The Bullworth fountain that was located south of the main school building was a great symbol for Bullworth Academy. The statue of the mascot represented the Jocks in all their glory. The Gym and Football Field were located to the south of it, the Auto-shop to the west, the Harrington House to the east, the Library to the northeast, and the parking lot to the northwest; thus making the school cliques very close to each-other at all times, pretty much the equivalent of stuffing a cat and a dog into a cage together and expecting them to get along.
At 3:30, the bell rang indicating that school day was over with, the fountain courtyard began flooding with different students, with a slightly short, overweight boy wearing an astronomy club vest and circular shaped glasses awkwardly emerging out of the crowd and seemingly heading towards the gym when another boy, a Jock in a Letterman Jacket, bumped into him.
“Where you goin’, nerd? This is Jock territory,” The Jock stated with an angry glare.
The nerd answered bravely, “To the observatory. I want to see some stars in the telescope tonight. So, if you don’t mind, please get out of my way.”
“Oh yeah? I’ll show you the stars in the middle of the day, punk!” Spat out the Jock firmly, smashing his fist into the nerd’s face, breaking his glasses as he slumped to the ground. ”OH, YOU….” cried the nerd, before being able to utter out another word, the Nerd felt a strong hand wrap around his throat, lifting him up onto his feet.
“You’ll learn to keep off our turf!” Before being able to throw another punch at the defenseless nerd, he was interrupted by a voice blaring from behind him. He hissed at the interruption and roughly threw the Nerd down to the ground as he turned around to confront the voice.
“Dylan!” Yelled out Dan, “Leave him for now; we’ll kick his ass later. Now, hurry the fuck up and let’s get to football practice. You know how the coach gets mad when we arrive late.”
Dylan glared down at the Nerd below his feet, “Lucky I’ve got other things to do.”, and with that, the Jock turned around and walked back onto his own territory, chuckling quietly. He seemed to be quite pleased with himself.
The nerd, whose name was George, lay on the ground, moaning from the pain until another nerd came and helped him to get on his feet, “George, are you OK? Do you need to go to the nurse?”
“No, no. I’m fine, Francis.” George managed to mutter out, barely staying awake from fainting.
Fatty, called by his full name, ‘Francis’, by his fellow peers, found that George’s glasses were broken. He helped George to walk to the library where he could clean the blood off George’s face.
“What were you doing in jock territory?” asked Fatty, getting a cloth out from his back pocket and crudely wiping smudges of blood off George’s face.
“I wanted to go to the observatory.” replied George, sounding like a five year old kid who was preparing to get yelled at by his parents.
“Aaaaand, why didn’t you go to the observatory from the gate here?” asked Fatty bluntly.
“Yeah, um, just take me to the observatory. Hey, I’m not tired anymore. I can walk by myself. Wanna' come with me?” George smiled, dodging the question.
“Sure.” Fatty replied.
By climbing a small wall at the south side of the library, Fatty and George could see a gate. The two entered the code and walked through the gate, marching along the path that led to the observatory. Bucky was near the gate, spud-gun in hand and chatting with Cornelius. He opened up the gate leading to the actual observatory, with Fatty and George walking in.”Hey, where’s Melvin?” asked Fatty. “Upstairs, in his room.” returned Bucky.
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Dan, Dylan and a new Jock, Cory, were walking to the football field, “Hey, what the hell were you thinking, Dylan? You were gonna kill him.” shouted Cory,
“He deserves it. It’s not the first time I smashed that little twerp to the ground, he’s the one that provokes me. I mean, no one defies a Jock. We’re the strongest clique.” Dylan replied, smiling.
“Yeah man, you sound like a Nerd-Lover!” Dan added.
“Yeah, but you get too amped up. Hell, you jumped on him like a gorilla.” Cory said defensively, ignoring Dan’s remark.
Dylan quietly replied, “Well, in a place like this you need to be strong…” His voice had a twinge of guilt, “And if it means jumping on someone like a gorilla to prove yourself, so be it.”
Damon was in the distance and he chuckled to himself, remembering that it was his long life dream to fight a gorilla when he could get the chance. Damon was a hopeless case of a student. He was rumored to be mentally unwell, and his violent tactics often proved this evidence. However, he was very muscular which made him suitable to lead the Jock clique after Ted's departure especially because he was Ted's right hand man.
Cory and Dylan were two completely different jocks, or it seemed that way. Most likely due to the vast difference in the two’s lives as children. Although they were two very different personalities, they would often get along finely.
Cory had a very sweet childhood, his parents always loved him and he was always grateful for that. Despite this, when he joined Bullworth, he (regretfully), joined the Jocks. Cory knew that if he were to fully stand up for a nerd, or anyone that the Jocks oppose for that matter, he’d be kicked out and his future dream career as an NFL footballer would be ruined. In fact, football was his only option for his life. He often got horrible marks in all subjects excluding sports, so football was his only option. Football was HIM, and it was HIS life. He wouldn’t dump that away for anything, even his honor and pride. Unfortunately for Dylan on the other-hand, he lived with an alcoholic mother. His father died in a car crash when he was young, scaring him for life and giving him disregard for others. His mother, who was depressed from the event, started neglecting Dylan and wanted to get rid of him, so she sent him to Bullworth. Dylan had a philosophy, and that philosophy stated, 'If no one cares about me, why the fuck should I care about them?'
The childhoods of the two boys affected them greatly, as Dylan was always sad and grumpy and always liked to bully weak kids for no reason other than to appear strong, while Cory didn’t bully anyone because he was kind-hearted. In fact, he always felt sorry for the nerds. He only pretended to bully them when other Jocks were around, but when he was alone, he actually left them without any sort of bullying. Although he was kind at heart, Cory was an amazing football player, which made him respected by the entire Jock clique and gave him a type of ‘reputation’, one which he’d have to uphold no matter what.
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Fatty and George went upstairs of the observatory to find Melvin sitting in a closed room. It was an extra room which he had turned into his own bedroom when he became the leader of the nerd clique after Earnest’s departure.
He was sitting on his bed, reading a comic book, until Fatty and George entered. “Good afternoon, Brave Knights.” Melvin smiled, before noticing George. “Hey, what’s wrong with your face, George?”
George fidgeted with his fingers nervously and then answered. “I was, err, heading to the observatory and a Jock got in my way.”
Fatty quickly intervened, like a five year old telling on his mischievous brother. “He forgot to mention that he went straight into enemy territory while doing so.” George gave him a glare.
“This isn’t the first time…” Melvin sighed, dropping his comic book and eyeballing him. “George, why didn’t you come from behind the library?” he asked rhetorically with his voice getting louder. “Don’t tell me you did that to send a message to the Jocks that we aren’t afraid of them. Please?” A silence occurred in the room, and Melvin began to get angry. George didn’t answer.
“You got smashed into a pulp. HAPPY NOW?” Melvin exploded, before trying to calm down again. Melvin sighed once more as he then talked very patiently “George. Listen to me. You think you’re brave by doing this, but in reality, you’re reckless. Your snobbery AND your naivety is what really annoys me. You’re worse than those preps.”
George started to become angry himself. “Then what do you want me to do, Melvin? My dear knight,” He boomed sarcastically, “We’re the most humiliated clique in this school. Why don’t you give me a slingshot, you know that I’m good at sniping; I’ll use one of 'em to take revenge on those Neanderthals, and thus, regain our dignity within this school. We are the most knowledgeable people in this school. We should RULE this school.”
“We WILL rule the school, but when the right time comes, and I think we both know what would happen if I were to give you a slingshot."
“Whatever. Do what you want, Melvin.” George angrily blasted at him, storming out of the room.
Melvin turned to Fatty, ignoring George’s immaturity. “So what about your quest? Are you watching the clique members as I told you?”
“Yeah, I spy on the greasers sometimes, and the Preps. But everything’s fine, nothing important seems to be occurring.”
“Good. Keep watching the cliques. The best way to destroy our enemies is to know their defect point.” Melvin says conspiratorially, “And, yes, we’re going to need more spies for this quest. I think that new knight… Leo, will be a good spy for us. Go talk to him later.”
“A new spy? I thought I was going good….”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong, brother! You ARE going good, AMAZING, in fact. But we need more look outs; you can’t be everywhere at once, can you?”
“Hmm, I guess not,” Fatty nodded.
“If you manage to spy on those foul villains long enough for you to hear their secrets or something important, it’ll help us in taking control over them and striking our much needed revenge. Oh, also, there’s someone else I want you to watch, George. Make sure he doesn’t do any of his stupidities with the jocks, or anyone else for that matter. We need to be behind the scenes for a while, and to NOT attract attention. You may go now.”
Fatty left the room, and Melvin started to think about his clique’s future. He chose Fatty to spy on the cliques because he was silly…. Or looked to be silly while in reality, Fatty’s was very smart. Another person Melvin was thinking of was the new nerd, Leo. His strategic knowledge would help him a lot, he was pretty much a born scout. And his skinny stature, which would help him sneak around a lot and hide in harder places to reach, which Fatty was incapable of.
George had acquired a prestigious amount of experience with the slingshot, which allowed him to hit targets precisely, even from a long shot range. In fact, the only thing that made Melvin patient on George’s snobbish and reckless behavior was that he’d need him due to his immense skill. Melvin hated the Jocks just as much as George, if not more so, but Melvin always liked to plan things out beforehand, to be patient before his plans could take flight. Unlike George, who would perform wild acts and not think of the circumstances or dire consequences that could follow with it.
Melvin had a secret reason for hating the Jocks that only a few knew of. Melvin was a nerd at heart, he always had been, but his father was ashamed of his son and always abused him as a child for his nerdish ways. This abusive childhood that Melvin lived made him hate his dad and hate all the Jocks. It made his blood explode, and he always wanted to see the jocks at his knees begging for mercy, and he was going to do anything to achieve that. Melvin thought to himself, One day, the brave knights WILL rule.