Rodrick went to school the next morning filled with an empty stomach. His mom didn't make breakfast and because of that along with the lack of cereal in the house for the time being, he was starving. He didn't know how long the semester at her college was going to be but it better not be a long one…
In his Business Management class, he could barely remain awake, though that was also partly out of boredom. He only took the class so he didn't have to take Pre-Calc, expecting to learn at least something cool like the tools he needed to get rich off of his band. But instead, the teacher was reading off a stupid PowerPoint about "needs", "stocks", "product", and "transactions". There was one big plus about being in this class though, and that was Bobbi. The beauty was sitting next to him and throughout class, he kept a close eye on her.
"For the first project of the quarter, I want you to pair up with a fellow classmate and come up with a business. It can be a coffee shop, restaurant, salon, movie theater, anything. You have to make a logo, a slogan, and a twelve slide presentation. I'll give you the rest of the class period to brainstorm," Mr. Wiggins, a middle aged man, ordered. The guy actually had a cushy career going at some high end corporation and only did teaching on the side because he was bored. His brother was even a millionaire.
Rodrick already had his partner in mind. Before anyone else had the chance to, he made eye contact with Bobbi. "Hey, wanna work together, Ms. Tutor?" He asked her enthusiastically.
"Sure," she accepted while turning her desk around to face him. He did an internal fist pump in joy. "We haven't even started studying together, though," she pointed out to him.
"We can start with this project because I'll be one hundred percent honest, I suck at these," he bluntly admitted. Every group project he ever had, he barely did shit and had his partners do all of the work, or make his family do his part. He hated them even more than solo projects. But doing a group project with a cute girl for once was enough to make him at least try with this one.
"This one is going to be easy, relax," she assured him, "I'm always thinking of what businesses I want to have on the side if I ever become famous, anyway."
"What are ya gonna be famous for, modeling?" He asked her suggestively. She gave him an amused look before getting more serious.
"Music. I want to be a rapper," she answered confidently, making his eyes widen in surprise.
"Rap? Really?"
"Yeah, really. There's not a lot of ladies on the scene other than Nicki Minaj and I want to change that. It's my dream but I also know that having other streams of income is important and they have to be lucrative. So I want to open a chain of beauty supply stores," she boasted.
The second part of her statement didn't interest him as much as the first part. "And what are you gonna call yourself?" He asked next.
"Bobbi Thee Bobcat, because that's what I'm fierce as," she answered, smirking for the first time.
"None of us have any cooking skills whatsoever. I think the only stuff I can cook are ramen noodles. She's kinda selfish for randomly springing this on us because she's having a midlife crisis," Greg complained to his friends at school a few days later.
"I don't know, cooking is kinda fun. I still use the Easy Bake Oven I got when I was eight," Rowley replied. Greg did have to admit that the cookies his friend made on the girly appliance were delicious the last time he had them.
"I think your mom is right. Cooking shouldn't be only reserved for girls. It's a survival skill," Holly pointed out, making him groan.
"You're supposed to be on my side," he whined.
"When it's girls against boys, I can't be on your side. Sorry," she teased.
"Why is she sitting by herself?" They heard Rowley ask randomly. All the way down from where they were sitting, the girl that scared off Michael Sampson and his girlfriend was quietly eating lunch by herself. Greg couldn't remember what her name was at the moment but he knew it started with a J.
"Jerri Rivers has been sitting alone at lunch since the first day of school. I think she's a loner," Chirag informed them, confirming his inner thoughts. He suddenly remembered they had at least two classes together, including Art.
"Why don't we offer her to sit with us? Maybe she'll be the one to appreciate all of the cute pictures I took of spiders!" Fregley suggested cheerfully while holding up his cellphone. Because Rowley was scared of spiders, he let out a small yelp before frantically looking away.
For some reason, Jerri began rambling nonsense to herself, swaying back and forth lightly. "No thanks, one of you is already enough," Greg quipped dryly to the ginger boy. There were enough weirdos he allowed into his life and he was afraid that if he added anymore, he would have to open a circus…although it would make him rich if it was successful.
To his annoyance, nobody agreed with him. "Jerri! Come over here!" She called out to the other girl, who seemed surprised that she was even being acknowledged. He heard Jerri mutter "Okay" before making her way over to their side of the tables. The next couple seconds consisted of them awkwardly exchanging "hellos" with her.
"Would you like to see pictures of all the spiders I've seen this summer?" Fregley asked her.
"No thank you, sorry. I just had a nightmare involving spiders," she rejected while looking down timidly. He looked offended at that but Greg didn't blame her.
"Do you have friends outside of school?" Holly asked her next.
"No," Jerri answered, shaking her head beforehand.
"Well, you're always welcome to sit with us then!" His girlfriend assured her. The other nodded in gratitude but still didn't make eye contact with them. It was almost as if she was scared to do so.
"I guess for the first time ever, there was going to be more than one girl in our friend group," Greg wrote in his journal before the end of the day.
After school, Rodrick headed down to the cafeteria where he was going to have his first tutoring session with Bobbi. While she wasn't there, there were some other students taking up small corners of the room for the same purpose. He took a seat at a table right by the entrance and began banging on it, using his pencils as drumsticks.
It took ten minutes for Bobbi to finally show up. "Rodrick! I'm so sorry for being late, I almost forgot about our tutoring session. I'm not the best with time management sometimes," she apologized sheepishly while taking the seat across from him.
"It's alright. It was only ten minutes," he assured her, eager to gain her favor in the tiniest of ways. He was actually disappointed that she didn't sit next to him. He knew that he smelled good now that he was showering every day.
When she smiled at him in deep gratitude, it somehow made her even more beautiful. Probably because of her amazing dimples. "What do you want to start with first?" She asked.
"English, since I'm already not doing great in that class," he answered in mild embarrassment. It was because he couldn't give a single fuck about what they were reading so far. Not that there ever was a book he was required to read in school that he did give a fuck about…
"Okay, let's get out our Hamlet stuff then," she said as they started digging into their bags at the same time. While her copy of Hamlet was crisp and clean, his was covered in dried up drool and teeth marks. "I have a dog who will try to eat everything," he explained to his confused tutor. Then he pulled out his worksheet packet, which had a big drawing of the Loded Diper logo at the bottom of the front page.
"Did the dog do that too?" She asked him dryly.
"Uh…yeah," he answered, and the look of disbelief on her face was expected. He had to live by his deny, deny, deny creed though.
"Mrs. Danielson is going to kill you tomorrow. You must really be passionate about your band."
"Aren't you passionate about your rapping? You can't tell you don't have a copybook full of songs you wrote down," he argued.
"I write them in the back of my copybook so they don't interfere with my notes in the front," she admitted.
"Pfft, you're a goodie two shoes, then," he teased.
"When it comes to school, yeah, because flunking out would be uncool," she countered, before she then suddenly randomly rapping, "You can't get into college and thus you're lacking knowledge. With no degree, the best you can be is a dumb worker bee. You'll still live in your parents' house, eating up their food like a mouse. They'll put you out on the streets when they get tired of you laying on your sheets. So put that head of yours to the test instead of being a teacher's pest."
Her delivery was strong but smooth. It was obvious that she was a natural at her craft.
"You know, usually I find educational songs wack but what you just did there was pretty cool," he praised, and he was being genuine. "How did you just come with all of that at the top of your head like that? It takes me like three days just to come up with one verse."
"I just do. Freestyling is my thing. In my opinion, you can't be the best rapper if you can't freestyle. It's an essential art to the genre," she reasoned.
He didn't know much about rap music other than Eminem, but he did know that to him, Bobbi was good at it. If they were a couple and became famous at the same time, they could take over the music industry by storm. Their double incomes would make them super rich.
"Now enough music talk, let's get back to Hamlet," she ordered but Rodrick was too lost in his fantasy about the two of them to pay attention.
"Ok, so the first few nights with Mom away have been a disaster. We tried making dinner on our own on Monday and none of us knew what we were doing."
Greg shamefully stared down at the pot of mashed potatoes he tried to make for dinner. He could tell by how runny the dish came out that he poured too much water into the mix. No amount of stirring was making it thicker. Safe to say that it was probably inedible…
"No, no, Manny, what are you doing?" He heard his dad exclaim. He looked behind him and watched in disgust as Manny, who was in charge of making the iced tea with their dad's help, stirred the tea with his own hands. There was also way too much sugar at the bottom of the container.
The timer on the oven went off. "The chicken must be ready!" Rodrick declared as he came in from the living room. He was in charge of the meat. After putting some gloves on, he took the chicken out of the oven. "Is it supposed to be this shiny?" He asked next in confusion. The coating on the chicken was far too bright, as if plastic was still covering it…
"I think you were supposed to take the plastic off before putting it in the oven, bro," Greg pointed out, already knowing he wanted no parts of the chicken.
"Oh…," his older brother replied in realization. Their dad groaned in frustration at the situation, as he was the only one whose dish looked edible enough to safely eat. Unfortunately that dish was broccoli.
"Who wants to go out to eat right now?" Their dad asked nervously.
The restaurant they traveled to was called The Spaghetti Barn, which had a more country, redneck vibe than the more typical Italian restaurants downtown. It was cheaper too, which was why their dad picked it out. While he ate a meal consisting of basic noodles, tomato sauce, and meatballs, Rodrick found this moment a good opportunity to gush about his new crush to their dad.
"Bobbi's super smart, Dad. She made first honors so she's more than just a pretty face, you and Mom would like her," his older brother boasted.
"I think your mom and I care more about what you're planning to do after high school than what new girl you're interested in. Girls will be there your whole life, education is more important," their dad lectured while eating from a plate of chicken alfredo.
"But education will also be there my whole life. This girl may be the one for me. I can feel it. You and Mom fell in love when you guys were my age, Grandpa fell in love with Grandma when he was Greg's age. Finding good women when we're teenagers is a Heffley family tradition," his older brother argued.
There were mixed feelings of both agreement and uncertainty on their dad's face at his words. On his end, Greg didn't know if he and Holly were going to be together forever. He just knew that at the moment, he really liked her. He couldn't see Rodrick attached to one girl. His brother had been bragging about how all of the groupies he and his bandmates were going to hook up with when they got famous for three years now.
"Okay, but you're not even dating her yet, kid. When you get in a relationship with her, we can continue this conversation. For now, the only thing I want to hear about when it comes to this girl is how you're getting all A's and B's because of her now," their dad argued back, and his word was final. Rodrick glumly went back to eating his spaghetti with meatballs while Manny was more concerned with crudely drawing all over his kids' menu than the bowl of mac and cheese in front of him.
"I don't blame our dad for not being confident in Rodrick's romantic life. Rodrick hasn't had a serious girlfriend since Lindsey Miller, a girl he dated in grade nine. Lindsey broke up with him because he was too immature, and as much as I love my brother, he hasn't grown a lot since then. She was a really nice girl though."
Greg briefly remembered how he was there when they broke up, with his older brother crying in his room while she coldly rode back home on her bike. To give his condolences, he wrote a note to Rodrick with an added request to ask Lindsey if she still thought his little brother Greg was the cutest. Rodrick didn't shower for two weeks afterwards.
When they left the restaurant, Rodrick, in his terrible mood, started loudly chewing gum during their walk to the parking lot. A moth flew above them, and his older brother attempted to spit his gum at the bug. It hit their dad instead, and that pissed the old man off.
"Get your ass over here!" Their dad exclaimed in anger while chasing after Rodrick, who started running away in a panic. Greg could only hold Manny's hand and watch in amusement at the show that was going on.
Then their dad tripped over a curb and twisted his ankle, and everything stopped being funny.
"I wasn't looking where I was going and I accidentally stepped on my little boy's toy truck in the driveway," their dad lied to the nurse in the emergency room later. The woman clearly didn't believe him but just chose to not verbalize it. Due to his injury, Rodrick had to drive them to the hospital. Tonight was a shitshow.
"So it's only been a few days without Mom, and things are already starting to fall apart. We got one serious injury so far, and who knows what's in store down the road."
Breakfast that next morning was very awkward for the Heffleys, but Rodrick was personally glad that he successfully escaped what would have most certainly been a spanking last night from his dad. He was almost nineteen, and he hadn't been dealt a whooping since he was eight, but he wasn't entirely sure that wouldn't have stopped the old man.
"Consider this an opportunity for you to take a good break from work, and spend some more time with your family when I'm not around," his mom advised his dad, who was sitting at the table with heavy wrapping around his ankle. His dad's only response was to grumpily eat from his bowl of oatmeal.
"Mom, would you be happy if I dated the tutor I was talking to you about? While still focusing on my grades?" Rodrick asked in hope.
"Sure, but you guys aren't even together," she reminded him.
"Yet," he challenged.
"Well, if she likes you back and you guys get into a relationship, that's someone you can bring as a date to your Uncle Gary's wedding. He's getting married this November," she announced.
"Again?" Greg asked in disbelief.
"Yes, again. It's that time of the year," his dad confirmed dryly.
Uncle Gary was his dad's youngest brother, who possibly had worse luck with chicks than even him. Dude had been married three times already, and none of his marriages lasted longer than a single year.
"Well, I'll definitely have a date because Bobbi Rivers is gonna be mine. You'll all see," he boasted.
"Nope," Manny bluntly replied but he wasn't paying the kid any mind.
Bobbi would be more compatible with him than any other girl he had liked, and for that, he was determined to have her as his girl by November.