Being the neurotypical only child of two highly intelligent but socially awkward, grossly underpaid, and underemployed Aspie parents with enough advanced degrees between the two of them to choke a horse… sucked.

What sucked even more was that in deciding she wanted to LIVE with these two oblivious individuals, Jolyne had to leave L.A.'s prestigious Harvard-Westlake School and transfer to Merston High as a Senior where they both taught, she'd acquired a pest.

Which sucked.

This morning at 7 a.m., Narancia, her personal private pest, a smelly gawky Junior who could barely read much the less recognize his name in crayon, arrived promptly at the duplex her long-divorced parents shared, the one where Iggy, the family's little black and white French bulldog, had his own private doggie door between the two households as per the joint custody agreement.

To Jolyne's chagrin, Narancia was riding a battered little girl's bicycle which could only be described as… sucky.

The long, frayed length of clothesline towing the equally sucky skateboard trailing behind the sucky bicycle, was also… sucky.

"Yo!" he'd yelled as if driving a brand new Porsche, happily waving the frayed end of the tow rope at Jolyne as she tried pretending she was the last human left on Planet Earth while climbing into the back seat of Dad's battered little white Toyota Camry where she had to share space with a saxophone, a small mountain of graded test papers, and several smelly lab specimens "Need a lift?"

"Oh look, it's your friend." Dr. Kujo, her dad, and Ms. Kujo-Morgandorffer, her mom, chorused flatly from the front seats. They stared at each other realizing that they'd made a funny and laughed – this too, sucked

"What nowwwwwww?" Jolyne foolishly asked Narancia while tossing her backpack into the back seat, where it landed on a vacuum-sealed bag of baby octopuses in formaldehyde, which burst, adding to the general suckiness of Monday.

"Mista's truck died. Wanna ride with me?" If Narancia wasn't so god-damned stupid, he'd be a moron!

"No!" Jolyne snapped, rolling her eyes, as her father, exclaiming, "Oh, good grief!" unfolded his massive frame from the family car and ran for the shop vac while mom tried to scoop the nasty things out of the back seat with a composition book.

Yeah, that sucked, too.

"I spray-painted it orange this morning, just for you!" Narancia said happily, waving something small and squashed in Jolyne's face, "Want some gum? I found this brand new pack in the parking lot of the Circle K last night – Mista ran over it with his truck. It's Fruit Stripes!"

Exclaiming, "Ew, NO!" Jolyne batted the nasty pack of gum out of her face. Mom and dad were now loudly arguing as they slurped tiny embalmed 8-legged corpses out of the back seat with the shop vac. The next-door neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Avdol, stood laughing on their front porch in their bathrobes sipping from steaming cups of coffee... Oh great, even the weirdo across the street, Mr. Polnareff in his wheelchair and tragically 80s hairstyle, was watching her family's latest shitshow from behind his front window curtains!

Narancia, a young man rapidly going NOWHERE, happily offered Jolyne his skateboard with its sticky layer of garish orange Krylon just as an insanely barking bug-eyed Iggy, who escaped when Dad opened the garage door to get the shop vac, pranced past, blasting out one of his trademark big, loud, wet stinkers, making the Avdols laugh so hard they snorted coffee out of their noses.

Suck! Suck! Suck!

Now cropdusted, a gagging Jolyne, a young woman intent on going SOMEWHERE, snatched the rickety skateboard from Narancia's big raw-knuckled hands and whacked him over the head with it before gathering up her reeking book bag and stomping three blocks to school, oblivious to the goofy grin on her personal Biblical grade plague's face as he happily paralleled her on his bedraggled bike, spidery legs pedaling in all directions, ringing the handlebar bell nonstop because he liked the sound.

Thank God Officer Schmidt firmly made the Human Chihuahua put the bike away and not leave it sprawled willy-nilly on the school's front steps!

Which got her through the front door of Merston High ALONE.

By third period, Jolyne was happily working on a joint AP English project with Ghoulia Yelps, who though slow, was one of the brightest kids in the school, and therefore not a waste of Jolyne's time.

Ghoulia Yelps didn't suck; neither did collaborating with her.

Too bad Ghoulia slowly got up and made a snail's pace to the classroom pencil sharpener to sharpen last Friday's broken pencil, leaving the seat next to Jolyne empty.

Plonk.

"Whatcha doin'?" Cue: twitch, fidget, leg-foot bounce, knuckle crack, sweaty nervous honk of a laugh.

Jolyne groaned: her unwanted visitor from Auto Shop had somehow slipped into the room and hijacked Ghoulia's chair –complete with greasy coveralls, a filthy orange bandana, and steel-toed boots. Grinning, he picked up the paper with his blackened hands with their broken, purple nails that the two girls were working on upside down and studied it, fidget-fidget-fidget, "You're doing science. Cool! I suck at science, but I'm great at Auto Shop, drumline, and HVAC."

Fidget fidget, fidgety fidget, bounce-bounce-bounce, gum crack, knuckle crack, blabbity-blabbity-blab-blab-blab… HONK!

Thumb drumming on Ghoulia's desk, Narancia paused mid-blather. Grinning at his own cleverness, Jolyne's messy-haired Romeo reached for a side pocket, the rest of AP English emitting a collective side-eye snicker.

Oh God, he's going for the drumsticks, he's going for the drumsticks— nooooooooo! Jolyne felt herself dying inside as Narancia happily began beating a tattoo in time to his words on the top of Ghoulia's and then her desk, continuing, "Mr. Bucciarati, the principal says he's so proud of the progress I've made this year that he's gonna give me a special certificate nobody else is going to get when we all graduate and a brand new MOP, a Boomjoy, if I want it… HONK! and a job! Wanna hang out at the bowling alley with me after school and sanitize shoes? HONK! They give me all the leftover curly fries and burnt wieners at closing time after I clean their bathrooms – I like curly fries and wieners with ketchup, HONK! but I like 'em better with Ranch and chili cheese dip! I was assistant school janitor last summer for Mr. Morph, I got PAID to clean toilets and gutters! Mr. Morph let me sleep in the broom closet under the big sink and not in my bitchy stepmom and Dad's toolshed because they won't let me in the house. Honk-honk-honk, didyouknowmyfifteenlittlebrothersandsistershavefleas?"

"EWwWWWWWWwwwwWWW!" Jolyne exclaimed, scooting away in horror. Her hands itched for the skateboard she'd left in pieces in the street in front of the parental duplex. Instead, she sat on them to avoid punching him in the nose, the real reason she was now at Merston High.

Mooooooom, she wailed in silent agony. Where are you, and why aren't you throwing this honking grease-pest out of your classroom?

"Hur hur hur!" Ghoulia laughed, on her slo-mo way back from the pencil sharpener. Ghoulia, both genius and zombie, thought Narancia was hysterically funny no matter WHAT he did. Jolyne face-palmed – what the Hell was this dude on, crack? And why would he want her to hang out with him… oh God… no! He just asked me out on a DATE… in front of EVERYBODY! This sucks! This su—

"SCREECH! PUCK HIT ME! I CAN'T BELIEVE SHE HIT ME!"

Sucky day forgotten, Joylne sprinted for the door, with Narancia, Ghoulia, and the rest of AP English right behind her: Marlene Barleycorn and Puck Schmidt were FIGHTING in the hall outside Ms. Morgandorffer's classroom.

Two bitches fighting? Now THAT was entertaining.

Snickering, Jolyne whipped out her phone, admirer forgotten. Hermés and Foo-Foo back in L.A. were gonna LOVE this!