Alex walked up to the Junior High campus. He had just beaten Super Mario Sunshine last night and nothing and no one was going to get him off this emotional high.
As he opened the door to get inside, he felt a foot under his. It was over. No use to fight. He tripped and dropped all of his books.
Micheal Ryles, or as Alex liked to call him, the biggest idiot on the face of the Earth. No surprise to him when he got his face off the floor to see his grinning face looking down at him.
"Oh sorry," he said in the most insincere voice you could ever imagine, "didn't see you there. Want some help with your books?"
"No thanks," he said coolly. He gathered up his books and kept on going forward.
"Let me get the door for, Alex," Mike said.
Mike held the door open while Alex walked through. He held his hand forward just in time before it hit him in the face at the exact moment Mike let go.
"You need to get some new tricks, Micheal," he said knowing full well he hated to be called Micheal.
Alex walked down the halls of the school to his locker. He passed by Laura Chanson, the girl he loved, or atleast has infattuated with.
"Hello Alex," she said in her sweet voice.
"Hi Laura," he said, less nervously than usual. Sure, she was popular, but she wasn't like those other jerks. She had real confidence, strength, ambition, which he admired. She was beautiful, she was athletic, he wanted her. He loved her short brown hair and deep blue eyes. But he never thought he'd have her. She was too perfect for him. He'd never even had a girlfriend.
Alex went down to his first period, Science. After the lesson, to his surprise, the teacher announced that they would be doing an assignment with a group of 3 or 4 people. Alex hated working in groups. He just sat down while everyone else was walking around getting into groups. He'd just do what he always did, wait for everyone else to get into a group and make the teacher put him in one.
After a few minutes, everyone was sitting down with their groups.
"Everybody in a group?" the teacher asked.
"I'm not," he said.
"No surprise there," said someone behind him.
"Ok Alex, why don't you go to, uh, that group," she said pointing towards a group that included Micheal, Laura, and Micheal's bimbo girlfriend Crystal. Oh great, he thought to himself in a sarcastic tone. I get to work with the two stooges. Well, maybe it won't be so bad, as long as I make sure Micheal and Crystal don't do any of the work, and I have an excuse to stare at Laura. He never really understood why Laura would be friends with them.
He walked to his new group, and on the way he pushed all of the books off the desk of the kid who had made fun of him. But the bell rang just as he sat down and the students started getting out.
"Ok, this is a pretty big assignment and it's due in 3 weeks. We should start working on it tonight," Laura said. "Everyone come over to my house after school."
"No," said Mike. "Come over to mine. It's more better."
"More better? Learn English moron," Alex said.
"Shut up Alex," said Crystal.
"Anyway, wouldn't it be easier just to go to the library," Alex said.
"Ok, there's only one way to do this," Laura said. "We alternate whose house we go to. And, to decide where to go tonight..." She got a piece of paper and ripped it in five pieces. She wrote each of their names and the library on each piece, folded them, and grabbed Mike's baseball cap off his head. She put the paper in the hat, shook it around, and picked a name out. "Well Alex, looks like we're going to your house."
"Great. We get to go to a cardboard box in the McDonald's parking lot," said Mike.
"No Micheal. We're going to my home, not yours."
He told them to come over at 6 o'clock. That gave him enough time to clean up the mess in his house, use a lot of air freshener in the parts of the house that always had a bad smell, and take of of the teddy bears out of his room and into his sister's room.
The group showed up on time. They went to work in Alex's basement. While Crystal, Laura, and Alex discussed the project, Micheal was looking around at his stuff.
"This house sure is small," he said. He noticed that there was a gamecube hooked up to the tv, and and N64 near-by. "Are these the only systems you have?"
"No. I also have Gameboy Advanced, and my computer of course. I guess you could also count my Super Nintendo and my NES."
"Why am I not surprised?"
"What do you mean? Think there's something wrong with nintendo?"
"No, of course not. If you're 6. But personally I prefer Sony."
"Hey, Nintendo has some pretty cool games."
"Like what," he said looking at the game that was in the N64, "Super Mario 64"
"Hey, don't make fun of that game!"
"Why, it's patheticly easy."
"Have you ever played it?"
"No, but I've heard about it."
"Well, let's have a little bet. I'll start a new file for you, and after an hour of playing tell me if you still think it's easy."
He bent down and pressed the on bottun, and all of their lives were about to change forever...