Greg
"Several weeks have gone by since the incident with Rodrick's van, and my older brother has been pretty depressed. He hasn't exactly given up on Bobbi Rivers, but he hasn't talked about her outside of their tutoring sessions. When it comes to the girls in my life, Holly and I haven't had a lot of time to ourselves lately. It seems like she has something going on every daythat's preventing us from going on dates."
As Greg wrote in his diary during class, he wasn't in the greatest mood himself at the moment. Last night, Holly had to cancel their date at the arcade due to a student council meeting after school that took longer than usual. Last month, she won the election for school president against Patty and thus her schedule had changed drastically to accommodate that. Then, because she became captain of the cheerleading squad at Westmore, her Tuesdays and Thursdays nights were taken up as well. There were also her Girl Scout duties and modeling gigs on the weekends…
He was worried that there was barely any room for him in her world now.
"Are you going to the Lock-In?" He heard Jerri ask him, snapping him out of his grumpy thoughts. He looked up to see the younger Rivers sister standing above his desk with a poster advertising the event in her hands. The "Lock-In" was a big slumber party organized by the school that was happening on Friday. Taking place in the school auditorium, the event was only five dollars and all profits were going towards the music program at Westmore.
"Yeah, with Holly. Hopefully," he answered. If there was an opportunity for them to sneak off in the middle of the night, they could make up for all their lost time together in the best way…
"You should bring your DS so we can play Pokémon together," she suggested.
"Definitely," he agreed. There were games advertised on the flyer for the event but he doubted that they were going to begoodgames available considering the school's low budget.
Since they became friends, he had gotten used to Jerri's little quirks because they had fun playing video games together, and she helped him with his homework during lunch whenever Holly wasn't available. She was a kind girl underneath her stuffy genius persona.
"My sister has been worried about Rodrick lately, is he okay?" She asked him next in concern.
"He's…existing," Greg answered as best as he could without revealing too much.
Rodrick
Rodrick avoided Bobbi as best as he could outside of tutoring sessions, and during those sessions he didn't have it in him to talk to her that much. He felt too much shame over the accident.
He hated to admit it but he was starting to wonder if he should give up on pursuing Bobbi. It seemed like the universe was actually conspiring against them. But he also knew that deep down she might have been way too good for him. She was a beautiful, kindhearted honors student and he was a delinquent dumbass who got held back in the second grade.
"Rodrick, my man. You can't give up yet," Ben said to him during their lunch period, "If she hasn't said no, there's still a chance."
"Ben, I got her and her little sister involved in a car accident."
"Nobody died."
Rodrick rolled his eyes at the remark. Sometimes his best friend was a bigger idiot than him at times. "You know, the only thing I want to focus on is the gig on Friday. Bobbi or no Bobbi, prioritizing the band is a must," he replied flatly.
His passion for music was above nearly everything. Even if he stayed single forever, he still had his dream of being a rockstar to fulfill…but he still wanted a girl by his side. It wasn't the most punk rock thing to desire but when it came to romance he wanted what his dad had: a loyal, wonderful woman that supported him through everything and a bunch of kids.
"It's a good thing my mom forgot to return that tux I wore to the eighth grade dance," Ben boasted.
During his business class, when the teacher gave them a ten minute break from their class assignment, Bobbi went out of her way to initiate a conversation with him. "How's your van doing now?" She asked him.
"It's all fixed up, well eighty-five percent fixed up. I couldn't afford to get rid of every dent," he answered bitterly. "I'm sorry that you and your sister got involved in that mess."
"Neither of us got hurt so it's no big deal. You still got us home afterwards," she assured him, "I was just worried about you because I know how important that van is."
He smiled softly at the concern. It was relieving that she didn't hold the car accident against him. "You wanna come over my place this Friday and hangout? My parents are excited to meet you," she offered next, which really blew his mind. He would have said yes immediately if it wasn't for the bar gig.
"I can't. Löded Diper's got a performance that night at a bar," he rejected begrudgingly. Her eyes then lit up enthusiastically.
"Really? That's so cool, can I come?" She asked, making his eyes widen at the request. This was the first time ever that a girl that wasn't his mother was eager to see his band perform. And it was Bobbi. He struggled to form a coherent reply at first.
"Yu-ye-yeah, that'd be awesome. Absolutely," he replied nervously. She gave him a dazzling, huge smile in return that had his stomach twisting in knots.
Maybe he could have a Plan D….
Greg
"With the Lock-in happening this Friday, I was expecting Holly to be just as excited as I was about all the potential romantic stuff we could get up to that night. I got the exact opposite of that."
In Home Economics, Greg took a break from the Halloween themed fudge brownies he was baking to visit Holly at her table. She was baking pumpkin shaped sugar cookies for their class assignment. "Hey babe, I have an idea of where we can sneak off to during the lock-in," he suggested while wrinkling his eyebrows suggestively.
"I can't go. I have a Christmas photoshoot that I need a couple hours to prepare for," she replied. He raised an eyebrow in disbelief at her statement.
"It's October," he reminded her dryly.
"The photos will be released in November so I have to do them now," she explained, and he had to resist the urge to roll his eyes.
"Is there anything we can do together on Saturday? Sunday?"
"Saturday morning, I have the cheer competition but I can fit something in for us afterwards!" She assured him. The second part of her sentence really increased his irritable attitude.
"So your boyfriend practically has to schedule appointments with you now in order to see you? Awesome," Greg remarked sarcastically. His girlfriend narrowed her eyes at his words.
"Greg, I'm busy with a lot right now, you know this. It's not like I'm happy at the lack of time between us," she argued.
"Then do something about it. I can't be the only one who's trying in this relationship," he argued back, making her scoff. By now the other kids in their class were watching their argument in interest. If there's one thing that got middle school kids immediately excited other than a school yard fight, it was a couple's quarrel.
"Greg…just go," she demanded while looking away from him.
"Gladly," he snidely accepted as he walked back to his table. She was very obviously hurt by their argument but so was he.
By the next period, he was complaining to Rowley.
"If this is what I have to deal with in a relationship every day, then maybe I'm better off single," he grumbled.
"Don't say that, you've been crushing on Holly this entire year. Don't give up on her, be patient," Rowley advised him, "Joshie said in his latest interview for Tweenage Dream Magazine that a good boyfriend supports his girlfriend's dreams just as much as she supports his."
"I'm trying to be supportive. But it's getting increasingly hard to do so," he countered.
"A good boyfriend would overcome it," his best friend reasoned and with that, Greg was fed up with the other boy's self-righteous attitude.
"I'm not taking relationship advice from a guy who not only has no girlfriend but is probably never getting one as long as he still acts like he's eight," he spat.
"Shut the hell up," Rowley spat back and it was as if the world suddenly stopped. Both of them were in deep shock at the word that just left his best friend's mouth.
"Did you just say…a bad word?" Greg asked, and every kid in the hallway rapidly turned their heads towards them. The hallway was completely silent during this historical event. Rowley's face turned bright red in embarrassment as he sputtered out an excuse.
"No, no, no, I-I-"
"Rowley Jefferson finally said a bad word!" Greg announced enthusiastically as everyone around them started clapping and cheering. "I'm so proud of you!" He gushed to his best friend who looked in shame. Greg hoped that the feeling would quickly pass away so Rowley could use more swear words.
"I started cursing when I was in fourth grade. There was no greater moment in a kid's journey with the English language than saying your first bad word. It was a part of the transitioning period between childhood and adulthood. It took Rowley a little while to get there but at least he finally got there. Soon he'll be saying even better ones with me…at least when our parents weren't around."
A pleasant image of him and Rowley saying a bunch of swear words to each one after the other while they played video games then flashed through Greg's mind.
Rodrick
During their next tutoring session, Bobbi had shown him the first few verses of a new song she wanted to release one day. It was called "Heat".
"One night, me and you kissing in your backseat, can't you tell I'm in heat? Play drums on my belly, turn my legs into jelly, whatever you want to do, tell me. Shake your van, rock my world, I'm the new groupie in your band. Scream to me until you release, play with it like a chess piece," were the words she wrote for the song in a random copybook.
"Is this song about someone special" He asked, amazed by how dirty the song was without there being any explicit words. He liked the way she wrote. He could easily picture the words flowing together in his mind.
She looked at him with a knowing glance he didn't understand. "You can say that…," she mused, and he did not like that answer. Whoever the bastard was, he needed to get rid of. There was no way the other suitor was as cool as he was.
"But I'm honestly still getting to know the guy before I decide if I want to pursue him or not because I barely know him. I just know that he's super attractive even though he's not usually my type so I'm waiting for him to give me more reasons to like him. It's my version of window shopping," she added.
'Hopefully he's not good enough for her,' he thought spitefully. Girls like Bobbi were the top of the food chain and needed to be the ones pursued. It was why he was going out of his way to impress her. He suddenly remembered what he was about to offer her before the accident happened. "You know, I think you should perform with us," he declared.
"How?" She asked.
"Do a freestyle to one of our songs or something. We're playing both original songs and covers. I think you can add something great to Diper Overlöde," he answered, but she still seemed skeptical.
"Wouldn't it be a weird mix of genres? Me rapping and you guys…rocking?"
"It's been done before. You said before that Löded Diper needs something special to make us stand out. You could help us stand out while having more people discover what a great rapper you are. This would benefit both of us," he argued confidently.
For a few more seconds, she was still more skeptical but then by the time he was done speaking, she seemed more on board with his idea. "Okay, then let's do it. I'll come over to practice with y'all," she declared.
'Fuck yes!' He thought to himself excitedly.
Greg
"Dad, I need your advice," Greg said to his dad later at home. "I think Holly and I are losing the sparks in our relationship and I don't know what to do about that."
"Oh boy, well that's never fun," his dad replied while preparing Caesar salad for dinner. Greg was in charge of baking a frozen pizza. When he, his brothers, and their dad had stopped being impatient with cooking instructions, all of their cooking skills had generally improved over time. Rodrick still couldn't be trusted to bake by himself nor know the difference between a tablespoon and a teaspoon though. "Do you think it's time to break up?"
"No, I'm not ready to. Not after everything I've done to get her in the first place. I still really like her," he rejected, uncomfortable at the idea no matter how mad he was right now. Holly was perfect and everything he dreamed of in a girlfriend: pretty, popular, and bubbly. They had similar backgrounds too even if their lifestyles were different. Up until October, being with her brought him peace he didn't get at school or often at home.
"Then this will pass. All relationships go through rough patches, doesn't mean you guys don't care for each other anymore. Even your Mom and I had our moments," his dad reasoned, and Greg felt a little better.
"You know, this is why it's great that it's your time to have the talk with Gammie, she's gonna provide you some serious insight from a girl's point of view," his dad said next, and the brief good feeling in his gut was now gone. Gammie was the last person he wanted to talk to about this.
"Gammie was my great grandmom and at ninety-five years old, she's the official matriarch of my dad's side of the family. Whenever someone reaches my age, she demands to have a talk with them about growing up. The last person to have a talk with her was Rodrick at Uncle Gary's last wedding four years ago, and he looked completely traumatized afterwards. I'm next in line and since Uncle Gary's wedding reception is taking place at Gammie's house, there's no chance of avoiding her. To say I'm a nervous wreck about this is an understatement."
During dinner, the Rivers girls had come over, and this time there was less awkwardness in the air. Rodrick had made a big show of impressing Bobbi by preparing a plate for her and making sure the breadsticks he baked under their Dad's supervision were soft and warm. Her eyes lit up at the action and Greg had to give his big brother credit. For the sake of making them all look polite, he did the same for Jerri, who beamed at him. His mom would probably appreciate this sight if she was here.
"I wrote down the verse I'm going to rap for Diper Overlöde," Bobbi announced to Rodrick as they ate. "Hopefully the crowd will like it."
"I know they will," his older brother affirmed.
"I've been waiting to tell you this, Bobbi, but my wife and I appreciate how you've been helping Rodrick improve his grades. He's on a way better path than he used to be," their dad complimented.
"It's a pleasure, Mr. Heffley. Rodrick is really cool," she replied and Greg got amused at how his older brother looked down and blushed. If he had his camera out at this moment, it would have been perfect blackmail material.
"Call me, Frank," their dad encouraged, "Do you know where you want to go to university when you graduate? Rodrick needs ideas."
"Dad…," his older brother grumbled.
"Bowie State," she answered enthusiastically.
"Oh I have a buddy at work whose kid attends there. Isn't that an HBCU?"
"Yeah, I already got accepted actually!"
"What's an HBCU?" Greg questioned, having never heard of the term.
"Historically black colleges and universities," Jerri answered before her older sister could, "Bowie is the oldest black HBCU in Maryland and one of the oldest HBCUs period in the entire country."
"Oh, I had no idea that was a thing," he replied.
"Well, you're white. Of course you wouldn't know a thing about that," she bluntly replied, catching him off guard.
"Jerri," her older sister scolded.
"Sorry," she muttered while not making eye contact with any of them.
"I heard nothing but great things about Bowie. Rodrick, maybe you can look into it," their dad suggested.
"Dad, what if I don't want to go to university?" Rodrick asked him spitefully.
"Then you better find something worthwhile to occupy your time during the day after high school. Because if you think spending all day sleeping, eating, and playing drums in the basement is the only lifestyle you want to have as an adult, then I don't have any room in my house for that," their dad fired back sternly, instantly creating tension at the dinner table.
"I don't intend on doing that because I know I'm going to be a rockstar someday. You just don't have any faith in me because that's the hardest job for you, apparently," his older brother snidely replied and Greg watched in discomfort as his father and older brother then scowled at each other.
This wasn't the first time they've had this argument, and if his mother was here, she probably would have joined in on his dad's side. It most likely wouldn't be the last because Rodrick was adamant that he wouldn't need college if his music career took off. But the girls at the table definitely did not need to witness a Heffley family argument. Greg could tell that they were getting uncomfortable, especially Jerri who looked back and forth between them fearfully.
"So, Jerri, what are you gonna be for Halloween?" Greg asked his friend next, casually changing the subject.
Rodrick
"So now you just saw what a total fucking dick my dad can be sometimes…," Rodrick remarked bitterly as he drove the girls home.
"I think he's just overly paranoid about your future like all parents are," Bobbi argued, making him sigh in frustration. She just didn't get it.
"He's never supported a single thing I did without pressure from my mom. Everything I do is always wrong in his eyes. The only kind of future he'll be happy with me having is me rotting in a fucking office all day like he does," he vented, "At least your old man isn't bashing your dream. I bet mine is praying every night that Löded Diper never becomes successful so he can be right about how much of a failure I turned out to be."
Even in the darkness, he could see a frown on her face. "Prove him wrong then…by going to college while still having your band," she suggested as he sucked his teeth in defiance, "You don't even have to do a four year, just do two years of community college, get your associate's degree, a job, and work towards Löded Diper's big break. Or just get a job. Do something to keep your parents' happy and they'll stop being on your ass. There's nothing wrong with having a backup plan. I have one."
"And what's that?" He asked tiredly.
"I already told you before about that beauty supply store chain I want to have. I'll be happy with just owning one which is why I'll be majoring in business at Bowie," she declared.
Rodrick wanted to be annoyed with her and how it felt like she was taking his parents' side. She had no idea what it was like to live with two control freaks. He doubted that his dad would even support him going just to community college. That's how much pressure he wanted to put on him. He hated the old man just as much as he loved him for that reason. But he held his tongue. Mostly. "Wow, did anyone tell you you talk just like a mom?" He asked in a light mocking tone.
"My friends do that all of the time by calling me an old lady. They tell me that my full name is Roberta for a reason," she replied.
"Roberta?" He teased. It was such an old hag name for a young and hip girl, though there was something pleasant about both of their names starting with the same letter.
"Roberta Gloria," she revealed reluctantly, and he chuckled at how the middle name was even worse, "Haha, funny I know," she added sarcastically.
"Hey, it's better than Rodrick Benjamin," he assured her as his bitter tone returned.
"Benjamin? That's cute," she gushed, "It sounds so classy."
"That's why I hate it," he reasoned. He was always going to be embarrassed by his full name though Gregory James and Emanuel Frank were even worse. With all of their names, their parents were really trying to manifest sons with entirely better personalities than what they actually had ended up having.
"You need to embrace it," she advised. When he reached the girls' house without getting involved in any more accidents, he was thankful.
"I'll see you at school," she promised while having her arm wrapped around her sister, who politely waved at him. He waited until they entered inside their home before he drove off.
Tonight made him want her more in a way that he didn't know was possible.
Greg
"The next day at school I was willing to make amends with Holly. I didn't want this to be a bigger issue in our relationship. Only problem was that the majority of the female population at our school already decided that I was the bad guy and needed to be dumped. Some girls expressed this attitude in a very…disturbing way….."
The first thing Greg did when he entered school was search for his girlfriend. Multiple girls in the hallway gave him dirty looks and whispered nasty things about him to each other. "I'm not surprised that a chauvinistic, insecure asshole like you would have a problem with a girlfriend that's strong and independent. She needs a serious upgrade," Patty jeered at him when they crossed paths.
"We're not even broken up yet so keep dreaming," he replied irritably.
"You two will be," she taunted, but he chose to ignore her after that. He was learning that the best way to deal with Patty Farrell was to not deal with her at all. The next girl he encountered in his path stood threateningly in front of him. She was short, scrawny, with ratty looking blonde hair in pigtails, and green eyes so bright they looked unnatural. Greg had two seconds to react to her presence before she angrily bared her teeth at him and lunged at his shoulder. He yelped in fright as he ducked at the attack and bolted down the other side of the hallway.
"Ruby Bird, the only girl in Westmore Middle School history to have ever been suspended due to biting on a teacher so hard last year that her tooth lodged in the woman's arm. I'm not sure that she's entirely human considering that I haven't seen her parents yet. I'm ready to keep a crucifix on hand just in case."
Rodrick
During his study period in the computer room, Rodrick decided to go on YouTube and look up rap videos uploaded by Bobbi's ex. It took him only thirty seconds into one video to determine that this Scott guy had terrible music. He couldn't rap on beat, the beat selection on multiple songs was boring, and the lyrics? Manny could have written better ones.
'What did she even see in this guy?'He thought in distaste. There was one song that was kinda decent…and that was because Bobbi was featured on it. She was in some of Scott's videos but only as eye candy. In the one he was watching, she was actually rapping.
"I want to hear more from the chick," one of the top comments read, and he certainly agreed.
During lunch, Bobbi was sitting at his table first with a taco salad and a bottle of iced tea in front of her. "You can actually eat the taco meat here without getting sick from food poisoning?" He questioned while sitting down next to her, holding his own tray of pizza and fries.
"It tastes alright for me, though I might just have a strong stomach," she answered.
"I thought I had a strong stomach too. Then I had this incident once involving the cafeteria's attempt to serve beef empanadas as the daily special," he quipped. The details of what he suffered for forty-eight hours during that experience were too traumatizing for him to say out loud. But he'll never forget the hell his mom raised to the school board that caused the cafeteria workers to flee at the sight of him for the rest of his sophomore year.
Her face briefly twisted in disgust and he hoped that it was for his sake. "Well, did you think about what I said last night?" She asked him next.
He did. A lot. It was hard not to when he had to overhear his dad complain to his mom about their new argument when she came home last night. "I'll apply to the community colleges in Plainview and Baltimore this weekend," he answered, still unsure of the concept. He didn't even know what he would want to major in if he got accepted into either of those places. But two was the most he could push himself to apply for.
"Good! I bet your folks are gonna be happy about that!" She said cheerfully.
"I'm not doing it for them," he bluntly denied, "I'm doing it for me. And partially you. Because you gave me good reasons why I should."
Bobbi looked surprised at his words. "You value my perspective that much?" She asked him softly.
"You have a great aura that makes people want to listen to you, Bobbi. We know whatever you say is genuine," he confessed, looking away shyly at the end. He almost blurted out his feelings for her right then and there but he couldn't as much as he wanted to.
"You know, you've only known me for a month but you're saying way nicer shit to me than all of my exes," she said, and for the first time ever she was the one who sounded bitter about something.
"Your exes suck," he replied. 'But I would be way better,' was the thought that was on the tip of his tongue.
Bobbi smiled at him before silently going back to eating her food.
Greg
During his own lunch period, Greg picked out a quiet table in the corner of the cafeteria to talk to his girlfriend, who thankfully didn't seem like she was ready to dump him. "I respect you a lot for all the cool things you do in and out of school. You're literally perfect," he began, "I'm just bummed with how I barely have been seeing you lately. I didn't mean to start an argument."
"I know, Greg," Holly replied, still coming off as distant towards him and there was an awkward pause between them before her next statement, "Next week, we'll definitely do something fun together. You can come to my little sister's Halloween party!"
"A Halloween party involving a bunch of five year olds? That didn't sound fun."
Greg visualized a bunch of bratty little kids screaming, crying, and demanding piggy back rides from him all night. It was a horrifying thought. However, to be on his girlfriend's good side again, he smiled politely at the offer. "Sounds great, I can even bring Manny if my parents are okay with it," he replied enthusiastically, happy to see a grin on Holly's face in return.
"Is this the part where we kiss and make up?" He asked next flirtatiously, making her giggle. They then leaned in at the same time and gently pressed their lips against each other.
The kiss wasn't as warm as their other ones but Greg tried to not overthink it.
"Noooooooooo," they heard Ruby Bird hiss after they broke apart. To Greg's horror, she was standing directly behind him.
"Nasty Heffleys, need to be single foreversssss," she snarled before sniping at his hair with her teeth. She only bit a few hair strands off his head but that satisfied her enough. She stalked back to her table with a murderous walk that caused nearby kids to be on edge. Shaking, Greg turned to his girlfriend to see if she was just as scared as he was.
"She'll get over it. I'm nice to her so she's overprotective of me, Sorry," she clarified apologetically.
"Well, there's another reason why Holly and I can't break up…"
Rodrick
"The Lock-In? I remember that shit, it was lame," Rodrick commented when his little brother showed him the flyer after he picked him up from school. "Mostly because Mom was a chaperone and she made it lame."
"That's why I ripped that part of the form off when I had Dad sign it. Couldn't risk him telling her about that," Greg admitted to him in the kitchen. Tonight was frozen dinner night so all they had to do was use the microwave to cook their Hungry Man and Kid Cuisine meals.
"Smart idea," he replied, "It's weird having Dad be the one to sign all of our permission forms and take us to appointments and shit. That's been Mom's thing our entire lives so far."
And it was obvious that their dad was struggling with this change too. He was already grouchy every day from work but now that he was doing all of the "mom things" too, the guy seemed even more stressed. Earlier in the week when Manny refused to go to the bathroom by himself unless someone was watching him, their dad almost lost his temper. Greg had to be the one who did it instead.
"It's looking like it's going to be for the rest of our lives because it doesn't seem like Mom wants to go back," his little brother assumed.
"At this point, Manny is gonna have a totally different view of our parents than we do," Rodrick replied. To be honest, there was already a world of difference in how their parents acted when he was a little kid vs compared to how they were acting with Greg and Manny
At the sound of his name, their other brother ran in excitedly. "Is dinner ready?" He asked Greg.
"Not yet, buddy. Your food just needs a couple more minutes," Greg answered while affectionately rubbing Manny's hair.
"Aww look at Greggy, taking care of our baby brother like Mommy," Rodrick cooed teasingly, causing his middle brother to give him a dirty look. If Manny wasn't looking, he knew Greg would have flipped him the bird. "You know, Manny, I really like how that chocolate brownie in your meal looks. I might have a bite of it when you're not looking," he teased their baby brother next.
He expected Manny to just scream "No!" in response to the taunt. He did not expect what actually came out of the four year old's mouth.
"Johnny Cheddar is gonna eat your insides if you do," Manny threatened with a dark, unsettling scowl on his face. Rodrick lost the will to joke after that.
"Who's…who's that?" He questioned nervously while Greg raised an eyebrow at the claim.
"My friend who comes out at night. Mostly," his youngest brother answered casually but with the creepy look still on his face.
Rodrick locked his bedroom door that night.
Greg
"I've been increasingly worried that I was acting more like my Mom than I want to be and vented as much to the guys at school. If I had the foresight, I would have known this was a bad idea."
"You're doing all of the cooking? You're the one who's cleaning up after yourself? You're the one who's taking care of your little brother? Dude, your manliness is in danger!" Albert Sandy, the school conspiracy theorist, warned him at the lunch table.
"How? It's only until my mom's semester at college is over," Greg questioned in disbelief.
"It'll be too late by then. You know what happens when guys start doing girly stuff? Their balls slowly shrink every day until they…evaporate," the other boy insisted as several other boys around them gasped in horror.
"That's bullshit," Greg rejected.
"Is it?" The other boy challenged. "You remember Christopher Jenson, that guy in our grade last year who moved away in January? He liked to help his mom with everything. He even liked watching soap operas, reading romance novels, and wearing pink to school. One day, he woke up and saw that he was missing all of his guy bits and now had the voice of a girl. He lost every bit of hair on his body and that's why he left Westmore. Do you want to end up like that, Greg Heffley?"
"No, but that Say Hello To The New You video didn't mention any of this."
"No, but it doesn't have to. Schools only teach you the basic information so they can brainwash you. The real knowledge you get comes from word of mouth," Albert countered, tapping the side of his head for emphasis.
"The thing about Albert Sandy was that telling crazy stories at the lunch table was his entire personality. But while I doubt that I'll lose everything below my belt because I have to do way more things than I used to with Mom going to college, I am nervous about the possibility of forgetting everything it means to be a boy. And my mom doesn't get that."
Rodrick
Rodrick usually was confident before a performance but tonight there were higher stakes because of Bobbi's presence. While Chris babbled with Ben in the van about how awesome his uncle's bar was, all Rodrick could think about how he couldn't fuck this up.
Tonight would have to be the night that he confessed his feelings for Bobbi. He couldn't hold it off any longer, not with her actively getting ready to entertain other guys. Inviting her to perform with Löded Diper tonight was hopefully the grand gesture that made him stand out compared to the rest. He didn't know what he would do if she rejected him. It would hurt alotworse than Heather Hills not wanting him that was for sure.
When he pulled up in front of her home, he beeped his horn for her to come out, having already notified her that he was on her way. She came outside…but so did her dad. "Hey Rodrick," she greeted him cheerfully as always, "This is my daddy," she introduced next, gesturing to the older black man beside her. He could tell from how they looked standing next to each other that Bobbi inherited most of her features from her dad. They had the same shade of dark skin, the same eye shape, the same lip shade, and the same jawline. She was just obviously prettier.
"Hello," the man greeted him in a friendly manner, making Rodrick relieved that it wasn't hostile instead. "Hi," he replied.
"Have a good time and knock it out the park," the man told his daughter before they shared an affectionate hug, "Don't do nothing crazy though, or else you'll be grounded until you're thirty-five," he threatened lightheartedly.
"That's not necessary, dad. You know I got a good head on my shoulders," she replied with an eyeroll.
"That's what I want to believe but you teenagers have a bad tendency to surprise your parents," he remarked dryly then focused on him, "Because it's a Friday night, I'm going to be lax on when I want you to bring my daughter home. I'll give you until midnight. And you promise to bring her home in one piece, correct?"
"Correct, sir," Rodrick assured him. The man cracked a small smile.
"Good, well rock on I guess," he told them before leaving their presence. Bobbi then got into the front passenger seat.
"Oh, that's why I'm not allowed to ride shotgun tonight…," Ben realized from his seat in the back. Rodrick sent him a silent look to shut up before driving off.
Greg
"Dad dropped me off at eight p.m for the Lock-In, and the second I walked through the door, I knew I made a huge mistake."
Greg entered the gym and was immediately met with the sight of bored kids and chaperones that clearly didn't want to be there. Several of them were parents but most of them were teachers, which was a bad omen that any wild activities he and the other kids could get up to weren't gonna happen. He turned to leave and call his dad, but one of the chaperones blocked his path. Sighing, he dragged his overnight bag into the auditorium where the other kids were taking their stuff.
"Greg!" Rowley cheered when he saw him. His best friend was sitting on stage with Jerri, who was playing a game on her DS. Jerri was one of only like twenty girls he saw in attendance at this event. The gender ratio had to be ninety percent guys and ten percent girls which sucked for anyone looking for a person to hook up with tonight.
"Hey guys," Greg greeted them as he walked over and placed his sleeping bag on the floor next to them. "I don't think tonight is going to be as fun as the school is hyping it up to be," he grumbled.
"I don't know, Fregley already seems to be having fun," Rowley pointed out as they all looked over to Fregley, who was gleefully playing around in a small ball pit, rolling around with a ball in his mouth. The ball pit was apart of the "Activities Center", which featured other toys and games that would only entertain kids Manny's age. Greg grimaced at the sight. He was already wishing that Holly was here.
"So which Pokémon games did you bring?" He asked Jerri, hoping that the night flew by fast.
"The first hour of the lock-in was just me and Jerri playing video games competitively against each other while Rowley watched. He didn't know who to root for so he just gushed over who had the cutest Pokémon on their team. At 9:00 the adults said it was time for "party games," but nobody heard them because we were all too distracted by the electronics we were using. Mr. Tanner, the main organizer of the event, said people needed to be "social," so he confiscated all of the video games, phones, music players and whatever else people brought and put them in a big garbage bag."
"We're all gonna play a nice icebreaker to get to know each other better," Mrs. Carr, one of the history teachers, declared cheerfully while everyone was forced to sit in one big circle on stage.
Considering that most of them knew each other since pre-school, Greg personally thought he and his classmates knew too much about each other already. The teacher was insistent on doing this activity though. "Everyone is gonna give themselves a nickname that starts with the first letter of their real name and describes their personality. Who wants to go first?" Mrs. Carr explained. Of course, the first person to volunteer was Rowley.
"Me!" He cheered. "Respectful Rowley!"
Jerri was next and it took her a few seconds to come up with a nickname for herself. "Jubilant Jeraldine," She said while not making eye contact with anyone. 'Her actual name is Jeraldine? That's so…old,' Greg thought to himself, and he wasn't the only one. Several kids snickered at the nickname causing Jerri to look even more embarrassed. It made him feel bad for her. Because the icebreaker went counter-clockwise, it took a while to get to his turn and by then a guy named George stole his idea of using "Great" as a nickname for himself. As everyone looked at him expectantly, he struggled to think of a word that began with G that accurately described him. The eighth grade honors English teacher, Mrs. Libby then decided to bail him out.
"Jolly Greg!" She announced, and for some reason everyone was okay with that even though the letters didn't even match.'Maybe Rodrick should be an English teacher someday if not knowing the difference between g and j was acceptable,' he thought wryly. Sometimes he worried about the education system in this country.
"I was stuck with a stupid nickname for the rest of the night and potentially until college. So far, this event was a freaking joke."
Rodrick
As they set up equipment onstage, Rodrick really wished his brother and his goofy best friend were here to help. It was a high probability that they weren't even having fun right now at the Lock-In anyway. After making sure his drums were okay, he headed backstage to check in on Bobbi.
"Woah," he commented in shock, his eyes blinking rapidly at what was in front of him.
Bobbi had discarded the white and furry jacket she wore outside to show off therealoutfit she was wearing: a tight black dress that barely went past her thighs, sparkly black tights, black cross shaped earrings, and velvet black pumps. Her dress was complemented by the long black nails on her fingers and the body glitter above her chest.
"I thought that since I'm performing with a rock band, I got to look the part. What do you think?" She asked him, putting her hands on her hips. Because of the heels she was wearing, they were currently the same height.
He was thinking some unholy thoughts as his mouth went dry. He told her to dress formally but he wasn't expectingthis. He never saw her wear black until now but it was easily the best color on her, especially on her nails. Even though he went out of his way to wear a fancy white dress shirt, a black vest, and black slacks for the performance, he felt underdressed compared to her.
"I…uh…you…black," he sputtered out. 'You fucking idiot,' he cursed himself in his mind. She giggled.
"You're so silly," she teased while playfully tugging on the black tie he wore to accompany his shirt. The action almost triggered somethingferalin him. When he came on stage to perform, Rodrick used as much inner strength as he could to bring himself out of the daze he was in. They were gonna perform a few songs before Diper Overlöde.
"From your baby brother's crib, comes the hottest heavy metal band, Löded Diper!" Chris' uncle introduced dramatically to the audience before giving them the go-ahead to start. They began with a cover of "Holiday" from Green Day. Feeling the energy flow through him, Rodrick felt his rocker side take over. His mind mostly focused on working his drums, twirling his drumsticks around his fingers before expertly striking them down on the base. The crowd reacted to their performance so far with enthusiastic nods and that surprisingly continued through their next cover of Metallichihuahua's song "Doghouse of Destruction". The song after that was one of their own, Exploded Diper. Because it blended well with the other two songs, the crowd's hype didn't die down and thankfully his mom wasn't there this time to kill it with her dance moves.
"Before our next song, we have someone we need to bring out," Ben announced into the microphone as it was now Bobbi's time to come out, "She's the hottest cat in the jungle, the top of our food chain…give it up for Bobbi Thee Bobcat!"
Bobbi strutted on stage to loud applause from the crowd and Rodrick felt his nerves mildly rise. He had to take a deep breath to control them. There wasn't a flash of fear on her face as she stood on stage, tightly gripping the microphone and eyeing down the crowd as if she owned them. They glanced at each other for a moment before he began hitting a beat for her to rap along to.
"If you wanna mess with me, Imma get the paddle and start spanking, I'm big mama and you're now my little baby. Sit in time out before I give you something to cry about, In my house, I'm the cat and you're the mouse. I'll get you in a trap, where your head used to be now, there's a gap," she began with a fast, hard flow, bouncing along to his sound. He didn't know how she could even dance in her heels but she was doing it.
She rapped a few more lines before he and his bandmates' began performing their portion of Diper Overlöde. As they rehearsed earlier, she sang along to the chorus along with him and Chris, adding a few ad libs here and there. Even though it was only the first time they were performing together, it felt natural. By the time the song was over, the crowd seemedreallyinto them. There were cheers when they ended their set and went backstage.
"That was so fun!" She remarked happily as they talked backstage.
"You were fun, no scratch that, you were incredible," he praised, "You should perform Diper Overlöde with us every time."
"You guys like my rapping that much?"
"We have great energy together," he affirmed, and then his stomach started clenching as he decided now was the time to confess, "Look Bobbi, I'll say it. I'm-"
"I thought everyone at school was joking when they said you were performing with these losers," they heard someone mock. It was Scott, who was standing up against a door.
"Scott? What are you doing here?" Bobbi demanded as she took on a hostile demeanor once again at the sight of her ex-boyfriend. He then walked up to her.
"I'm here with my Dad. I needed to see how else you were gonna degrade yourself next," he sneered, "And you didn't disappoint me. You're making songs with this emo turd now?"
"I'm punk, you stupid fuck," Rodrick corrected, even more irritated about this misconception than the last time.
"I don't give a fuck what you are, your band is trash," the other guy insulted, "What kind of name is Löded Diper? Bobbi's rapping skills are also trash. I guess you two are a perfect match. You know, Bobbi, I'm surprised you didn't shake your ass on stage since that's honestly all you're good for."
"Boy, fuck you," Bobbi fired back, her dark eyes now blazing in anger.
"I wish you did but you never put out, which is crazy considering you change boyfriends like you change panties. I was the longest relationship you ever had and I only got head from you. You talk about all the boys that want to be with you because you're a ran through asshoe. You probably fucked this loser to even be here tonight since that's the only way you can get someone to pay attention to your music," her ex-boyfriend ranted, and that's when Rodrick himself got angry. For this asshole to come in after the show to attack his band was bad enough, but for him to talk to Bobbi the way he was right now was unacceptable. He needed to leave pronto.
"I think you should get out," he threatened as he tried to step in between Scott and Bobbi, only for Bobbi to push him aside to confront her ex some more.
"You know what, Scott?" She said in a low, dangerous voice. "I didn't let you go all the way with me because when I finally do that with a guy, it has to be someone who not only loves me but respects me and you didn't do either. You're calling me a hoe when you cheated and that's why I dumped you. The last thing I need in my life is some insecure, cheating bastard who's the one with actual shitty ass music. You treat girls like shit because your mom abandoned you to do crack in peace, and instead of getting therapy for that you're harassing me. The crack she smoked is worth more than what you grew up to be."
Rodrick can see on the other guy's face that Bobbi had hit a severe nerve. He had not known that she was capable of saying such dark, twisted words and he was scared of what kind of tongue lashings she would give him if he ever pissed her off. She huffed before turning away from them both with the intention of storming off.
What happened next was a wild blur.
Clearly enraged by her words to the point of no return, Scott grabbed Bobbi's arm, twisting it. She yelped out in pain and that set Rodrick off. He pulled his fist back before lunging forward and decking her ex right in his nose, causing him to fall back onto the floor. He then pounced right on the other guy and began pummeling him.
It was unfortunate that this had to happen at a venue like this, but at the same time beating up a guy after his band's first successful show was quite metal.
Greg
There were other icebreakers they had to play throughout the night and most of them didn't go well. One game was called "I Never Told Anyone This Before", where everyone had to tell a secret to the entire circle. The teachers claimed that it was an exercise to help them all bond with each other, but Greg realized the game'struepurpose when a couple of troublemakers proudly confessed their worst crimes.
"I was the one who spray painted the f word on the front of the school!" Teddy Caldwell bragged.
"I let off a stink bomb during the school assembly last week!" Dean Brown confessed next as he hi-fived Teddy.
"I keyed Coach Malone's car last night!" Fredrick Donnelly boasted with no shame. By the end of the game, all three boys were looking at suspensions at the minimum. They couldn't even go to the bathroom without being trailed by chaperones. When it was his turn, Greg confessed the most tame secret he could think of.
"My dog cuddles with me every night before bed," he said. Several girls cooed at the answer to his delight. He wisely left out the amount of times Sweetie pissed all over his bedsheets during these cuddling sessions. There was a fifteen minute break before the next activity that everyone spent consuming snacks they snuck into their overnight bags. The chaperones hated that and had to confiscate the snacks next. If there was one way to anger him really fast, it was to snatch his bag of cherry sour balls from him.
Mrs. Dean, the art teacher, called them all back into the circle before everyone could get rowdy at the lack of snacks. "Alright, our next game is gonna be 'Guess Who?'" She announced. They were all split into ten teams. Rowley was put on another team while Jerri was the only girl on his team.
"Here's how the game worked: Each team had to go into another room and take a picture of one of its members. But the picture had to be a close-up, like of an ear or a hose or a hand or something like that. Then each team would bring their picture to the library, and the other teams would have to guess who was in the picture. The winning team would get to eat ice cream sandwiches from the cafeteria freezer. I had to admit it sounded like a fun game."
"I want to be the one in the picture! Take a picture of my belly button!" George Fleer, a tall chubby kid, said eagerly as he lifted up his shirt in the science lab they were standing in. Greg looked down at the guy's belly button critically. It was an outie and because he was the only guy in the group with one, it wouldn't be hard for the other teams to deduce it was him in the picture.
"Too obvious," Greg rejected. Another kid in their group, Nicky Wood was disqualified due to having freckles on nearly every inch of his body. When they tried to take pictures of Christopher Brownfield's back, he discovered a spy from a rival team hiding from behind a table, forcing them to move onto the next contender. Because Jerri was the only black kid in their team, it was obvious why they couldn't use any pictures of her. They all eventually settled on taking a picture of Tyson Sanders' bent arm. The cameras they had to use to take pictures were old-fashioned which disappointed everyone who was itching to useonemodern electronic device for this activity.
"I think we have a big shot at winning," Greg told Jerri when all of the pictures from every team were put up on the wall in the library.
"Yeah, I think the people on Rowley's team could have used a different picture of him…," his new friend remarked as they looked at Rowley's picture in particular. Nearly his entire face was visible except for his eyes.
"I guess no one likes ice cream sandwiches as much as we do," he quipped. He could practically taste an ice cream sandwich in his mouth with how eager he was for their team to win.
Mr. Tanner kept looking down at their picture with narrowed eyes. He then looked up at them sternly.
"To use this game as an opportunity to take lewd pictures of yourselves is a serious violation of our code of conduct. Team three, you are all disqualified," he declared harshly to their collective shock.
"What? Why?" Greg questioned in disbelief.
"It is completely inappropriate to take a picture of somebody's posterior to show to other children," Mrs. Dean accused, just as angry as Mr. Tanner.
"Uh, what's a posterior?" Nicky asked in confusion.
"It's another word for butt," Jerri answered in a low, awkward voice. As immature as it was, Greg laughed with the other guys at the explanation. Posterior was the snootiest term he ever heard to describe such a vulgar body part. The longer he looked at the picture of Tyson's arm, it did look like it could be the guy's ass from a certain angle. But every teacher around them was even more mad now.
"We will be contacting all of your parents to pick you up. And whoever's posterior is in the picture will be suspended, possibly expelled," Mrs. Dean threatened and everything then became chaos. All it took was for one kid in their group to start running and soon the rest of them did too except Jerri, who stayed behind with tears in her eyes at the declaration. On his end, he knew that his parents were gonna be pissed if they had to drive out at eleven p.m. at night to pick him up, especially his mom who was studying for an exam right now.
Even though it was every man for himself, Greg found himself hiding in the music room with Tyson, turning the lights in the room off so they couldn't be easily spotted. It was like a moment in a horror game where if they breathed, they would be caught by the monster hunting them down. Greg was as still as a rock underneath a piano.
"What if they lined us up and tried to match our butts up with the picture?" Tyson whispered to him fearfully after a while.
"Tyson, you pee with your pants all the way down. I'm sure even the janitor remembers what your butt looks like," he assured him wryly. They then quieted immediately when they heard the door to the music room open.
"Nasty Heffleysssss," Greg heard Ruby Bird hiss as she successfully sniffed him out, crawling around on all fours, and he started regretting the fact that he never got a chance to write his will. He and Tyson were then escorted back to the library by the teachers who used Ruby to hunt them down. He dreaded his inevitable execution as the teachers lined him and his entire team up.
"It was my arm, I swear!" Tyson argued as he held out his arm for all the teachers to see. None of them believed him until Mr. Tanner saw that the mole by Tyson's elbow matched up with the one in the picture.
"Well, this was an innocent mistake and any reasonable person would assume the same thing," Mr. Tanner argued defensively.
"That's all you have to say?" Jerri questioned angrily, with her eyes now red from the crying she did earlier. "My parents will hear about this!"
In order to calm her down, the teachers gave her and the rest of them the ice cream sandwiches from the cafeteria freezer, but Greg couldn't find it in him to enjoy the treat after what they had to go through.
"I was just glad that our parents were no longer being called. However nobody was in the mood for more games after that so the chaperones had us call it a night. A lot of kids were upset because they wanted to stay up all night but I was ready to sleep off the rest of this nightmare."
Rodrick
The good news was that Chris' uncle only banned Bobbi's ex and his dad from the bar after the fight. The even greater news was her ex was going to spend the weekend with not only a cracked nose but a nasty black eye too.
The bad news was that after the fight, there was an unsettling silence between him and Bobbi.
"That was the first time he ever tried to get physical with me," she murmured to herself in shock. They were sitting in the parking lot together alone, just staring off into the darkness.
"It's gonna be the last time," Rodrick quipped darkly. She glanced at him with an unreadable expression on her face.
"You beat his ass for me, you didn't have to do that."
"He looked like he was about to hurt you and I couldn't let that happen. My dad always said that real men don't stand by and watch as another man beats on a woman, especially one he cares about."
Bobbi's lip trembled at that statement and she seemed really nervous about it, but there was also shame on her face for whatever reason. "Rodrick, I'm going to need some time to myself, even at school. I'm sorry," she apologized, "When I'm ready for us to hang out again, I'll talk to you but for now this is all too much. I need some distance."
Plan D had died right at that moment.
"Okay…," he accepted, hanging his head down in defeat.
Greg
Greg tried to sleep but it was hard to do so when the rest of the guys at the Lock-In were horsing around like morons.
"AHHH!" Several guys screamed as George Fleer chased them around with the intent of touching them with his outie. Even after a teacher ordered them all to sit down and not make another sound for the rest of the night, some of the other guys around him kept farting. When the teacher, Mr. Palmero, irritably ruled next that if someone had to fart they had to get up and do so behind the stage curtain, the guys excused themselves just to go backstage and play with the brass instruments so they could simulate farting noises. Perhaps the worst of all was that coincidentally around this time, the heat in the auditorium was turned off and replaced by the air conditioner, making everyone freeze in their sleeping bags. Frustrated, Greg excused himself to a chaperone by claiming he needed to pee. He hated to leave Rowley alone but he needed to be alone for a little bit before he snapped.
He was surprised to see Jerri hiding in a corner around the restrooms. While the boys had to sleep in the auditorium, the girls were sent to sleep in the music room. "Whatcha doing out here?" He questioned.
She looked up at him and he could see on her face that she was still upset by tonight's events. "I regret coming to this thing," she muttered.
"That makes two of us," he agreed.
"I try to go to these things to make friends and have a good time only to get made fun of. The other girls in the music room keep calling me an old hag because of my name," she admitted sadly. Greg sat down next to her.
"Kids our age are stupid. Don't pay them any mind," he advised, "Jeraldine sounds better than Gregory at least. That's my grandpa's middle name."
"Gregory is classy," she complimented him. He chuckled self deprecatingly.
"I'm sure that's what my parents wanted me to be," he replied.
"Would Holly being here made tonight better for you?" She asked him next.
"Pfft, she made the right decision to not go to this thing after all," he grumbled.
"I'm sorry."
"Why are you apologizing? You did nothing wrong," he assured her. He noticed that apologizing over everything little she did was a quirk of hers.
"It feels like I'm always doing or saying wrong," she explained, the embarrassment on her face coming back.
"I'm the same way, but I'm pretty sure that unlike me, you're not usually doing anything to apologize for," he joked and she giggled.
"You should laugh more," he suggested, and he couldn't deny that it was because he really enjoyed the sound of it. When they shared a smile, there was a sudden warmth between them.
The moment was killed when he heard a low hiss somewhere that he highly suspected was coming from Ruby. "I think we should hide somewhere else," he announced nervously as they stood up. Within seconds, they were fast walking down to another part of the school.
"For the rest of the event, Jerri and I just chatted about random stuff in the art room. Eventually by two a.m we fell asleep together. I'm pretty sure that this lock-in was just an elaborate scheme set up by parents and teachers to scare boys and girls from having co-ed parties. They might've succeeded but at what cost? At the time of this writing, I'm pretty Christopher Brownfield is still hiding behind the soda machine on the second floor."