Bumlet's POV

There are several disgusting things in the world. Truly disgusting things. That one plant in the rain forest that smells like rotten meat. Having to hear your parents have sex when they think you're asleep. Kevin Federline. But nothing compares to the locker room at Joseph Pulitzer High School.

The true floor hasn't been seen in decades, it's covered by a green, spongy layer of mold. Actually, to call it green is giving it far too much credit. Green, gray, brown and black have formed an alliance to create the perfect, most repugnant color. To top it off, there's bacteria, both kinds of lice and, I'm fairly certain, several STDs running rampant. The floor is constantly wet for reasons I don't want to know.

Back in the eighties, it's told, a biology class took some samples as a joke and discovered ringworm. Ringworm. Plus, a whole manner of other unpronounceable nasties. Authorities were called in but the health inspector left with a brand new DeLorean. Our school has no idea what to do with its budget other than paying off officials to keep it operating.

If that doesn't turn you off, the smell will. Mold, mildew, sweat, testosterone, garbage and rancid milk all in a nice little hodge-podge of smelliness. The lighting is fluorescent, dim and buzzing.

That, my friends, that cesspool of filth is where we lay our scene.

Who am I? Bernardo Romero Tito Mendoza. Because of the increasingly difficulty of writing out my name (and ignoring West Side Story references), I simply go by Bumlets. Where the moniker came from, I have no idea but I've been called that since second grade.

Despite the fact that I'm Argentinean in origin, I can't speak a word of Spanish. My Spanish teacher really hates that about me, which is why she still insists on giving me "native speaker" tests rather than the ones the rest of the class gets. Thus, I'm failing. I just want to go to her 'okay, my family is from Brooklyn, not actual Argentina.' But I digress. My woes over my origin are not what this story is about.

I'm part of a group in school known as "the forgotten." The other kids don't hate us, don't make fun of us. They just don't realize that we're there. At good 'ol JPHS, there's a bit of a hierarchy here. Not wealth, of course, we're all poor inner-city kids. It's a ladder of popularity. The Populars are chosen by ways unbeknownst to any of us on the lower regions. Personally, I labor under the belief that God is somehow involved because, the way I see it, there's no other way to figure it out. Like David Jacobs. One day he was this quiet, Jewish kid who all but lived in the library and the next, he was knobbing at booze-fests and turning down dates from cheerleaders.

We're not a large group but, then again, we're not a large school. There's me, of course. Then Noah Allerdyce, "the stoner" who we call Pie Eater (although not having anything to do with pie; long story), Ben Lee, the reject from the track team and unsung star of the swim team who's ironically named Swifty. Itey the Guido, the most Italian boy you'd ever meet except maybe Anthony Higgins. His actual name is Giuseppe Spinelli so you see why everyone calls him Itey. Then Jake and Shawnee. Jake is Jake and Shawnee is Snoddy. One is never without the other. It's never just Jake and it's never jut Snoddy. It's always Jake and Snoddy. Jake isn't actually Jake's name, though. Long story there too.

To call us friends is a bit of an overstatement. I prefer the term 'acquaintances by convenience.' We gave each other nicknames but that's about it. We sit at lunch together but we don't talk. All we have in common is that we have no friends. That was why it was surprising when Itey came up to our spot by the vending machines and did the unthinkable.

"Hey."

He spoke to us.

It was a strange phenomenon. Ridiculously strange and I felt like that one word was going to change everything for the better. That was even stranger because I am a very 'half-empty' type of guy. But I could almost sense a change in the wind. In a manner of speaking since there wasn't even a breeze today.

And I was right but that's coming later. Today, I just asked Itey why he was talking. Not initiating conversation but talking period because, up until that one word, I thought he was either mute or unable to grasp the English language.

He shrugged. "It's always too quiet here."

"It's true," Swifty put in. "I always feel like I'm at a funeral when I'm here."

It was out in the open now. A great big Easter basket of truth had plopped itself into the center of our group. Jelly beans with the word 'dorks' written on it in bold print. Chocolate bunnies who scolded us. Okay, I think I was just hungry.

Snoddy was chewing gum, blowing a bubble. The pink sugar stretched, brushing the tip of his nose. When it popped, it was like a cosmic Prince Phillip kissing us collectively and waking us up.

"I can't speak a word of Spanish." I don't know why I said it but it seemed to do something because we spent the next twenty minutes discussing our heritages.

By the end of lunch, though, we thoroughly exhausted the topic and were back where we started. But it was different, still. We knew things now. Jake was from London (boy had never talked so we couldn't catch the accent) while Snoddy was as Irish as a leprechaun. Pie is, well actually, Pie didn't say anything. Just listened and gave noncommittal nods of his head. But there was the ethnic medley of Swifty, me and Itey. Still, we had nothing left to talk about.

Then, salvation! Cutting through the air like a hummingbird or…something less fruity, the bell rang.

"Literally saved by the bell," Jake chuckled.

And so we went our separate ways feeling different. Not better, but different.

You're probably wondering where the locker room comes in but that too comes later.

--

Swifty's POV

I have spent roughly one third of my life in the water. I love it. Born in Frisco, spent nearly every day leaving the Bay City to go to the sound and swim despite the pollution. I feel much more at home in the water than I do one land. That is why I can't figure out how I was ever on the track team. I'm a complete spaz and I hate to run. Even walking at a leisurely pace is too much most of the time.

But I love it when it's swim season. I'm still forgotten but I'm in the water and so it doesn't matter. I just get really into it. And I'm good. At our last meet, Nick Meyers (one on the high end of the popularity spectrum with the IQ of an avocado) told me I was awesome. Awesome. But out of the water, I disappear so today after practice, I nearly had a coronary when I heard someone call my name.

"Hey, Swifty."

Bumlets sat on the bleachers amidst the kickboards and lane dividers. I was dripping wet and in a Speedo and would have felt self-conscious if I wasn't so shocked.

"What are you doing here?"

"I hear chlorine clears your pores."

I laughed. "No, really. Why are you here?"

Bumlets shrugged. "Nothing better to do. Martinez gave me detention again so I was without a ride. Plus, I hear that these locker rooms are worse than the other ones and I'd like to investigate that."

He got down off of the bleachers and together we went into the locker room. I felt strange because I'm used to walking around by myself. I haven't had a friend since I moved here. Not that Bumlets is really my friend, I mean it completely theoretically.

In the locker room, the rumors are true, it's worse. Take the regular locker room and add seventeen varieties of algae on the walls and, I swear, aquatic life living in the puddles and you have the place where I spend most of my time.

After I shower, I have to wait until it's free, I stood in front of my locker. Bumlets was claiming to wait for me outside so I figured I should hurry. Nick Meyers and Louie Ballat were chatting it up in front of my locker about some party they went to last weekend. I could catch snatches of the words 'so wasted' and 'can't believe it' and an overuse of the word 'dude.' I could say something but they wouldn't hear me. Eventually they decided that it wasn't wise to stand for so long in only their towels and dispersed to get changed. I simply threw my clothes on and left.

"You really do take your sweet time everywhere," Bumlets said the moment I was out.

"There was a roadblock," I explained and then changed my tune. "Why'd you wait for me?"

"I told you. Martinez, detention."

"But why? You could have just waited at the bus stop."

Bumlets paused and rushed a hand through his hair. I felt immediately envious. His hair is like an 'after' shot from a Head & Shoulders commercial. I tugged self-consciously on my damp, brown locks.

"I don't know," he conceded. "I guess it's because we kind of bonded today."

"We did, didn't we?"

We silently left the warm humidity of the pool and down the gravel walk to the front of the school. It wasn't cold but considering where we had just come from and add in my damp hair, I was shivering.

"Maybe we should do that more often," I opined.

"Do what?"

"Talk and all that. I mean, who else are we going to talk to?"

He shrugged. "Dunno. But it sounds alright, I guess."

"There's enough of us for a legitimate group."

Bumlets nodded again and we found ourselves at the bus stop. I knew I had to catch a bus but I wasn't entirely sure about him.

"You take the bus?" he asked me.

"Yeah."

"Me too."

That was how we ended up riding home together. What was strange is that, on our way, I found myself unable to shut up. We talked everything: music, movies, TV, parents, families, sports, video games, pie, cake, animals. I was talking so much that I didn't even realize that we had come to his stop.

Bumlets got up to go, gave me a 'catch you later' and headed to the front. As he turned to go down the stairs, he gave me a smile.

And, for some reason, my stomach flipped.

--

Jake's POV

My name is Jake. Alright, it really isn't but that's what everyone calls me. It's because of those blasted Animorphs books. I'm obsessed. My actual name is Darren Duncan so you can see why I prefer Jake. People just started calling me Jake because I'm probably the only kid in high school who still reads them. Well, I like the books and I missed out on them in my childhood.

But that's beside the point. It's not like anyone really makes fun of me for it. They just don't talk to me. Some girls come skirting by because they like my accent but that's about it. When I stopped paying them mind, they ignored me too.

It's not my fault; I'm happily ensconced in a relationship, thank you very much. Shawnee Flannery. I met him the first day I moved here and we've been going out pretty much since then. He just gets me, strange as that. And he buys me the books I'm missing and, for that, I love him.

Snoddy and I started sitting with the other forgotten ones because we really didn't want to come out to the entire school and there's safety in anonymity. However, sometimes I wish it was just me and him or that we lived in a more accepting society where I could indulge in filthy public displays of affection with him. But I can't.

Life also deals me an unfair card due to the fact that I have gym. I hate gym. I'm alright at sports but, then again, I'm alright in everything. Alright in school, alright at sports, etc. Not good but not bad. Average. I blend in. It would be nice if Snoddy were in my period because seeing him in running shorts would not be a bad thing but he already took gym.

Fortunately, the Big Buddha smiled beatifically (I assume) down on me today for it's raining and we can't go outside. But even that is bittersweet because the gym is being fumigated and the health classroom has asbestos in the walls. Thus, we're confined to the locker room.

Remember that bit in The Goonies where they're under the country club and all of the pipes are going off and everyone's getting soaked? Well, that is what being in the locker room reminds me of. Don't ask me why but it does. Everyone's talking up a storm except for me.

Until I noticed another wallflower in the room. Another huddled mass of flesh sitting by himself in a particularly dark, damp corner. I spot a weird hat and a sweater vest. I remember seeing one person in our group at lunch with them. It's Pie!

Halleluiah! I didn't know if our lunchtime bonding moved into the real world but I suppose that it was time to find out.

I carefully made my way across the room to where he sat and cleared my throat. It was too dry. Strange considering the moisture level of where I was currently. I coughed and tried again.

"Hey."

That was my grand introduction.

Pie was sitting on the floor (gag me) with his knees drawn up to his chest. I figured that he didn't see me. He looked kind of spacey but, then again, he always did. I haven't known him to ever utter a word. And everyone thought that Itey was mute.

I waited for a bit and just when I was about to say 'sod it' and cut class to find Snoddy, I got an answer.

"Hey, back."

Victory! "What are you doing?"

"I dunno. Sitting." Pie gave me a look. "Why?"

Because I'm Jake and I want to stalk you. Not true, of course, but it would have been a hell of a conversation starter. I just smiled at him in what I hoped was a friendly manner.

"Mind if I join you?" I asked, against my better judgment. I wanted to graduate this bloody school free of the plague, thank you very much.

"I don't care. Free country."

I was somewhat relieved. Even though I had The Pretender in my backpack all ready for me to read (truth be told, Tobias is my favorite character and not actually Jake), I decided to sit and talk to Pie. I mean, I had already committed to it anyway.

I picked a less-moldy spot on the floor (no easy feat) and plopped down.

"Hey, I like your hat," I said, trying to make conversation.

"What about it?"

Well, besides the fact that it's vomit orange and shit brown, has three tassels and appeared to be eating his head, nothing at all! Actually, I had to give him something. I'd never wear such an atrocious thing but Pie really didn't seem to care.

"It's nice."

"Sure."

I was surprised that he saw through my flimsy façade. I mean, he was completely zonked out all of the time, it appeared. We hung out for a while. Occasionally, Pie would look up at me, surprised. Surprised that I was sitting there, surprised that I was talking to him, surprised that I was British. I couldn't tell you which.

"How come you never talk?" I queried.

"Nothing to say," he replied.

"You're talking to me."

A slow smile appeared on his face. "Got me. I dunno. I guess it's because there really isn't anyone to talk to. Especially here. I don't want to talk to Jack or Spot or any of them who only care about who's banging who and who got tossed last night."

Quite a speech for a guy I had never known to speak more than four words in succession.

"People think I'm just a loser," Pie continued. "But I had no friends by choice. Right now, I'm hanging out with the people I want to hang out with."

I realized that he was including me in these 'people.'

"Us? I wouldn't exactly call a conversation at lunch hanging out," I pointed out.

"It's a start," he said sagely.

And I realized another thing. He got it. The stoner got it. I gave Pie a significant look. His face was puffed out a little, maybe from unshed tears? I shouldn't go around making assumptions but it gave me some questions. Yesterday, when we were talking about our families, he hadn't said a word. Confusing and intriguing. Looking at him, he looked a bit like an owl. A drugged out owl.

"You're an enigma." I laughed.

Pie smiled again. "I suppose so. But I think I now have syphilis."

We both laughed and stood. Per usual, no one was paying attention to us. Jack and Spot actually were in a 'who was banging who' conversation and that made me laugh again.

Pie turned to me and fiddled with his sweater vest. "If I tell you something, will you promise not to freak?"

I shrugged. "Go right ahead. I have a high threshold for strange."

He leaned in and whispered in my ear. "I'm gay."

And I nearly laughed again. Not because of what he told me but because I had thought that Snoddy and me were being blatantly obvious when no one in our screwed little group had even caught on to our coupledom. If he had known, he would have told me without the preface about me promising not to freak.

I held a hand up. "Your secret's safe with me."

"Thanks, Jake."

"No problem."

The bell rang and Pie went for this things. The others whir to life and grab their own belongings and I stood there, remembering my insinuations. Where did I think I was? EastEnders? Pie probably had a normal life and I was imagining things.

Stick to alien books, Duncan.