“HEY, KHATCHADORIAN!”

I turned and a wadded ball of soaking-wet toilet paper hit me—whomp!—smack in the face. I’d gotten the answer to my question loud and clear. The news about our KRMY disaster was definitely, absolutely, totally out. The only question was, how bad was it? I knew I’d blown it with Jeanne, but I still figured there was a slight chance I had some cool left in the Khatchadorian tank, or was I right back to being Chief Dork at HVMS?

Across the schoolyard, Che Guzman and Elliot Peagood were laughing their rear ends off and wadding up a second paper ball in the drinking fountain. Peagood was flexing his throwing arm like he was at a baseball try-out. This dude really wanted to make his point.

“You suck, Khatchadorian!” Guzman shouted. “Loser!”

Kasey yelled something back at Guzman that I can’t repeat here (Australians know a super-impressive amount of curse words …), but I pulled her away as paper ball number two zipped past.

“Forget it,” she said as we huddled in the relative safety of the lockers. “Not everyone’s like them.”

I stared at my locker, where someone had spray-painted “LOOSER!”. Even the fact that the vandal couldn’t spell didn’t make me feel any better.

It was true. Not everyone at Hills Village Middle School was like Guzman and Peagood—only about ninety-nine percent of them.