CHAPTER 3

P.E. has never been my favorite activity in the world. And if you're the type of person who'll be reading something like this, it's probably not yours, either.

I understand that physical health is important. But that doesn't mean I have to like it, especially with my luck in middle school.

To put it shortly, I was 85 pounds throughout most of middle school, and yet they still expected me to do what the all-star athletes could do. Also, whenever we played a game like dodgeball, my team always. And I mean always. Just like how my Little League baseball team always lost when my aunt and uncle would force me to go and play. (They thought I needed socialization, which I didn't.) And the funny thing is that whenever I didn't go and play for my team, we won. So I guess I'm just a bad luck charm.

High school P.E. is not required by my school IF you participate in a sport, which I don't. So I'm stuck in gym class with a bunch of fellow nerds from across all grades. Luckily, I have Harry in class with me, so at least I have someone to talk to in the corner.

A feature that sounds neat but really is a big pain is that we all have heart monitors strapped on to our chests. This is to let the coaches see our heart rate because… I really don't know. Maybe they just want to shame people with a lower heart rate.

So what do us mature high school boys do in the locker room while we're trying to get our heart monitors strapped on? If you guess use the straps as literal whips, than you've guessed correctly. (And they HURT. Especially when you have your shirt off.)

I'm sitting in the locker room, trying to strap the heart monitor on, and Harry is whipping me with his strap. And when I say whipping, I mean actually whipping me. So what does the more mature one of us two do? I start whipping him back, of course. Hopefully now he knows how much it hurts.

I would hide out in the locker room for the next thirty-five minutes until the bell rings, but I actually care about my reputation, so I decide to go out and participate.

That said, if you don't care about your reputation, then here's a good tip for you:

TIP #7: Coaches do not check the locker rooms, so you're free to hide out in there if you need a break. (Keep in mind, you could get an excessive amount of absences, so be aware of that.)

Much to my disdain, we are running today.

It's not so much that I hate running, it's just that I always try my hardest while I see everyone else slacking off and walking most of the time. And today, that tradition continues.

I pass a junior boy who looks like he's having a heart attack, even though he's barely even jogging. (That said, he might actually have a heart condition for all I know, so I'll refrain from judging.) Then I pass a group of sophomore girls who are walking, and I haven't seen them run at all since we started. And the coaches don't seem to care.

TIP #8: P.E. coaches don't really pay attention, so use that to your advantage if you don't want to run.

But I decide to keep running, because I like to think that I'm a halfway decent person. But I notice something weird: I've been running a solid five minutes without slowing down.

Previous years I would already be panting, but here I feel better than ever after five minutes at a steady pace. I'm confused.

"Pete! Wait up!" I slow down, and Harry catches up to me. "When did you become so fast?"

I look down, thinking. "I… don't know."

"You're running like the Hulk, dude," Harry says. I'm not sure how much I want to be compared to a green rage monster currently being hunted by the military, but I'll take it.

Harry decides to tap out and starts walking. I suppose I'll do the same.

"Did you hear about the man with invisibility powers robbing a GameStop, but he was wearing a plastic bag on his head?" Harry asks.

"Where was this?"

"Florida," he answers. And I just realized that Florida people might now be able to get superpowers. And that is probably more terrifying than the Hulk being on the loose.

The coaches see us walking, and shot at us to get running again. Which we do.

The popular girls are still walking, and they're not getting yelled at.

Advisory that day was interesting. My advisor had an intriguing announcement to make.

"We will be taking a field trip to the zoo in a few weeks. Please get your permission forum signed by your parents." She passes out the forum. "Somehow, we always have people who don't get their forum signed. So please don't be that kid."

"What will we be doing?" a kid asks.

"I… don't know. They didn't tell us. Something for biology, I think." The fact that the school doesn't tell their staff what the field trip is about makes me raise an eyebrow.

"So we get to watch gorillas finger their butts all day? Nice," Flash says. And I'm unfortunately reminded that he exists.

My advisor just stares, not knowing how to respond.

TIP #9: Don't ask stupid questions (i.e. don't be like Flash).

"...um, what if we don't want to go?" a timid girl asks.

"I'm… not sure. Ask your parents about it," my advisor says.

Having a field trip is something that doesn't really happen as much as you get older, so this is a nice change of pace. But that reminds me of some really bad memories from field trips.

When I was in kindergarten, we went to the aquarium to look at fish. It was good, up until a kid got lost, and we had to stay there for a few hours before we could leave. In second grade, we went to museum that had a pond by it, and when we were having lunch by the pond I tripped and fell it. I had to get dry clothes from the lost-and-found, and my teacher lectured me for falling in. In third grade, we went to a bank, which was just boring. In sixth grade we went to the zoo, where I got bitten by a goat.

The last field trip we went on was last spring, where we went to a genetics lab to see scientists experiment with modifying animal DNA, which I loved, but a lot of kids hated because they're not deep thinkers. What I did not love is that one of their super spiders that they created somehow got out and bit me.

A wave of realization washes of me. I recall the doctor asking yesterday if anything abnormal happened before I got strong, and I forgot about the field trip.

Holy shit.