CHAPTER 1
Veer was miserable. He stared at the yellow and red tiled floor of Medley Middle School while walking to his locker on the second floor. Today was his first day of junior high. Many kids were excited about this, but not him. Middle school just meant more bullies to watch out for, more kids to embarrass himself in front of, and worst of all, a grueling gym class every single day.
First, he had to walk to the other side of the school to find the stairs. Veer paid close attention to where he was, for Medley was a huge school, and he didn't want to get lost on the first day of the school year. As he walked, he noticed all the colorful signs posted on the bulletin boards beside classrooms. Some read "Welcome 7TH and 8TH graders!" Others said "We are going to have a fantastic year!"
A huge influx of kids came storming down the once empty hallway like a herd of buffalo. The mere force of them knocked Veer off his feet and he fell to the cold floor. They didn't even bother to move around him, but just trampled right over him. "Bus number 52 has just arrived," the monotone voice of the school secretary boomed through the speakers.
"You could have told me earlier," Veer muttered to himself while getting up and brushing the dirt off his new and now stained collared shirt. His first day of school was already a disaster.
"Aww, a little sevy got a boo-boo!" a voice called from down the hall. Veer looked up to see three eighth-grade boys in ripped jeans and black leather jackets marching toward him. Just the thing to make his day worse: bullies.
"Do you know what today is, punk?" the tallest eighth grader asked him.
"Tuesday?" Veer responded.
"Wrong, idiot. It's Sevy-Bop Day!" With that, the eighth grader smashed him on the head with his fist and walked away laughing.
Veer was slow to recover, rubbing his head to soothe the pain. This day was just getting worse. His first days of school were always bad, but this was a new record: two catastrophes in a matter of minutes.
After slowly collecting his books off the floor, Veer set off once more to find his locker. Soon he reached the stairs and started to climb them one at a time.
As soon as he reached the double doorway, Veer turned left and headed down a hall lined with old rusty lockers. It was just Veer's luck for his locker to be in the only part of the school that wasn't refurbished in the recent renovation. As he approached his locker, the very last one in the huge hall, he dug deep into his pockets and pulled out a tiny piece of paper that contained his lock code. Veer strained to recognize the numbers that were scribbled upon the paper in his messy handwriting. He luckily managed to figure out two of the numbers, but wasn't sure if the third was a 2 or a 3. He'd just have to try both codes to get his locker open. Now how did it go? Turn left to 33, then right all the way around and back to 17, then left again? No that wasn't right. It was the opposite. Right, left, right. Yeah, that was the way. After trying the first code, the locker didn't open. Veer had better luck the second try as the lock clicked loose. But now there was a different problem, the locker was jammed stuck. It took another three attempts before the locker suddenly flew open and Veer fell to the floor. He pushed himself onto his feet and deposited his books in the ancient rusty locker. Now it was time for the beginning-of-school assembly.
After traveling through the hallway and down the stairs, Veer once again heard the nasal monotone voice of the school secretary from the speakers.
It squeaked, "All seventh and eighth graders report to the gymnasium for the beginning-of-school assembly, all seventh and eighth graders report to the gymnasium for the beginning-of-school assembly, thank you."
Suddenly there was a murmur of voices and a soft thumping of feet. It was like in the movies when there was a tiny breeze before a hurricane or tornado. Oh no, not another mad rush of kids like the bus riders! Soon a huge crowd of kids came storming down the hallway toward the gym. But it was different this time; Veer was prepared. As soon as the huge crowd hit him, he started weaving in and out. He still got bumped around, but at least he made it to the gym safely.
Once Veer entered the gym, he witnessed an amazing sight. Hundreds and hundreds of kids were filed into tight lines, with a minuscule path marked with cones cutting through the middle of the square. This was the largest group of kids Veer had ever seen at one place in his entire life. What seemed like an endless line of students was herded into the tiny gym, the teachers being the shepherds. The teachers directed the kids into the compact formations with no room to breathe. Veer was soon packed next to the worst possible people to sit next to, the eighth-grade bullies he had the pleasure of meeting earlier that day.
"Hey, look, Jed, it's that dweeb who didn't know what Sevy-Bop day was." The bully next to him, a stocky lump of an eighth grader named Gavin, laughed into Veer's ear.
"Yeah, that pathetic little coward who we almost knocked out in the hallway." Jed obnoxiously guffawed.
"Don't ever call me a coward," Veer mumbled. It wasn't that he was scared of bullies; he was just annoyed with them.
"What did you say, dweeb?" Jed yanked his collar as if he was trying to choke him. Just as the bully drew his fist back to aim a punch at Veer, a piercing screech echoed throughout the gymnasium.
Everyone immediately covered their ears to shield them from the deafening sound. Suddenly the piercing stopped and everyone looked up to see a tall thin man standing in the middle of the makeshift stage at the front of the gym. "Sorry about that. We're experiencing technical difficulties with the microphones this year." The man's low voice boomed throughout the gym. "Anyway without further ado, I welcome all rising seventh and eighth graders to the Beginning-of-the-Year Assembly. My name is Mr. Thomas and I am the vice principal here at Medley Middle. We would like to start off our program with our new principal, Mr. Harrison."
There was a short round of applause after the vice principal's talk. Suddenly, a burst of laughter sounded as a short stocky bald man waddled up onto the stage. Sticking out from the back of his pants was a long tail of toilet paper dragging on the floor. "Excuse me, silence please, silence," the principal stated in a thick New York accent to interrupt the laughter. Still, stifled giggles were heard throughout the gym. Is this a joke? Veer thought to himself. But soon he learned it wasn't, as the vice principal bent down and whispered into the principal's ear. Veer couldn't help laughing to himself as he watched the principal's face turn from pale to beet red. The principal stood up on his toes to reach the microphone and stated in an embarrassed voice, "I have some matters to attend to, but I will be back shortly." With that, the principal did the closest thing to sprinting offstage that a stocky fifty-year-old could do.
The principal was back in less than thirty seconds, panting crazily with beads of sweat erupting from his forehead. His shoulders drooped as he forced his tiny legs up the stairs and onto the stage. "Students and teachers, I am Douglas Harrison, your new school principal. As the new principal, I have decided to host Medley Middle School's first annual Medley of Talents Competition." The principal paused, expecting applause, yet he was only met with sarcastic...
