Ellis: Porcey and Community Service [EDITED]

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Chapter 3

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Chapter 3

Community Service

Ellis

"No, you can't- please, Mister- Sir...I'll do anything to have to it off my permanent record," I begged in a manner that was an anomalous aberration of my usual composed eloquence. It was a mortifyingly humiliating experience; tears were welling up in my eyes as the Principal- Mr Sullivan- was reading through the notice Mr Newman had given him. I was choking back the urge to hyperventilate- after all I had worked for, sacrificed humanely for this slipping concept of perfection for the perfect grades and perfect reputation...came crashing down because of one...

"Relax, Chan," grinned Jem, a smile full of teeth. He took out a silver flash and slipped it into his mouth. My face contorted into a winced grimace, struggling to withhold myself from gouging his eyes out, my teeth grinding against each other as the sound of his voice irritated me from hell and back. "It's one meagre detention and your first. I bet your college rep has only so much of a scrape on its knee."

I whipped my head to face him. "Not in the mood to be rational, Jeremy!"

The smile slid off his face. "Don't call me that."

"Then don't invigorate efforts of talking to me, you simpleton."

He winked. "You know you're kind of hot when you're mad, Porcey."

A sarcastic remark was rising on my lips until I realized he called me something I've never heard him called me before. It was funny because Jem had always been the guy who gave everybody nicknames. He nicknamed our ninth grade homeroom teacher 'Apples' because every gadget he ever owned was an Apple product. He called Tabitha 'Tic' which was short for 'plastic' but for the sakes of our livelihood, she has yet to figure it out what it meant (she tolerated it- mostly because of his dashing cheekiness). Astrid was 'Legs' due to her extremely flexible ability to bend her legs all the way to her head on a pyramid. And he nicknamed Calista 'Manson' probably because of her music choice.

Throughout our many horrible years together, Jem had tried and failed to come up with an effective nickname for me. 'Dwarf' earned him a libel suit. 'Yellow' had me sarcastically saying: How original. So it was always 'Chan'. Until now.

"What did you call me?"

He only then chose to grin even wider, insufferably so because my heart did this terrifyingly high leap. "Why don't you figure out, Porcey? Since you're so smart."

Thankfully, Mr Sullivan interrupted before I could let out a remarkable resemblance to an Incredible Hulk scream and aim my shoe at his ridiculously brilliantly chiseled mouth to drown out his mocking chortles. "Look Miss Chan," he said in a tone that could not be more official-sounding if I had a say so. I braced myself for the impact of bad news, gripping tightly on the leather armrests as he continued: "You're a perfect student, a perfect philanthropist; not a single mistake but I'm afraid this will go on your permanent record."

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