This year is like no other for these two.
Meet Spencer Coleman, who is in his rebellious phase, struggling through poor financial background and peer pressure. Left out with no other options other than to quit his schooling and ambitions, Spencer is...
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Monday morning had just begun and Nicole found himself sitting in a deserted corner of his already packed class. The whole class was filled with babble and occasional loud screams of potentially violent students who taunted the submissive students.
Nicole sat and watched the activities inside the class like an unfamiliar spectator viewing the court outside of the player's reference. His unfamiliarity with his new classmates and their seemingly arrogant disposition made him more alienated from them. Apart from the occasional greetings of two or three shy guys from the class and the mean looks of potential bullies, Nicole had very less talk with his peers. And his family and financial status just made it even more uncomfortable for him. However, this was his dream school and so Nicole had put away his feelings of loneliness long before he joined in.
The class had adjourned for the mathematics class and the teacher entered with his bundle of corrected exam papers. Nonetheless, the students flocked in and took their seats and the air was quite serious.
"Nicole Spencer...98!", the teacher called out in a mechanical voice looking out with a smile on his face.
Nicole jumped from his desk in a gentle manner as his peers looked at him and whispered in each other's ears.
"Now give this boy a good clap guys!", said Mr Ernest as he handed over the paper to his student.
The class had soon come to a close when the lunch bell had rung. The whispers had now become loud talk and it was evident that the class was all into the boy from the slum who topped the class. Nicole didn't waste much time and hurriedly packed up his stationary box and scooted away into the hallway. But much to his surprise a group of popular kids had decided to take a look at him.
As Nicole slowly proceeded down the corridor ignoring the presence of them, one of the boys came in and put his arm around the boy in a rather intimidating manner.
"So you are the new boy from Merklin's street huh! I like your rags by the way. Suits you well, jerk!"
The whole bunch of bullies stood there and laughed as the boy mocked Nicole and hurtled insults at his family. But seeing that Nicole did not react to any of their advances, they retreated back to their classes.
The rest of the day went much like the others for him. After lunch, Nicole attended the rest of the day's class without paying much attention to the brats who had threatened him earlier the morning. Soon, the class was over and Nicole had found himself in the local punk pub waiting for Joshua who had asked Nicole to meet him up at the pub to talk about recruiting him to the Scammer's gang.
The pub was a shabby place for the town's thugs and was dimly lit and filthy. People were screaming around tables and there were all kinds of 'exchanges' happening in and out. No wonder this was the place for the town's most notorious drug dealings and gang meetings and made it into the town's local news almost every day either for gang violence or police raid.
As Nicole sat by silently, a tall towering man who was almost a mature adult patted Nicole's back. Nicole watched for a moment and observed the man's pink-dyed spikes and goth-like attire. Clearly, he was a punk, Nicole thought to himself and greeted the man before they sat around and talked about the business. And within an hour or so Nicole had found himself in the Scammer's gang filled with the town's most notorious juveniles.
It looked like an old rundown place, filled with boys who were sitting in front of laptops and phones, texting flattery messages to unsuspecting young victims and waiting to fish more of them who replied to their texts. Those who were successful in fishing out a good sum of money from their little crimes, bragged about it sitting around their tables. The led tube lights filled the room with the tone of dystopic misery, a sign of how their young victims felt about the ordeal and embarrassment that followed. Joshua led Nicole to his new 'desk': a small old wooden table just enough to keep two laptops and two broken revolving chairs.
"This is the place for you my friend!", said Joshua proudly as he gestured to the broken table. "You shall be quite fine here I hope and for anything and everything from here on just ask your mate, Dustin!", Joshua then pointed to a pleasant-looking young Dustin.
Nicole and Dustin shook hands and exchanged a few words of friendly chittering. Dustin was quite new to the gang and had joined in just to make both ends meet. His huge spectacles and cheery demeanor made Nicole a bit more comfortable as Joshua then went on to show Nicole to the other members of the gang.
"Hey, friends of the Scammer's gang!" Joshua started cheering in a loud baritone as he slowly climbed one of the old tables. "Let's welcome our new member to the Gang, Nicole! Nicole Spencer! Give him a loud round of applause guys!"
The room was filled with boys and girls who gathered to meet the new addition to the gang. They clapped and cheered as they took time to introduce themselves to the new boy. Nicole couldn't help but scan the crowd looking for friendly people to go around and talk to later during the coming days and make a mental list of people who he felt were intimidating and better to be left alone. However, the disciple of the gang seemed too much friendlier than his own classmates at school which meant a sigh of relief for young Nicole. Although the place seemed to be quite harmless, Nicole was still guilt-ridden by the fact that he had resorted to cheating online. But at the end of the day, it was the only way to get some easy money when he had to spend time in between his academics and caring for his mother.
And with a kind nod from Dustin, Nicole spent the rest of the day learning about the various chat sites popular in the town from Dustin and laughing away at his mate's childish jokes...
