Chapter 3

"Studying" with Marcy

It's been a couple of days since Matt stayed at Sasha's house past curfew, and since then he's spent his free time in the school library studying, but not studying for his classes, but studying Bible related material for any sign that Christians are evil like Sasha says they are.

So far, the only thing he could say is note-worthy was when they say to put faith in God to get through problems, and while he was recently questioning his faith, not just because of what Sasha said but just because of his own opinion, but how does saying to put your faith in someone imply anything evil?

During one Lunch Break, Matt was in the library reading through bible stuff to look for more hints about Christianity being an evil religion, but still found nothing.

That's when Marcy approaches.

"Hey, Matt, how are you?" she said.

"I'm doing fine," Matt replied. "How about you?"

"Great," said Marcy. "Well, as great as I can be knowing that my parents grounded me for a month for staying at Sasha's on a school night and past curfew, again."

"I get it," said Matt. "I've been grounded multiple times for committing moderate acts of violence or playing video games on school nights. Sometimes I think my parents can be overly strict and petty, but I know that they mean well. They were even fine with me deciding not to go to Vacation Bible School anymore. I've spent these past few days looking for any signs that Sasha's right and christians are evil, but I've found nothing, so I just don't want to believe that they're evil."

"I didn't want to believe it either," said Marcy. "But you should see the christians here. They're always talking about repenting and that you will suffer if you don't follow God, not to mention those people that use Christianity as a tool to get people to believe that being gay goes against God's wishes. Sasha even says that if she had to choose between killing a rapist or a homophobe, she'd choose the latter."

"I don't know what a rapist is," said Matt. "But they sound like something much worse than a homophobe and if you ask me, I'd kill the rapist, especially since I know that people like homophobes can change. I was once homophobic but I recently learned that this awesome youtuber, Thomas Sanders, is gay, and that's when I realized that gay people aren't bad. Anyway, I've given up on trying to find evidence on Christians being evil, and I might actually do some studying for my next class, or figure out what my next fanfiction is going to be."

"Did you say fanfiction?" asked Marcy.

"Yeah," said Matt. "I've been writing fanfiction for as long as I can remember. They started out as simple self-inserts with no big changes to the narrative, and while I do still write self-inserts, I put more dynamic into myself, giving myself backstory, love interests, and actually do make changes either by figuring out big twists or making it so a character that I like that gets killed off doesn't get killed off. I do write other kinds of fanfiction though, like crossovers and stuff. They're basically my way of escaping into a fantasy world so I don't have to deal with the stress reality gives me."

"I can totally relate to all of that," said Marcy. "Sometimes I tend to zone out into this fantasy and the one thing that keeps me in reality is having friends that are there for me. My biggest obsessions are Zelda and Lord of the Rings, and while I'm not really a self-insert writer, I do write fanfiction every now and then. What about your interests? What do you like other than Zelda?"

"I like Harry Potter," said Matt. "I play Lego Games a lot, they're what got me into video games in the first place, you know, other than those kids computer games they had us play in Preschool. While I have played the Lego Hobbit game, I never found the time to get the Lord of the Rings one, mainly because I never found the time to get into it, especially since I see the Hobbit movies and book as poorly written."

"I don't really like the Hobbit either," said Marcy. "But the Lord of the Rings is so much better. I'm not really a Harry Potter fan. There's so much conversation and not enough action, so I stopped reading after the first one."

"I never really liked the conversation part either," said Matt. "I even decided I would just stop reading altogether because a lot of books have conversation in them, but I know if I don't read, I'm not going to pass English so I kept reading, and I'm even reading this book with my mom and liking it, 'Where the Red Fern Grows' by Wilson Rawls."

"Awesome, me too," said Marcy.

That's when the bell rings, so the two make their way out of the library and head to their next period, which they just so happened to share, English.

During class that day, the English Teacher, Ms. Jones, announces what books the 6th graders will be reading that year, and for this quarter, it's going to be "Where the Red Fern Grows" by Wilson Rawls. Matt and Marcy looked at each other with confident smiles.

When the day ended, Matt and the girls walked out of the school.

"Wanna hang at my place sometime?" Marcy asked Matt. "Obviously not today because we're still grounded, but I'm talking sometime when we're all not grounded."

"I won't mind that, Marcy," said Matt. "Hey, can I call you Mar-Mar?"

The three girls giggle.

"That's the nickname we gave Marcy since we became friends," said Sasha. "And you're not there yet."

That's when Matt sees his parents' car.

"See you tomorrow, girls," Matt said as he pats them all on the back and walks to the car. The three girls all look at Matt and blush.

1 Month Later…

It was a weekend and Matt walked over to Marcy's house, which was on the other side of the neighborhood. The plan was that they just talk about the book they were reading for school, about how far they've gotten and their opinions on it. He made his way to the front door and knocked. After a while, a man knocked on the door, who Matt could only assume was Marcy's dad.

"You must be that Matt kid Marcy told me about," he said.

"Hey, Mr. Wu," said Matt. "Is Marcy home?"

"Yes," Mr. Wu replied. "She's in her room."

Mr. Wu allows Matt to enter the room, and he looks around, and takes an interest in all the Chinese decoration.

"You know, I have this interest in Asian Cultures," said Matt. "I just think they're cool. I especially love this decoration."

"Glad you like it," said Mr. Wu.

Matt then makes his way upstairs and finds Marcy's room. He could tell because of the sign on the door which had a very awesome drawing of Marcy hugging Anne and Sasha. Matt knocks on the door and then answers. Matt takes a second to admire the room.

The room had walls that were painted green, and there were Lord of the Rings and Legend of Zelda posters hung on the walls, along with pictures of Marcy's fanart for those franchises and others. There was a desk where Marcy held figurines of Lord of the Rings characters and Legend of Zelda Amiibos, and Marcy was sitting at her desk.

"So, what do you think?" she asked.

"This is an awesome room you have here," Matt replied.

"Now, time to start our little 'book club'," said Marcy.

"You read my mind," said Matt.

The two nerds would spend the next hour talking about the book, about how emotional it is and just things they liked and didn't like about it.

Over time, they just flipped subjects, like nerds tend to do when it comes to conversations.

Matt brings up this prediction that the dogs are gonna die in the end of the story because he read a similar book, "Old Yeller" by Fred Gipson, so they just started talking about that book and their opinions on it and the film adaptation, and it just led to them talking about other interests.

"I'm even working on this crossover between Zelda and Lord of the Rings," Marcy said.

"I'm also working on a crossover with Zelda," Matt replied. "But with Harry Potter."

"You thinking what I'm thinking?" asked Marcy.

"Let's say it at the same time and see," Matt replied.

"We should work together and cross all three franchises over," they both said at the same time.

After Marcy sets up a Google Document and shares it with Matt, the two start preparing to edit.

They just started on the first chapter, which will explain the context of the storyline, explaining where everyone's at in the story. For the Harry Potter characters, they have finished school and are starting their careers. For the Zelda characters, Link and Zelda are trying to rebuild Hyrule after the defeat of Calamity Ganon. For the Lord of the Rings characters, the Fellowship have started their journey to Mordor to destroy the One Ring.

The two spent a good 2 hours brainstorming ideas on how to handle the storyline. At some point while they were typing, Marcy unknowingly wrapped her pinkie on Matt's. That's when they realized it was almost 8:30, so it would be time for Matt to head home.

Right as Matt stood up, the two realized they were gripping fingers and blushed in embarrassment for that little mishap. Matt then walked out of the room, while Marcy lied on her bed to think about how she unknowingly gripped her new friends' finger like that. She always viewed herself as a lesbian, but there was something about this boy that got her thinking. He was actually someone that liked her interests in fantasy, Zelda, and fanfiction, while Anne and Sasha never really showed interest in those sorts of things, this boy she only knew for a month did, and she started wondering if she liked him as more than she originally thought.

A.N.

I put a whole lot of effort into writing this chapter. While I related to all the Calamity Girls in ways you couldn't imagine, I found Marcy to be the most relatable, as we're both smart, clumsy, autistic, and like to escape into fantasy worlds, so I decided to put a lot of hard work on this chapter.