Burger: The Boy Who Hated Burgers (bxb)

Amelia is a Justin Cow

"There you are!"

Tracy glanced at me over her shoulder, only to look into her book again.

"Tracy! I've been looking all over for you, and you don't even acknowledge me?!" I shouted. " What are you even doing?! "

"Ssh!" I felt the librarian breathe down my neck. "Quit screaming, or I'll have to throw you out."

"Sorry," I whispered. "I forgot."

The librarian made a sound of disapproval and stalked away.

Tracy glanced at me once again. I glared daggers at her-- the ones that cost 10,000 drachmas in Asgard. She lost 60 points and fainted.

"Um, why are you staring at me like that?"

"Oh, nothing," I said. I took a seat next to her. She placed the book she was reading on the desk. "Anyways, where were you?"

"Well, Jessie and Laura told me to have lunch with them, so I did. Then, I came to the library to get some information for my science project."

"Jessie and Laura, huh?" My voice was a little shaky. Tracy had a good collection of friends. But I had a great collection of friends.

Imaginary ones.

And like a storm cloud crossing the shore, my thoughts finally collided into me. I remembered Mom's advice this morning, Amelia's comment, and Mr. Willis' criticism. Despite my attempts to keep my emotions at bay, my throat clenched up. I gulped the feeling away.

"I'm sorry, Austin," Tracy said, frowning at me sympathetically. Was my face that desperate? "You must have been lonely. I'll have lunch with you tomorrow."

"You don't have to, Trace," I said. Making Tracy feel guilty made me feel like a bad person. "You can eat with whoever you want, whenever you want."

"No, but you are my best-friend. I--"

"Don't, Tracy. I was being jealous and absolutely awful. You have all the right to hang out with different people. I shouldn't hold you back."

We were both silent for a while, satisfying the librarian. Then, we started talking again, which made the librarian sigh with defeat.

"So, what did you do?" Tracy asked.

"I didn't really eat. I came right here."

"Why is that?"

"Well, my lunch fell to the floor because I banged into this guy while I was walking. I didn't really feel like eating after that." I paused, then said, "Besides, it was a burger. I really couldn't care less."

"Oh, wow." Tracy laughed. "Who did you knock into?"

"I don't know." I crossed my arms over my chest. "Okay, I forget his name, but I know he's one of the more popular guys."

"Ooh, was it Justin Anderson, Justin Brown, or Justin Cow?" she asked.

Another thing that was really funky about our school: A majority of the popular guys were Justins. And one of them was a Cow.

"Uh, none of the Justins. It was..." I began name-guessing. "Leonard... Lenny... Le-Levi! Levi LeBlanc!"

"Oh, God." Tracy's eyes became round. "He's trouble."

"What do you—"

The bell rang just then. The librarian looked like she was hardly controlling her anger at us. I pictured her puffing out smoke from her nostrils like a dragon. She could breathe fire any minute now.