The One Where It's The Other Way Around
Chapter One: Our Story Begins
Patrick pulled up to the red light in his 1973 Plymouth Duster, the radio blasting classic Joan Jett singing about her bad reputation. Glancing out his passenger window he saw a convertible filled with some fellow seniors - trendy types who lived to look hip but in Patrick's opinion only succeeded in looking vain. They were looking scornfully back at him, their blank faces taking in his muddy brown car complete with rust spots.
Patrick knew he was the antithesis of everything they believed in. They wore only the best labels in fashion that their parents could afford - Prada, Gucci, Ralph Lauren. Patrick leaned more toward the clothing basics - Levi's and white t-shirts. His only deviance into fashion was the pair of Doc Marten boots he wore when he felt like dressing up a bit.
The light turned green and Patrick gunned his car ahead of them and pulled into the Padua High School parking lot, parking his car in one of the last spaces available. Locking up his car he greeted no one as he entered the front doors and made his way to his locker to get his books for class.
* * *
Bianca sat quietly in the chair opposite from Miss Perky, the woman who was to be her new guidance counselor. The counselor seemed a bit weird to Bianca, but relatively harmless. It was Bianca's first day at her new school. The daughter of an Army Captain, she had attended 9 schools in 10 years and was used to the constant changes in her life.
"You should do well here, Bianca," Miss Perky said. "We're probably just like all your other high schools and you should have no problems. I've arranged for someone to show you around the school and help you out. You'll find her just outside our offices - her name is Mandella, and is another senior like yourself."
Having been summarily dismissed, Bianca stood to leave and as she opened the door, she found on the other side another girl - one who looked ready to kill anyone who stood in her way. Bianca tentatively smiled at the girl but got no response other than a raised eyebrow. Obviously this wasn't Mandella, her escort. The girl pushed past Bianca and firmly closed the door behind her, leaving Bianca alone in the front office.
As she left the guidance counselor offices she saw a tall slim girl with long dark hair standing by some lockers and tentatively asked, "Mandella?"
The girl turned and smiled politely at Bianca, "Hi there - you must be Bianca! Welcome to Padua High School!" With a relieved sigh, Bianca smiled back as they began moving down the hallway through the crush of students milling around before first bell.
Mandella tucked a lock of her long black hair behind her ear and stated, "Let me go ahead and fill you in on all of our students, Bianca. We've got representation of all the basics here. Over there you have the popular kids - don't address them unless they talk to you first."
Bianca looked over at some girls huddled by a locker, grooming themselves and gushing over their chosen outfits for the day. Standing nearby was a couple of football players, fooling around in the hopes of receiving attention from the coifed girls. Bianca liked to think of herself as a pretty girl but had never really fallen in with that type of crowd because she moved so much. In the long run she was grateful for that because she had always had the good fortune of meeting genuinely nice people with no obsession about their looks.
As Mandella led Bianca out onto the courtyard she continued showing her more groups, none of which really appealed to Bianca. But she liked Mandella tremendously - she was honest, forthright and seemed really smart.
All of a sudden Bianca spotted a cute boy walking towards them and she stopped walking. Mandella was in mid-sentence and when she noticed Bianca wasn't listening but staring off into space, she followed the line of sight and saw who Bianca was watching.
"I'd forget about that one if I were you," she warned Bianca.
Bianca blinked dreamily but continued to stare. "I pine. I burn. I perish!"
"You have no chance. That's Cameron Stratford - he doesn't date anyone."
"Why not? He's gorgeous. Is he gay or something?"
Mandella looked over at Cameron, the sophomore that every girl from freshman to senior at Padua wanted to date. He was tall and lanky and had a cute smile at accentuated the laugh lines around his sparkling brown eyes. He wasn't dressed to the nines in the latest fashion trends, but you could tell that he cared about his appearance and wanted to look nice.
Next to Cameron stood Joey, another sophomore who was a friend of Cameron's. Mandella wasn't sure why they were friends - they seemed to be opposites in personality. Cameron took life as it came but Mandella knew for a fact that Joey was a sycophant who lived only to climb the social ladder at Padua.
"No, he's not gay. I'll tell you why you have no chance," Mandella replied easily. "Cameron is unattainable because his brother is a freak that doesn't date."
Bianca laughed and broke her gaze away from Cameron long enough to look at Mandella to see if she was joking. "You're kidding, right? Why would that matter?"
Mandella shook her head and said, "In a normal family it wouldn't matter. But it does in that family. Cameron's brother Patrick is a senior here, and for some reason their mom is really strict about their dating - don't ask me why, it seems more than a little weird to me. But basically it's a known fact that the Stratford rule is that Cameron isn't allowed to date until his older brother does - and that just isn't going to happen in our lifetime."
* * *
In Miss Perky's office, Kat Verona was being lectured on her activities from the previous day.
"Kat, you can't go around kicking boys in the groin because they insult you."
"I maintain that he kicked himself in the balls," Kat responded, her chin raised defiantly.
"The point is, Kat, that people here perceive you as...."
"Tempestuous?" Kat supplied helpfully.
"Heinous bitch is the term I hear most often, Kat. You may want to work on that."
Kat stood up and picked up her jacket from the chair. "Are we done, Miss Perky?"
"Absolutely. Scoot! And now that you are back at Padua from your sabbatical - can you at least try to attend classes?"
"No guarantees, Miss Perky, but I'll try."
* * *
Patrick was standing in the courtyard with his friend Michael, discussing of all things William Shakespeare.
"He's only the most prolific and amazing writers of all time, Patrick."
Patrick grinned at his friend and said, "Didn't Chris Marlowe actually write some of Shakespeare's dialogue?"
Michael fell back in a fake heart attack, clutching at his chest. "How can you be so cruel?" he cried. "That's a lie! That stupid Gwyneth Paltrow movie lied!"
Patrick only laughed and took a sip of his tea. He was used to Michael's obsession with William Shakespeare and was surprised his friend wasn't in the drama club. But for some reason Michael felt that attempting to reenact the Bard was to take away from the Bard himself - weird logic, but that was Michael.
Patrick and Michael had been friends for what felt like forever, and at times could complete each other's thoughts. They didn't really spend any time with any other people, but for different reasons. Patrick had been popular for a nanosecond in his freshman year but was suddenly spurned as a pariah - and no one outside the participants knew why. Michael was Patrick's sole friend - and even he didn't know the whole story. Michael only spent time with Patrick for the fact that Patrick was the only person who could tolerate when Michael spoke in Ye Olde English instead of what was considered the "normal" slang of a teenager.
Patrick was about to tease Michael again when out of the corner of his eye he saw a tall blond girl walk by, lighting a cigarette as she moved towards the entrance to the building from the courtyard.
Michael saw her as well and asked, "Who's that?"
"I think that's Kat Verona," Patrick answered.
"The girl that's been gone for the past year? I heard she was in a women's prison for beating up a cop."
Patrick looked back at Michael as Kat left the courtyard completely. "I sincerely doubt she was in prison for that. She's 17."
"Still, I heard she killed a duck with her bare hands and grilled it on a barbecue in her backyard before they hauled her off to jail for beating the cop."
* * *
In the same courtyard, just moments before first bell, Chastity Donner stood with her cohorts, chatting mindlessly about the latest ad she had done for the Padua Herald.
"It's just a small ad for bathing suits, but my agent told me that Victoria's Secret may be calling me soon for a runway show."
Chastity Donner was one of the most popular girls in school. A senior, she was an African American girl with stunning good looks and a bright smile that looked amazing on camera. She came from an affluent family and had always been the Belle of the Ball at Padua High School.
One of Chastity's girlfriends let out a low whistle and urgently whispered, "Virgin alert!"
Chastity turned and saw Cameron Stratford and his friend Joey walking nearby. Flipping her hair over her shoulder, she coyly called out, "Why hello there, gentlemen. Looking good today, I must say."
Joey smiled radiantly at her and Cameron grinned back as well, turning slightly red at the obvious attention from Chastity. He had always thought her beautiful but completely out of his reach for two reasons: she was a senior and his brother was a mutant who didn't date.
* * *
Bianca saw the exchange and muttered, "Ugh, why do guys always like girls like that?"
Mandella laughed and said, "Uh...because they are bred to. Bianca, they're GUYS."
Bianca looked over at Chastity, who was now flirting openly with Cameron nearby.
"Who's that girl?"
"That, my crushed friend, is Chastity Donner. I wish I could say she's a vapid moron, but in truth she's in line to be valedictorian and she's a model. Best of both worlds in that girl."
"A model?" Bianca groaned. "Now I know I have no chance."
"Well, you can at least try to talk to him - I know that Cameron is looking for a French tutor."
Bianca's eyes lit up as the first warning bell rang to coerce students towards their first class of the day. "Really? That's outstanding!"
"You speak French?"
"No, but I'll learn."
Chapter One: Our Story Begins
Patrick pulled up to the red light in his 1973 Plymouth Duster, the radio blasting classic Joan Jett singing about her bad reputation. Glancing out his passenger window he saw a convertible filled with some fellow seniors - trendy types who lived to look hip but in Patrick's opinion only succeeded in looking vain. They were looking scornfully back at him, their blank faces taking in his muddy brown car complete with rust spots.
Patrick knew he was the antithesis of everything they believed in. They wore only the best labels in fashion that their parents could afford - Prada, Gucci, Ralph Lauren. Patrick leaned more toward the clothing basics - Levi's and white t-shirts. His only deviance into fashion was the pair of Doc Marten boots he wore when he felt like dressing up a bit.
The light turned green and Patrick gunned his car ahead of them and pulled into the Padua High School parking lot, parking his car in one of the last spaces available. Locking up his car he greeted no one as he entered the front doors and made his way to his locker to get his books for class.
* * *
Bianca sat quietly in the chair opposite from Miss Perky, the woman who was to be her new guidance counselor. The counselor seemed a bit weird to Bianca, but relatively harmless. It was Bianca's first day at her new school. The daughter of an Army Captain, she had attended 9 schools in 10 years and was used to the constant changes in her life.
"You should do well here, Bianca," Miss Perky said. "We're probably just like all your other high schools and you should have no problems. I've arranged for someone to show you around the school and help you out. You'll find her just outside our offices - her name is Mandella, and is another senior like yourself."
Having been summarily dismissed, Bianca stood to leave and as she opened the door, she found on the other side another girl - one who looked ready to kill anyone who stood in her way. Bianca tentatively smiled at the girl but got no response other than a raised eyebrow. Obviously this wasn't Mandella, her escort. The girl pushed past Bianca and firmly closed the door behind her, leaving Bianca alone in the front office.
As she left the guidance counselor offices she saw a tall slim girl with long dark hair standing by some lockers and tentatively asked, "Mandella?"
The girl turned and smiled politely at Bianca, "Hi there - you must be Bianca! Welcome to Padua High School!" With a relieved sigh, Bianca smiled back as they began moving down the hallway through the crush of students milling around before first bell.
Mandella tucked a lock of her long black hair behind her ear and stated, "Let me go ahead and fill you in on all of our students, Bianca. We've got representation of all the basics here. Over there you have the popular kids - don't address them unless they talk to you first."
Bianca looked over at some girls huddled by a locker, grooming themselves and gushing over their chosen outfits for the day. Standing nearby was a couple of football players, fooling around in the hopes of receiving attention from the coifed girls. Bianca liked to think of herself as a pretty girl but had never really fallen in with that type of crowd because she moved so much. In the long run she was grateful for that because she had always had the good fortune of meeting genuinely nice people with no obsession about their looks.
As Mandella led Bianca out onto the courtyard she continued showing her more groups, none of which really appealed to Bianca. But she liked Mandella tremendously - she was honest, forthright and seemed really smart.
All of a sudden Bianca spotted a cute boy walking towards them and she stopped walking. Mandella was in mid-sentence and when she noticed Bianca wasn't listening but staring off into space, she followed the line of sight and saw who Bianca was watching.
"I'd forget about that one if I were you," she warned Bianca.
Bianca blinked dreamily but continued to stare. "I pine. I burn. I perish!"
"You have no chance. That's Cameron Stratford - he doesn't date anyone."
"Why not? He's gorgeous. Is he gay or something?"
Mandella looked over at Cameron, the sophomore that every girl from freshman to senior at Padua wanted to date. He was tall and lanky and had a cute smile at accentuated the laugh lines around his sparkling brown eyes. He wasn't dressed to the nines in the latest fashion trends, but you could tell that he cared about his appearance and wanted to look nice.
Next to Cameron stood Joey, another sophomore who was a friend of Cameron's. Mandella wasn't sure why they were friends - they seemed to be opposites in personality. Cameron took life as it came but Mandella knew for a fact that Joey was a sycophant who lived only to climb the social ladder at Padua.
"No, he's not gay. I'll tell you why you have no chance," Mandella replied easily. "Cameron is unattainable because his brother is a freak that doesn't date."
Bianca laughed and broke her gaze away from Cameron long enough to look at Mandella to see if she was joking. "You're kidding, right? Why would that matter?"
Mandella shook her head and said, "In a normal family it wouldn't matter. But it does in that family. Cameron's brother Patrick is a senior here, and for some reason their mom is really strict about their dating - don't ask me why, it seems more than a little weird to me. But basically it's a known fact that the Stratford rule is that Cameron isn't allowed to date until his older brother does - and that just isn't going to happen in our lifetime."
* * *
In Miss Perky's office, Kat Verona was being lectured on her activities from the previous day.
"Kat, you can't go around kicking boys in the groin because they insult you."
"I maintain that he kicked himself in the balls," Kat responded, her chin raised defiantly.
"The point is, Kat, that people here perceive you as...."
"Tempestuous?" Kat supplied helpfully.
"Heinous bitch is the term I hear most often, Kat. You may want to work on that."
Kat stood up and picked up her jacket from the chair. "Are we done, Miss Perky?"
"Absolutely. Scoot! And now that you are back at Padua from your sabbatical - can you at least try to attend classes?"
"No guarantees, Miss Perky, but I'll try."
* * *
Patrick was standing in the courtyard with his friend Michael, discussing of all things William Shakespeare.
"He's only the most prolific and amazing writers of all time, Patrick."
Patrick grinned at his friend and said, "Didn't Chris Marlowe actually write some of Shakespeare's dialogue?"
Michael fell back in a fake heart attack, clutching at his chest. "How can you be so cruel?" he cried. "That's a lie! That stupid Gwyneth Paltrow movie lied!"
Patrick only laughed and took a sip of his tea. He was used to Michael's obsession with William Shakespeare and was surprised his friend wasn't in the drama club. But for some reason Michael felt that attempting to reenact the Bard was to take away from the Bard himself - weird logic, but that was Michael.
Patrick and Michael had been friends for what felt like forever, and at times could complete each other's thoughts. They didn't really spend any time with any other people, but for different reasons. Patrick had been popular for a nanosecond in his freshman year but was suddenly spurned as a pariah - and no one outside the participants knew why. Michael was Patrick's sole friend - and even he didn't know the whole story. Michael only spent time with Patrick for the fact that Patrick was the only person who could tolerate when Michael spoke in Ye Olde English instead of what was considered the "normal" slang of a teenager.
Patrick was about to tease Michael again when out of the corner of his eye he saw a tall blond girl walk by, lighting a cigarette as she moved towards the entrance to the building from the courtyard.
Michael saw her as well and asked, "Who's that?"
"I think that's Kat Verona," Patrick answered.
"The girl that's been gone for the past year? I heard she was in a women's prison for beating up a cop."
Patrick looked back at Michael as Kat left the courtyard completely. "I sincerely doubt she was in prison for that. She's 17."
"Still, I heard she killed a duck with her bare hands and grilled it on a barbecue in her backyard before they hauled her off to jail for beating the cop."
* * *
In the same courtyard, just moments before first bell, Chastity Donner stood with her cohorts, chatting mindlessly about the latest ad she had done for the Padua Herald.
"It's just a small ad for bathing suits, but my agent told me that Victoria's Secret may be calling me soon for a runway show."
Chastity Donner was one of the most popular girls in school. A senior, she was an African American girl with stunning good looks and a bright smile that looked amazing on camera. She came from an affluent family and had always been the Belle of the Ball at Padua High School.
One of Chastity's girlfriends let out a low whistle and urgently whispered, "Virgin alert!"
Chastity turned and saw Cameron Stratford and his friend Joey walking nearby. Flipping her hair over her shoulder, she coyly called out, "Why hello there, gentlemen. Looking good today, I must say."
Joey smiled radiantly at her and Cameron grinned back as well, turning slightly red at the obvious attention from Chastity. He had always thought her beautiful but completely out of his reach for two reasons: she was a senior and his brother was a mutant who didn't date.
* * *
Bianca saw the exchange and muttered, "Ugh, why do guys always like girls like that?"
Mandella laughed and said, "Uh...because they are bred to. Bianca, they're GUYS."
Bianca looked over at Chastity, who was now flirting openly with Cameron nearby.
"Who's that girl?"
"That, my crushed friend, is Chastity Donner. I wish I could say she's a vapid moron, but in truth she's in line to be valedictorian and she's a model. Best of both worlds in that girl."
"A model?" Bianca groaned. "Now I know I have no chance."
"Well, you can at least try to talk to him - I know that Cameron is looking for a French tutor."
Bianca's eyes lit up as the first warning bell rang to coerce students towards their first class of the day. "Really? That's outstanding!"
"You speak French?"
"No, but I'll learn."
