The undergrad who had come with Professor Milhaus just gave us a blank look, but the grad student gave the Professor a look that equated Shelley with something to be scrubbed off and washed down a drain. One school kid was bad enough, but two was unthinkable. I also noticed that Professor Milhaus saw this all. He would pay attention to the grad student more than he would heed the undergrad, and way more than he would listen to Shelley or me.
Well, as hopeless as I knew it to be, I had to ask, for Shelley's sake. I was pretty sure what the answer would be. "Professor, can both of us be listed?"
He eyed me, and then Shelley before answering. "I don't wish to be rude, but we can really only put one name on the paper, and my feeling is that you, Carl, did more of the work that could be published, as opposed to other work on the project." He didn't elaborate on what that other work might be.
I turned towards Shelley. At least I had tried. Shelley didn't seem to care, and she became noticeably cooler. Later that evening, when we packed up and took the project home, she turned her face away when I tried to kiss her good-night. The first great romance of my revival was going down in flames!
The winners weren't announced until the next day at school, when it was announced in the morning over the intercom. Third place was some kid in the eighth grade with some idiot description of the Solar System. Second place was Mike Misner and his chickens (What did he do with them, anyway? Raise them and then eat them? I never did find out.) The winners were me and Shelley. The announcement came during Spanish class, and the room erupted in cheers when my name was spoken. The last time this happened, I took second place, and it felt pretty good; this felt much better.
Shelley was happy, at least with the project, if not with me. She had an A on the project, which brought her Science grade up to a B. She had gotten what she was looking for. To be fair, so did I, in every conceivable meaning. She dumped me that day at lunch, when I saw her holding hands with a member of the basketball team. He looked at me nervously, and she simply gave me a haughty look and turned away. This was noticed by others as well, and earned me a mixed bag of comments. A few of my friends commiserated with me, and a few others made jokes about it. It certainly wasn't worth breaking a sweat over, to my way of thinking at least.
It wasn't the end of the world. The following Monday, Tammy Braxton came up to me in the hallway at my locker as I took my coat off in the morning. Tammy was a short and very curvy little brunette, and very cute, a ninth grader like myself. She leaned back against the locker next to me, her arms across her chest pushing her cleavage up on display in her vee neck sweater. "Carl, I hear you and Shelley aren't seeing each other anymore.", she stated.
I stopped at this and looked over at her in surprise. "Uh, I guess not."
"What happened?"
I shrugged. "I don't know. I guess we just sort of drifted apart, I suppose." 'She's a fucking moron and used sex to earn a B in Science.' No, I didn't say that! Where was this going?
She smiled coquettishly at me, and sifted slightly so that I could see more of her cleavage. Very nice, too, probably twice what Shelley had. "That's too bad. I heard that you and she studied together after school a lot."
I raised an eyebrow at that. "Well, we did work on the Science Fair together."
"I heard you worked on other things, too.", she said teasingly.
I just shrugged. "Hey, we're just friends."
"That's not what she said."
I smiled. "Well, I would never talk about a friend, no matter what or when. She was a friend and we were friendly." I glanced at that very inviting cleavage, and then looked her in the eye. "I'm a very friendly guy."
Tammy smiled back, and looked down at my pants, and then back at my face. She licked her lips, and asked, "Interested in making another friend?"
I simply smiled. I closed my locker and put my arm around her shoulder, and began walking her to class. "I don't think anybody can ever have enough friends!"
Book Two: High School
Chapter 12: High School
September 1970
Tammy and I were friends for the rest of the school year, although we broke up when summer hit. With Tammy I had to start buying condoms, since she wasn't on the Pill. It was worth it. She had a seriously nice set of tits and an ass to die for. Still, while we were 'friends', it never seemed to me to be a permanent thing. I always had the feeling that she was interested in someone else, but I couldn't figure out who.
It turned out to be my buddy Randy Bronson, who had been messing around with somebody else at Towsontown and needed some maturing. By the start of tenth grade Tammy deemed him ready, and I was dropped like a hot potato. I wasn't one to complain. Tammy and I were more like friends with benefits, and I have to admit, her benefits were bountiful! If she ever decided to breast feed her children, they would be very well fed!
Summer had some changes this year. Nana dragooned me into escorting her to Bingo at the VFW over in Perry Hall every Tuesday night (Mom was drafted on Thursdays) and that made me reschedule some of my aikido lessons into the afternoons. I was now orange belt and moving up towards green. When I ran in the morning, I would now carry my barbells with me, and I was running four miles. I was much stronger than I used to be. I also stopped growing taller. I hit 5'10", and only grew another inch taller in the remainder of my time in high school. I had started Towsontown Junior as the smallest kid in the school, and was finishing as one of the tallest.
A few other changes occurred at home. Hamilton was becoming seriously annoying. He had a major problem with the concept of privacy as it applied to anybody other than himself. Basically, if it was mine, it was his. I had gotten a very strong foot locker and a lock supposedly guaranteed to be pick-proof, and kept a lot of things in there. The rubbers were just one item I needed to lock away. My spare cash was stored there as well, along with brokerage and bank statements.
I even had to get a post office box and have my mail sent there. I caught him going through my mail one time and showed it to my parents. He did the lie and deny trick, but it was pretty obvious, especially when he complained about how much money I had. Mom refused to listen to any blame of him, but Dad drove me up to Timonium and helped me get a PO Box. We didn't tell the others. I would ride my bike up there once a week to collect my stuff.
I really wondered about my brother's stability. I can remember telling my father once that he should have his head examined. Dad just glanced over at where my mother was, and then he looked back and told me to watch my mouth and take care of my own problems. I just shrugged and kept my padlock key on a chain around my neck.
When the school year started, Towson High was nowhere near as impressive to me as it was to the other graduates of Towsontown Junior. For the last year I had been taking the bus over after school on Mondays, to meet with Mrs. Rogers. She would give me assignments and monitor tests in Plane Geometry. Then I would walk into Towson and go to my father's office and hang out there until he took me home.
The administration at Towson High either didn't know or didn't care about my reputation as a troublemaker at Towsontown. I endeavored to keep my nose clean. Still, there were a couple of things that caused trouble, but fairly minor.