Chapter 2

One thing that I had learned since spending a full twenty four hours in Bullworth Academy, is how little each and every one of us matters. The only person who's absence would arguably be noticed is a boy named 'Jimmy Hopkins' or something along those lines. From what I've heard about him, he's the king of hell. According to Beatrice, whom I had forced to give me the run down on this place, he was the one that Gary tried to screw over last year.

Beatrice and I were sat on the steps that lead up to the school. Despite it only being September, there was an unmistakable chill in the air which made me ball up my fists and puff hot air into them, acting as temporary warmth. "Beatrice, why did that Gary kid get back in if he tried to take over the school? Surely they wouldn't just re-enrol someone after they almost took the whole place down?"

She made a thinking sound, and pushed her glasses up before looking around to see if anyone was there and lowering her voice to just above a whisper. "You'd be surprised at some of the people at this school, even the teachers. They say it was because of his ADD, and that he's okay now he's been to Happy Volts and is taking his medication again. That's a load of baloney if you ask me. His family didn't want to have to deal with that little sociopath any more, so they persuaded the school to let him stay." Beatrice spat out quickly, looking around nervously after her little rant.

I thought about what she had said for a few seconds. "Surely if he got put into a mental hospital, it wasn't really his fault? The kid was obviously messed up in the head, right?"

Beatrice snorted unattractively, "Please, Gabrielle. He might not right in the head, but he knows what he's doing. Trust me, you don't want to start feeling sorry for him. Just know that everything that Gary Smith has done, and everything he will do is planned to perfection."

And with that, Beatrice hurried off when she was called by a fat kid with his zipper undone. It was currently lunch, and I still had no one to be with. Beatrice had asked me to come to the library with her and her friends, but I certainly didn't want to get the reputation of a nerd, so I politely declined. After sitting out in the cold became too much, I headed inside to try and salvage something edible for lunch. The cafeteria was like a zoo. Tall boys in white shirts, with pimples on their faces were stuffing who I knew was the nerds into bins; the Jock type boys were arm wrestling and the rest of the kids were throwing food around.

Dodging a few flying bananas, I managed to get an apple and escape the zoo. Whilst rushing to make my way out, I walked into someone. Full speed. Both of us stumbled back, and I was just about to lay into this guy about being more careful when I saw that he looked quite harmless and scared. He had short brown hair, was slightly tanned and was wearing the school jumper, with a pink shirt.

"S-sorry… I didn't see you there," he stuttered, and it was actually pretty cute.

I chuckled, "Don't worry about it. What's your name?"

He smiled warmly, and dusted himself off before stretching his hand out to me. "Pete Kowalski." I took his hand and shook it gently, with hope that I may had found someone that wasn't either a complete nerd, or a psychopath.

"Gabrielle Dalton."

I started walking, and as I suspected Pete followed, our footsteps the only sound in the silent hallway. "So you're the new girl, huh?" He announced, more as a statement than a question. I was trying to find a bottle of water that I had put in my locker the day before, even though it would probably be stale by now.

"Indeed. Hey Pete, do you have a bottle of water or something? Kinda dying of dehydration over here." I asked, slamming my locker shut. Pete nodded and pulled a bottle out of his locker, which just so happened to be a few lockers down from mine.

Wandering around for a while lead Pete and I to the library, where we planned to spend the remainder of lunch studying. And all was going well until a certain condescending voice could be heard, and at that point I knew whatever chance of a quiet half an hour we had was gone. "Aren't you two ladies cute together!" Gary announced, now standing at the front of our table.

"Leave us alone, Gary." Pete mumbled, though seeming slightly nervous.

Gary smirked maliciously, "Petey. As glad as I am that you've finally hit puberty, and I mean I'm really happy for you. I was getting quite concerned. Could you try and control your mood swings? I'm feeling quite victimised here. I just wanted to catch up with Gabby, is that too much to ask? Here, I thought her and I were becoming friends!"

I didn't miss a beat. "Well you thought wrong."

He feigned hurt, placing a dramatic hand over his chest and screwing his eyes shut. "I am truly crushed. Although, I would like to talk to you about something. So off you go, femme-boy." Pete gave me an apologetic look, before gathering his stuff and leaving. All whilst Gary just sat facing me, a grin on his face the entire time.

"Well?" I asked.

"I see you've settled in nicely, new girl." Gary said, his voice laced with something I couldn't quite place my finger on. The way he spoke to Pete, the way he completely belittled him made me realise that what Beatrice said about him was true. He was a complete, total utter sociopath, someone whom I wanted nothing to do with.

I sighed, "I'm not here for a welcome to Bullworth speech, so is that all? Can you go kick some puppies instead or something?"

"Hostility will get you nowhere, Gabby. Actually, I'm here because I require your assistance. You seem to be a relatively intelligent girl, not as intelligent as I am, of course. But you just about pip Jimmy, so I'll give you a chance." Gary remarked, swinging back on his chair.

"I'm flattered. I have no wish to help you, Gary. I'm not getting caught up in any of the psychotic shit you like to do." I explained, offering him a sweet smile at the end that only caused his smirk to widen. Almost like I was playing into his game perfectly, the only bad thing being that I didn't know how not to.

Gary chuckled, standing up and coming closer to where I was sat. "Well, Gabby. It looks like the only friends you've made in the past two days are Beatrice, the nerdiest girl in school who happens to be covered in cold-sores; femme-boy, and me. To be honest, I think I'm probably your best bet at becoming someone in this school. So what'dya say, huh?"

I came to a realisation that there was no way he could have known about my friendship with Beatrice, seeing as I had only spoken to her once. "Wait, how do you know that I'm friends with Beatrice?"

"I see everything, I hear everything, I know everything. I'm also liking the way you tried to stand up for me, it was very-" He explained, before I interrupted him.

"Shut the fuck up." I growled, slamming my book shut and standing up. "What do you even need 'assistance' with?" I asked, putting air quotations on the word. Gary grinned and started to walk off, beckoning for me to follow with a flick of his wrist. I sighed and crossed my arms over my chest, trying to stop the bitter chill of the air from reaching me completely.

Gary eventually took me to the boys dorm, but just when he was about to enter I paused. "I don't know if you've realised this, but I'm a girl. You know, I don't have a penis and all? I'm not going in there to be harassed by a load of sexually frustrated sixteen year olds who have never seen a pair of boobs before!" I said just loud enough for him to hear.

He rolled his eyes in response, "It's lesson time. No one's here. Now will you hurry up? I'm on a tight schedule."

I snorted, "Tight schedule my ass." but nevertheless, I followed him into the boys dorm. It was run down, and smelled vaguely of dirty socks. Much different to the girls dorm, but it did have video games and a vending machine, a plus side. I saw Gary enter what I assumed to be his room, so I followed.

To my surprise, his room was quite neat. Two beds housed the room, both with black sheets on, and a few posters scattering the wall above them. Gary sat at his desk, before spinning round on the chair to where I was standing. Deciding it was far too much effort to stand, I lay down flat on my back on Gary's bed. "What are you doing?" he asked, but I could hear a slight flicker of humour to his voice.

"Lying down. Now get talking, Hitler. I'm on a tight schedule." I mocked, before sitting up and leaning my back against the wall.

There was a moments silence before he spoke, "I'm- I mean, we're going to take down the jocks."

"The jocks? You mean the big bastards that'll kick your ass if you even step foot on the field? Are you insane?" I asked in astonishment. Perhaps this guy really was as crazy as everyone said he was. In theory, wasn't this the same thing he did last year?

"Uh-huh! Now listen, I need you to befriend Mandy. You know, the girl all of the jocks masturbate over after football practise? Usually wears the cheer-leading outfit? You get the picture. Anyway, I need you to get some real dirt on her. I'm talking, stuff that she'd take to the grave to prevent anyone knowing." He explained, but it was all said in such an aggressive manor, it left no room for argument.

I pulled a bland face, "Why the hell would someone like that be friends with someone like me? Plus, how will me getting shit on her affect the jocks at all?"

Gary rolled his eyes. "Isn't it obvious? She's their queen. If we take her down, they'll go down with her. And to be honest, she's sucked all of their dicks anyway, so if that got out it'd be horrendous."

"Why do I have to do it? Why not make some other girl do it." I complained.

He shrugged, "New girl, new chances. Why shouldn't I get the new psycho girl to do my dirty work for me?"

"Psycho, me? I'm not the one on medication, pal."

Gary's face darkened, "Watch your mouth, Gabby."

Without realising how sexual it sounded, I replied without thinking. "Make me." which was quite possibly, the minute where everything turned to shit.

Gary's face lit up like a Christmas tree, and he started at me more intently. "Don't tempt me." he replied, his voice lowered dangerously, and suddenly the room became a lot warmer than it was before. "Sexual tension so thick you could cut it with a butter-knife." he muttered, still staring at me creepily.

"Shut up, Gary."

After a while I finally left, but I had a strong feeling of dread in my stomach. I should have listened to Beatrice when she told me to stay away from that psycho. Of course, he hadn't done anything terrible to me, and he was quite attractive, but I knew he'd fuck me over at some point. I liked to class myself as a headstrong girl. So I don't think that playing mind games with the school sociopath would be awful, would it?

And this, my friends, is the story of how Gary Smith and I caused the ultimate downfall of Bullworth. Only at this point, I didn't know quite what I was getting into.