#eunice pound

[niagaragrape]

really wanted to draw some of the girlies so have them + jimmy!!

[nllick]

Bullworth girls💙💛

(this edit took forever 😭)

outro art - jxhnnyvincent

[purplelemongrasshowelse]

If Beatrice and Mandy ( probably ) roommates, then what if Lola shares a room with Eunice? Also, doodles of Pinky and Gord.

[mamka11037]

in general, I don't have any ideas, so I took the idea from @nllick and @gordisaquaberrymodel 💋💋

IF ANYTHING, I'M SORRY, THIS IS JUST MY OPINION, I'M NOT IMPOSING IT ON ANYONE💥‼️

Главное чтобы палками не забили😚

[hypnotized-kittens]

Ayo sorry for leave you alone my cutie pies (⁠=⁠^⁠･⁠ｪ⁠･⁠^⁠=⁠)

But one thing that always peassed me a lil bit from the game was that some ( every ) characters didn't had more outfits that they had in the game. It just felt, empty. So I Made some clothes to some (that is to say all) girlies of bullworthLESS (⁠≧⁠▽⁠≦⁠)

Hadn't space for Lola , Pinky and Zoe and the resto of the teachers sorry (⁠´⁠;⁠︵⁠;⁠`⁠)

[nickstarking]

(Bully - Live action version part 3)

Zoe Taylor

Angie Ng

Beatrice Trudeau

Lola Lombardi

Mandy Wiles

Pinky Gauthier

Christy Martin

Eunice Pound

Gloria Jackson

Karen Johnson

[violetnerves]

The Rise and Fall of Jenny Hopkins, aged 15 - Chapter 4, Part 1: Under Pressure.

Well this is embarrassing. It's been awhile, life happened and I also procrastinated. But I've got it done so here you go!

A bit of a slow chapter, it's mainly set up for part 2 besides the introduction to some of the original female characters meant to expand the female cast since there were very few girls at the Academy in the original game.

Word Count: 8,284

Some Content warnings that may apply:

-Jenny's got a bit of a case of internalized misogyny. I sorta hinted at it in earlier chapters but I tried to make it apparent here.

-Some foul language. I think I might've been too frivolous with it here, though considering the first chapter had the c-word in it I guess that's to be expected at this point.

I'll admit, I had a pretty nice day with Gary yesterday. Yeah, I didn't think I'd admit that to myself either, but I really did. Since I'm basically talking to myself, it's fine if I do. Not like anybody else is ever gonna read this.

Well… unless my dream of becoming a successful rockstar ends up panning out, and I decide to publish this diary, claiming it as my autobiography that I totally didn't just put out as an easy money grab. That isn't like me at all, I don't even like money that much!

Anyway, enough lying off my ass, I'm sure you're wondering what Gary and I got up to.

After we left Burgers right after Gary called me… pretty… he talked me into stealing a bike with him, and we rode through Old Bullworth Vale, specifically the neighborhood where all the Preps lived. It was some weirdly laid out cul-de-sac, rather than some kind of gated community like I would've expected. Many of the houses did have a large metal fence and gate surrounding them though, with Tad Spencer's even having an extra fence just to enclose the garage.

Gary pointed out Derby, Tad's and Pinky's house, as well as Petey's house since he apparently lived in the area too. For some reason he felt the need to point out how Petey's house was only one story, and how the only reason they lived there was because Pete's mom is an obese whale who'd fall through the floor of any building higher than ground level. I had to wonder what that kid even did to Gary to make him feel the need to insult him all the time, even when he wasn't around, and if Pete was even aware of the reason.

“So, where's your house then?” I asked out of curiosity, just casually peddling beside Gary on the side of the road as we made our way to Bullworth Town. “I noticed you didn't point it out, do you live out of town or are you from a different state and just familiar with the area from attending the Academy for so long?”

Gary didn't answer my question immediately, despite staring at me the entire time. 

It was really starting to annoy me. It was bad enough that he felt the need to call me pretty (If he hadn't bought me lunch, I probably would've slugged him in the face right after he'd said it.) but now with the staring? 

“Gary, could you quit staring at me like that? It's weirding me out.”

The guy looked like he'd been caught red-handed committing a crime, his eyes widening as we stopped by the entrance to the park not too far from the fast food place we'd eaten at earlier. He tried to give a response, eyes darting around as he clearly didn't have a good explanation, and only managed to blurt out:

“I wasn't staring at you.”

I rolled my eyes, instead changing the subject back to asking where he lived.

“So? Where do you actually live?” I asked once more, my tone a bit bitchier than I intended it to come out. Understandable given his behavior.

Just… God, why did he have to call me pretty? That's the last thing I ever wanted to be. I didn't want to look attractive to anyone, that would make me more of a target than I already was just for being born a girl at all.

I bet ugly guys don't have to deal with bullcrap like this. Dammit, why couldn't I have just been born a dude! 

Then again, I guess it could be worse. He could've said something stupid like, oh I don't know, I love you or something. I didn't trust anyone except my mother to say that to me… even though I really couldn't remember the last time my mother had told me she loved me…

Whatever. 

If Gary really had said that to me, I would've ditched him at Burgers and probably ditched school altogether.

I knew I could never, ever trust a man to say he loved me and actually mean it without some kind of catch.

It wasn't completely impossible for me to avoid going back to the Academy anyway, I'd once ran away from home for about a month and a half about two years ago in a really really dumb attempt to find my biological father. During that time, I'd taught myself how to drive, drank my first beer, and even realized that I was a little bit of a dyke. Good times.

Gary's demeanor flipped like a switch, and suddenly that nervousness from earlier was gone. He'd gone back to his usual confident self, it was almost like he hadn't been nervous at all.

How the hell did he even do that? First Gary's angry then chill the next second, then he's nervous and now he seems like he has everything under control? Man, I wish I could do that, maybe I'd be considered less of a bitch.

“Oh, me? My place is out of town and pretty isolated, it's about 30 miles North of Bullworth. Not really walking or biking distance. It's a manor, way bigger than Derby's mansion too… You know, I could invite you over sometime…” Gary said, leaning on his (stolen) bike in what I can only describe as… seductive… yet weirdly pitiful. Like he was trying to charm me, except he didn't seem confident about it. It kind of reminded me of Pete a little, though only the latter part. Pete was only charming in a pitiful way, like a kitten with a cold.

“I'm good, thanks,” I replied.

I expected Gary to try and push the topic, but he thankfully took the hint. Instead we headed into this place called “Old Bullworth Gardens” for a bit. It was just some park, there wasn't even any sort of garden around at all. Why even call it a garden if there wasn't anything besides trees around?

Gary got the idea of practicing my aim more with the slingshot by hiding in a tree and slinging pebbles at random passerby. I went through with it, because the idea sounded funny. 

And you know what? It was.

He’d point out someone, and I'd aim at them and shoot. Didn’t matter if it was some old lady or a guy wearing shorts 2 sizes too small for him going out on a late mid-day run: either way, they got the gift of a pebble getting launched at their head. I tried to avoid hitting anyone in the eyes, but that was about it. It's not like a little pebble could kill anyone after all… It's a bit stupid to die from getting hit by a pebble.

…

Gary stood behind the tree I was in, letting out a quiet chuckle with every hit I managed to get. 

Now that I think about it, describing his laughter as a chuckle didn't seem right, it was more comparable to a giggle. It was boyish and sweet, and it caught me off guard hearing it come out of the mouth of a guy like Gary. Especially since all I was doing was beaming people in the head with small pebbles. Maybe I was missing something, could it be something else that was causing it?

Maybe not, Gary was a bit of a weirdo. I knew that from the first time I'd ever spoken to him.

I wasn't exaggerating when I said Gary's weird giggling caught me off guard. A guy with crutches and a cast on his leg wobbled by, and, to my surprise, I accidentally released the slingshot’s flimsy rubber band. Instead of hitting the guy with the crutches, it hit a nearby wasp nest in a tree about a few feet away from the one I was in. The nest fell, and unfortunately for the couple having a picnic right underneath that same tree, it landed right between the two of them.

Gary's giggling turned into full on hysterical laughter as the couple screamed in terror and fled the gardens, trailed by a swarm of angry wasps.

Unfortunately, Gary's loud ass laugh got the attention of a nearby cop.

“Hey! What are you two doing out of school?! Don't think for a second about acting stupid, I see those uniforms!”

Gary seemingly didn't think twice about making a run for it without helping me out of the tree, but truthfully? I hardly blamed him.

I would've done the same thing really. A dick move, sure, but not one that I wouldn’t have done.

I scrambled down the tree and barely avoided the officer grabbing me as I sprinted off in the same direction as Gary, the cop still on my ass. As I shoved my slingshot back in my bag, I was stumped on how to get this guy off me… until I remembered something.

Behind the junk bus, just before I smashed its windows in, I spotted a plastic bag of marbles and shoved them in my purse as a keepsake. I wasn't sure why they were there, maybe some other student had dropped the bag or just stashed them there for who knows what reason.

I undid the tie on the bag and tossed it behind me without looking back, hearing the contents rattle out on the gravel crosswalk loudly. Next thing I heard was the even louder sound of a body hitting concrete, followed by a string of agonized curses. I didn't look back, but I still ended up barely holding back a laugh.

Just my luck, I actually ended up losing track of Gary. I briefly wondered if he and Davis were in the same Track team or something as I decided to run down toward the beach as the sun began to set on the horizon, turning the ocean from its natural blue color to a warm, saturated orange.

Looking at the water, I almost felt the temptation to dive in for some reason. It was stupid, I mean, it was October, and it was the beginning of Fall, the water was freezing… besides, I didn't even like swimming that much. 

…Didn't help that one-piece swimsuits typically made for girls my size tended to be pretty ugly… and there was no way I was ever swimming in a bikini…

I stood at the top of the steps at the entrance to the beach, and as I made my way down to the sandbank below, I felt an odd sense of apprehension come over me. I looked around, but besides some of the townsfolk walking around town clearly minding their own business, there wasn't anything or anyone around that could've been the cause of the weird feeling.

Shaking my head, I stepped onto the beach and walked right, my gaze fixated on the light house.

I’d… never seen one of those so close up before. It seemed to be abandoned, the light at the very top unlit and the mechanism that made it spin wasn’t on either. Underneath it was a small building, connected to the main pier with a ramp leading up to what I assumed was the entrance to the place.

I’ll admit, I got a bit curious. Before I could actually satiate that curiosity however, I felt a pair of hands grab me from behind. One hand was on my mouth, while the other had a firm grip on my right shoulder.

I didn't waste any time reacting, slamming my elbow into whoever was grabbing me. He grunted, I could tell it was a guy from how deep the sound of it was. Before he could do anything I whipped around and grabbed his throat.

I didn't apply any pressure though… because I realized it was Gary. Even though my hands were wrapped firmly around his throat, the motherfucker was grinning. He let out this throaty, mild and short chuckle as he stared at me with his head lifted up. 

My hands left his throat and I stared at him completely baffled. What the fuck was wrong with this guy?

Scratch that, I should've been asking a different question, something along the lines of what wasn't wrong with this guy. That would've been easier to answer…

…Like… I dunno, his tooth gap was kind of cute? I guess?

…

…Maybe seeing the school counselor wasn’t such a bad idea from Crabblesnitch after all. Seriously Jenny-girl, what the fuck is wrong with you? What the actual fuck? First you date a guy 5 years older than you back in 7th grade that ended up stabbing his aunt with a sharpened candy cane on the 4th of July, and now this shit?

You seriously need to get better taste in men.

Gary let out that weird giggle again, and I switched from being baffled to being pissed off.

“What’s so funny you moron? What were you thinking?!”

He kept chuckling, and I seriously considered actually strangling him when he finally spoke. What he said next only reinforced the thought.

“Awww… Did I scare you Jane? I was just trying to be funny, didn't think you'd try to strangle me like that. A bit of a psychotic response don't you think?” he spoke, smirking briefly with a short ‘heh’ before continuing, “Anyway… you wanna watch the sunset with me? I saw you looking at it beforehand so…”

What the hell was-

…

…Oh what the Hell, I was just repeating myself at this point. 

It's like his constant weird behavior was tiring me out. Just one thing right after the other. None of it was enough to make me leave, instead, I found myself tolerating it.

For what reason? I didn't know, still don't.

So what did I do?

“...Sure Gary…”

I watched the sunset with him. Yes, seriously. It was pretty nice actually, he didn't even do anything weird for the rest of the day afterwards… Thankfully.

Aside from a comment he made about the sunset reminding him of my eyes. I rolled my eyes at that, giving him a firm and final “whatever.”

By the time we were ready to go, it was past curfew, so Gary and I headed back to the school. The Prefects that were patrolling around the school grounds for curfew dodgers were hardly an issue, not noticing as we slipped through a huge hole in the outer fence wall… 

…Which we could've gone through earlier rather than hopping the fence…

Why didn’t we go through there earlier? I didn’t think to ask at the time since… well I was tired as hell at that point from all the action and Gary in general and just didn’t think about it at the time. I figure I should ask Gary about it later, but knowing me, I'll probably forget to do it. It's not like it's that much of a big deal anyways.

I did learn something new from Gary before we split up to go back to our respective Dorms for the night. The front doors of the dorms were locked up after curfew, so entering from there wasn't an option. Instead, there was a window that led straight into the attic of the girl's dorm, which for whatever reason was never closed. Aside from having to climb a lattice wall covered in overgrown vines just to get up to the window, I didn't have any issue sneaking back into the dorm, and back into my room.

No, I don't know why Gary knows about that entrance. Again… I was too tired to ask. To be honest, I don’t remember much else from that night, safe to say I was pretty checked out by that point. Weirdly, the last thing I remember that night before passing out was the sound of somebody puking their guts out, coming from the area where the bathroom was. Not sure what was up with that.

I woke up still wearing my school uniform. I even still had that origami flower Gary tied to my hair, which I'd figured would have fallen out with how loose I'd tied it, but apparently not.

Trisha was the one who woke me up by the way, not because she wanted to be annoying, but because if she hadn’t, I would’ve been late for class otherwise. Pretty cool of her, but I still ended up giving her shit for it anyway because I'm an absolute bitch with a capital b in the morning. Next chance I get I should probably apologize… If I remember to do it.

Didn't help that she asked about the flower, wondering where I'd gotten it and why I was wearing it in my hair. I practically ripped it out and shoved it into my section of the closet.

Despite all that, I think I was starting to tolerate Trisha at this point. It helps that she’s only mildly annoying, and not on purpose. Trisha's just… like that. Trisha doesn't go out of her way to be a dick, unlike pretty much everybody in this God forsaken school. Namely this one brunette - Mandy I think her name was? - who tripped Trisha on her way out of the Dormitory. I helped the fallen girl up and yelled at the girl in the cheerleader outfit, but Mandy just laughed and walked off. What a friggin bitch.

Trisha thanked me and we parted ways, and that was that.

I barely made it in time for Biology. It was… normal I guess? I already knew the teacher's name was Dr. Slaughter, and boy did his personality certainly match his name. He complimented me on my delicate knife work, but instead of feeling pretty good about the praise, it just weirded me out. I feel like he and that creepy janitor I've seen around campus who mumbles a lot hide dead bodies together after school. 

I just so happened to be partnered up with Eunice for the whole thing, but she wasn't much help. She was pretty sensitive about seeing the frog's innards, and the most I could get her to do was pass the tools I needed and label the drawings of the organs on the sheet we were given. We did chat for a bit, mainly about the other girls at the school. Turns out Eunice was a bit of a gossip with a little bit of nudging.

I did get some info on the more prominent girls around the campus, since Gary neglected to actually fill me in on any of them earlier.

First of all, there was Marian Abbott, the Head Girl. Her family was British, but she was born in America so that meant pretty much nothing really. She's basically an American. She was in her senior year and admitted that she was aiming to go to Harvard, which Eunice thought was pretty believable given how seriously she took her studies… along with the fact that her dad was a billionaire who could easily afford the tuition. She didn't go out of her way to talk to people, but that didn't matter since people would go out of their way to talk to her. She was also technically a part of the Jocks clique since she was Head of the swim team, but there was another girl in the clique who was far more important than her.

Mandy Wyles, the head cheerleader. Why was she so important? Besides the fact that she was the head cheerleader? It was because her boyfriend, Ted Thompson, was the Captain of Bullworth's football team. Yeah, her popularity was solely because of a man, a boy really. That was what gave her status. She was otherwise a vapid bully, and constantly had her eyes on the Greasers clique leader rather than her actual boyfriend. She ruled the Girl's dorm with an iron fist, since she pretty much had Mrs. Peabody wrapped around her perfectly manicured finger. If a girl did something she personally didn't approve of or inconvenienced her in some way, she'd go crying to Peabody about it and the old hag would go out of her way to find something to punish the offending girl for.

Hearing that, I thought back to what Dr. Lamb said about Mrs. Peabody looking after the girls. Was she lying about that or delusional? I'd believe that second one, seems like a lot of people in this place have their heads up their asses or something, it'd explain everybody's crappy mood.

Heh.

Oh, and she apparently has an eating disorder or something like that, and she hid it by throwing up in either the Girl’s Dorms or gym bathrooms late at night or whenever there wasn’t anyone around. I guess that explained the puking I'd heard from the night before. Personally, I don’t think it could’ve happened to a nicer girl.

I’m sure if I said that aloud, you’d be able to hear the condescension in my tone.

Then there was Lola Lombardi, the top girl of the Greasers. Two guesses as to why that is. 

That's right, It's because she's dating the leader of the Greasers, Johnny Vincent. Granted, she does have a bit of a girl posse going on with some of the other Greaser's girlfriends. Their little sub-group is pretty identical to their male counterparts, but a lot more subtle when it comes to their harassment, mainly because of Mrs. Peabody. Apparently Lola really, really hated any girl that admitted to wanting to hook up with her boyfriend. It probably would've been understandable, if it wasn't for the fact that Lola herself was a serial cheater. Every year since they'd first gotten together, Lola would cheat on Johnny with multiple guys, and her little gang would try to cover it up and make sure Johnny didn't find out about it. Except they must've been pretty bad at doing it, since Johnny would always end up finding out about his girlfriend playing hot potato with her and another dude's lips at least once, and it'd end pretty badly for whatever guy was smoochin’ Lola. Last year, one of those stupid and unlucky boys even ended up in a 3 month coma, but when the cops tried asking him how it happened and who did it, the kid couldn't even remember who had beaten him up to begin with, so Johnny and his boys got off scott free.

Oh, and despite the Greasers and Preps being rivals with one another, Lola has issues with Mandy Wyles rather than the main Prep girl, Pinky Gauthier. Mandy's been pretty upfront with wanting to get together with Johnny for a long time, but because of how close she is with Mrs. Peabody, Lola and her crew basically can't touch her, nevermind breathe the same air.

Speaking of Pinky, she's the main Prep girl. She's… pretty unremarkable. According to Eunice, she's not even mean to anyone, at least in comparison to the others at the Academy; At worst, she complains a lot and loudly about her ridiculously young step-mother, either because the other womans been borrowing her clothes or makeup or whatever without asking; apparently the last complaint was about the step-mom taking her limited edition Nintendogs metallic rose colored Nintendo DS. Initially, it seemed like she was pretty inoffensive, I thought I could’ve found some common ground with her by complaining about the annoying things my mom does… then I remembered she was dating her cousin, Derby Harrington. I dunno if I'd even want to associate with somebody like that.

While Pinky was the most prominent and popular girl of the Preps, there was another significant girl to be aware of. 

Annette Caldwell.

Annette, as far as what Eunice has told me, is a ticking time bomb. She acts like she's all calm and collected, but if you were to wrong her in some way you'd never hear the end of it, at least these days. In the past, she used to be just kind of two-faced, speaking kindly of people only to talk shit about them behind their back; A coward basically.

But then her family started getting into financial trouble, the kind you couldn't easily get out of. Recently she's been trying to get Derby to date her, in what Eunice assumed was a way to get her family some financial security. Not that Annette getting with Derby was any better than him dating his cousin, because Annette was also his cousin; The rich of Bullworth seemed to be real connected with each other, which made me wonder why the Harrington's weren't already helping the Caldwell's out of their financial woes.

By the day, it seemed like she's been getting worse and worse, and I'm pretty sure it was her I'd heard yelling at the top of her lungs at someone from halfway across the main school building yesterday.

Could've just been some random girl, but the voice sounded like it belonged to some high-class snooty teenage girl that was having a mental breakdown, so I just assumed.

At the very bottom of relevancy was Beatrice Trudeau, main girl of the Nerds. I was sort of familiar with her… though, mainly her smell. I'm pretty sure I'd hurried past her on my way to Biology this morning, and that was enough to make me dislike her immediately. Seriously, has that girl ever heard of deodorant?

She was probably one of the few Nerds that actually seemed to care about her future beyond swearing that they'll be their bullies boss someday. She could often be found in the library after school like the rest of the nerds, but rather than playing Grottos and Gremlins, she'd have her face shoved in some kind of book along with a few of the other Nerd girls she got along with.

Even though I probably didn't really need the info, I ended up asking Eunice about Trisha and what her whole deal was. Mainly how she was even in the Bullies clique in the first place. Sure, Trent was her brother and that probably answered my question, but it still seemed strange that somebody like Russell would just allow her in given her… quirks... 

Well, I was sort of right, but it was a bit more complicated.

See, Trisha Northwick considered herself… a witch. Seriously, she was 100% convinced she was some kind of magic girl in some book she liked, though she was pretty inconsistent about how her magic worked. Last year she got in trouble for taking all the salt from the cafeteria kitchen along with a shit ton of glitter from the art room and spreading it in a ring around the Boy's Dorm at 3 in the morning. When she got caught, she claimed that she was trying to cleanse the demons and evil spirits out of the Dorm, only to be told by Crabblesnitch that there weren't any demons in the Dorm, only the male students. She then tried arguing that the demons were obviously separate beings from the students that lived there, but that the salt circle would probably do them some good anyway by cleansing their souls and making them act nicer. 

I kinda figured Trisha had a few screws loose, but this was something else. At least it seemed like her delusions were meant to be helpful, if still bafflingly ridiculous.

As for the whole Russell thing? Well, he was convinced of her whole witch delusion, and the only reason she was in his clique was because Trent told him that if he didn't let her join, Trisha would get upset and put a curse on him. It was kind of screwed up actually, Russell was obviously “slow”, and you could probably make the argument that the two were taking advantage of that.

Not that I cared really. That huge idiot gave me a bloody nose on my first day here, could've broken it too with how hard he'd hit me, so why should I be concerned with a nutcase and her bully of a brother taking advantage of his retardation?

Yeah, that's right. It's none of my damn business.

Plus, actually trying to do something to make the students around here act less like assholes, even if it is utterly delusional and wouldn't have actually worked, isn't a completely terrible idea. Obviously, though, there were… better ways to go about it.

Did I know of any specific one? Not really, but I assumed there was. Best I could think of doing was smacking anybody harassing me for something stupid. Gary probably had some ideas though.

After biology was lunch, but rather than stop by the lunchroom to get a whiff of whatever unholy dish that ogre was cooking up, I instead went straight towards the school counselor's office. I was told I could either visit during lunch or after the second class was over, and since I really just wanted to get this over with I decided lunch would be fine.

As of now, I’m sitting by Dr. Lamb’s office door with this dumb diary in hand, more or less stalling; My pen rolling in between my fingers as I press the tip to the paper, jotting down one last sentence.

Just get it over with Jen. 

***

I shut the diary loudly and stuffed it back into my purse along with my pen. Usually I would've kept the holy grail of all my secrets and insecurities and secret insecurities somewhere more private than my purse, like burying it in the closet, but I didn't fully trust Trisha not to snoop around and find it. It was nothing personal, truthfully I'd do the same thing with pretty much any girl in this school. I’ve gotten my diary stolen before back at the third school I'd attended, the one in San Andreas.

Admittedly, the only reason it even happened was because I'd brought it to school in the first place, but since just leaving it at home wasn't an option here, keeping it in my purse was arguably safer; Especially since nowadays I could just beat up anybody stupid enough to run off with my bag.

My hand met the stainless steel door handle into Dr. Lamb's office and opened it, peeking inside to see her typing at her computer. She noticed me and waved with a warm smile.

“Oh! Hello Jane, nice of you to drop by!” Dr. Lamb said, her voice a bit weary. It didn't match her appearance, which was noticeably better than yesterday. I swear, it was like she'd gotten done having some kind of mental breakdown right before catching Gary and I jumping the fence. I'd ask, but I figured she'd ignore me or change the topic. It's what my mom would do, well, actually, mom tended to get mad more often than the other two, but Dr. Lamb didn't seem like that type of person.

I scanned the room itself. It was pretty boring, the only sense of Dr. Lamb’s touch seemed to be mostly restricted to her desk.

“Yeah, I kinda just wanted to get this over with. Gives me an excuse to skip lunch too,” I said, sitting in one of the office chairs set not too far from the front of her desk. I let my purse dangle on one of the chairs’ arms. I Continued with, “So, how are ya doing?”

Dr. Lamb gave me a look of concern.

“You mean you haven't eaten anything today? Did you at least eat something for breakfast?”

“Nothing besides a Beam cola. I'm not really interested in getting food poisoning on my first week of school.”

She sighed, in a way that sounded like she understood the terrible state of the food in the cafeteria but was still disappointed that I'd choose going hungry over just risking it and eating whatever looked the most edible thing on the menu.

“Well I can't just let you go hungry. Hold on, let me just get this out,” before I could tell her it was fine and that I was used to going hungry, she was already rummaging through her desk.

Dr. Lamb ducked down in her chair and I heard a drawer from behind her desk being opened up. As she rummaged through from wherever, I noticed the photo frames on her desk. She had a good number of photos but one stood out to me for whatever reason.

It was Dr. Lamb with a butch looking woman and a young girl, probably kindergarten age. The three were at some kind of beach, and the butch woman and Lamb were building a sandcastle with the girl, who I could guess was probably Dr. Lamb's daughter with how similar they looked.

My focus left the pictures and went back to Dr. Lamb, who set a fairly large black canvas lunch bag on her desk. She unzipped the top, and it turned out to have several baggies full of what appeared to be sandwiches wrapped up in napkins. 

“I've noticed that a lot of the students around here seem to avoid eating the food in the cafeteria, so I figured I'd get permission to have the students in my afternoon Home Economics class make these sandwiches as a warmup while I get their assignment ready and hand them out. They're basically just PB and J sandwiches with banana slices in them, though I did make sure to include a few that's just jelly and banana, for the students that have a peanut allergy. Feel free to take one!”

My gaze shifted from the bag back to Dr. Lamb, and for some reason I couldn't help but to think back to what Gary had said about her.

"I mean, Lamb just seems like she's hiding something to me. She's a new hire, and I feel like she's just putting on this act of being all sweet and kind until she reveals who she really is…”

It's not like I hadn't been screwed over by a “nice” teacher before. I was still going to be careful, but I was kind of hungry, so…

“Thanks ma'am,” I replied, taking one of the bags and unwrapping the sandwich inside of it. Sure enough, it was just a plain, white bread PBJ, one of the banana slices peeking out between the two bread slices. Not like I was expecting anything spectacular, “It's better than nothing.”

Dr. Lamb smiled and zipped the bag up, putting it back where she'd pulled it out.

“Yes, it's far better than skipping a meal. Listen Jenny, that’s not the kind of habit you want to repeat, it could lead to an eating disorder. Teen girls around your age are particularly susceptible to developing them.”

“So I've heard,” I said. It's not like I was at risk of it. I just needed to cut back on the Beam colas, which I could do at any time. Y'know, if I ever felt like it.

Which wasn't anytime soon I don't think. Didn't mean I had a problem though obviously.

“I'm serious Jane,” Dr. Lamb replied, her tone sounding more like a stern parent than her usual soft spoken way of talking. Which didn't seem too out of place oddly enough, “Just try and eat the most edible thing on the menu, at least until after Halloween when they finally let you students roam the town.”

I groaned. I wasn't gonna be too mean, but I knew I had to be blunt.

“Listen, Lamb, there's nothin’ edible comin’ out of that lunchroom. It's like the food's being made by a lunch lady that's deliberately tryin’ to poison people. And given the amount of kids I've seen runnin’ out of the lunchroom just to puke their guts out in the garbage cans out in the hallway cause the ones in the lunchroom are occupied? She's doin’ a great job. Seriously, I think that Edna woman needs to be fired. Her cooking could probably be considered a war crime.”

Dr. Lamb gave me a look that outright said, ‘You're right, but you shouldn't say it,’ which meant she was definitely gonna get on my case about saying it in the first place.

Except she didn't. She changed the topic instead, and somehow that ended up being worse than her reprimanding me for just being honest.

“So I'd like to talk about what happened yesterday…”

“What the fight or Gary and I skipping school?”

“About - Waitaminute w-what fight?”

Shit, did I just tell on myself? I guess that explains why I hadn’t gotten called in for it. I guess getting beat up for the second time in a row by the new girl on her second day left them too embarrassed to say anything about it. Since I've already blabbed and it could get that asshole Davis into trouble, I decided to just tell her. It’d whittle their number down a bit more… Or I could get in trouble again…

“Uh, yeah. That Davis White kid shot a pebble at me and lured me into the Shop class area where the rest of his buddies were, and so I had to beat the crap out of them again. They did it cause they were mad about Trent and Russell getting in trouble.”

“Oh for fu-BUCK’S sake.”

I kinda just stared at the blonde woman as Lamb held her head in her hands, pressing her thin hands into her face. She mumbled up a storm and the few bits I could make out among the jumbled mess of words were: “Second day” “2 months” and “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph”. I wondered briefly if I should interrupt but figured that, with how run ragged she seemed to be yesterday, this school's craziness was starting to get to her. Gary had said she was new, and that was pretty obvious when compared to the other faculty who were either just another part of the school's madness or completely numb to it.

It'd be terrible to see that kind of thing happen to her, even if what Gary said about her was true.

The blonde woman grumbled a bit more before scratching her head and glancing at me again.

“I-it's fine… Though I will have to inform Dr. Crabblesnitch of this… But what I actually meant to talk about was the other incident. Concerning you and Gary hopping the main gate.” 

I already figured that one was coming.

“Yes ma'am? What about it? I thought it was kinda weird how I didn’t get called into the office for it, figured you would've told Crabblesnitch by now. I wouldn't even really blame you for doing it, protocol and all that nonsense,” I said, finally opening up the bagged PBJ I'd been offered to dig into. 

“I did, at least as soon as I could do it. I actually did it this morning.”

I raised an eyebrow at that.

“This morning?” I said, the surprise in my tone apparent, “You mean you didn’t do it right after you caught us?”

She shook her head.

“No, I'd planned on it but I kept running into distractions throughout the day. It was my turn to patrol the school grounds along with Mr. Galloway, but unfortunately he seemed to be preoccupied with… something else… so it was just me and one of the Prefects at the time. It's why I was out there to see you two climbing the gate. It was just one thing after another; I needed to attend my afternoon Home Economics class. One boy shoved a firecracker down another boy's pants during shop class and it triggered the shop class teacher's PTSD. A fight broke out in front of the Boy's Dorm…” The blonde’s eyes unconsciously landed on me, and I had to hold back an eye roll so she wouldn't notice. “Again…” Lamb just kept going and going with all the stuff that went down while Gary and I were out on the town yesterday, and I briefly wondered if stuff like this happened on the regular. Did the school board or whoever was in charge of monitoring schools know about any of it? 

Eventually Dr. Lamb got to the point, “I did catch you two going back to the school grounds later on in the day on my way home, but I still made sure to inform Dr. Crabblesnitch of the incident this morning...”

“Wait, if you told him then how come I wasn't called up to the office for it?” I replied with a mouthful of PBJ.

“Because he had already been informed of the incident by Gary.”

I blinked, swallowing the bit of sandwich I had so I could ask clearly. But I found it a bit hard to speak. Gary had said something? He'd admitted it? I mean, I guess he'd have to since we'd been caught but I hadn't taken him for being such a casual snitch.

Given we seemingly hadn't gotten in trouble for it though… maybe he'd had the right idea.

“Gary admitted it?” I asked, as if for some reason I needed to confirm what Dr. Lamb just told me barely a second ago, “What exactly did he tell Dr. Crabblesnitch then besides that? Because, well, I don't take the Headmaster as somebody who would let something as serious as leaving campus without telling anybody very lightly…”

“Oh he took it quite well actually. Gary had approached him earlier in the morning right as he left his car. Gary’s reasoning for it was because he got a little impatient and since you were new, he'd wanted to just show you around town before they finally opened up the gates after Halloween. I'd assume since Gary is the current Head Boy and meant well enough, Dr. Crabblesnitch decided to let it go, especially since there hadn't been any incidents reported by the police as a result of you two. He told me he let Gary off with a warning and wanted me to tell you the same.”

I guess that means I'm off the hook and that the cop I'd tripped up with marbles hadn’t bothered to report us either… Or he’d hit his head hard enough on the pavement to forget about it entirely. Either way, it meant I wasn't gonna get in trouble for once, so I was fine with brushing it off entirely and keeping my mouth shut about that.

“Alright then. I actually wasn’t fully ok with the idea of leaving campus to be honest. I only went along with it cause I didn’t want to eat lunch in the cafeteria.”

Dr. Lamb smiled and responded with:

“Ok, just don't do it again. If you really do get hungry, then please don't hesitate to just ask me for a sandwich. At the end of the day I usually end up having extras anyway.”

“Yeah… Sure, I'll remember to ask,” I replied. My eyes shifted over to the wall clock, but unfortunately I still had about 15 minutes before the bell rang and I could finally get outta here. Why can't the hours fly by when you want them to?

“Jenny?”

My attention focused back on Dr. Lamb.

“Yes ma'am?”

“I'd like to just ask something. On your first day, when Trent and his friends were trying to take money from you, you know you could've-”

Ugh, here we go.

“Could've what? Run off to find faculty or a prefect instead of hitting Trent? I ran to the office right after anyway, the Bullies decided to escalate things, not me. I actually gave him a warning before I actually got physical too! He decided to ignore it,” I knew exactly where Lamb had been going with her sentence because I'd heard the same thing a million times, from men and women of all kinds. From the people that were supposed to stop this kind of crap before it happened. It's bullshit, it's always been grade A bullshit. I didn't want to think Gary was right about her, but this definitely wasn't helping.

Hey God! If you're real, why do you keep pulling this stuff on me? Give me a friggin’ break! What the hell did I ever do to you anyway?

Lamb frowned, and her response felt the same as my rant about the lunchroom from earlier, except this time I was the one who decided to change the topic. 

My thoughts went back to the framed photo on her desk, and curiosity got a hold of me.

“Who's that woman in the photo with you and your daughter? Is that a family friend or something?”

She looked at the photo as well.

“Oh her? That’s my girl-” Dr.Lamb suddenly stammered a bit, seemingly correcting herself, “R-roommate! She’s my roommate. W-we co-parent.”

A few awkward minutes passed before I nodded and said:

“Whatever you say ma'am,” I told her with a bored tone in my voice. 

I figured that was the only way to sort of brush off the fact that I actually knew what she meant. It was clearly a secret she wanted to keep to herself, I guess to keep her job, which was a reason I could understand. Not sure why she even wanted to work at Bullworth though, given its reputation. Maybe it was the only work she could get?

But even if she was a jerk, I don’t think I'd tell anybody about it, even out of spite.

Mercifully, the bell finally rang and with only a wave I left the room.

Not exactly polite, but I wasn’t in the mood to stay around.

As I made my way out into the hallway of the second floor, a familiar voice called out.

“Hey, Jenny!” 

I turned my head in the direction of the voice, and it turned out to be Pete, walking over to me with what looked like a book bag slung over his shoulder. As he got a bit closer I noticed his hair was slightly damp, like he’d taken a shower recently. Either that, or he’d been on the receiving end of a swirly. Gary mentioned that happening to Pete a lot.

“Hey Pete, what up?” I replied back as he stopped in front of me, barely looking eye-to-eye - I was a bit shorter than him, which certainly said something about my height since Pete barely stood taller than some of the younger kids around here - as he picked at his right ear. Must've been a bit waterlogged.

“Gary wanted me to tell you that after the next class is over, he wants you to go to the library and meet up with Algie. Apparently he needs to get to his locker in order to return some library books.”

“He can't do it himself? Also, why did Gary send you off to tell me, couldn't he have told me this himself?” 

OK, right after saying that, I realized it sounded a bit rude, like I would've preferred talking to Gary instead of Pete. But instead of mulling over it I just waited for Pete to answer.

Pete sighed before explaining.

“Algie is terrified of going into the main school building after dinner is over. The Prefects start patrolling the school grounds since that’s where everybody else is while the rest of the faculty either hang out in the Teacher’s lounge, stay in their classrooms to work on whatever or they leave campus for the day. It basically means the Bullies have free reign of the building until about 8 PM when the janitor locks the building up.”

“Ok, yeah that makes sense, but why couldn't he just tell me this? I mean, he did tell me about Algie needing help when we were in town the other day…” Granted, I could only vaguely remember that. It's a good idea that I'd been reminded at all. But again, why couldn't Gary do it?

Pete looked at me in confusion.

“Y-you guys went into town? Did… anyone else tag along with you two or..?”

“Uh, no. It was just me and him, why?” Pete looked at me weirdly, and suddenly I realized where his thoughts were going, “Get your head out of the gutter Pete.”

Pete put his hands up defensively.

“Hold up, I didn't mean to imply you guys were doing anything like that, I just thought- Oh forget it,” he went to the back of his head, only to suddenly jerk his hand away with a look of disgust. 

Ah, ok it definitely was a swirly then. Poor guy.

…Hopefully he remembers to flush his ears out, toilet water induced ear infections weren't pleasant to deal with…

…So I've heard anyway, typically from the people whose heads I'd shoved in the toilet. Not without reason, of course.

Pete continued talking, changing the topic and giving me the answer to my question. 

“Anyway… the reason Gary couldn't just tell you in person is because the school elections are finishing up, so he's a bit busy with that. Head Boy responsibilities basically.”

I shrugged. I suppose that made sense. He certainly hadn't shut up about how he was the Head Boy and all that jazz during the tour around the school. In my opinion, it was one of those dumb school titles that people overstated the importance of.

…I guess it did have the benefit of avoiding serious repercussions for playing hooky, though. Especially if you were already brown-nosing the Headmaster beforehand.

“Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Anyway, I gotta get to class, see you around,” I turned to leave, already checked out of all the noise going on around me.

I thought I could hear Pete say something else, like he was trying to get my attention again. 

But to me? He might as well not have been there at all.

[parkersgnome]

This is just a joke

[bidisaster-peanut-romano]

what's your opinion on Hal/Eunice?

aww tysm for this ask anon!! they could be so cute??

i'll admit that they're not my go-to ship (i usually hc hal as gay??) but there's something so potentially adorable about them. how hal has this kind of grumpy and perhaps a bit harsh attitude vs. eunice who is a sweet and energetic soul

yes this is me reclaiming manic pixie dream girl eunice btw. eunice who likes things hal would've never thought would be funny or that he would've liked but there he is, and he finds himself smiling a lot more and really just. enjoying life a bit more. that perhaps for everything he could complain about there's something else he might cherish

and how eunice seems to think of herself as so inadequate that she does know that the problem is other people but there again these fucked up beauty standards and the girls of this school who look so pretty and she feels so... small. but then hal comes and he thinks she's absolutely gorgeous and perfect and what if. what if he's right. what if i really am okay like this.

like overall i think they would soo much kind of. learn from each other to enjoy things as they are. not setting abstract standards of how things should be but learn to cherish the little things of their lives to put it that way

[dailybunthings]

Bonus post : I also made the other girls too :)

[hypnotized-kittens]

My girl , my god dammit girl ♡⁠(⁠>⁠ ⁠ਊ⁠ ⁠<⁠)⁠♡

I still think we don't talk about Eunice nearly as often as she deserves tbh.

[nllick]

Got bored asf and felt like sharing my bullworth girls sexuality hcs.

Idk if I'm serious about Eunice or not 😭

[vaaaaaiolet]

Sleep-deprived Leon's upstairs neighbor works late 'cause she's a singer on a deadline, and he's having none of it. He comes up with a wild solution to the problem in a moment of desperation, and he's surprised when you actually go along with it, but anything to get a full night's sleep, right? Then he finds himself wanting a bit more than camaraderie with you in the process.

f/m, romance, fluff, does this count as crack??? popstar reader w/ a twist, ID leon is USELESS w tech + lives under a ROCK, also you manic pixie dream girl a bit too close to the sun but it's ok bc ur cute LOL

word count: 2.6k // read this chapter on ao3

a/n: req fic + belated bday gift for my lovely 🍍 anon!! as usual i got carried away and butchered it. um. NOTHING makes sense just go w the vibes i beg you </3 pt. 2 coming out asap bc this fic will not leave me alone in the best way :)

chapter one

Rule of thumb: don’t bang on the first date. 

Leon’s wrapping his pillow around his head like a pair of goddamn Beefs (or is Beets? those tacky, overpriced- oh, forget it) while his upstairs neighbor gives her bed a run for its money on a Friday night, at a blessed 9 PM no less. 

Oh yeah. Her.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. 

R-rated suspicions aside, Leon tries hoping for the best. His new neighbor might just be an interior designer of the nocturnal sort. Sick of his previous rowdy, college kid-infested apartment building, he’d moved into this complex not too long ago thanks to a very politely-worded call to Hunnigan about open listings in quiet, senior citizen-friendly neighborhoods. Call him old, call him boring, but after a long day of running around saving humanity from the newest bioweapon to hit the market, all Leon ever wants to do these days is get a few winks of sleep. He’s pushing 30. Insomnia’s no fountain of youth, people. 

Thump, thump-thump-thump. 

New Girl upstairs seemed to have the same idea but with far more nefarious intent. She’d moved in at the same time as him, he’s sure – Leon saw a flash of her face a few days ago when she was lugging boxes of stuff into the elevator up to her floor. She’s the only sign of life from the 21st century he’s encountered since the day he came to sign his lease papers. Why? 

Because Hunnigan had fulfilled his request to a T. Leon’s new apartment building is long-term care home adjacent. 

Full of grandmas and grandpas who got about as loud as their record players, only leaving their homes to fetch the mail – telegrams by the wrinkles on some of them. It was perfect. Leon was positively thrilled when Eunice from Unit 202 very, very slowly, waved hello to him on his moving day.

THUMP-THUMP! THUMP-THUMP!

And then she happened.

Maybe he’s just a grumpy old man right where he belongs, in all his 29-and-a-half glory. But the pounding that girl is giving her bed with some frat boy right now is giving Leon the college dorm experience all over again. It takes him half an hour of tossing and turning in his sheets to throw on an old jacket, beeline to the elevator, punch the neon 3 button, and darken New Girl’s doorstep. 

His turn now. A quick knock, knock is enough for Unit 304’s door to open a crack.

“Hey, I’m from downst- oh my God, are you decent?”

And you, standing at the door in a dress that’s more sheer than his disbelief, only tilt your head to go, “Huh?” 

“Listen, I know tomorrow’s the weekend but I- shit,” his face burns, “could you keep it down, please? You guys are really loud and it’s late.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You- you and whoever you’re with, could you not do this right now?” Leon croaks. 

Your hands flail wildly in dismissal. “Oh no, that was just me jumping on my bed! Helps with my creative process,” you say, smiling weakly. “I didn’t know the floors were that thin, I’m sorry.”

Bullshit. “They are.” Leon grimaces, “And um, it’s fine if you guys are loud, just save it for when everyone’s asleep next time.”

A frown interrupts your smile. “I just said it was me. There’s no one else here, seriously.”

“So what’s with the getup?”

“The-” your eyes drift down to the near see-through of your dress and Leon gestures vaguely, as if you need more explanation to why he’s avoiding eye contact with your chest. “Oh, this?”

He nods. 

“Creative process!” you chirp brightly.

“For what, pray tell?”

Curiously, that puts the wind out of your sails. Suddenly you having trouble meeting Leon’s eyes, lashes fluttering as you look up, down, anywhere that’s not his face. 

“For school,” you finally make out, fingers wrapping around the edge of your door. “I’m a music major.”

Pianos and prancing on beds don’t exactly mix. He can’t help but squint at you. “And the jumping helps with…?”

“Getting past writer’s block!” 

Back to bubbly with the ball in your court, you go so far as to open your door a little further to explain. Leon’s cheeks blaze as he tries his damndest to keep his eyes from drifting south. 

“I read online that moving around helps with ideas, and I’m supposed to have a whole album written by the end of the week. I probably shouldn’t have procrastinated…” you trail off with a half-hearted chuckle, “so now I’m throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks, y’know?”  

He hums. “You wanna be a singer?” 

“Mhm!” Your updone hair bobs with you, reminding him a little of a bobblehead. It’s almost cute enough to make his AMs worthwhile.

“Then you better start singing somewhere else, sweetheart. The walls are just as thin as the floors.” 

And Leon immediately turns his ass around to go back to sleep.

In hindsight, it might’ve been a little mean of him to leave like that. But his bed is just so heavenly, and with the sleep deprivation he’s been racking up lately, Leon’s half sure he just dreamed that entire exchange. There’s no way a girl like you in college – in her 20s, give or take – is seriously jumping on her bed on a Friday night for a homework assignment. That too in a dress fit for the club to add to the irony. Are all creatives this weird?

He pinches the bridge of his nose as the elevator descends, pushing aside his last glimpse of the glum expression he left you with in your doorway. So much for first impressions. But hey, you didn’t really make a great one either. He’ll call it even. Maybe get you a gift basket for chivalry’s sake.

He considers all this as he slips back under his blankets, finally, at 9:45 PM.

And then he hears a creeeaaak.

“Please,” Leon groans, jamming his pillow over his ears. 

Thump…thump?

Nix the gift basket.

6:00 AM on Saturday finds Leon with his eyes wide open and glazed insomniac red.

His alarm blares as if to say, you actually thought you’d need to get woken up, didn’t you?

It’s a little patronizing. He teaches it a lesson by throwing it off his nightstand.

Sometime between 11 and 12 at night, you’d gotten bored of your bed and taken to something with wheels. An office chair is Leon’s best guess. You’d rolled across your floor all night, and the resulting clatter of plastic grating on hardwood had kept him awake until the sunrise. Hangovers were more pleasant than the night of sleep (or lack thereof) he’d just gotten, and Leon’s no wimp. He’s a man, goddamnit. A decorated government agent!

So he handles the problem at its source. Whips out his flip phone like a man, and makes a very important call.

A disgruntled female voice crackles through at the first ring. “May I remind you that this line’s only for emergencies, Leon?”

“It is! I need you to find me another apartment, Hunnigan, please,” Leon sits up, rubbing his eyes to plead his case to an unimpressed Ingrid Hunnigan. “My upstairs neighbor won’t let me sleep. The floors are thin as hell and she’s been moving around all night. It’s even worse than my last place.”

“Really? An old lady is giving you that hard of a time?” 

“She’s college age — a singer — and when she starts singing for her homework all the time, I’m really not going to get any sleep. I’m begging you, Hunnigan. Get me out of here.” 

“Strange.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Truly,” Hunnigan deadpans. “You know how hard of a time I had getting you into an apartment building only for people over 55, Leon?” 

He winces, holding the phone a little further from his ears just in case. 

“How many favors I had to cash in, strings I had to pull, all because you’re hopeless at navigating an apartment listing site, let alone anything on the Internet? Do you realize I had to do that in my personal time because your request would fall under illegal use of federal intelligence resources?”

Leon falters. “I didn’t-”

“So here’s what you’re going to do,” Hunnigan says shortly. “You are going right back to your neighbor and working out a solution like an adult.”

“But I already-”

“You’re solving this on your own, Leon. Figure something out because I know you can delegate. Got it?”

He really doesn’t. He’s only good at that outside of the US.

“Is that clear, Agent Kennedy?” Hunnigan repeats for semantic measure.

“Crystal,” Leon mopes, sapped of all hope when she ends the call with a ‘good luck’, just like back in Spain. A familiar routine.

He’s back in front of Unit 304 by 9:00 AM. 

You open your door with a half-chewed yawn, wrapped in a robe and looking deceptively angelic, that is, if it weren’t for the immediate pinch your pretty brows take on when you grace him with a decidedly sour look. 

“Up already?” Leon tries.

This time all he gets in response is a quick nod, a mouth parted in distaste. 

Forward march, Kennedy.

“You were up past midnight. I heard you, y’know, on your chair. Kinda loud.”

“I’m not annoying you on purpose,” you sigh, tucking your arms into a tight cross over the fluff of your robe. “I just really have to turn my album in on time and I’m having crazy writer’s block. They told me the people here are quiet and easygoing. I haven’t had a single noise complaint so far except for you, did you know that?” 

“That’s because everyone in this building either has hearing aids or doesn’t realize they need them yet,” Leon grits. “I don’t even know how you got in here, to be honest.”

“A sparkling letter of recommendation, thank you very much. And you?” You push up on your toes indignantly. “Are you just older than you look? ‘Cause you might need a pair of hearing aids yourself.”

Leon bites back a scoff. “Don’t need ‘em. I can hear you plain as day from below.”

Sirens are starting to blare in his head and it’s like he can feel Hunnigan glaring at him from her HQ in the sky. Aborting mission again isn’t an option. If Leon doesn’t fix things now, he’d be starting bad blood that might outlast the combined remaining lifespans of the building’s tenants. His salary could cover rent that long; his ego, not so much.

You’re about two seconds away from shutting your door in Leon’s face before he interrupts with a save pulled straight from his ass: “I’ll help you write your songs.”

So instead, you squawk, “What?”

He sticks the toe of his shoe in your doorjamb for insurance. Blurts, “I mean it. I’ll help you come up with ideas.”

“How on Earth would you do that?”

Great question. No better time than the present for the both of you to find out. 

“You said moving around helps?” Leon repeats for you to confirm with a quizzical nod, “I’ll take you anywhere you want. Anywhere in the city, you name it, I’ve got a motorcycle I’ll get you there on. It’ll be a change of scenery. Just whatever you do, enough with the gymnastics at midnight.”

It’s a desperate lifeline, a creepy one now that he’s had more than two seconds to think about it, but a lifeline nonetheless.

And to his horror, all you do is stare. 

The resulting silence feels like crystallizing amber. A clock ticks agonizingly from somewhere in your living room. Tick, tick, shit, he desponds. But thankfully, your laugh bubbles out not a moment too soon, sending a tsunami of relief down his shoulders. 

“Gymnastics, really?” you snort, covering your mouth with a well-manicured hand.

“I’m serious.” Leon shoots for a winning smile. “But I have to ask, is working late also part of your creative process?”

Your eyes crinkle maybe, but you shake your head no. 

“Then we’ll go whenever you’re free. Show you a few of my favorite spots, see if it speeds up your songwriting. Sound okay, sweetheart?” 

“How about now?” you pipe up.

Leon coughs his splutter into something more dignified. 

“You said whenever I was free! It’s a Saturday, you’re free,” you point a finger at his chest, “I’m free,” turn it back on yourself, “and I need to finish writing my album by, like, yesterday. This is perfect!” With a miniscule squeal, you disappear back into your apartment.

Leon’s left standing in your entryway wondering when his lifeline became a dynamite detonation cord.

“You haven’t even asked me my name,” he calls out to deaf ears. Cups his hands for effect because he can hear you flinging hangers onto the floor. “Don’t they teach you about stranger danger at school?” 

“I’ll find out eventually!” floats back your worrying response.

You’re an efficient dresser, Leon gives you that. A thankfully normal one too at the dress and heels you rush back up to the door with. A large pair of cat-eye sunglasses perched on the bridge of your nose makes Leon do a double take at the cloudy sky outside, but then again, maybe it’s another part of your creative process. Beyond his pay grade.

You adjust your sunnies with gusto, grin up at him when he gives you a curious look. 

“Well, go on,” you say, pulling out your phone. 

Leon blinks at the glowing rectangle.

“Number, name?” You tilt it as if you’re trying to entice a toddler. “I can’t just keep calling you Mr. Noise Complaint.”

“Aw, you’ve been telling your friends about me?” Leon chuckles at last, pulling out his flip phone and handing it to you.  

And suddenly it’s your turn to stare at a piece of foreign technology.

You take your sweet time putting in your number. It’s very entertaining, the way the tip of your tongue sticks out the tiniest bit when you make a mistake and the sound of furious keypad backspacing follows right after. Leon’s no better, setting himself on your phone as “LOEN KEENAYD”, and with his pride bordering on hubris, he has no choice but to keep it that way.

“Really small backspace key,” he fibs when you peer at the gibberish in your contacts. 

Your lip bite makes for a piss-poor job of hiding how funny it is.  

“It’s Leon, by the way. Leon Kennedy. Apartment 204.” 

You fix his name in half the time it took him to put it in. He holds his hand out for a shake, timeless enough, and you give it three businesslike pumps.

“I have to grab a spare helmet from my place, I’ll meet you down at the garage,” Leon promises.

You point at him before stepping into the elevator. “Either your idea works or I’ll have to work past midnight to get this album done and then you’ll really owe me, Leon.” 

In another life, you could’ve been a CEO. You’ve certainly got the pointer finger for it. 

Leon tips his chin in acknowledgment. “Whatever it takes to get back into your good graces, ma’am,” he grins.

That gets a cackle out of you as the elevator doors slide shut.

And he takes the stairs this time, waves good morning to Eunice in 215 on his way to pick up that helmet for you. It must be a good day, Leon thinks, sounding out your name in his phone’s contacts. Eunice even has a post- Great Depression era vinyl playing on her record player. Maybe it’s a sign to not be so glum about his situation. He’s finally fixing it, isn’t he? 

So be it. A guy can dream. In Leon’s case, he’s hoping he gets eight hours by Monday.

psst, find more of my work here!

comments and reblogs are very much appreciated <3 take care and i love you!

divider by @/saradika-graphics <3

[hypnotized-kittens]

Ayo sorry for leave you alone my cutie pies (⁠=⁠^⁠･⁠ｪ⁠･⁠^⁠=⁠)

But one thing that always peassed me a lil bit from the game was that some ( every ) characters didn't had more outfits that they had in the game. It just felt, empty. So I Made some clothes to some (that is to say all) girlies of bullworthLESS (⁠≧⁠▽⁠≦⁠)

Hadn't space for Lola , Pinky and Zoe and the resto of the teachers sorry (⁠´⁠;⁠︵⁠;⁠`⁠)

[warrenwoodhouse]

Cliques - Bully Guide (Game Guides) (Guides)

List by @warrenwoodhouse #warrenwoodhouse

List of all of the cliques in Bully and in Bully: Scholarship Edition.

Main Game

Nerds

Boys

Algernon “Algie” Papadopoulos

Bucky Pasteur

Earnest Jones

Melvin O’Connor

Donald Anderson

Cornelius Johnson

Fatty Johnson

Thad Carlson

Girls

Beatrice Trudeau

Hangouts

The Library

The Observatory

Preppies

Boys

Chad Morris

Gord Vendome

Parker Ogilvie

Tad Spencer

Derby Harrington

Bif Taylor

Bryce Montrose

Justin Vandervelde

Girls

Pinky Gauthier

Hangouts

Harrington House

Old Bullworth Vale

Glass Jaw Gym

Greasers

Boys

Johnny Vincent

Ricky Pucino

Hal Esposito

Lefty Mancini

Norton Williams

Peanut Romano

Vance Medici

Girls

Lola Lombardi

Hangouts

Auto Shop

Add

Jocks

Boys

Kirby Olsen

Casey Harris

Bo Jackson

Damon West

Dan Wilson

Juri Karamazov

Luis Luna

Ted Thompson

Girls

Mandy Wiles

Hangouts

Football Field

Swimming Pool

Gym

None

Boys

Gary Smith

Peter “Petey” Kowalski

James “Jimmy” Hopkins

Constantinos Brakus

Ivan Alexander

Gordon Wakefield

Lance Jackson

Pedro De La Hoya

Ray Hughes

Sheldon Thompson

Trevor Moore

Girls

Angie Ng

Eunice Pound

Christy Martin

Gloria Jackson

Karen Johnson

Melody Adams

Zoe Taylor

Hangouts

Bullworth Academy

Bullies

Boys

Russell Northrop

Trent Northwick

Davis White

Ethan Robinson

Tom Gurney

Troy Miller

Wade Martin

Girls

None

Hangouts

Bullworth Academy

Carpark - Bullworth Academy

Townies

Boys

Duncan

Edgar Munsen

Clint (aka: Henry)

Gurney

Jerry

Leon

Omar Romero

Otto Tyler

Girls

Zoe Taylor (before re-attending Bullworth Academy)

Hangouts

Add

Townsfolk

Boys/Men

Mr. Doolin

Add

Girls/Women

Miss Abby

Add

Hangouts

Old Bullworth Vale

Add

Police

Boys/Men

Officer Williams

Girls/Women

None

Hangouts

Old Bullworth Vale

Bullworth Town

Add

Prefects

Boys/Men

Prefect 1

Prefect 2

Prefect 3

Girls/Women

None

Hangouts

Bullworth Academy

Orderlies

Boys/Men

Add

Add

Girls/Women

None

Hangouts

Add

Add

Carnival Folk

Boys/Men

Add

Add

Girls/Women

The Siamese Twins

Add

The Last Mermaid

Hangouts

Billie Crane’s Traveling Carnival

Faculty

Men

Dr. Crabblesnitch (Principal)

Mr. Burton (Gym Teacher)

Mr. Lionel Galloway (English Teacher)

Mr. Hattrick (Math Teacher) (Scholarship Edition)

Mr. Luntz (Janitor, Shop Attendant)

Mr. Matthews (Geography Teacher) (Scholarship Edition)

Neil (Shop Teacher)

Dr. Slawter (Biology Teacher) (Scholarship Edition)

Dr. Watts (Chemistry Teacher)

Mr. Wiggins (History Teacher) (Scholarship Edition)

Women

Miss. Danvers (Secretary)

Mrs. Carvin (Librarian)

Edna (Cook)

Mrs. Danica McRae (Nurse)

Mrs. Peabody (Girls’ Dorm Hall Monitor)

Miss. Peters (Music Teacher) (Scholarship Edition)

Ms. Deidre Philips (Art Teacher, Photography Teacher)

Hangouts

Bullworth Academy

[violetnerves]

The Rise and Fall of Jenny Hopkins, Aged 15 - Chapter 2: The Setup.

Ok, so this took me about a month and I feel bad about it. It really shouldn't have taken me that long since this chapter is mostly about the actual mission from the game plus some bits of Jenny's backstory. But here it is, and the editing on it is minimal at best. Constructive criticism would be appreciated.

Anyway, Content warning for some ableist language and sexism.

Word Count: 8799

My eyelids fluttered open as sunlight peeked through the blinds of the dorm windows, hitting my face and rudely waking me up. Just to really rub it in, my alarm clock went off. The ring rattled my ears, and I slammed my hand down on the stupid piece of junk.

I let out a grumble, sitting up and rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, followed by a yawn. Then my back started acting up, and I grumbled.

A single thought came to my mind.

'Why does school have to start so damn early?'

I heard Trisha sit up, obviously awoken by my loud alarm clock since her side of the room didn't have the sun shining on it.

It was odd that she looked more put together than she did yesterday, despite having bed-head that would put Bob Ross' afro to shame.

We met eye to eye, and for a bit, there was an awkward silence in the room. The only sounds I could hear were the outside movements of the other girls in the dorm getting ready for the day.

Trisha looked down, then back up to me again. She bit her lip. She gave me a pair of finger guns, in a bad attempt to, I assume, be funny to make the obvious tension in the room disappear. It didn't work.

"Hey... Jenny, right? Can we... talk about yesterday?"

I shook my head, getting out of bed and opening up the large dresser next to it. I tossed a white button-up shirt with the Bullworth Academy crest sewn into it on my bed, along with the blue plaid skirt, socks, and a bra.

I turned to give her the nastiest glare I could muster, mainly as a warning. Just to rub it in that I didn't want anything to do with her, I added in a small warning as I focused on putting on my uniform.

"Not interested, don't even bother."

"Aw... C'mon..."

I heard her get off the bed and start walking closer to me. Before she could get too close, my head snapped in her direction.

The sudden movement caused her to hop back a little, holding her hands up in front of her. I'd assume I looked pretty pissed off since the way she put her hands up was clearly defensive.

The only thing I could see her wearing was a long t-shirt with the name of some emo boy band that swamped her rail-thin body just above her knees. I didn't know if she was wearing any shorts underneath since the length of the t-shirt hid her hips. For some reason, she still wore those arm warmers from yesterday. Does she just not take those off at all?

"Look... About yesterday..."

I spat my reply out in the rudest way I knew how.

"Yeah? What? Oh yeah, no big deal. You were gonna record me getting my ass kicked by your buddies so you could all chuckle at it later over whatever crappy take-out food this dump of a towns' got! I already know about that, I don't need you to remind me, ya freak!"

This girl stared at me, lip trembling with those big, obnoxious, and freaky green eyes of hers looking like they were about to start bursting into tears at any second. Before I could tell her to just fuck off, however, the door to our room opened.

Mrs. Peabody walked in, dressed in what looked like the same outfit she'd worn yesterday - more than likely, she was one of those weird people who had multiples of the same clothes. She took one look at me, then over to Trisha. Compared to how she eyed me, it was similar to how you'd look at a dirty mutt compared to a disease ridden rat.

Sure, I wasn't very happy with Trisha... but the way the older woman looked at her in disgust just rubbed me the wrong way. She barely even tried to hide her contempt for the girl. Shit, even I don't think anybodys' has ever even looked at me like that, and i've been enough of a bitch in my life to warrant it.

"Is there something wrong, Miss Jane?" Mrs. Peabody's eyes were firmly on Trisha even though she was clearly talking to me. "Is she bothering you?"

I looked her in the eye and shook my head.

"No ma'am, we just... disagreed on something. S'not anything that important."

Mrs. Peabody didn't seem entirely convinced, but in response, she simply nodded and closed the door. I could hear the sound of her footsteps fading as she walked away, her muffled voice talking to one of the other girls in the building.

I sighed, shaking my head and slipping my pajama shirt off.

While tugging my bra on, I looked over to Trisha, who seemed a bit confused at the fact that I hadn't bothered to tell on her.

"What is it? What's with the face?"

It took her about a minute to actually say anything, and in that time, I was already halfway dressed.

"...How come you didn't tell on me?" Trisha asked, circling her fingers together nervously. I had to wonder why this girl was hanging out with those jerks. You'd think she'd be just another girl to pick on for them.

I shrugged, buttoning up my shirt with my neck tie undone and hanging around my neck. I didn't want to talk to her for longer than I needed to, so I kept my answers short.

"I don't like you, but with the way Mrs. Peabody was looking at you, I think she's way worse." I haphazardly tied my neck tie sloppily, not caring much for how it looked, nevermind what other people would think about it. "She seems like a nasty old hag."

Trisha seemed to chuckle a little at that.

"Oh, you have no idea... We can barely do anything in the dorm without old Peabody riding our butts about it... Well..." Trisha looked over at the door then back to me. "Unless you're Mandy Wiles, then you can basically do anything you want. The favoritism is unreal!"

Oh, of course Mrs. Peabody's got favorites. Old, bitter women like her tend to have them, mainly as a weird projection kind of thing. Some weird way to relive their youth.

Hm, well, since the girl is already blabbing, I might as well get some info about the other girls out of her. Gary had been more than generous with telling me all about the boys of the various cliques yesterday, but he'd been pretty quiet about the girls.

Which was odd, surely the girls around here had some kind of influence?

"Who's Mandy? Should I be concerned about her?"

Trisha didn't hesitate to nod and replied back, "Ooohhh, yeah, definitely! I wouldn't start anything with her. Not only is she Mrs. Peabody's favorite, but she's also a part of the most popular clique in the Academy! You'd be committing social suicide if you try and even push back against her picking on you!"

I rolled my eyes as I tied my neck tie, which ended up looking sloppily done by the time I was finished. Meh, if I get yelled at for it, then I get yelled at. I've been yelled at so many times for the dumbest things that it got to the point where I barely acknowledged it anymore, even if I had genuinely done something wrong.

"Yeah... she sounds real threatening. Look, if she tries anything with me, I'm giving her a swirly. It's pretty much my go-to method for knocking morons like that off their high and mighty pedestal. Getting your head shoved in a toilet can be a real humbling experience, lemme tell ya."

Trisha laughed nervously, fidgeting with her hands.

"Yeah... I mean, that's not a good idea, and I don't agree with you doing that... buuuttt, if you actually go through with that, can you make sure to tell me?" The blonde girl eyed me, almost pleadingly, and in a tone that seemed... oddly joyful in a sinister way, said, "I wanna see."

I shrugged half-heartedly, slipping my socks on.

"Eh, sure, why not?"

I shit you not, the girl squealed right in my ear, opened up her side of the dresser, and sprinted over to her bed to get dressed for the day. All in the span of what felt like a second.

"Ooohhh, I'm so glad we're friends now!"

I was taken aback as I stared at her, the abruptness of it all irritated me.

"Hey, hold on, no we aren't! Your buddies still attacked me yesterday and you were completely fine with filming it! I'm not letting that crap go!" I said, shaking my head at the audacity to try and act so casually given what happened.

Seriously, did this chick have the memory of a goldfish?

Trisha was in the middle of tugging her undershirt on as she looked at me with a sad "deer in the headlights" look. She did this odd mix of a groan and a whine as she did this overdramatic move of faceplanting on her bed.

She looked back up at me and clasped her hands together pleadingly.

"Can I please just make it up to you then? I can't have my roommate mad at me for the entire school year! It'd be so annoying!" Trisha replied, her night shirt getting waved around in the air as she gestured her arms wildly. "Please! I don't even have footage of you getting beat up! It was mainly footage of you beating them up!"

I tried to just blow her off, but... Trisha did have a point. Besides Trent and obviously Russell, I don't think any of those other bozos actually ended up getting a hit on me. Then again, none of them seemed to be particularly good at fighting anyway. In fact, they all seemed a bit caught off guard when I'd decided to fight back.

Hell, just from the bullshit i've had to deal with at my last 7 schools, I probably had more experience actually tussling with people than them, and that didn't even include those boxing classes my third step-father let me tag along to and watch about 3 years ago.

I sighed, rolling my eyes and grabbing my purse.

"Okay... Fine," I said, slinging my bag over my shoulder as I slipped my shoes on. "You can make it up to me... just don't be weird about it..."

I left the room, hearing Trisha yell out something that sounded like a hurried, "Don'tworryIwon'tbeweir-!" as the door shut behind me.

'Man, I think I might've been a bit too lax on her...' The thought popped in my head as I made my way down the double set of stairs, right past a red head and another girl with glasses gossiping about something I didn't care too much to listen into.

As I passed them, I couldn't help but feel like I was being watched, and I turned back to look at the two. They were still talking, though they were turned away when I definitely remembered them facing my direction as I walked past. Huh, weird. Had they been talking about me?

I wouldn't be surprised if they were, what with what went down yesterday. The new girl beating up an entire group of boys and only getting a bruise and a bloody nose out of it was definitely something that would get gossiped about for a while, maybe about a week. On one hand, it'd probably mean people would leave me alone, at least for a bit... but on the other?

Well, I didn't actually know, but it couldn't have been good for me. That was usually how things went, I'd always get the worst of it.

It was why I started to believe in the concept of past lives, as well as karma. I was probably a real ass in a previous life, and I was only now getting all the negative karma from it.

Mrs. Peabody stood by the front door with a piece of paper, clearly about to go on some spheel about something I didn't too much care about. I ignored whatever she was telling me as I grabbed the paper and stepped through the double doors of the building to the outside... only to be met with a loud, burly voice yelling in my direction.

"HI JENNY!"

The voice was bellowed out by Eunice, a girl I'd helped out yesterday during Gary's tour.

Some doofus with an overly long name that I couldn't be bothered to remember had stolen some chocolates from her that her folks gave her as a gift, so I offered to get them back free-of-charge.

It wasn't difficult, hell, I probably could've done it blind folded. I tracked the thief to the first floor boy's bathroom by following some tossed chocolate wrappers, gave him a swift punch to the gut, and swiped the box of chocolates back as the guy was left heaving on the floor. I guess there were worst places to blow chunks, even though his puke never actually ended up in the toilet bowl.

My "reward" for that simple errand was a hug. Not so bad, maybe just a bit awkward right? Wrong, my back still hurt like hell. I think she might've cracked something in my spine while doing that crap. If I were her, I'd consider a career as a chiropractor... Then again, she'd probably be terrible at it. That kind of stuff was supposed to make you feel good... and I definitely didn't...

I gave the heavy set girl a nonchalant wave, and she walked over to me.

Now... I had to give her this. She did have a nice smile, but man, that voice... I wonder if losing weight would make her sound normal...

Then again, probably not. There was a girl at my 5th school who sounded similar to Gilbert Gottfried without any real effort, that was just her natural voice, and that girl had been as thin as a twig. Some girls really did just get the short end of the stick.

The first one being that they were even born a girl in the first place. Seriously, why did being a girl have to suck so much? Not only do we have to deal with periods, but nobody takes us seriously at all!

Man, sometimes I wish I was a dude, not because I was "confused" about my gender or some crap like that, then people would actually respect me for once. Then they'd take me seriously when I knocked their teeth out.

"There's my main squeeze! How's it going, Jenny?" Eunice said cheerfully, clasping her chubby hands together in front of her chest.

We stood to the side of the archway leading into the large space around the building of the Girl's Dorm, and I noticed some of the younger, middle school girls passing by and giggling about something followed by them not-so-subtly glancing in my direction. Word really was getting around about yesterday, huh? But then, why were they laughing? Wouldn't they be in awe of me instead?

I shrugged, blowing a bit of air as I huffed and looked Eunice's way.

"It's Bullworth, so I guess it could be a lot worse."

Eunice nodded, giving a small smile.

"Yeah... I guess it could be worse, but... y'know, it could always get better too!"

"Uh huh..." I replied, leaning against a nearby stonework wall. I propped my foot up on the wall as I relaxed and just let her talk... up until she snapped her fingers in front of my face. "Yeah?"

Eunice put her hands on her hips, looking a bit frustrated. Shoot, how long had I zoned out?

"I said, do you want to go to class together? It'd be cool if we had the same one for first period, y'know, Chemistry? Mrs. Peabody should've given you your schedule by now."

My gaze shifted to the paper in my hand and, sure enough, it was my class schedule. Conveniently, Chemistry was the first class I had today.

"Yeah, I got Chemistry too. I guess walking together doesn't sound like a bad idea," I said, stuffing my schedule inside my purse, not caring if it ended up a little crumbled.

It's not like I had anything better to do, besides, if those Bullies bothered me again, Eunice could've been some nice backup to have for dealing with them. Or a good meatshield. Either way, there really was no downside to it. For me at least.

Eunice seemed pretty happy about walking together.

"Great! Let's go, I think the bell is about to ring!" Without hesitation, Eunice grabbed me by the hand and, with a ridiculous amount of strength, pulled me with her to Chemistry. Now, usually this would've put somebody in a bad standing with me, but with how strong she turned out to be, I was kinda reluctant on bitching at her about it.

Chemistry class wasn't anything out of the ordinary... Aside from the teacher being blazed out of his mind. Dr. Wattz was clearly high on his own supply, but I didn't know what he was even on. It could've been anything. There were a hell of a lot of chemicals in the room to choose from. I had to wonder if some of them were even allowed to be used around and by a bunch of inexperienced teenagers, especially the kind that attended Bullworth Academy.

You'd think a stoner teacher would be pretty nice, but Dr. Wattz was the opposite. I screwed up by pouring the wrong chemical into my beaker and causing it to blow up in a puff of grey smoke, so the old guy threw a hotplate at me. It didn't end up actually hitting me thanks to a personal lifetimes worth of having to avoid flying objects. Instead, it flew towards that big doofus Russell and shattered to bits the second it connected to his skull. Oddly, and a little bit horrifyingly, Russell didn't give much of a reaction to the heavy metal piece of machinery cracking against his head. Seriously, was that guy even human?

So yeah, Chemistry was kind of weird now that I think about it. If there was any proof that Crabblesnitch was in some pretty heavy denial about the actual state of the school he was running, then that teacher was a damn good example. I mean seriously, what's next? An alcoholic teacher barely hiding the fact that he's chugging a 40 out of a paper bag as he's clicking through a presentation shown on a projector?

...Ok, maybe that was a bit too outlandish.

The bell rang for lunch, and as I left the classroom with Eunice, she and I split up. She wanted us to eat together, but I wasn't really interested.

She tried her hardest to get me to go with her, but I told her I wasn't that hungry. That wasn't really true, but I heard there was gonna be chicken for lunch today, and judging by the state of the food I'd choked down yesterday, I wasn't keen on getting salmonella and God knows what else from eating potentially undercooked chicken.

I headed outside, beelining towards the vending machine. If there was anything still keeping me on this bitch of an Earth, it would probably be Beam cola. Nectar of the Gods.

I shoved a dollar bill into the money slot and pressed the first button, and a can of Beam cola dropped down the machine. The sight of that chilled blue can was like looking down at a clear pond after trekking through a barren desert for miles.

Well, ok, maybe not that great of a sight, but it was still nice to be able to drink one of these again. I hadn't had one in weeks, not since mom had refused to keep buying them since she thought they were the cause of me being overweight. Which... well, she probably wasn't wrong, but it's not like it wasn't her fault since she introduced me to these things in the first place.

Back when I was barely a toddler and being forced by mom into participating in those glitzy beauty pageants, she would pour about half a can of Beam Cola into my sippy cup for me to drink in the morning so I wouldn't act cranky or fall asleep. It'd do the trick, probably since an entire can of Beam cola had about 40% of the daily recommended caffeine. I had a lot of memories that were just of me sitting in front of a mirror and chugging it while mom got me prepared to go on stage.

Yeah... those were the days, when it was mostly mom and me after my grandparents passed.

I felt a frown form on my face as I pulled the tab on the can, and that familiar hiss of the pressure releasing stuck solidly in my head. Whenever I heard it, I didn't know whether to consider it a pleasant noise or a bad one. On one hand, I honestly hated having to do those stupid pageants, hated having all that crappy makeup plastered on my face and those dumb outfits I'd be forced into... But on the other hand?

At least back then, mom actually seemed happy spending time with me. Nowadays she'd rather be with her rich boyfriends or the occasional millionaire she managed to sucker into marriage way more than me.

A little, niggling thought that seemed to shrink by the day tried to convince me that mom was doing it for my benefit, that she was just trying to find the right guy that could take care of the both of us financially.

After all, if it had really been about the money, surely mom wouldn't have told me to pack up and leave with her after she actually saw the last man she'd conned cornering me in the kitchen to do god knows what? The guy ran a goddamn fast food franchise. He was loaded.

She had to care a little. I needed her to.

I'm not sure how I could take it if it turned out she didn't.

The can met my lips and I drank. Leaning against the vending machine, I was thankful there wasn't anyone around at the moment. I could already start to feel myself breaking a bit emotionally, and I was struggling just to keep all the cracked pieces together to put everything back to normal. It was like I was trapped in a constantly shaking room, trying desperately to fix this broken vase that just kept getting cracking into smaller and smaller pieces from all the force.

When I got to being reminded about what my last "step-dad" tried to do to me, it always screwed up my entire day. I was so used to being able to kick the ass of anybody that was dumb enough to cross me that the one time I couldn't fight back...

"Ah Hopkins, I've been meaning to talk to you about what happened yesterday."

I jumped a little and spilled some cola on the ground, turning to see Dr. Crabblesnitch walk out of the front door of the school building. He seemed to glance disapprovingly at the soda in my hand, though I wasn't sure whether it was because he thought I shouldn't be drinking it for whatever reason or because I'd spilled it.

'Wouldn't be surprised if it was the first one.'

"Something wrong sir?" I asked, holding the cola can by the top and casually letting it dangle at my thigh.

"Well no, not really. I wanted to speak to you personally about an incident with some of the male students that you were involved in yesterday, among other things..."

'Alright, here we go..'

"Yes sir? What about it? Am I in trouble?" I said in a slightly disinterested tone.

I already got this guy's gist the day I'd met him. He was just another old prick too stuck in the old days to even see what was going on with the younger generation.

"No, actually. I'm just curious as to why you went near the Boy's Dorm. You weren't trying to go in there, were you?" Dr. Crabblesnitch replied, his tone dripping with suspicion. It's like he was eager to get me in trouble for something.

Been there, done that, and got expelled from my third school because of it.

"I got my directions messed up, that's it. Shouldn't you be getting onto the guys who did this to me?" I pointed out the bruising on both my right cheek from Trent and the punch from Russell that had my nose swollen and inflamed. "It was Trent and Russell by the way. I don't know if Dr. Lamb told you, but it was them."

Crabblesnitch eyed my face, though I got a feeling of disinterest from him.

"She did inform me of those two in particular, and they've been given suitable enough punishments, however..." He went on, and the next thing he said made me want to wring his neck. "I don't entirely believe that you didn't purposefully walk to the Boy's Dorm because you weren't familiar with the layout, as Mr. Northwick informed me that you headbutted him the second you walked onto the school grounds. Is this true? I wouldn't put it past you looking for a fight... given your record..."

I got caught up trying to respond, the audacity of his statement leaving me absolutely perplexed.

"Yeah I did! Because he tried to take money from me!" This guy was seriously trying to tell me I was looking for a fight! It was my first day! The only thing I'd been looking for was the Girl's dorm! "Look, I know my record makes me sound like a real tool, but this place is full of bullies and maniacs!"

Dr. Crabblesnitch, again, seemed to wave off my criticisms.

"Oh nonsense. I'm sure he was just showing a bit of school spirit! Hijinks. I'm sure he was simply just trying to mess with you. Boys will be boys after all. It's perfectly understandable that you didn't quite get it, being a girl and all."

'UUUUGGGGHHHH. Thisplacewillbethedeathofme.'

I felt as though my brain was starting to leak out of my skull after hearing that, I nearly didn't catch the rest of his sentence.

He continued on as I took another sip of soda, the overly sweet liquid bringing me some respite from the bullshit spewing out of his mouth.

"Now, I want you to stop with this nonsense. It's unbecoming of a young lady to be so violent. I want you to behave yourself. Now, I've had a talk with Dr. Lamb, and we've both decided it would be beneficial if you visited her for counseling, starting tomorrow. Understood?"

'Ok. Good. Great. Just treat me like a nutcase I guess. As if i'm the problem here.'

Of course, I couldn't actually tell him that. I'd rather not get the world record for the quickest school expulsion in American history.

...Even if it was kinda tempting...

"Understood, sir. Can I go now?"

I wanted to just curl up in bed and yell into my pillow.

Crabblesnitch gave me a curt nod and straightened out his neck tie. As I waited for his response, I got the odd feeling that we weren't alone, as if somebody else was just around the corner. Odd.

"Good, be on your way then."

The Headmaster walked right back into the main building, and after the door shut behind him, I stuck my middle finger in his direction for a second. It was stupid, but it did make me feel a little better. If only I could do it to his face.

Alas, it simply couldn't be.

"Pfft, 'Good, be on your way' yeah, i'll be on my way..." I muttered to myself, mocking Crabblesnitch's tone, "I'll be on my way to putting my foot up your stupid a-"

"Hey!"

I turned my head to see Slingshot kid standing in front of the small set of stairs leading up to the main school building entrance. His nose had a gauze patch on it, with another one slapped on his forehead, underneath it was a large reddish purple bruise. I tried to remember exactly what I'd done to cause that, until I thought about when i'd pushed Tom into him. Must've landed on his face pretty hard when he fell apparently.

Gary gave me his name yesterday, during the tour. It was Davis White, I think?

Along with his name, I knew at least two things about him from what Gary had told me.

The first was that he was in his senior despite looking a bit on the younger side, he was even pretty short to boot, he couldn't have been taller than 5'4. In fact, he was supposed to graduate last year, but he was so deep into his bullying obsession that he'd purposefully gotten himself held back. Gary doubted Davis even wanted to graduate at all, which was bizarre to me. Being able to bully freshman couldn't have been worth spending yet another year in the hellscape that was an American high school.

The second was that he was basically the "brains" of pretty much every plan the Bullies had. Whenever they'd pull something, it was usually his idea. Another kid, Troy, was supposed to be the second-in-command since Russell liked him the most. But more often than not, when Russell wasn't around, it was either Davis or Trent leading, not him. An easy way to tell whether the idea came from Trent or Davis was fairly easy. For one, Davis wasn't nearly as straightforward with his schemes compared to Trent.

He had his clearly homemade wooden slingshot on hand, giving it a firm grip as he glared at me. Obviously, he was pretty mad at me, but at the same time, there was a sort of confidence to it, like he had something planned out.

"Oh, great. You again. Look, I don't-" I didn't get to finish my sentence before he started talking, his tone accusatory and aggressive.

"I saw you talking to Crabblesnitch. Trent and Russell already got detention because of you, you tryin' to get the rest of us in trouble?" Despite his aggression, he seemed to avoid getting any closer to me. That showed, to me at least, that he had some kind of common sense.

"What?" I said, turning toward Davis. "Shut up. They got what they deserved. Maybe take the hint and-"

He again didn't even let me finish. I saw him lift up the wooden slingshot in his hand, grabbing the rubber band with his other hand.

"Screw you new kid, this is what we do to snitches around here!" Davis lifted up the slingshot and aimed it at me, a pebble stuffed in the middle of the rubble band as he pulled it back.

"You better not-AAow!"

He let the band go, and the pebble struck me in the head. I dropped my Beam cola, which spilled on the ground at my feet.

Son of a bitch, I wasn't done drinking that!

As I got myself together, Davis had the biggest shit eating grin on his face as he let out a snide chuckle.

I grunted angrily, kicking the can away as my shoes were slightly saturated with soda.

"You-!" I snapped, and in response, Davis turned and began to book it to the right of the main school building, yelling back:

"Yeah! Come and get me fatso!"

Well shit! I might as well!

"Get back here!" I yelled back at him, sliding down the stairs railing as he ran ahead.

Was this guy in track? I'd barely turned the corner as he was already past the parking lot. At first, I'd figured that's where he'd been headed, as I recalled Gary mentioning that the Bullies tended to hang out there. They seemed the type to gang up on one person anyway. Instead, I followed him as he turned right again, headed to the path that led to where the Gym, Harrington house, and Shop class were.

Davis pushed past a kid in his way who I realized was actually Pete, who was sent toppling down the small set of stairs along with the stack of books and papers he'd been carrying. Surprisingly, Pete didn't seem much affected by the fall as he yelled out to me from the ground:

"I saw him! He went towards Shop class! To the right of the fountain!"

"I saw. Thanks anyway!" I shouted back at him as I ran past.

Pete could pick himself up. He didn't seem that hurt.

I took another turn and spotted as Davis ran through the gate that led into the Shop area. Just before it shut behind him, Wade ran through and confronted me.

"I'VE GOT HER!"

We collided with each other and ended up in a grapple, grabbing at each other's arms to stop the other from hitting them. As hard as he tried, he couldn't wrangle his arms away from me, but neither could I. The most I could do was try to knee at his gut, but my short legs either didn't connect or barely did so. My height was really biting me in the ass here.

"OHHHHH I'VE BEEN LOOKIN' FORWARD TO THIS!" Wade tried kicking at me too, but I was able to back off a little and avoid it, but only barely. I was stuck on how to get the upper hand until I noticed the nearby trash can that we just so happened to be slowly making our way towards.

Hm... That'll work.

"Yeah... So was I..." I said as a wide grin spread across my face. The unhinged glee Wade had had on his own face turned into a worried confusion as we were right beside the trash can. Without hesitation, I tossed him into the can ass first.

"HEY! I-I'M NOT DONE WITH YOU!" Wade cried as he tried to pull himself out of the metal trashcan. He didn't seem to be making much headway, though, in fact he seemed to be accidentally digging himself deeper in his attempt. Clearly, he wasn't used to being on the receiving hand of getting tossed into a garbage can.

"Better luck next time!" I called back, heading towards the metal doors into the Shop class area. Thankfully, it hadn't been locked, but it took me an embarrassing amount of time to realise the doors were supposed to slide open to the side. As they did and I sprinted in, I spotted Davis behind a fence taunting me.

"You're too slow! Hahaha!"

He took off again when I ran into the fence, grabbing it and seething in frustration until I realized it wasn't enclosed. There was an opening to the right of me, and without hesitation, I ran for the turn and followed after him.

It was odd to see the shop not be surrounded by all those Greaser dorks. Yesterday, after the tour of the main school building, Gary showed me around the entire campus. Those guys were scattered around the entire place like they owned it. We didn't stick around the area long, since the Greasers clearly hadn't wanted us there... well, aside from the fat one whose name escaped me at the moment.

That guy gave me some serious bedroom eyes as I walked by, and when I pointed it out to Gary, he laughed and told me about how that Greaser in particular was into fat women.

After learning that, i've considered going easy on the Beam colas from now on.

I heard the loud sound of a garage door slamming down and looked towards the source. At the back of the shop building was some kind of smaller building, presumably another garage. I figured I'd have a hard time trying to get it open, but surprisingly, the shutter door slid upwards without much effort.

I quickly found out why.

A 2x4 wooden plank was swung at me, and I barely managed to dodge it with a clumsy roll that ended with me stumbling back into the nearby brick wall of Shop class.

Ethan, the kid obsessed with ninjas that i'd gut punched yesterday, was the guy who'd swung the board at me. As I got up with my back flat on the wall, Ethan swung the board around in the air like he was swinging a sword, complete with making swishing sounds with his mouth. How the hell was this guy a bully? He's acts like a complete dork!

"Man- Ethan! Knock it off with that crap and just hit her with it!" Tom said from a back corner of the room. He seemed to be distancing himself as far as possible from me and Ethan, I'm assuming he was reluctant to get near me due to what happened the last time he did. Good, let him be afraid. If a lot of the jerks around here were smarter, they'd do the same.

"Don't tell me what to do!" Ethan turned his head and yelled back, stupidly holding the board right in front of me within grabbing distance. I grabbed for it, yanking the plank of wood out of his hand. As he whipped his head back to face me, I swung the board and hit him in the stomach. He doubled over, and I hit him with it again, this time in the back with enough force to break the board in half.

Ethan crumpled to the ground, and I threw the piece of wood I'd been holding to the back of me.

I looked up at Tom, and whatever expression I'd had on my face must've been threatening because instead of trying to fight back, he had decided to shove himself into the corner of the room.

I took a few steps closer, and without missing a beat, Tom grabbed a nearby wooden ruler and held it out in front of him defensively.

"S-stay away from me you crazy bitch!"

"You know, this really could've been avoided, but no. Maybe you should've thought a bit more before thinking it was a good idea to jump me with your buddies."

"It wasn't even my idea! It was all Davis!"

"Wow. I really don't care."

I ran up to brunet and smacked the ruler out of his hand, clocking him in the face. He fell onto a nearby wooden crate that shattered into a heap of wood. Barely had to break a sweat with that one. He laid flat on the concrete floor, moaning and whimpering.

I rolled my eyes and walked over to the other garage door that Davis had gone through, opening it as easily as the last one.

I stepped into the open area, getting confronted by Troy, the ginger kid who had absolutely no inside voice to speak of. Possibly the most absurd thing anyone has ever said to me came out of his mouth, and I was split between laughing or just smacking the shit out of him. Maybe both.

"I'M GONNA HIT YOU HARDER IN THE OVARIES THAN YOU HIT ME IN THE BALLS!"

He charged toward me, and without hesitation, I took the lid off of a nearby metal trashcan and held it out in front of me.

As he neared, I whacked the lid across Troy's face, and he anticlimactically fell to the ground with a loud thump.

That was easy.

I went further along and finally found Davis standing on top of a structure made up of what looked like garbage. He seemed far less confident than he had after launching that pebble at me.

He kicked away the ladder he'd used to climb up the structure, which left me unable to get up to him on foot without risking something going wrong. That structure didn't exactly look all that stable, and trying to grab on it probably would've caused the whole thing to fall over.

"You stay away from me!" Davis said, his tone betraying how scared he actually was.

I threw the trash can at him like a frisbee, and it hit him in the arm. He stumbled a bit but managed to balance himself, the structure creaking and shifting as it was on the verge collapsing on itself.

"Get away, you psycho!" Davis yelled, voice cracking mid-sentence. His hand grabbed onto the wall behind him for balance. I scooped a nearby brick off the ground and prepared to throw it at him.

"What's wrong? Can't take what you dish out?! Huh?!" I didn't give two shits if he was scared of me. Let him be. Maybe he and his buddies'll learn to finally not fuck with me after this. I didn't care how much I would end up hurting these jerks. If they insisted on bullying and harassing me, then they were pretty much asking for anything that happens to them.

I wound up my arm and threw the brick, which hit him in the jaw. That was enough. Davis stumbled back, and the structure couldn't take anymore of it. It collapsed in on itself as some of the trash that kept everything together tumbled out in multiple directions. I saw Davis jumping away from the collapsing structure with a yelp as the entire thing fell apart, falling on his face to the asphalt below.

As everything settled, Davis laid flat on the ground, letting out a quiet groan as he rolled onto his back. I walked over to him, and as I looked him over, I noticed the slingshot he'd shot me with in his front left pants pocket. Without hesitating, I grabbed it. Davis noticed this, though didn't seem to bother with getting up. I didn't doubt he was actually hurt. Hell, I'd probably broken something in his face just from tossing that brick at him. Given that entire ordeal he and his buddies just put me through, I personally couldn't muster up the care to feel bad about it.

Clutching at his face with one hand, Davis tried grabbing for the slingshot with the other, giving a weak protest to go along with it.

"H-hey!" Davis said with a pained groan, "That's mine y-you jerk!"

It clearly hurt for him to talk, and the part of his jaw I'd hit was starting to redden and swell up.

So I kicked Davis in that same area and swiped the slingshot from his hands. He began yelling and soon crying as he grabbed at his face.

I simply turned and walked out of the Shop area, passing by the other boys on my way there.

'I'm sure this'll come up during my talk with Dr. Lamb tomorrow...' I thought as I neared the fountain.

I was just about to sit down on the base of the fountain when I felt a pair of hands on me.

With a yelp, I was pulled back, feeling my back hit what felt like a guy's chest. His breath hit my ear, and that was enough to freak me out. In my panic, I kicked back at whoever it was and connected with what felt like his kneecap.

"Yow! Hey! What's wrong with you?!" From the voice I realized it was Gary of all people, and as I backed away and turned around, I saw him clutching his left leg. I wanted to slug him in the jaw, but since my energy was spent from earlier, I yelled at him instead.

"W-what's wrong with me?! What's wrong with you?! Do you just grab girls like that all the time?!" I yelled back. What even was his thought process? Did he think I'd just be ok with it or something because I didn't hate him?

I was really starting to regret letting this guy off easy calling me a cunt. I couldn't even remember why I'd let him off the hook in the first place.

Gary winced a bit as he rubbed at his leg, clearly still a bit miffed. He straightened himself out and glared at me.

"Geeze Jen, I was just trying to scare you a little, you know, to be funny. I didn't think you'd freak out about so much," Gary put his hands up in a lax but defensive way. He got right next to me and casually put a hand on my shoulder. "Anyway, what's up? You're a bit jumpy today. Did something happen recently?"

I moved my shoulder to get his hand off of me, and before he could respond, I replied to his previous question.

"Those douchebags jumped me again because Trent and Russell got in trouble for what happened yesterday, Davis shot a pebble at my face and lured me into the Shop area where the rest of them were waiting to gang up on me," I showed Gary the slingshot briefly before stuffing it into my purse, "I also took Davis' slingshot. Mostly because I could."

"Aw, you beat them up again? And I didn't get to see it? You know, that's really inconsiderate of you Jane, you should've told me so I could've watched. I probably hate those morons the most out of every neanderthal in this place."

I rolled my eyes.

"Yeah, ok, Gary. I'll be sure to let you know beforehand if I get jumped again. I'll even set out a nice chair for you to sit in too. Would you like that princess?"

"Yeah, that sounds nic- Wait, what did you just call me?"

"Huff huff JENNY!"

Trisha came running from the single back door of the main school building, barely avoiding bumping into me and Gary. She bent over to catch her breath for a second. Her hair was messier than it usually was, presumably from her sprinting.

She looked up at me with her makeup smudged face and spoke at a mile a minute... which, as a claim, only made any sense if you were around to hear her while she was talking.

"Jenny!Theguysaregonna-!" Trisha went quiet as soon as she spotted Gary, who, as he had laid eyes on her, sneered in disgust.

"Ugh, what is she doing here? Hey, short bus, don't you have something better to do other than polluting my air? Like whoring yourself out to those Preppies to buy all those dumb anime figurines you have!" Gary said, practically shouting out the last part of his sentence for anyone nearby to hear... At least they would have if Trisha hadn't starting screaming after Gary uttered the word, "whoring".

I covered my ears and yelled:

"Trisha! Gary! CUT IT OUT! GEEZE!"

Trisha stopped with the screaming, but Gary was more than happy to continue talking.

"Why do I have to quit talking? I didn't do anything, I just asked a question, come oooonnnnn Jenny," Gary visibly pouted, as if he thought he could guilt trip me or something. I wasn't having any of it. Instead, I turned back to Trisha.

"Lemme guess, you were gonna warn me about your buddies jumping me near Shop class, am I right?" I folded my arms, tilting my head quizzically at her.

She seemed amazed by the fact that I was already aware.

"Uh... Yeah? How'd you know?"

"Because I literally just beat them all up. Again. Look."

I turned and pointed in the direction of Shop Class, and the first thing I noticed was Wade still being stuck in the trash can. He'd seemingly given up on trying to get out of it, pitifully looking down and probably waiting for one of his friends to pull him out. But instead of it being one of his friends, it would end up being Trisha.

I turned back to her.

"The rest of the boys are inside the Shop area, so have fun dragging them all out of there I guess..." Suddenly, a realization came to me, "Trisha... How come you only just now tried to warn me about what the Bullies were planning? Seems like a weird coincidence that you got here right after it all went down..."

Trisha suddenly appeared a bit nervous, but before she could speak, Gary decided to butt in again.

"Yeah... What is it, Trisha? Upset that my good pal Jenny here caught onto your act? C'mon, answer you whore!" He prodded Trisha in the shoulder, which only seemed to make her even more nervous than she already was. It was also clear that Gary's slut shaming was also getting to her, and it drew a line with me that I knew I had to put a stop to.

"Gary, knock it off, seriously."

Gary groaned and turned away.

"Finnneeee..." He turned his head briefly to talk over his shoulder, "Trisha should explain herself though. I'm telling you Jen, she might be hiding something."

"I do have an explanation actually Gary! So shut your gap-toothed, wannabe know-it-all ass up!"

I was at my limit. Without an ounce of hesitation, I grabbed the two of them and knocked their heads together.

"Yow! What was that for?"

"Ow, Jenny, stop! My old therapist told me I have enough brain damage!"

"Just. Talk. Trisha! And shut up, Gary!"

Gary, for once, seemed to be able to stay quiet as Trisha began explaining herself.

"Ok, so I got in trouble for drawing during Algebra 3 class, so I got sent to lunch detention where Russell and my brother Trent were because of that whole thing from yesterday. Well... the teacher watching over us, Mr. Burton stepped out for a little bit, so we all started talking and stuff. I mentioned to Trent about how you ended up as my roommate, and he told me about how Davis planned to lure and jump you at the area around Shop class during lunch with the rest of the guys. I tried to sneak out to warn you, but Mr. Burton came back, and he wouldn't let me leave even though I'd already finished my lunch. But then Russell got mad about something, and so got Burton was distracted by that. So here I am!"

Huh, yeah I guess that made sense. So Trent is her brother then? I thought those two looked a bit similar. I guess that explains why she even hung out with those bozos.

"You really expect us to believe that? Don't be so gullible Jen, she's clearly trying to cover her ass."

"Gary!"

"What?"

"I'm telling the truth! Seriously!"

"I know! Ugh, just... just go pick up your buddies off the pavement and leave!" I pointed towards the Shop area, then looked over to Gary, "We need to talk..."

Trisha seemed more than happy to leave, even giving Gary a quick glare as she jogged away towards Wade. I gave Gary a glare of my own, but just like with Trisha's, it didn't seem to bother him much.

"Gary, what the hell was that?"

"Whatever do you mean, Jane? I'm just looking out for you. You'd do the same for me, wouldn't you?" he tilted his head, his face looking almost like a whipped dog. It didn't make him look all that sympathetic, though. I actually wanted to slug him in the face even more than I previously did.

I shook my head, still looking up at him angrily.

"Gary, she's my roommate. I can't just start beef with the girl i'm sharing a room with," I responded, trying to relax a bit. Gary was making that a bit hard though, what with him making probably the most punchable face possible at the moment. He was really bad at trying to look innocent.

He let out a defeated "tsk" and folded his arms.

"You really got stuck with her as a roommate? You have my pity, Jane, seriously... But fine, I won't agitate her, in fact... she could probably be a bit useful to us later... As long as you can stomach being nice to that spastic attention whore..."

That last bit of his sentence before the insult gave me a bit of pause. Useful? What for?

"Useful?" I asked, "For what? You make it sound like you're planning something big. Mind tellin' me about it?"

A knowing smile stretched across his face. I'd been a bit preoccupied with... uh, "admiring" it that him touching me on the shoulder as he guided me down the steps and towards the direction of the parking lot hadn't registered at all.

"Yes, useful. I can't say much since i'm still working out the details, but there's no need to worry your little head about all that... Now, c'mon, how's about we work on your aim with that slingshot you've got there? I know just the perfect place to practice..."