Unpopular Science

“Go for it, Goodwin.” Dean Cescepi smirked. Goodwin had heard the stories about Cescepi. Cescepi was said to have killed someone, literally wrung his neck when the guy tried to steal his wife’s purse in a city park. And the other guy had used a gun.

“Come on, Goodwin,” the dean goaded. “You know you want to. Look at me—I’m not bigger than Fast.” Neil Goodwin felt the urge. He did want a piece of Cescepi. That prick had been giving him grief for three long years….

“Holy smokes, you guys! There’s no reason to get into a fight.”

Neil Goodwin and Dean Cescepi turned to Jack Fast, who was wearing his goofy smile on his freckled face. “You jokers! You’re just putting me on with all that tough talk.”

Dean Cescepi grinned. Fast was inane. Some sort of idiot savant. Faced with that level of sunshiny dorkiness, who could stay angry?

“That’s right, we’re just putting you on. Aren’t we, Mr. Goodwin?”

Goodwin shifted from foot to foot. “Yeah. Just jokin’.”

“Carry on, gentlemen,” the dean said, and he wandered down the corridor just far enough so he could keep an eye on the situation.

Neil Goodwin sneered at Fast, aware that the dean’s footsteps had not carried him far off. “You the dean’s pet now, Fast Fucker?”

“What can I do for you, Neil?”

“We need to talk about what you did in calculus today.”

“I give up. What did I do?”

Goodwin snorted. “The test. Remember the test?”

“Sure.”

“You aced it.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t act stupid, Fast. Those tests were graded on a curve, and you threw it all off. I failed the test because of you!”

“Oh, give me a break!” interjected Nancy Fielding, Fast’s girlfriend. She was extremely attractive, a curious combination of retro clean-cut and sexy. Her tailored linen blazer was worn over a silk halter top that exposed a vast span of beautiful stomach. How the hell did Fast rate a piece of hot ass like that?

“This is the thing,” Goodwin said. “I fail calculus and I won’t have the GPA I need to get into the old man’s fraternity. One more F is all it will take.”

“Sorry to hear it.” Fast was still grinning.

“You’re not getting the picture,” Goodwin insisted.

“Oh, we all get the picture, Neil,” Nancy declared loudly enough for everyone in the vicinity to hear her, and everybody turned to stare. “You’re pissed off because Jack won’t stoop to your level of stupidity.” Then she laughed. Up and down the hall people saw Neil Goodwin being laughed at by the hottest babe in the entire school.

Goodwin’s face was on fire.

“Why, you’re turning red as a cherry, Neil!” Nancy exclaimed in delight, and Fast just stood there smiling like some dork from the cover of the June 1955 issue of Boy’s Life.

Goodwin exerted all his self-control in an effort to not put his fist in both their faces.

“I think we need to talk again. Fast,” Goodwin growled. “Tonight. On the football field.”

“Okay, Neil. How does 6:45 sound?” Fast said. He turned to Nancy. “We’ll still have time to make it to the movies by 7:30.”

“Sure.” Nancy rewarded Fast with an adoring smile.

“See you then. Bye, Neil!”

They were gone. Neil Goodwin was pretty sure he hadn’t intimidated them as he had intended to.

Tonight he would show that slick piece of shit and his prissy slut just how intimidating he could be—and they sure as shit were not going to make the 7:30 movie.

Sometimes Dean Alain Cescepi wondered if Jack Fast was for real. The kid lived in a different world. He was some sort of an intellectual genius but he came across as utterly naive, too. He was the only student Cescepi could remember in twenty years who used the word “gosh.”

And yet Fast had something going for him, on top of the perfect GPA. People gravitated to him. He was the certified nerd who somehow managed to be cool. Not to mention he had managed to rope Nancy Fielding, the most delectable barely-legal in the history of Larchwill High School.

Dean Cescepi didn’t know what to expect at the scheduled meeting between Jack Fast and the designated big dumb bully of the current graduating class, Neil Goodwin. Fast was a mystery. Goodwin was powerful and egocentric and stupid enough to kill somebody.

No matter what, it would be interesting.

Cescepi was crouched in the announcer’s booth at the top of the bleachers at 6:30 when Goodwin showed up with his loose-knit gang of buddies from the football team. There wasn’t an average IQ in the lot, but most of them were smart enough to be nervous. After all, they were all seniors, all bound for college on nonacademic merits. And even sports scholarships required that you actually finish high school.

Two decades of high-school administration and you got to know what kind of kids there were and how they would behave in a given situation. Cescepi knew this bunch was on the verge of doing something that even they knew was stupid. But why had Jack Fast agreed to this meeting? Jack Fast didn’t fit into any easy classification.

Hell, Cescepi thought, Fast would not show at all if he was really smart.