’s office. By his looks, I guess he was either a sophomore or junior. He was really tall, but sort of in that awkward smack-dab-in-the-middle-of-puberty way. He looked like he never left his room, except maybe to eat a junky snack here or there; his complexion was sickly and marred by acne, his hair was short but messy, and he was thin—very thin. He also had a big bandage over one eye, which looked ridiculous under huge glasses.
I smiled at him.
He eyed me suspiciously for a moment, then looked at the ground.
Minutes later, I learned that he’s supposed to lead me around today.
We’re in the first block now. It’s Honors Physics. We’re in different homerooms, but apparently my schedule matches his. I sort of want to get to know him—the principal said his name is Chase, although he hasn’t spoken directly to me yet—but… well, he’s not particularly sociable.
The class is small. I’m one of about eight kids. We have a substitute today, so I have to explain to her my “new” situation before class starts. But fortunately, the teacher only left a video, so I take the opportunity to try and talk to Chase.
He’s reading some sort of big, important looking book. I tap him on the shoulder for his attention.
“Hey.”
He looks at me expectantly. Annoyed, but at least he’s looking at me. I falter a bit, searching for a good question.
“...What’s this class like?”
He laughs dismally and gestures around the room, never taking his hands off his book.
“This.”
“Always like this?”
He shrugs. “Sometimes we actually go over important stuff, but it’s mostly like this. Our teacher likes thinking he’s smarter than us, so he doesn’t like to teach. Probably got made fun of for being a physics nerd.”
I laugh a little. Chase almost smiles.
“What are the other classes like?”
He sets down his book and pulls out a schedule. “So, um… after this is… well, we’re here for two periods, actually. That’s only on Mondays and Fridays. Thank God. English isn’t too bad. Are you a humanities kid?”
“I—what?”
“You know, humanities. English and History and Psychology and stuff like that. You look like a humanities kid.”
I don’t really know what he means, still but I warily answer in the affirmative. Satisfied, he continues.
“Well, if you’re a humanities kid, you’ll probably do fine. She’s really into teaching and stuff. The teacher. Next we have… Intro to BASIC… ummm…”
They didn’t have any of the electives I was taking at my previous school, so they just gave me whatever Chase has. I have but a vague idea of what ‘BASIC’ is, and I’m sure I won’t be able to use it. Fortunately, my acquaintance waves dismissively.
“Well, we’re pretty close to the end of the year. I’m sure he won’t grade you hard. He can be understanding like that.
“Then we have regular computers. Trust me, only the completely computer illiterate and the kids who do no work fail that. If you can type words in a Microsoft Word document, you’ll be fine. Then lunch, then precalc… that’s not too bad. The worst part of that class is the students.” Chase’s brow furrows. My heart sinks at the sound of this; I was hoping hot to run into anyone like this at my new home. Undoubtedly I always ran into trouble with this kind. But I say nothing right now.
Chase sighs heavily. “Look, I didn’t get your name—“
“Kenneth.”
“Uh-huh. Well, in precalc you’ll run into a guy named Dean. Dean Briscoe. Whatever you do, don’t run into him. He’s the Dean’s son—and you especially don’t want to call him on his name. This…” Chase put a hand up to the bandaged eye. I can read context well enough to figure out that this “Dean” must have done that.
“We were on this agreement for a pretty long time. I kept his secrets and he left me alone. But recently he’s told his secrets to everyone, and this happens. I have to do this today because I punched him. But it was self-defense!” He sighed and leaned back. “And all Dean gets is ‘after-school detention.’ Like that’s even a punishment… he has to stay after school today anyway for the newspaper club.”
I feel bad for Chase. I wonder how often this sort of thing happens to him. I’d imagine a lot. He doesn’t look very strong, he’s especially nerdy, and he has a rather venomous attitude. That combination just asks for people to beat you up.
Usually I don’t have problems like that. I’m not exceptionally good-looking and I don’t play any sports (well, I played basketball in middle school, but then there was that incident where I accidentally gave those three kids concussions and I haven’t allowed myself to play sports since), but I’m not frail either. I’m average. Nondescript. I blend in until my luck makes me stick out.
Um, by the way. I’ve brought it up briefly here and there, but I just want to throw this out now: I have bad luck. Really bad luck. Phenomenally bad luck. I’m a good kid, I really am. At least, I try to be good. But my bad luck always gets me in trouble. Like the time I gave those kids concussions on accident. And there was also a time when some druggies thought my locker would be a particularly good place to hide their stash right before a lockdown. And that other time when the teacher who really hated my guts found me with a bottle of vodka. Our family moved around a lot because of me, and I’m the reason my parents divorced. But I don’t want to angst about it too much now. I just want to get that out of the way, so that you know when I write down some completely crazy story, it’s completely true. I just can’t make my life up.
But anyway, back to the present. I never really got picked on in school until something crazy happened. I’m not too worried about this Dean kid—I’m more concerned for Chase, really. I really want to like him because he seems so lonely, but he’s so far he’s been rather unreceptive. He continues going down the schedule.
“History is next. Teacher’s not really for everyone, although everyone has him…” another disdainful look at a mental image from Chase. “Eh, he’s cool enough. You’re a humanities kid. You’ll be fine.
“And then, journalism. Dean’s in this, too, so be careful. It’s taught by the same person we have for English, but it’s more or less a joke.”
I nod. I honestly don’t have anything to say.
Chase waits expectantly.
I find something to say.
“So there’s a newspaper club here?”
He looks angry again. I don’t know how that was the wrong thing to say, seeing as Chase is obviously interested in journalism, but I figure this is one of those cases where it’s best not to say anything until I get the full story. Then I realize that Dean must be on the paper staff and figure out the full story myself.
“I’m sorry. I just—“
“Nah, it’s all right. You interested in writing like that?”
“Well…” I chuckled nervously. “I don’t really know what I’m interested in. I’ve done a little bit of a lot of different things. I kind of like a lot of them…”
He nods