Now, I would have my first publication, at the age of fourteen, and while still in junior high. This was practically unheard of, and my parents were suitably impressed. I had been published before, and in the same journal, but not until I was in college. This was quite a jump start. (Eventually I would be listed on the grad student’s paper as well. Two publications!)
“Does this mean my name goes on this paper thingie, too?” asked Shelley. She didn’t really understand how publishing worked, but she did understand being snubbed, and she could sense being snubbed big time.
The undergrad who had come with Professor Milhaus just gave us a blank look, but the grad student gave the Professor a look that equated Shelley with something to be scrubbed off and washed down a drain. One school kid was bad enough, but two was unthinkable. I also noticed that Professor Milhaus saw this all. He would pay attention to the grad student more than he would heed the undergrad, and way more than he would listen to Shelley or me.
Well, as hopeless as I knew it to be, I had to ask, for Shelley’s sake. I was pretty sure what the answer would be. “Professor, can both of us be listed?”
He eyed me, and then Shelley before answering. “I don’t wish to be rude, but we can really only put one name on the paper, and my feeling is that you, Carl, did more of the work that could be published, as opposed to other work on the project.” He didn’t elaborate on what that other work might be.
I turned towards Shelley. At least I had tried. Shelley didn’t seem to care, and she became noticeably cooler. Later that evening, when we packed up and took the project home, she turned her face away when I tried to kiss her good-night. The first great romance of my revival was going down in flames!
The winners weren’t announced until the next day at school, when it was announced in the morning over the intercom. Third place was some kid in the eighth grade with some idiot description of the Solar System. Second place was Mike Misner and his chickens (What did he do with them, anyway? Raise them and then eat them? I never did find out.) The winners were me and Shelley. The announcement came during Spanish class, and the room erupted in cheers when my name was spoken. The last time this happened, I took second place, and it felt pretty good; this felt much better.
Shelley was happy, at least with the project, if not with me. She had an A on the project, which brought her Science grade up to a B. She had gotten what she was looking for. To be fair, so did I, in every conceivable meaning. She dumped me that day at lunch, when I saw her holding hands with a member of the basketball team. He looked at me nervously, and she simply gave me a haughty look and turned away. This was noticed by others as well, and earned me a mixed bag of comments. A few of my friends commiserated with me, and a few others made jokes about it. It certainly wasn’t worth breaking a sweat over, to my way of thinking at least.
It wasn’t the end of the world. The following Monday, Tammy Braxton came up to me in the hallway at my locker as I took my coat off in the morning. Tammy was a short and very curvy little brunette, and very cute, a ninth grader like myself. She leaned back against the locker next to me, her arms across her chest pushing her cleavage up on display in her vee neck sweater. “Carl, I hear you and Shelley aren’t seeing each other anymore,” she stated.
I stopped at this and looked over at her in surprise. “Uh, I guess not.”
“What happened?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess we just sort of drifted apart, I suppose.” ‘She’s a fucking moron and used sex to earn a B in Science.’ No, I didn’t say that! Where was this going?
She smiled coquettishly at me, and sifted slightly so that I could see more of her cleavage. Very nice, too, probably twice what Shelley had. “That’s too bad. I heard that you and she studied together after school a lot.”
I raised an eyebrow at that. “Well, we did work on the Science Fair together.”
“I heard you worked on other things, too,” she said teasingly.
I just shrugged. “Hey, we’re just friends.”
“That’s not what she said.”
I smiled. “Well, I would never talk about a friend, no matter what or when. She was a friend and we were friendly.” I glanced at that very inviting cleavage, and then looked her in the eye. “I’m a very friendly guy.”
Tammy smiled back, and looked down at my pants, and then back at my face. She licked her lips, and asked, “Interested in making another friend?”
I simply smiled. I closed my locker and put my arm around her shoulder, and began walking her to class. “I don’t think anybody can ever have enough friends!”
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