Slightly revised version of the story I origonally published as it's own book.
People always said he'd get into trouble one day.
Of course, that wasn't his fault.
Or maybe it was.
It may have been is fault for laughing a bit too loud whenever one of them was rejected by a girl, or slipped in the cafeteria and fell in a puddle of milk. He also probably should have made more of an effort to show them that he hadn't been the one who spilled that particular puddle in their particular way on that particular afternoon. But, hey, spilling milk wasn't a crime, and neither was laughing, even if they were the dreaded "popular kids".
Besides, everyone in the room had wanted to at least giggle when Taylor Parkings went down. He was just the only one who had had the guts.
Looking back, maybe having guts wasn't just a good thing.
But still. It wasn't his fault that Taylor had been embarrassed and that Jesse had told this to Carrie and Carrie had relayed the information to Sandra who had gossiped to Nicole who, of course, reported to Nicky Haymen that a scabby little sophomore had laughed out loud when Taylor Parkings slipped the puddle of milk that, if rumors were to be believed, had been left there by that very same sophomore.
Not his fault, not in the least. If Nicky had let him explain that before it started, then maybe that Tuesday afternoon wouldn't have proceeded quite the way that it did.
But he didn't, and it did.
He wasn't an idiot, no matter what his friends all called him, so he didn't stick around his locker or hide in the bathroom and wait for them to find him. He grabbed his books, slammed his locker, and sprinted from the school.
Too bad he never was a fast runner.
"Hey, Jonas. Jonas Smithson. Whatcha running from?"
If he was smart, he would have said he was late for his bus. If he was even smarter, he would have said his older brother was coming to pick him up, and he'd be there any minute.
But really, anything would have been better than turning around and saying, "From your ugly face."
When he shot off again, there were two seniors and one junior (with still rather wet pants) on his metaphorical tale.
He rounded the corner of the school and sped down the street, realizing too late that he was heading toward a dead end. Any sane person would have, at that moment, swallowed his pride, put his (still metaphorical) tale between his legs, and turned to face Nicky's wrath closer to the school, where it was far more likely to expect a rescue by some gallant senior willing to face a beating himself.
If Jonas Smithson had ever possessed some trace of sanity, it must have washed away in an incessant tide of snarky comments and ill-timed comebacks to the wrong kind of people.
He kept running.
After sixty seconds, he was gasping for breath. After eighty, he was starting to slow. At exactly ninety-one seconds, he risked a glance behind and met Nicky's eyes. At ninety-three seconds, he sped up again. At ninety-eight seconds, it was clear that the dead end was coming up.
And one hundred and two seconds into the chase, all four boys- chasers and chased- heard the roaring of a motorcycle.
At one hundred and nine seconds, Jonas Smithson was yanked onto the back of a huge, forest green bike and and swept away, past Nicky and Jesse and Taylor Parkings.
And at one hundred and thirteen seconds, Jonas asked, "What is this awful contraption and why on earth would you want to ride it?"
Probably not the way you want to remember your first words to the love of your life, but the brown-eyed girl in the blue leather jacket only glanced back at him once before slamming to a halt back in front of the school.
"Oh. So this is my stop?"
The girl shot him one more miffed look before swinging her legs around to smooth out her skirt, inexplicable reminding him of a cat grooming itself.
"Okay," He said, and stood up- tumbled off- her bike. "See ya tomorrow."
The girl waved at him once, hardly seeming to notice that the total stranger she had just rescued was walking away.
