Was the donut idea a good idea or…
I open my profile. A silver medal appears under my name.
It was a good idea.
It was such a good idea.
Because now I am in second place. Only Annabel Jefferson is ahead of me, but I’m closing in on her by a margin of only thirty points. I will be in first place soon. I will win this thing.
Oh how I wish I could see the look on Mark Caputo’s face when he finds out.
Eight
MARK
Third place. A digital bronze medal shines underneath my name on the Un-bully app the next morning. I’m pretty sure I’m awake, but this almost feels like a dream. I did work hard for these points, but it almost feels too easy… all I did was compliment people.
From the second I got home from volunteering at the animal shelter yesterday until I went to bed, I was on social media. I started by following back every person who goes to my school and also followed me. Then I followed some people I recognized from school but had never followed before. My score jumped up a bit. Then I got serious. I started commenting on every post in my feed, saying nice things and making genuine comments. I didn’t just copy/paste the same lame reply to everyone. Nope, I tried hard to be friendly and caring.
I thought about just commenting on the girls, but that’s sexist so I left comments for everyone, including my teachers. Some of my teachers maintain Instagram pages where they try in vain to get people to care about their lessons or about learning something extra that’s not on the syllabus. No one really cares about that stuff. But last night I did.
I ended up falling asleep last night with my phone on some band geek’s YouTube channel after I left him a glowing review on his newest video. Now today I am reaping the rewards.
Third place. And it’s only week one. I can do this. I can keep being nice and finding ways to include everyone at school. I’ll sit at different lunch tables and talk to all the different cliques. I’m not going to keep to myself and perpetuate the rumor that I’m a jerk.
This car is going to be mine.
Julian is still giving me the cold shoulder after I wouldn’t skip school to cover for his date, and because of this, he purposely runs out all the hot water in the upstairs shower. Then he eats the last bagel. For being my older brother, he’s a total child. Too bad for him and all his antics to try and annoy me, because no matter what he does he won’t ruin my good mood. I went from dead last to third place in just a week. I’ve got this in the bag.
The feeling I get when walking through school today must be how celebrities feel every day. People want to stop me to congratulate me on being in the top ten, and others just want to chat with me in class or in the hallways as if we’re friends. I’ve seen a few of the other top ten students around school and they’re all being treated like celebrities too.
The only downside is that little miss perfect, Abby, is in second place. She has over five thousand points and I’m hovering just around four thousand. The rest of the school is far below the top ten and some people don’t even have one thousand points yet. We still have no idea how the points work, and which demerits or kudos give out a certain number of points. The scoreboard has been changing all day and it has my nerves on high alert.
During third period, I drop down to sixth place for some unknown reason. But by lunch time I’m back in third place. It’s obvious that this will be hard to maintain all month, but the best thing I can do is get as many points as I can.
I’m raising my hand for every question in class and giving friendly smiles to everyone. When I take out a pack of gum in fourth period, the girl next to me asks for a piece. And then the guy next to her asks for one. Before long, I’m completely out of gum but my score jumps to 4712. Not bad.
I’m eager to see Abby when I go to accounting class. We didn’t really talk much on the car ride home that night, probably because her little sisters were talking the whole time about their dance class. And although it was a little awkward, I had fun. I don’t know why I’m eager to see her now because we aren’t friends. We’re competitors. And if I have my way, I’ll win this contest and then I’m sure she’ll never speak to me again. With that in mind, I force away all thoughts of Abby as I step into fifth period.
“Look at him acting all casual,” someone calls out as I drop my backpack to the floor and slide into my desk.
I look around and find a guy named Brian (or is it Brent?) staring at me. “You wanna tell us how you jumped in rank so fast?”
I shrug. “Guess I’m just a nice person.”
“You’re still losing to Abby,” he says.
At that exact moment, Abby walks into class. My chest feels sharp and I sit up straighter. She says hi to her friend as she takes her seat. Her eyes never venture in my direction.
“Abby!” Brian (or Brent?) says, walking over to her desk. “What do you think about this jackass catching up to you?”
“Oh?” she says, glancing back at me as if I am simply a piece of gum stuck to the bottom of her shoe. “I hadn’t noticed anyone below me since I moved up to second place.”
A chorus ofoooh’sfill the room.
“Yeah girl, he’s only a few hundred points behind you now.”
She gives me an appraising look, then flattens her lips in a dismissing way. “Whatever scheme he used to jump rank won’t last long. We have all month and I’m not worried.”
