The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl Read Online
The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy & Goth Girl
Barry Lyga
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Houghton Mifflin Company
Boston 2006
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Defended to Marry, of course.
You lot were right.
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Text copyright © 2006 by Barry Lyga
All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this
book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Company, 215 Park Avenue South,
New York, New York 10003.
www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com
The text of this book is set in Legacy Serif.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lyga, Barry.
The astonishing adventures of Fanboy & Goth Girl / by Barry Lyga.
p. cm.
Summary: A 15-twelvemonth-sometime "geek" who keeps a listing of the high school jocks and
others who torment him, and pours his energy into creating a dandy graphic novel,
encounters Kyra, Goth Girl, who helps change his outlook on almost everything,
including himself.
ISBN 0-618-72392-7 (hardcover)
[1. Self-perception—Fiction. 2. Cartoons and comics—Fiction. 3. Geeks (computer
enthusiasts)—Fiction. 4. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 5. High schools—Fiction. half-dozen.
Schools—Fiction.] I. Title: Astonishing adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl. II. Title.
PZ7.L97967Ast 2006
[Fic]—dc22
2005033259
ISBN-thirteen: 978-0-618-72392-viii
Manufactured in the United States of America
QUM 10 nine 8 7 half dozen 5 4 3 ii one
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In that location are 3 things in this world that I desire more than anything.
I'LL tell you lot the showtime two, merely I'LL never tell you lot the third.
Chapter Ane
I WANT TO NOT RIDE THE Charabanc to school every day, only that would be a waste of a actually big want—information technology'll accept care of itself eventually. Until then, I put up with it, like today.
So what practice I desire? I want a re-create of Giant-Size X-Men #1 in Mint condition.
I would settle for Near Mint, I guess, which would definitely be cheaper, but I'd actually similar to exist able to say that my copy is pretty much perfect. on eBay, a Mint copy starts at at least eight hundred bucks, which is mode more I can beget, just maybe one time I become my driver'south license, I tin get a job afterward schoolhouse and put together the coin. Sounds crazy, I know—some ancient comic book from the 1970s. Merely information technology's important.
I also desire a new reckoner. Multiprocessor, maxed-out memory slots, wireless everything ... when my parents got divorced, my mom got custody of me, and I got custody of the sometime Pentium clone that used to sit in the den at our old business firm. Thanks to the very all-time in Microsoft/Intel engineering, it crashes every fourth dimension you breathe too hard in its general vicinity. It's tough to accomplish the kinds of things I want to accomplish with that going on. I desire Flash animation! Video editing! Heck, I but want to be able to employ Photoshop or Illustrator for ten minutes without rebooting.
Thinking near a pristine Behemothic-Size X-Men #ane and a humming new computer usually gets me through the coach ride to schoolhouse. Today's an exception. Today, I don't need to spin fantasies because a living, breathing fantasy has just gotten on board: Dina Jurgens, who manages to make climbing the steps to the charabanc look similar something that crazy parents' groups boycott.
It's a expert day when a goddess gets on the school bus with you. In my two years suffering as this item school jitney stutters over potholes and gravel, winding its way through the back roads of Brookdale, Dina has simply ridden a handful of times.
She's a senior, two years older than I am, simply she looks similar she could have stepped off a runway somewhere: blond hair, bright dark-green optics, soft and puffy lips, and a body that'due south pure torture. There are plenty of hotties at South Beck Loftier, but Dina's a cut above and beyond. of all the things I hate most South Beck, the fact that she'southward graduating in a few months is at the top of the list. How am I supposed to go through junior and senior years without catching glimpses of her in the hall?
Dina checks out the seating situation, scanning the back seats, which are packed. The charabanc commuter—a wheezing, leather-faced troll appropriately named Mr. Dull—closes the door and hits the gas, jerking Dina forward a little. She flips her hair out of her eyes, then rolls them at Mr. Tedious's temerity. She heads for the first empty seat, which happens to be, well, next to me.
I try to play it cool, but let'south be honest—that'southward tough to do in the presence of a goddess. I go with my first instinct, which is to try to dip my hand into my pocket for the rubber totem I go on in that location. I always experience calmer when I touch information technology.
But information technology's awkward getting a hand into your pocket when you're sitting down, doubly then when there's someone correct next to you. My elbow brushes her side, and she looks at me like I planned it. "Hey!"
"Lamentable," I mumble. I feel like I should explain that I wasn't trying to touch her, but she'southward already looking away.
"What happened, Dina?" Sounds like Kayla Meyer. A junior, one who hasn't gotten a car yet. one who evidently ranks every bit worthy on the Dina Jurgens Scale because her older blood brother is Steve Meyer, who I think dated Dina'southward older sister or something like that. I don't know. I don't really pay attention to stuff similar that.
"My car wouldn't starting time this forenoon."
"Bummer."
"Yeah, I told my dad that it has to be set up past the weekend because..."
I tune it out and keep my head downwards so that no one will bother me. But beingness and then close to Dina rattles me. I continue wanting to turn and stare, but fifty-fifty I know that that's non cool. So I settle for cutting my optics left as often as I can. I get flashes of skirt and leg and the shadow of what could exist a breast, but I'm not certain and I don't want to run a risk looking for longer than, like, a tenth of a second. So it's sort of like dumping the pieces of a puzzle out on the flooring, looking at them, and and then trying to put it all together in your caput. with your eyes closed. So shut! So far!
It goes similar that for a piddling while, the bus jerking and bouncing along, making Dina'southward anatomy do very interesting things that she'due south patently unaware of (and of which I'm woefully underaware, given those quick glances). Dina talks with Kayla, the Usual Idiots yell and chatter, and Mr. Deadening's love country station blares out of the radio.
At some indicate, I realize that I probably wait like an idiot, my caput bent downwards, doing nothing (apparently), staring down at my feet. I pretend to expect for something in my haversack, but there's just schoolhouse stuff and comic books in in that location. And God knows I don't want to pull out a comic book while Dina's sitting adjacent to me! I wish I had something—anything—else to read, something that didn't scream "Geek!" at the peak of its lungs and jump around in nerdly war paint. Similar ... I don't know...Hot Rod?
When we screech to a molar-grinding halt at the schoolhouse, a sudden vivid stroke hits me. Dina is sitting adjacent to me. on the aisle. She'll get upwards to go out and I'll get up behind her. Behind her. From here to the exit, I'll be right behind her, with an unobstructed view of The Back of Dina Jurgens. Not as splendid a sight as The Front, simply not bad in its own right. Sugariness.
So Dina gets up and I grab my backpack (watching her legs as I do then—wow), then become upwards and move to become behind her—
And Mark Broderick pushes me back. "Motion it."
He doesn't even wait at me as he does it. He's a big senior with short bleached hair and a confront similar old hamburger. He dresses like Eminem, if Eminem weighed twenty pounds as well much and couldn't proceed the sweat stains from spreading out nether his armpits. This is the weirdest office—he smells like boiling leather. I've never b
een able to figure that office out.
Up until now, the only contact I've ever had with him was smelling that unique scent every bit he walked by me on the coach. But right at present I lookout him as he struts up to the door behind Dina. A flood of bigger, meaner, and/or tougher kids fills the aisle, and I'm not about to step into that flood, so I but stand here and wait and watch Mark's back and the buzzcut that clutches his scalp.
Now that I'grand standing, it's easy to slip my mitt into my pocket. As usual, I feel immediate calm when I bear upon the bullet that I keep there. I started conveying it about a yr ago.
Everything'due south OK; I've added Mark to The List.
The List
The List is getting pretty long these days. It's a compilation of everyone who'due south ever pissed me off for no reason whatsoever. All of those Jock Jerks and Clique-its who treat me like dirt merely because they tin can. Someday, when I've left this stupid little hick town with its stupid piffling hick people, the ones on The List are the ones I'll be sure to retrieve more than anyone else. I'g not sure how, just I'll remember them. Sometimes I tin can most sympathize with those guys who go basics and shoot up their schools, but no one on The List is worth dying or going to jail for. The best revenge is living well, my dad told me once. So I'd be happy to show up at my tenth reunion in a stretch limo, or with a supermodel on my arm, or with a Television set crew filming one of many documentaries virtually me or something. Just waltz in and make a bear witness of ignoring them all, unless I go the run a risk to blast someone with simply the right comment at only the right time. The difference between them and me being that I would have a reason for doing it. A stupid fantasy? Peradventure. Simply reliable.
The List started in 6th grade. I was in the school spelling bee. I was the first one to get and I stepped up to the microphone. I had no idea how high information technology had been turned up or how loud it would exist, then I spoke in a loud, clear voice. when I said, "Massachusetts," it came out "MASS" and filled the unabridged auditorium, like some huge, heavy thundercloud of sound as I realized what was happening, and I managed to tranquility down for the rest, but the enormity of my own massive, booming vocalisation and the look of shock on the faces in forepart of me freaked me out—my phonation cracked and shot up similar a daughter's for "achusetts," and I was so rattled that I didn't even spell information technology right and I washed out in the first round.
That day I got in the tiffin line and Pete Vesentine and Ronnie Warshaw started pushing me and imitating the crack in my voice: "Get out of line! Go out of line! "
"No, no, like this," Ronnie said, and and then said, "MASSachu setts," managing to break on every syllable and throwing in a limp wrist for added one-act.
I was smaller than them and there were two of them and no one was going to aid me, but I didn't want to get out of line and go to the back. My mother always told me to ignore bullies, and so that's what I tried to exercise: I just sort of squared my shoulders and got back in line.
"Hey!" Pete this fourth dimension. "Hey, no butting! Yous can't barrel in line."
"I didn't butt," I said (probably also earnestly). "I was here already."
"Yous can't butt," Pete said once more, and Ronnie backed him upwards and they pushed me out again, but this time I lost my grip on my lunch coin and a quarter fell onto the floor.
I was just well-nigh to pick information technology upwardly when Ronnie stepped on it.
I looked up at him. "Come up on, Ronnie," I said, trying to sound calm and reasonable. "Let me have my quarter."
"Let me have my quarter. Let me have my quar ter." More falsettos and limp wrists from Pete and Ronnie.
"Come on."
Ronnie shoved with his human foot and lifted it off the floor at the concluding minute. My quarter went skimming down the hall. I chased afterwards information technology, followed by their laughter. When I reclaimed it and turned around, the line had moved. Ronnie and Pete were giggling to each other, well-nigh at the door that led into the cafeteria. No way they'd permit me back in line.
As I took up my new position at the finish of the line, I decided to start The List.
Chapter Ii
RONNIE AND PETE ARE STILL AROUND. Along with their Cro-Magnon buddies (read: the JJ, the Jock Jerks, the population of the football, soccer, lacrosse, and basketball teams), they indomitable me through the remainder of middle school. Only fortunately high school deposited them in the sort of idiot classes they belong in—basic math, lots of "Tech Ed.," and, my favorite, "Reading" (can you believe they have to have a class chosen that?)—while I was placed in the "Fast-Track" for gifted and talented students. I about never see them, except for gym class, where they're pretty easy to avoid.
But they're still on The List. No one gets removed from The List. That's sort of the point.
I requite myself a moment to permit the sensation of touching the bullet calm me. I found information technology i night, left neglected and lone on the workshop bench in the basement at home. The step-fascist must have dropped it backside something and forgot about information technology. Information technology just sat there on the blank workbench, glinting in a shadowy pocket most a box of screws. I stood in that location for a long fourth dimension, having trouble catching my breath. I waited for some-one—Mom, the step-fascist—to show up and say something.
Aught.
Then I grabbed the bullet in a fist airtight and so tight it went white, and I've had it e'er since. My lucky totem; my condom blanket.
Relaxed now, I head into school, where Mark Broderick is swallowed up by the throngs of students (but his name is now indelibly imprinted on The List) and Dina Jurgens goes off into whatsoever globe is inhabited past Senior Goddesses, and I go off to homeroom.
Just before I get there, I see Cal by the lockers. He's my simply real friend at schoolhouse, the simply one I bother to hang out with outside of school. (or, the but one who bothers to hang out with me might exist more accurate.) He'due south also ane of ten black kids at South Beck, and the fact that I know there are exactly ten blackness kids at my school should tell you something right there.
He's taller than I am and bigger and just generally cooler. Plays football and lacrosse. Wrestles. unlike the rest of the JJ, though, he's smart and he doesn't treat me like dirt. He loves comic books, likewise. That's actually how we met—back in 8th class, he saw me reading League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and stopped at my desk-bound. "When did that ane come out? I've been waiting for information technology."
I couldn't believe it—here was a guy who had girls swooning over him, more than friends than I could count, and the weird sort of cachet you get by being a fun, friendly black kid in a white school ... and he was into comic books?
At commencement I idea it was yet some other ruse by some ill-intentioned idiot designed to lead me into a trap for the entertainment of others. Similar the time a few years ago when I gave a passionate study on collectible carte du jour games as a metaphor for cultural change in a social studies class. Todd Bellanger told me subsequently that he had some rare Magic: The Gathering cards in his locker. I couldn't believe it. Well, actually, I couldn't believe he had them and I also couldn't believe that Todd was even bothering to talk to me, since he usually was one of my tormentors. But maybe we'd constitute a mutual ground.
So I went to his locker, and instead of Magic cards he shoved a bunch of pictures of naked men into my hands, then shouted, "No, I don't want your gay porn!" really loud, and so that everyone in the hallway turned and saw me with the pictures and laughed and laughed...
So I was suspicious of Cal immediately, specially since I knew little about him—contempo transfer, played football game, hung out with a lot of jocks. I'd been burned before.
"Aye, well, this is the effect after the one with the Wright Brothers," I said.
Cal blinked, evidently confused. "What? I must accept missed more than i. When did the Wright Brothers evidence up? I didn't know they were in the story."
They weren't. He had passed my exam, and so I cautiously entered into a conversation with him, which eventually evolved into the but friendship I have at Due south Brook.
"Hey, Cal!" I close in. "I institute this website last night that lays out the whole Xorn-is-Magneto thing from Morrison'south run on New X-Men. This guy, it's unreal. He's got scanned-in panels and pages and he annotated them all and there'southward a timeline and—"
"Yeah, that's cool,"
Cal says, simply it doesn't sound similar he thinks it's cool. He looks around quickly. I've seen this behavior before.
"But I didn't tell you all of it." I'yard rushing, trying to go it in. "There'south also links to a whole site that shows all the other times Magneto bearded himself, and a thing about House of M— "
"Uh-huh." Cal gives me a quick smiling, then walks away. Downwards the hall, I see Mike Lorenz and Jason Benatovech waving at him. Football players.
Well, that's life existence Cal'southward friend. When the jocks call, he goes. on the mean streets of hick rural loftier schools, you have to go on up your popularity and your absurd factor if you want to survive as a blackness kid. And being seen with me—especially talking comic books—is the best way to meet your cool stock collapse.
Cal doesn't even really know he's doing it. I tin tell because he never refers to it, never acts equally if he'southward washed annihilation wrong. Information technology'southward just survival. Just loftier school crap. It doesn't carp me. Not anymore. Not really.
Affiliate Three
FOR SOME REASON (It'Southward Not Of import), South Brook High Schoolhouse has been taken earnest. Mike Lorenz, Jason Benatovech, Pete Vesentine, and Ronnie Warshaw are all dead with bullets in their heads. Todd Bellanger has been shot, too, but he's not dead, just writhing in pain and crying. I note with some satisfaction that Mark Broderick is besides among the deceased.
I'm hiding in the computer lab, and that'southward when I realize that everyone is being herded toward the gym. Cal is with them, and he looks aroused and scared all at in one case. I realize that with a single distraction Cal would exist able to disarm 1 of the bad guys and probably rescue everybody (even the ones who don't deserve it).
From the reckoner lab, I'chiliad able to hack into the bell organisation, which is all automated. I tin can kick off the distraction and salve anybody.
And that's when my arm explodes.
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