I love writing this story.

Chapter 2:

I'm drumming my hands on the table, tapping out a rhythm. I love drumming, did I mention that? Well, I sort of do play drums for our band.

Oh—let me tell you about our band. Over the last two years, it's changed some. It used to be called… I forgot, something about school… and now it's called Armageddon. Don't worry. At first I had no idea what it meant either. Cody told me it meant basically, the end of the world, but for us, it's not in any religious sense. And when we play, it sort of seems like the end of the world.

I still play the drums, as I told you before, and Cody plays keyboard. Zack plays guitar—electric guitar. Max plays bass. Yeah, it's had the same members for two years, but I guess it's changed. A little at least.

We still all sing—alone, we bluntly stink, but put together, we're ok. I wasn't joking about the end of the world though.

Oh God, off track again. Anyway, I glance over at Cody. He's doing homework. You see, the teacher—her name's Miss Evans—she always gives us time to do our homework. Cody does it. I drum on the desk. Maybe that's why I never get anything done.

I pull out a piece of paper. Maybe I should get started on math. I write "Tapeworm" in the corner, and then cross it out.

They don't call me Tapeworm in high school. Well, they call me Tapeworm, but I'm not allowed to write that as my name.

Sean. I feel weird when people call me Sean. It used to be ok, since that was my name. But now I don't feel like Sean. I feel like Tapeworm.

Ugh, stupid off-track thing of mine. Open the Algebra 2 and Trig book.

Directions. Hmm… solve using augmented matrices. Oh God.

3x + 2y – z 10, x + 4y + 2z 3, 2x + 3y – 5z 23

It's not hard. Actually, it's really easy. It just takes really long. And it's pointless.

I mean, where are you going to use that in life? When is someone going to hand you a paper and say, "Solve this and you get the job. Augmented matrices, son! Augmented matrices!"

I get about half way through the problem. The bell system sounds. Math's over.

I look at Cody. He's finished.

I look at my paper. I've started.

"My golly," I say. "Use augmented matrices. Why don't you use augmented matrices?" I scream my head off at the math book and then slam it against my head exactly twenty six times.

I used to have OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder). I went to counseling though, and it got better. (My dad gave me a pretty hard time about it. My dad's never really liked me much. My mom says we just don't see eye to eye. But sometimes he hurts me when she's not looking. He says the meanest things and grabs my arms and squeezes and stuff. It doesn't bug me that much though). I still like even numbers. When I did have OCD though, I wasn't bugged about neatness though. I just had to have even numbers, all the time. Oh, and sometimes I thought I hurt someone when I hadn't really.

I'm better now, I swear.

Miss Evans cracks up. Cody doesn't even glance at me.

He's used to me saying weird stuff. It's me. Tapeworm. What do you expect?

I grab all my stuff and shove it into my backpack. It gets all big, and you can see where the books stretch my backpack at weird angles. Cody flinches.

Cody's a neat freak. He always has been and he will always be one.

If there's one thing I don't like about Cody, that's it. He's always bugging me about eating hotdogs neatly. Sort of hard if you have relish, onions, ketchup, and mustard all over them. Really, you'd think he'd understand. He's always telling me to brush my hair every morning. Hey, sometimes I forget. It doesn't really matter. You can't really notice, since my hair's just a huge brown messy bush anyway. (That drives my dad crazy too).

Anyway, I head out with Cody. I really am starving, but I have to go to get my stuff from my locker for the next class. Science. Ugh.

Oh God. Dissections. I have to dissect a sheep's eye. Oh God. My golly. Oh boy.

One thing I really can't stand are dissections. I remember in seventh grade when I met Cody. We chose each other as lab partners. We dissected a pig fetus together. He turned white and started shaking after he made the first cut. What's it called? Oh yeah, incision. I puked on our pig. All over.

It may have had to do with something about my eating five hotdogs before the dissection. It was a pig! I felt sick. I mean, pigs are mainly what hotdogs are made from, right? Anyway, after I puked all over it, I didn't eat hotdogs for a month. But then I had to give up. They taste way too good.

But the poor pig. It looked so innocent. And they killed it just when it was born.

I couldn't stand it.

Usually people with OCD have to pull everything apart so they know what they're eating before they eat it or whatever. It seems that that part's not built into my OCD. Just the… wait, you know. I told you already. Even numbers.

Our teacher wasn't very happy. He yelled at Cody for five minutes and then yelled at me for half an hour. I was, after all, the one that hurled on our pig. Hey, at least we didn't have to dissect it after. Yeah, I know, we did have to do that five page paper on properly dissecting after.

That was the only time that Zack was better at something than Cody was. Excluding basketball of course. And being mean.

Zack went for that pig like a crazy person. He loved it. He loved watching the red stuff spill out and cutting the poor little pig's mouth open.

When I saw him do it, I had to leave the room. That was the only time in seventh grade that I actually cried. Besides the times when my dad smacked me around when he got angry. Oh, my dad got mad at me when the teacher phoned home and told him about my accident. That wasn't the best day in my life.

You would think that after that disaster, I would be saved from having to dissect again.

Think again.

The extremely intelligent board of directors for high school—even after my mom came in and told them about the last dissection—decided to have me do this. They signed me up with someone who loved dissections.

Guess who?

You're right. Zack.

I get my sheep eye packet from my locker. I hate my science partner.

Zackary Martin. Eek.

Cody's stuck with Agnes though. I can't really complain.

Well, she liked dissections too. That's the only reason he got stuck with her.

Why a sheep's eye? That's all I have to say. Isn't a sheep's eye a whole lot less advanced than a pig fetus?

I walk into the science room with Cody. Oh God. I think I'm going to pass out. Or puke.

I'd rather pass out.

Zack's sitting over there, enthusiastically setting up the working station. Scalpels.

I hate scalpels. I hate those little probe things too. I hate the eye staring at me. It's this eye just lying there in this plastic container with a lid on top.

Stop looking at me.

Zack's face splits into this huge grin.

He enjoys watching me suffer.

I think I need to puke. The eye's staring at me. Closer, closer.

Close the eye. I don't want to look at it anymore.

The eye reminds me of Cody's. Big, brown, sad.

Oh God. Don't think about Cody. It's not Cody's eye. It's not.

It is.

No it's not.

I close my eyes and try to get control of myself. I sit down on top of my hands. I get a little claustrophobic easily too. Breathe in, breathe out.

Don't think about the eye. Don't think about the packet with all the names of the different parts of the eye including those weird looking veins. Don't think about the scalpel. Don't think about the eye really being Cody's eye.

I calm down a little. I open my eye. The sheep eye is right in front of my eye.

Oh my God.

Oh my God it's looking at me.

I'm going to kill Cody. I'm going to kill Cody.

I can't hold it back anymore.

I lean over the sink near our table and puke. I puke until my insides feel like they're coming out. Throw up. Everywhere.

I hear Cody calling, "Tapeworm. Tapeworm? Are you ok?"

The room's spinning, everybody looks the same. Cody's everywhere.

Before I pass out, I see one thing. Zack, a wicked smile on his face—the sheep's eye stabbed with the probe. He stabbed it and put it right in front of my eye.

Stupid Zack. Sorry, Cody. I can't be nice to him.

Everything turns black.

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