That situation Rocky had to occur last night delved him into a deeper dilemma that he can only tell Casey and April all about. You'll see what I mean in this chapter!
Chapter 2: Secret Problem
By the next morning, Rocky got himself ready for school and as he walks downstairs, he feels completely scared to come back to school after that Spacehook message delivered from Lukas, planning to expose whatever he has to use against him as retaliation for having the dance party shifted to the new pizzeria so that it can be held at his Upper East Side home in Manhattan and he just felt this huge knot in his throat and stomach that if Lukas actually pulls it off, he can imagine every single amount of emotional and mental pain that this rich guy can cause.
The first person that noticed something was wrong with him was his mother as she comes over to her son and ask him, "Rocky-boi, are you okay?"
Rocky turns around and sees his mom right behind him and he wasn't quite sure if he can really share with her what's going on with him and he said, "Yeah, I'm okay."
For some reason, his mom had this vibe that something's going down and she asked, "Are you sure? Anything you wanna talk to me about before you go on to school?"
"No, ma'am." Rocky replied.
Although unconvinced, she wasn't gonna push the situation even further and just decided to put it to the side for now and she said, "All right, son. I'll see you after school then."
"Okay." Rocky said, before taking off as he leaves the house.
As Rocky leaves for school, he seems somewhat scared to go back there, but he knew that this will start badly and has a feeling that things are gonna shift somehow and as he makes his way over, he sees just Casey walking by with his bike and caught up with him and said, "Hey, Casey."
"Sup, Rocky? How goes?" asked Casey, greeting him with a fist-bump.
Rocky lets out a heavy sigh and replied, "I wish things 'goes' fine, dude."
Casey could sense something was up and he replied, "I got your message. What did that rich prince of rotten potatoes do this time?"
Rocky whips out his phone and shows Casey these text messages that were delivered by Lukas and his accomplices about a picture of Rocky as a baby that they found on his Spacehook and used it against him, which proved disturbing for Casey to see and Casey said, "What were they thinking?"
"I don't know how they even know my Spacehook. I didn't know how he has a Spacehook as well." Rocky responded.
"Guys!"
They turned around and sees April catching up with them and she said, "You won't believe what that jerk sent me on my Spacehook!"
She showed them a picture of what appears to look like Casey and April making out in their underwear, although the image looks like it was in someone else's body, but cropped April and Casey's face in it to make it look like it's real and that set Casey off in a big way and said, "What the heck?!"
"And that's not even the half of it; Lukas placed that on his photo album there for his friends to see!" April exclaimed.
It sounds like Lukas is also placing Casey and April on his target list because Lukas believes that because Rocky is associating with them that they're now gonna get in the middle of this humiliation warfare and Casey said, "That doesn't even look like me! What is that guy's problem?!"
"It's because of me. Lukas said he wanted revenge against me for bringing the school dance to my dad's pizzeria and will stop at nothing until he wins. I'm so sorry for putting you guys through this." Rocky replied.
"It's not your fault, Rocky. If anything, Lukas did this and we need to know why." April answered.
"Didn't I already tell you why? It's because he wants revenge against me and he thinks you guys are co-conspirators." Rocky added.
The fact that Lukas would go to that extent made Casey infuriated and said, "If I see this guy's face, the first thing I wanna do is slap him in the face with my hockey stick."
"As much as I would love to see that, you can't do that. Rich kids...they have a way of getting what they want; if you go after them, they'll pull out anything in their manipulation book to make it look like you caused actual harm, then they'll report it and before you know it, you'll be sent to juvie or to prison. They'll have you like a cow being hanged onto a noose." Rocky responded.
"Well, we can't just let him get away with it." Casey argued.
"No, we can't. But what can we do?" asked Rocky.
A couple of minutes go by and as they made their way to school, Rocky was nervous as heck about what's gonna happen the minute they walk in these doors and as they walked in, Lukas and his crew were looking at them while the students were busy with their day and Lukas walked over to Rocky and said, "So...you got my message?"
Rocky ignored what Lukas said and kept walking on with Casey and April, whom they've also ignored Lukas as well, but Lukas refuses to take no for an answer and keeps pestering them and said, "So...April, what's it like to make out with that hockey boy?"
Casey bit his tongue for so long, but from the look on his face that he's ready to pop off at this guy soon as Lukas' annoyance level starts rising up very slowly and April said, "Why don't you just leave us alone?"
"I hope for your sake that Casey didn't give you an STD." Lukas said, mockingly.
That one comment drew the line for Casey and he stopped, angrily turned around and walked towards Lukas and asked, "What did you say, punk?"
"You heard me. I bet you wanted to get inside April's pants before I did, did ya?" asked Lukas, with a cocky smirk on his face.
Casey gritted his teeth and got in his face and said, "You are such a liar!"
"Oh, please. My friends know about this and I'm pretty sure everyone in the school will know about it too...only if you tell Rocky to cancel the dance and bring it to my house in my neighborhood and tell him to admit that he stole my social spotlight." Lukas added.
Casey growls in response to this and said, "You are a sick, sick rich dude."
"I live for manipulation. My parents have money, power and a bunch of lawyers too. I dare you to fight me so that my parents can sue you and your family. You're gonna be like one of those New York City hobos, I guarantee you." Lukas stated.
As much as Casey wanted to punch him so hard, he also knew that if he gave in to Lukas' advances that he'd end up in trouble and so would April and Rocky and he took a deep breath and said, "Dude...I don't have time for you. But don't think that this is over."
Casey walks away and re-joins April and Rocky and sees Irma standing there and April asked, "Good choice to walk away."
"I want to squeeze this guys' throat so hard." Casey said, gritting his teeth.
"See, that's the problem with rich kids. They always think that they're better than everyone else because they got the money, the cars, clothes, material stuff. It's probably because they're trying to this popular kid that everyone likes to be and give losers like us suffering." Irma stated.
"Did you seriously call us losers, Irma?" asked Casey, looking completely offended.
"Just an example, Casey." Irma stated.
Wow...the rivalry between Lukas and Rocky is serious! And Lukas is putting April and Casey on his list! This is gonna be crazy!
