Hey Romeo, Don't You Think You're Just a Tad Overrated?

It was that dreaded time of day again. That's right, P.E. class. But at least now I knew someone other than Cam Gallagher the Slave Driver.

"Hey, Aurelie!" Max bounded up next to me, smiling.

"This isn't fair," I complained as I watched Coach Gunner struggle over to the field with the bag filled with lacrosse sticks. "Can you pretend you, like, stink at lacrosse? So you can join me in the beginner's group?"

"No can do. I'm on the varsity team, and I'm pretty sure Coach Gunner knows. What's so bad about your group anyway?" Max asked.

"ALL RIGHT! Everyone grab a stick and a partner now! We're gonna do some drill work!" Cam yelled at our group.

"That," I said dryly, pointing at my group leader.

"Cam?" Max cocked his head. "Aw, come on, he's not so bad."

I gawked at him. "Not so bad? He's a jerk!" I said huffily.

Max chuckled. "Once you get to know him, he's a pretty decent person."

"CHEVALIER! Grab a stick!" Cam shouted at me, glaring at me.

I bid good-bye to Max as I trotted over to where all the beginners were practicing passing and catching. And of course, I was left with no partner again. So what option did I have? Partner up with Cam of course! Oh, what joy! After twenty very long and painful minutes of passing and catching (which involved the ball spiking me in the head, shoulder, leg, and arm) Cam called us all to a halt. I let out a sigh of relief.

"Alright, beginners! We're going to have a mock game! Willis, Harrington, captains!" Cam commanded as the Fat-farting-boy-that-sits-behind-me-during-calculus (yes, he's also in my gym class) stepped up, sniffling. Another boy, whose head seemed to big for his body, stepped up next to Bobby Willis. "Captains, take turns to pick your teammates. After that, we'll start," Cam said almost lazily by the sidelines.

Amazingly, I wasn't picked last. Probably because there was this girl named Annie that couldn't even walk properly without tripping over her own two feet. Okay, so I was second to last. But it's better than last, right?

"Ready, and—" Cam blew the whistle, tossing the small lacrosse ball high into the air.

Everyone immediately started fighting for it. I stayed in the back of the field, clutching my stick out in front of me in a supposed defensive position. Maybe I wouldn't have to do anything!

"Chevalier! Get into the game or else I'm giving you a zero for the day!" Cam barked from the sidelines.

I groaned and started jogging cautiously towards the mass horde of very inexperienced lacrosse players.

"Pass it, Hardenburgh!" Cam was shouting like a professional coach. "Chevalier's open!"

WHAT?! I swear I saw an evil smirk on his face when he said that! I closed my eyes and waved my stick out in front of me randomly as soon as Matt Hardenburgh passed the ball to me. And miraculously, I somehow caught it in the net. I opened my eyes, and suddenly wished I hadn't. There were at least ten people from the opposite team stampeding towards me, their sticks raised and their nostrils flared. I squeaked.

"Move, Chevalier!" Cam's voice vaguely drifted into my ears as someone tackled me to the ground, a huge mess of lacrosse sticks, human limbs, mud and grass.

Wasn't lacrosse supposed to be some sort of more civilized sport? It wasn't supposed to be American football now was it?

"Ugh," I groaned as the massive weight on my legs shifted.

"Chevalier? Can you hear me?"

I blinked. Cam was standing in front of me, offering his hand.

"Can you get up?" he asked.

"Yes," I said, reached for the proffered hand.

"Then get up," he said, retracting his hand.

What. The. Hell. I must have looked like a foot, sitting my butt in the wet mud, sticking my hand up into the air. Fuming, I pushed myself back onto my feet, whirling around to face an ever-smirking Cam.

"What, did you seriously think I would help you up there?" he asked.

"It would have been gentlemanly!" I retorted.

He laughed. "Yeah, yeah," he said.

What a jerk! "I bet Max would have helped me up," I muttered arbitrarily.

Unfortunately, he had heard me. "Whatever," his playful tone suddenly grew dark, a scowl replacing his smirk.

What was his problem? Seriously, he was like bi-polar. If he wasn't such a hottie, then I would have already kneed him where the sun-don't-shine already! In fact, that's actually not a bad idea…

_________________

After dinner, I declined Alyssa and Beth's invitation to go watch a movie together in their dorms. I decided to go tackle that painful essay that my Lit teacher assigned us. I walked over to the computer lab in Phillip's Hall, only to realize that there was a huge sign hanging on the lab door saying We're sorry, the computer lab is not available until November. Please use the media center in the library! And so I had to trek all the way across campus to the library. From what I remember, the media center was on the second floor. I was right. And it was jam-packed. The downsides of having an unavailable computer lab. There was one free computer left. I was going to snatch it before someone else did before I noticed who was occupying the computer next to it. Cam Gallagher.

I seethed. I swear, that guy's stalking me. Well, not really. But still, out of all the people in this school I could run into, it always has to be him! I wondered if I should come back tomorrow to finish my essay, but then, it was kind of due tomorrow. With a sigh, I sat.

"Are you stalking me?"

"That's my line," I snapped at Cam, pulling up Microsoft word on my screen. "What are you doing here anyway?"

He snorted. "What do you think?" he said. "I'm doing my homework. I have to keep up with my prefect statuses, you know."

I sneaked a peak at his computer screen. There was a whole bunch of mumbo jumbo on psychoanalysis of some sort of molecular biochemistry. I blanched. Cam caught me peeking. He flashed me his signature smirk.

"It might be a bit too much for your underdeveloped brain to absorb," he commented.

I flushed and turned to my blank word document. "Shut up and let me concentrate," I managed. Cam shrugged, but he complied.

Fifteen minutes later, the only thing I had on my document was my name, the date, and the essay topic.

I groaned, drawing Cam's attention. He stopped typing and leaned over. "Huh, that's kinda pathetic."

I glared at him. "Do you have to comment on everything I do?" I said angrily, not really in the mood.

"Are you writing an essay for Advanced Lit?" He ignored my question.

I sighed. "Yeah, an analysis on Jane Austen's novels."

"I can help you, I took that class last year," Cam offered.

"You would?" I asked, surprised. He nodded. Then I frowned. "You're doing it again."

"What?" he asked innocently.

"Rubbing it in. 'I took that class last year,'" I mimicked him.

"Look, it's either I help you, or I can leave you alone and you'll get a D."

"I'll take the help."

________________

"So what did you do last night?" Alyssa asked as we walked to breakfast the next morning.

I yawned, still tired. I wasn't really the morning type of person. "Cam and I worked on my stupid Lit essay," the words spilled out before I could even register what I was saying.

"You did what with Cam?" Alyssa yelped, incredulous.

Ugh! Curse the morning-moron-syndrome! "Will you shut up?" I hissed at her. "You made it sound like we hooked up or something!"

Alyssa waggled her eyebrows. "So did you?"

I smacked her arm.

She laughed. "I know, I know. So what, do you like him now?"

I tried smacking her again, but she dodged out of the way. "No! He's still a jerk! Well, a little less of a jerk now, but he's still a jerk!" I stated firmly.

"If that's what you say," Alyssa flashed me a toothy grin. "Okay, okay, I'm just kidding around," she laughed at the expression on my face.

Somebody suddenly pushed past my shoulder, making me stumble and almost fall. Alyssa caught my arm, steadying me.

"Oops, I'm sorry," a snobbish voice said, not sounding sorry at all.

"Go away, Brynne," Alyssa cut in, sounding angry.

Brynne rolled her eyes, and her posse imitated her. "Last time I checked, you were still on the bottom of the social ladder. This means, you don't deserve to even talk to people like me."

Alyssa scowled at her.

"Oh, and Aurelie, just in case you're wondering, just because the headmaster's your daddy, it doesn't give you any special privileges," Brynne turned to me.

Wow, she knew my name. That's a surprise. "What's that supposed to mean?" I said.

"It means, I'm still the queen of this school, and if you try anything, you will be sorry," she threatened. And with that, she turned her heel, her entire posse following her.

"What got shoved up her ass?" I said disbelievingly, turning back to a still angry Alyssa.

"She's been like that ever since she got denied prefect duty with Cam for our class," she explained. "Do you believe I used to be best friends with her in freshman year?" she asked me.

I cocked an eyebrow. "I do believe it, but it's rather hard to picture it. What’s with the stupid prefect duty anyway? Everyone honors it like it's the Holy Grail or something."

Alyssa sighed. "Every sophomore year, two prefects get assigned to each year, a boy and a girl. The teachers recommend them, and Headmaster McAllister actually appoints them. You have to have a four-point-oh grade point average, participate in at least three extracurricular activities, have a clean record, and leadership qualities. As a prefect, you get the ability to represent your entire class, determine class activities and meetings, help and monitor your classmates which basically means you boss them around, and give minor detentions. Oh, and you occasionally have to run hall duty or safety patrol."

"The ability to give detentions," I muttered sourly. "Being a prefect doesn't sound so great. You have to do so much extra work!"

Alyssa shrugged. "I know. But at McAllister Academy, it's sort of like a grand tradition. Prefects get all the status and the honor. The only reason Brynne was denied was because she didn't have the grades." She laughed.

"Who are the prefects for our junior class? Other than Cam Gallagher, I mean," I questioned.

"This other girl called Lane Bryans," Alyssa told me. "She's just this really smart girl. She's kind of quiet, actually. I'll point her out sometime."

We reached the Mess Hall. I pulled the door open and we stepped inside, the delicious scent of breakfast and the incessant chattering of the students reaching our senses.

"I still think prefect duty is just stupid," I muttered to Alyssa. "We didn't have them at my old school."

"Well, it's everything here," Alyssa informed me, emphasizing 'everything'. "If your prefect duties are stripped away from you, you might as well go commit suicide."

I bit my lip as I followed Alyssa to where Beth and Will were sitting. Everything she had told me was still spinning around my head. It was going to be harder than I thought to fit into this new world, where I felt like I was just picked up and tossed into. The world where status, honor, talent, money, brains, and beauty were everything. Sadly, none of the attributes that I had.