Ninety Percent, by Lobelia (Dating Challenge)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Title: Ninety Percent
Author: Lobelia; lobelia321
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Pairing: April Bingham / Rodney McKay. Note: April Bingham is NOT an orig character. She is canon!! (1.17, 'Letters from Pegasus', 25:37 min)
Feedback: Yes, please! Anything, even if it's only one line. One word, even! :-)
Words: 6,790
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: This is a work of amateur fiction. I am not making money. I did not invent these characters.
Spoiler: 1.17, 'Letters from Pegasus'.
Notes: Just to reiterate: April Bingham is canon (SGA 1.17). She is NOT an original character. :-) Written for the sga_flashfic dating challenge.
Summary: I bumped into one of the boys from the club in the girls' bathrooms. He'd walked in there by mistake, haha, or that's what he says. He's only a bit taller than I am and has a pony tail. He is called Rodney.




Ninety Percent
by Lobelia

*

McKAY: I once caught mono kissing a girl in algebra club. Missed an entire month of school. Still, the kiss was, uh, somethin’, so it was, uh, probably worth it. April Bingham – cute blonde! God – you see, I love blondes, especially with the... with the short hair.
(from SGA 1.17, 'Letters from Pegasus', 25.37 min)

*

23 November 1986

So I've joined algebra club. Debbie also joined. That's because Lizzie told Miriam who told Debbie that algebra club is ninety percent boys. Also, Dad said if I failed math again he would get me a home tutor over the Christmas holidays and no ice skating. Dad is such a nerd. What am I going to need math for in life? Algebra club starts next Wednesday. What am I going to wear?


24 November

Debbie came round today. We tried on all our clothes. We haven't got anything to wear to algebra club! She brought a suitcase with all her gear. She says that we can't wear normal school clothes, jeans and stuff, because then it would be just like school and we need to stand out. I said but we'll stand out, anyway, because we'll be the only girls. And she said, but stand out *how*. We tried on different skirts, and leggings, and make-up, and earrings. I said, we can't be too over-the-top, they'll be geeks there, they'll be frightened off. And Debbie said, if they're geeks we can go in sack cloth because it'll make no difference.

Then we remembered that Bud Spinelli is in the algebra club. Me and Debbie meeting at the mall tomorrow.


25 November

I can't believe I just blew my babysitting savings on clothes for algebra club! Debbie bought tiger-pattern leg warmers and witches' shoes and sunglasses because she says glasses make you look clever and that's important for algebra club but she has 20/20 vision so sunglasses were the next best thing. I said but it's November! She said, so what, people wear sunglasses on the ski slopes. Well, that's true.

I bought a pair of dangly earrings made of wood, in the shape of an oval with a hole in the middle, and some hair gel and some carrot-shape pants with Japanese writing on them and red lipstick. The Japanese writing could almost be math equations.

August is being very annoying. He said, what have you been doing, have you been shopping, is that all you ever think about? Yeah, right, he can talk!! He's got new suspenders and two new Ben Sherman shirts (two!) and new pointy two-tone shoes, he's the vainest boy alive. But he looked all huffy and said, well, *some* of us *work* for their things.

I'd work! If Dad didn't make me go to school!


27 November

I can't believe it. Debbie's pulled out of algebra club and gone off with Bud Spinelli.

She is *such* a traitor. I'm never speaking to her ever again. Apparently, they 'met' yesterday at *church*. That's so eye-rollingly obvious. She doesn't even *go* to church! Debbie's Jewish! She only went to throw herself at Bud Spinelli.

Now, apparently, they have a *date* on Saturday.

I can't believe this.


28 November

Miriam told Lizzie who told me that Debbie is having a spiritual crisis and is thinking of converting to Christianity.

Yeah, right!

Lizzie thinks Debbie is a total bitch who's just out to steal other people's boyfriends. It's true that Bud Spinelli isn't my boyfriend but he could so *have been* my boyfriend. Lizzie thinks I shouldn't go to algebra club anymore but I told her that this makes me even more determined to go. Anyway, Dad promised he'd hike up my pocket money because he's so proud that I'm taking my education in hand.


29 November

Today I went to algebra club for the first time. I wore my black wool leggings and grey ankle warmers and Robin Hood booties and my chunky grey sweater and my new dangly earrings and my red lipstick and I gelled my hair up at the front to make it punky. I did *not* wear the Japanese math equation pants because I remembered that Debbie had said they looked good on me and I just bet she was lying about that and that they make my ass look absolutely enormous.

There were fifteen people at algebra club and most of them from upper grades. I only recognised one person, and that was Tchou from triple science but he doesn't count. Tchou dresses up in girls' clothes, everyone knows that. I wouldn't be seeing dead with Tchou.

They spent a lot of time talking about their new constitution, and then there was a vote for secretary or chair or something, and for someone called a treasurer. Apparently, they always do this at this time of year. It's called the club's AGM. This is short for Annual General Meeting. There was a lot of shouting and people saying that the votes were rigged, and then Bud Spinelli got up and grinned in that smarmy way of his and said that he personally would vouch for the fairness of the voting process. I am really going off Bud Spinelli. I looked at him closely this afternoon, and he's actually not very good-looking at all. Also, he came up to me in the most gross-making way and put his arm round my shoulders and said to say *hi* to my friend *Deborah*.

Puh-lease. Vomit-worthy.

One of the boys is quite cute, an Indian guy. He's called Sanjeev. I asked him for a loan of his compass and then his calculator and I wrote BLISS with the numbers on his calculators but he didn't cotton on to any of this.

Later on, I bumped into one of the boys from the club in the girls' bathrooms. He'd walked in there by mistake, haha, or that's what he says. I don't believe it for a minute. He's only a bit taller than I am and has a pony tail. He is called Rodney.

It's true, though, about the ninety percent. There was only one other girl there. She's called Trudy and wears overalls.


2 December

Miriam said that Lizzie told her that Debbie's date with Bud Spinelli was a total disaster. Haha.


3 December

I talked to Debbie on the phone today for two hours. My ear is red now, and Dad started shouting to get off the phone. But I heard all about her date with Bud Spinelli. The guy is a total douchebag! I knew it!

He spent the whole night trying to get into Debbie's pants! Well, I could have told her that. In fact, I did tell her that. I told her how came up to me at algebra club and put his hands all over me. She was *shocked*. And I said how I would never do anything with a friend's boyfriend, that's just not me, that's total hands-off territory. And she said how she would never do anything like that to me, either, and what a bastard Bud Spinelli is, and then she said a whole load of crap about how all men are the same and they only want one thing but she is going to keep herself pure until The One comes along.

Dad went out later, so I called Lizzie and we talked about how hysterical Debbie is and what a shitbag Bud Spinelli is, always trying to take advantage.

I can't wait till algebra club.


6 December

Apparently, all the algebra clubs of all the senior highs in Toronto get together every year for a Christmas disco! They were all talking about it today, the secretary (who's Tchou), and the treasurer (who's Rodney, the boy with the pony tail), and the chairman (who, oh no, is *Bud Spinelli*). I made sure to give Bud the cold shoulder.

I wore my Japanese equation pants and my Robin Hood booties and my dangly earrings and my black angora sweater with the red and blue patches sewn on. Later on, I went to the bathroom because, wouldn't you know it, this was the very day I got my periods, and on the way back I bumped into that Rodney again. He was standing in front of the candy machine by the sick bay. He asked me if I had a dime and I said I didn't, and then he asked me if I had a bobby pin but of course I don't have bobby pins, my hair's too short. And then he asked me if he could borrow my earring. So I pulled it out and he used the back bit, the pointy bit that stabs through the earlobe, and he poked that into the candy machine's coin slot and bashed the machine in various places, and then a ton of Mars bars and Snickers bars poured out of the bottom.

He offered me one. then he told me to read his T-shirt which had all the digits after the decimal point of pi printed on it. He asked me to check the T-shirt while he recited them all from memory. He got them all correct up to the I-don't-know-what'th point, and then he turned around and made me check all the ones on the back, and he got those all correct, too.

And then he said did I want to see how he could balance on the radiators and jump from one to the next, and I said okay because at that point, I saw Bud Spinelli smarming his way down the hallway, looking all superior and smug, with his stupid sailor's cap pushed back on his dyed-black hair.

So I asked Bud, how was *church*? And he grinned and said, why, did I want to convert, and put his arm round me again and asked, how is my friend Deborah? I shook his arm off and eyed him up and down and said, making my voice very disdainful, that we knew all about him and that he couldn't fool anybody. He looked a bit clueless, and this is when Rodney fell off the radiator and onto Bud Spinelli and they fell into the trash can and it made an almighty noise.

So far, we haven't done much algebra in algebra club.


7 December

Debbie couldn't believe it when I told her about the Christmas disco, and now she wants to come to the club after all. She's going to wear her tiger-pattern leggings and red mini skirt and she's going to frizz up her hair. I think this is totally slutty and not appropriate for an educational setting.

I didn't go to gym class because I had gut-moaningly bad cramps.

August said he knows that Rodney boy from the model boat association. Apparently, Rodney won the level one powerboat speed race last summer. The boat was called *Meredith*, says August. This must be Rodney's girlfriend.


8 December

Me and Lizzie were hanging out by the water fountains behind the gym when that boy Rodney showed up. I pretended not to see him and went on talking to Lizzie in a very loud voice. He stopped and said, hey, don't I know you from algebra club?

He was carrying two black metal things that looked like radios. He said that they were walkie talkies that he built last weekend, and could I try them out with him? He gave me one to hold and ran off. He said he wanted to be quite far away to test the 'range'. So I hung around until Lizzie started teasing me about my new 'boyfriend', and I said, don't be stupid and squirted the water fountain water at her, and then she worked herself up into a total state because I got the front of her new 'Talking Heads' sweatshirt wet, and she stomped off. She so gets on my nerves.

The walkie talkie had also got a bit wet. Rodney's voice sounded all crackly when he finally got through but maybe it's meant to sound like that. He said, hello, hello, over and out. And I said, hi and roger because I wasn't sure what you're supposed to say. And then he said he had to go now, he had advanced physics. And I said but that's only for people who're graduating next year. And he said, yeah, he skipped two classes and he's actually going to go to college next year already, he's getting his fees paid by something called the 'Talented Canada Fund'. And then he asked what was my name, anyway? And I said, April, and he asked was that because of something called Hilbert Space? And I said, no, just like the month, and that my brother was called August. And then he said that he was called Rodney, and I said, I knew that already from the treasurer elections. And he said that he had to go now, they were doing orbital angular momentum, and over and out, and now I'm stuck with this great big walkie talkie thing.

It also has buttons on it for typing documents, like a typewriter. Rodney said this was the way of the future. I bet he's into science fiction. He wore a blue sweatshirt and over that a knitted sleeveless sweater with a pattern that looked like DNA.


9 December

This is weird. I was already in bed after talking to Debbie for two hours on the phone. Dad's away on business in Ottawa, and August is out with I don't know who. Debbie says that Miriam told her that Lizzie said I was a totally brutal bitch. And I told Debbie that I thought Lizzie was a total backstabber. Then Debbie got me to tell her all about the boys at algebra club.

And then (this is the weird part), when I was in bed, the walkie talkie thing started crackling and a voice came out of it. This was Rodney's voice. He asked me out for a date! He said, did I want to go to the Christmas disco with him, and then he said, did I want to see the automated dog walker he built over Thanksgiving, and then he said something about variable oxidation states and transition metals, and then he asked did I want to go out on a date with him before the Christmas disco, next Saturday, to get used to each other?

I was only half-awake so I said okay.


10 December

Rodney kept calling me on the walkie talkie and sending typewritten letters that pop up on this television screen thing and go 'ping' so I had to turn the stupid thing off.


11 December

Debbie's also got a date on Saturday but she won't say who with. She thinks I should wear my tartan mini skirt and my black leggings and my fur-lined booties and my padded-shoulder jacket.

I think I'm going to wear my Levi's 501s and my Robin Hood booties and my grey sweater and my short patchwork sleeveless T-shirt.


12 December

Lizzie told Miriam who told me that Debbie's date on Saturday is with *Bud Spinelli*. I don't believe it. Especially as this comes via Lizzie who is not to be trusted.

Lizzie also said that Debbie was at church again on Sunday.

Dad's back from Ottawa. He was in a good mood and raised my pocket money because I've been so 'studious'. Haha.

August thinks that Dad isn't going on business trips at all. He thinks that Dad's got a *lady friend* in Ottawa!

This is so annoying. Dad's too nerdy to have lady friends.


13 December

At algebra club, we did something called matrix inversion. All the others hunkered down and started writing stuff in their notepads. I hadn't even brought a notepad! Debbie was there, too, but we're not speaking right now. I don't think she had a notepad, either. Bud Spinelli wasn't even there so, haha, serves her right.

That cute boy Sanjeev let me have a page from his notepad and even showed me how to solve something called a linear equation. I vaguely remembered this from math lessons with that stupid Mrs Hoylocks. I'm so glad she left in October. August says that someone told him that Mrs Hoylocks left the school because she had an affair with one of the students. I don't believe it. She's such an old witch. Who'd go out with her? Ew-making.

I gave Rodney back his walkie talkie, and he said no, I could keep it but I didn't want to. He seemed annoyed about that, and then he came back from the drinks machine with a can of coke and tripped over Sanjeev's knapsack and spilled the coke all over Sanjeev's equations, and then he started yelling at Sanjeev for being so clumsy.

Debbie sat next to Trudy with the overalls. She was wearing her tiger-pattern leggings and her sunglasses. She looked totally out of place and totally pissed off.


14 December

Me and Miriam and Lizzie were hanging out behind the gym. Lizzie gave me her old 'Material Girl' single; she's got the album now. I asked, was her 'Talking Heads' sweatshirt okay, and she said, yes it was and who was that nerd I was with last Friday, anyway, the one with the pony tail. And I said it was someone from algebra club. And she said, so is he into you then? And I said, no, he has a girlfriend. And then Miriam and Lizzie started looking at each other meaningfully, so I said I had to go and return a library book and went off.

They are both so totally immature. I can't believe I still hang out with them.

There were some policemen outside the principal's office. I don't know what that was all about.

I bumped into Sanjeev who was hiding behind a 'Christmas pageant 1986' display. He said that he'd overheard the policemen talking and they were saying that they wanted to question 'Mister Bud Spinelli' about a 'confidential matter'. Then he asked me, did I want to go to the Christmas disco with him? I said I'd think about it. He is a Hindu. He doesn't celebrate Christmas. But he likes to do the bump, he told me.

Dad saw my sheet of paper with the linear equations on it and said he was very proud. I said, could I have some money to buy a new outfit for the algebra club Christmas disco, and he said, yes, I could have 100 dollars!

I checked in the laundry basket to see if there were any of Dad's shirts in there with lipstick on the collar but Dad doesn't wear shirts. There were only a couple of long-sleeved tees.


15 December

I couldn't talk long with Debbie because Dad's getting rattled about the phone bill again but I told her about what Sanjeev had said about Bud Spinelli, and she broke down weeping and said, how did I know it was Bud she was going on a date with tomorrow? I said, making my voice half-concerned and half-superior, what are friends for?

Then she said that Lizzie had told her that she thinks Mrs Hoylocks the math witch was sacked from the school because of an affair she was having with Bud Spinelli!!! She burst out weeping all over again.

I said, that two-timing bastard, and that she was well shot of him, and she said yes, she never wanted to see him again. Also, that her parents were really freaked out about her going to church every Sunday, and that because of their attitude, she was going to go even more often, maybe to the evening service as well. She said that the Jewish religion was stupid, anyway, and that all her parents ever went on about was how she should marry a nice Jewish boy. She said there were no nice Jewish boys, they were all stupid, and who said she wanted to marry someone nice, anyway?

I think Debbie is going off the rails. It's all that hymn singing.

Afterwards, Lizzie called and said that she'd heard from Miriam who had heard it from someone in algebra club that Bud Spinelli was just using Mrs Hoylocks and that he was actually totally gay! And that he and that boy with the ponytail (I said, do you mean Rodney? and she said, yes, she did) were having a gay affair!!

I think Lizzie's totally out in space. But I remembered how Rodney and Bud had fallen into the trash can together. Practically on top of each other.

What do gay people actually *get up to in bed*? I must buy *Cosmo* to find out.


16 December

Tonight was my date with Rodney.

In the morning, I went to the mall with Debbie and spent Dad's dollars on a pink gauze tutu skirt and pink leggings and black DocMartens and a pair of dangly earrings in the shape of bananas. Then we went back to my place and cut holes in the leggings.

I wore my new outfit on the date, to break it in. Rodney wore a beige shoelace around his pony tail and acid-washed jeans and sneakers and a checked shirt tucked into his jeans, and underneath the shirt a polo neck sweater. He had a box with him and said it was an electronic game he'd invented over the summer holidays and maybe we could play it together later. I said, what, sort of like Pac-Man? And he said, no, much better.

We had to walk from my house to the subway and then take a street car up Queen's and then we ended up in a coffee bar shop thing with the walls painted black and very loud music that sounded like pebbles tumbling around in a metal bucket. It had men in it with *beards*.

We sat down in back, and he got out his box, and I said, didn't we want to have something to drink? He couldn't hear what I was saying because the music was so loud. I had to shout it again. And he shouted back, okay, let's have something to drink. And I waited but he didn't ask me what I wanted so I said, I'll have a red wine because that sounds sophisticated, and I'm not an immature barbie like *some* girls I know.

He still didn't move but fiddled with his box, and I said, fine, I'll get it myself then. He yelled after me, could I get him a raspberry thick shake?

It turns out they didn't have red wine and they didn't have shakes, it wasn't that kind of a place. You could have beer or liquors. So I ordered two beers because I couldn't think of what to say, and the barman who was very tall and had a moustache, said, what kind of beer? I tried to remember about beers and said, lager, because that's what I saw in an ad once. Then he leaned over the bar and said, cute legs.

Gross. He was about thirty or something! Practically middle-aged.

There was a miniature Christmas tree made of plastic on the bar.

Rodney said, what happened to the shake, and I said, they didn't have any, and he said, oh. I was wondering why he'd taken me to this place if he didn't even know anything about it but I didn't say that to him. Instead, I said that he owed me two dollars fifty, and he scrabbled round in his jeans pockets for about three minutes and gave me a bunch of quarters and nickels.

I sipped a bit of the beer and it went straight to my head, so I sipped a bit more. Rodney was fiddling with the box again. I said, aren't you going to drink anything. He said oh again, and drank up half the glass and started coughing. He then shoved the electronic box across the table at me and said, here, look.

There was a television screen on it, a bit like on his walkie talkie, and on the screen you could see tiny little stick figures, black on white, standing around in a landscape. One of them had a little halo over it, and he said that that was my character, and I could personalise it, and then we could fight each other.

On this box, you could type in various numbers and make your stick figure change. You could make it have squiggly lines coming out of its head, and that was called 'rasta'. Or you could have a spike coming out of the top of its head, and that was called 'punk'. Or you could have little prickles all over its head, and that was called 'us marine'. Or you could have two Mickey Mouse ears and that was called 'mouse'.

Rodney's character had two pointy ears and was called 'spock'.

It's true, I said, this is way better than Pac-Man, this is awesome. Really? said Rodney, and then spilled some beer onto my tutu. He started to wipe it off with his hand so I had to say, keep your hands to yourself. I've always wanted to say that to a boy.

I chose the 'punk' hairdo. Rodney explained how you have to press the little button on the left to make the figure move, and how you have to pull the little lever at the bottom to make the figure shoot or fight. We played 'punk' vs 'spock'. Rodney killed me after about one minute with his light saber that he just suddenly got out of nowhere, and I said, hey, that's cheating, and he said, no, that's a higher level, and I said, what are you talking about?

All of a sudden, something made me look up. It was fate! Because what I saw through the grubby windows of the coffee bar was Debbie with Bud Spinelli!!!

They walked past, arms around each other!! And Debbie was wearing her high-heeled stilettos with the pink leggings! In the middle of winter!!

I nearly fell off my chair.

Then I drank the rest of my beer. That made me nearly fell off my chair all over again.

I'm going to get more beers, I said, but really, what I wanted to do was to get up and sneak a look out the window, and there they were, at the traffic lights, totally making out in front of the entire street! So much for staying pure and keeping herself for The One!

I asked Rodney, did he hang out with Bud Spinelli much? I thought that this was a pretty crafty question. He said, only at algebra club, why? I said, oh, I just heard that you two were *more than friends*. And he said, no, they weren't, and started doing something to the game that he called re-booting. And I said, oh, you're not more than friends? Then I drank his beer as well and that made me brave, so I said, I heard you and Bud Spinelli were gay lovers, is this true?

Rodney fell off his chair.

I don't remember much of the evening after that. There were a few more beers and then a lot of vomiting. My DocMartens are a mess.


17 December

Rodney came by in the afternoon, to see how I was, or so he said. Dad was very annoyed with Rodney and said, he should know better at his age than to take his daughter to some sleazy dive and that underage drinking was illegal and that he'd better watch himself. And he called Rodney 'young man'.

Later, I asked Rodney how old he was, anyway, and he said sixteen. So I said that I was sixteen as well because what's a few months here and there.

He'd brought the game with him again. He says it's called SuperDarius, after some famous Persian warlord. I made my character into 'rasta', and he continued on with 'spock'. This time, it took him three minutes to kill me, so I felt good about that.

And look what else it can do, he suddenly said, and twiddled a knob. His 'spock' put its pointy-eared head on top of the head of my 'rasta' and moved it about in circles. What's that, I asked, and he said, kissing.

I said, aha.

Then he grabbed the game box and said he had to go now, he still had loads of physics problems to do with Hermitian operators. He wrote it down on a piece of paper for me: *Hermitian operators*.

After he left, I picked up the piece of paper and turned it over. On the back, he'd written: *I do not have a gay lover.*


19 December

Debbie's got a new ring. She says it's real gold, 14 carat. It looks totally fake.

I said, did *The One* give that to you? She called me a cow and ran off.

I bought *Cosmo* but there wasn't anything on gay relationships in it, only an article on French kissing. It is actually very interesting.


20 December

Algebra club. Everyone's preparing for the Christmas disco.

I was voted to be head decorator. I'm supposed to be decorating the hall in a theme to do with algebra. The disco is held in St Botolph's. It turns out that this is the church that Debbie's been going to. She didn't tell me that. She told Trudy that, and Trudy told everyone. Debbie and me aren't talking at the moment.

Bud Spinelli came up to me outside the girls' bathrooms and said, why was I being so difficult, I had to understand, and I shouldn't be so jealous, there was enough of him to go round. Then he kissed me!

I totally nearly fell over.

He drooled spit down my throat. His lips were all wet and slobbery. His tongue squirmed round, like a huge slug, and there was a funny taste in his mouth. It wasn't at all like the French kisses described in *Cosmo*.

I don't think anyone saw.

Cute Sanjeev asked me to go with him again but I said I wasn't going to be tied down on a date, I had my job as decorator to think of.

Rodney came over. He stood around for a bit, not saying anything. Then he mumbled something about negative numbers and scatterplots, and 'see you on Saturday'.

Tchou's in charge of the drinks, and Rodney and Trudy are in charge of the food, and someone from one of the other algebra clubs is in charge of the music.

We're using the hall free of charge because, apparently, Bud Spinelli's parents are some sort of big-time donors of that church. Bud kept going on about this like it was God's gift and like he was the best chair ever.

August thinks the whole thing is a hoot. He thinks I should decorate the hall with pi to the hundredth digit after the decimal point. I thought maybe I could borrow Rodney's 'pi' T-shirt. I called him to ask him about it. Some girl answered the phone and said that Rodney was out at a robotics fair. Was that girl his girlfriend Meredith?


21 December

Rodney brought the T-shirt with him to school. He waited for me outside the chemistry lab. Everyone saw him holding it out to me, Miriam and Lizzie and Debbie, everyone. It was dead embarrassing. They must have all thought that it was a piece of my clothing that he was returning and that I'd left at his place, that I'd allowed him to take off my top!

I asked extra loud, how's your girlfriend? Rodney said, what? I said, how's your *girlfriend*? He said he didn't really have a girlfriend. Oh really, I said and made it sound very knowing and sarcastic. He said, yes, not really, and coughed, and dropped the T-shirt on the floor.

I just looked at him and said one word: Meredith. And then turned on my heel and walked off.

I had to come back, though, to pick up the stupid T-shirt but Rodney had already gone by then.

Last day of school today!


22 December

I spent all day decorating the hall. Debbie was there. She had red eyes and no gold ring and said that I'd been right all along, that two-timing cheating bastard was no good. She was sure he'd been going round seeing other girls. In fact, someone had told her that a girl in twelfth grade had seen Bud mooching another girl on Wednesday during algebra club. I said, haha, and tried to calm down my voice, what do you know, it must be that two-timing Trudy. Then I ran off to cut out some numbers for the pi decoration.

What I don't understand is how can Bud Spinelli be all over girls and at the same time have a gay relationship? He must be very, very over-sexed.

Debbie asked me what I was getting my dad for Christmas. I haven't even thought about it! Maybe I'll get Dad some aftershave, and August some hankies. Debbie said, wasn't it sad about my mom, but I pretended not to hear and stuck my head into the confetti trough.

I wore my pink tutu and my pink leggings with the holes in them and my Robin Hood booties and my new dangly banana earrings and a body that buttons up around the crotch. I gelled the hair up around my forehead and made it very spiky.

There were about a million people at the disco. Ninety percent of them were boys. Debbie was in boy heaven. Sometimes I think she's even more immature than Lizzie and Miriam.

A lot of the boys wore T-shirts with equations or pictures of Albert Einstein on them. Some wore sandals with white sports socks. Tchou wore a red dress with a padded bra and pointy ballerinas!!

Rodney wore his acid-washed jeans and his sneakers and a striped shirt tucked into his jeans. He didn't have a shoelace round his pony tail. He just let the hair hang out, like a hippie! It hung all the way down to his shoulders!

Aren't you going to get that cut? I said. And he said, he was actually thinking of getting a 'US Marine' haircut, like the one in his game. I was annoyed, I don't know why.

I then went off and had some punch. The punch was spiked. I had two plastic cups.

Then I danced with Sanjeev. Then with Tchou. Then with Sanjeev again. Rodney came up and danced next to me. He jumped up and down and whirled his arms round like a windmill, and when they played *Burning Down the House*, he threw himself on the floor and flapped his legs in the air. Then I danced with a boy with glasses from a school in Scarborough. Then I had some more to drink. Then I danced with Debbie, and we pretended to have a gay relationship. Then Bud Spinelli showed up, Debbie kicked him in the shin, he knocked over Tchou by mistake while trying to take a swing at Debbie, and the entire East York algebra club had to chuck him out on the street bodily.

After that, Debbie danced only with Sanjeev. They did the bump.

I had another plastic cup to drink and hung around the buffet table. That's where I bumped into Rodney.

Hi, he said. Hi, I said. Aren't you here with me? he said. No, I said. I thought we had a date, he said. No, I said, we had our date in that hideous bar you took me to. I thought it was the sort of place you hang out in, he said, a sort of cool grown-up place. You think I'm cool and grown-up, I said, really?

Then the strobe light came on and everything went white-white-white very, very fast.

In the middle of all the white-white-white, which was making me a bit sick on top of all the spiked punch, something wet hit my cheek. It was a tongue. It was Rodney's tongue. I could tell it was Rodney because of his hair getting caught up in my dangly banana earrings.

I think he was trying to locate my mouth.

Through the white-white-white, I saw flashes of Debbie crawling down Sanjeev's throat. Well, how snort-worthy was that. I turned my head and met Rodney's mouth with my own mouth.

It was a sort of okay kiss. Not as slobbery as smarmy Bud Spinelli's stupid kiss. I'm not sure, though, that Rodney knows how to do French kissing, really. He sort of let his mouth hang open and poked his tongue out and moved it round in circles. He also moved his head round in circles, just like in his game SuperDarius. I remembered what they'd said in *Cosmo* and put my hand on the back of Rodney's head to hold him still.

I tried to close up his mouth a little with my lips. He didn't cotton on for a long time, though. He kept pulling his mouth open, like he was a seal waiting to be fed or something.

He sort of lurched into me, and I had a moment of panic because I remembered how Lizzie had once told me that a girl in Niagara had gotten pregnant from rubbing up against a guy who was wearing pants but his sperm had gone through the fabric and into her vagina. I was wondering if that might be happening to me and if Rodney was producing sperm and how I would be able to tell. I was so busy keeping my pelvis away from him that I didn't notice what he was doing until he had his hands on my boobs. He squeezed them and pinched them, and I went, ouch, and jumped away.

The white-white-white stopped. Rodney stood there, with my red lipstick smeared all over his mouth.

I didn't want him to think that I was his girlfriend now. But I also didn't want him to think that I was slutty. It was a delicate situation.

I don't have a girlfriend, he blurted out, Meredith's my middle name, how did you know about that, anyway, nobody knows about that. Your middle name, I don't believe you, I said, and I know about you because of my brother and your boat. Oh, he said, my boat, and is that your brother, of course, it is; I could rename the boat; I could rename it April! I don't thinks so, I said and got myself another glass of spiked punch. I could rename my game SuperApril! he said. What about you and Bud Spinelli? I said. And he said, oh, that was only the one time.

Only the one time!!

Wait till Debbie and Miriam and Lizzie hear about this.


10 January 1987

These were the stupidest Christmas holidays ever. I wasn't allowed to go out because of this stupid, annoying, irritating, shitting mono. I have to be in bed all day. My throat is swollen. I've got a fever. It's so totally the most puke-making thing that's ever happened to me.

I bet it was because of that stupid Rodney. He kissed me and then I got mono.

I wonder if he got it from Bud Spinelli?

I'm never going to go out with Rodney again. Even if his game was kind of cool.

Yesterday, Sanjeev called and asked how was I and when was I coming back to algebra club? I said, I didn't know, I didn't really need it anymore, I got A+ in my final math exam and Dad's taking me on a trip to Vancouver over Easter, and that a 'special friend' of his might be coming along. Sanjeev said, ah, and then he said, did I want to go on a date with him sometime when I was better?

I'm not going to tell Debbie.

*

THE END
18 June 2007
6,790 words
posted to sga_flashfic

Comments

[gemmi999.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed the story. I think you nailed the April voice and I loved all your details about the 80's and such. It was original and funny. = ]

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you! You are so kind. I'm especially happy that you think I 'nailed the April voice', considering she has zero voice in canon... *g* I don't know why, though, but I am quite taken with April Bingham.

[abbylee]

ha ha ha!

:)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you for reading!! Ah, April.

[blithesea.livejournal.com]

XD Hilarious! Even though '86 was a bit before my time, the clothes and everything were so eerily familiar! And Rodney had it off with Bud Spinelli after all! I hope April and Sanjeev went on to have lots of pretty kids and regrow the rain forest together.

:-*

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Sticking in details about the 80s was part of the fun. I am strangely obsessed with April Bingham; she has such an evocative name! Ah, no, I don't think April and Sanjeev are permanent at all (because, of course, ultimately April will grow up to be a scientist and be sent out to Atlantis and meet up with Rodney after all these years and possibly fall for Ronon and... yes, as I said, *g*).

Otoh, who knows, maybe she'll marry Sanjeev and they'll move to Calcutta and do research on tigers.

[blithesea.livejournal.com]

Or maybe Sanjeev will be the scientist who is sent out to Atlantis, meets Rodney after all these years and falls for Ronon. :-D I wouldn't mind that, either...

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Oh, now you're recruiting the origchars!! I love it! Atlantis definitely needs an Indian scientist. Definitely. I could do SGA/Bollywood cross-overs!!!

[saphanibaal.livejournal.com]

//Atlantis definitely needs an Indian scientist. Definitely.//

Oh, yes. I made up one (with the implication of more) back for my very first SGA story (http://community.livejournal.com/sga_flashfic/462142.html), but it's not as if I know enough about Indian sources to drop in crossovers or anything.

[rilestar.livejournal.com]

Oh, god - that was hilarious. The clothing descriptions! Poor, awkward Rodney! Meredith! And I love that you named April's brother August. That was so much fun!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you!! I'm happy that you picked up on the August thing... I almost invented more siblings -- May would have been a possiblity! And why not March? June, of course. Oh no, *fends off fic which is about April and her dozen cousins* I'm glad you had fun reading it; I had fun writing it!

[ratcreature]

ROTFLOL

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Heheh. It is gratifying that I rotfloled you, *g*. Thank you!

[cupidsbow.livejournal.com]

This is awesome! You do your female characters so damn well. <3

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you! What wonderful feedback. To me, it's especially interesting and very, very gratifying that you pick up on the female characters. The impetus for writing this fic came from me struggling with my nano orignovel which has not a single interesting woman in it, just men whom I felt passionate about. I realised, uh-oh, I've been in slash too long. Then I remembered how SGA was the first fandom that made me write women and I recalled my strange fascination with April Bingham -- and the rest was surprisingly easy and surprisingly fun!

[missyvortexdv.livejournal.com]

ROFL. Perfect teen girl in the 80's. Just darn hilarious with all the details.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for rofling. *g* I'm glad you liked the details. It was great fun putting them in. Ah, the nostalgia...

[sgafan33.livejournal.com]

Ha! This was great! Love the diary format and how April's life just happened to intersect with Rodney's. Hmm, so was it Bud to April to Rodney? Or was it Bud to Rodney to April?

Meredith is Rodney's first name. Is he trying to hide that from April by telling her it's his middle name?

David Hewlett was born April 18, 1968, so if you'd like to use his birthdate as Rodney's, then 1984 would be the year Rodney is 16.

Thanks for sharing your fic.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, canon picking!! I love it! *rubs hands* (I hadn't even realised that there was this much canon to pick! But it creeps up on you, doesn't it?)

Rodney says that Meredith is his middle name on purpose. It is canon, after all, that he's embarrassed by the name... ;-)

And I envisage Rodney to be 36 in SGA, and if I take the current season to be set in 2007, working backwards, that gave me the year 1986 when Rodney would be 15/16. And Hewlett is 39, eh? I would never have thought it... *gg*

Also, your icon! The HAIR! The CURLS! Somehow it had escaped me, or I had forgotten, that Hewlett was CURLY in his youth. Well, there is no canon knowledge on this vis-a-vis Rodney so my 1986!Rodney has straight hair, hah.

Thanks loads for your meticulous reading!

[2am-optimism.livejournal.com]

Oh that was just fabulous! I love the way you've used April's naive narrator voice to tell us so much about what was actually going on.

My heart just goes out to young Rodney - this is so, SO believable as backstory and characterisation for him :)

I'm also, uh, cringing with embarrassment on behalf of all my generation over the 80's fashions. Hee.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Oh, I have a great fondness for the 1980s. E.g. I'm loving the fact that flat ballerinas are back, and short but twirly skirts and leggings! Those were totally 80s and now everyone looks just like that again! And leggings are now called 'footless tights', I notice, but, psst, they're still leggings.

I did give my people particular kinds of clothes, not the peak of fashionability, just for the sheer fun of it. *g*

Thank you so much, and especially for picking up on April's naivete. I really enjoyed thinking myself into that teenage mind and trying to remember how *clueless* I actually was, and also how innocent about sex, despite posturing. And how bitchy girls can be. :-) Also, I wanted to twist Rodney's memory of the hot kiss round to make it not all that hot for April. But then I think, April can't yet really feel hot, she's not relaxed enough to be sexual.

I also had fun making Rodney invent the mobile phone and the hand-held computer game... *g*

Thank you again!

[saphanibaal.livejournal.com]

I don't know whether to applaud or curse you for taking me back to my junior high school days and reminding me of just how... alien... half my classmates seemed to become then. (And of my own personal Bud Spinelli, aka What On Earth Was I Thinking? Several times during your story I wanted to reach in and shake April and tell her to wise up faster.)

In other words -- excellently well-written story, ouch.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Ah, now that's some great feedback, thank you so much! I am so happy that the story somehow managed to convey the cringe-worthiness of teenagers. And that you wanted to shake April! There were things I knew that I just couldn't get her to put down in writing because, although she likes to go round and make everyone else seem clueless, she is herself so very, very clueless... In a funny way, Rodney is more self-assured because at least he doesn't have all that self-consciousness about dressing fashionably and 'paying for the girl', and he gives her a fun time out with that game of his.

And you had a Bud Spinelli? Whoo. Do tell. *gg*

[saphanibaal.livejournal.com]

*nods* My teenage existence was much closer to your Rodney than your April, so some of my cringing is mixed in with "Hey, at least I was never THAT bad" (to be answered by "Yes, but I knew people who WERE.") ^_^

//And you had a Bud Spinelli? Whoo. Do tell. *gg*//

Well, he wasn't as good-looking, and I'm fairly sure he latched on to ME for the same whatever-it-was that made me a bully magnet up through tenth grade (might one presume that the same sort of thing would be responsible for Spinelli's history with Rodney that might or might not exist, should it be something?), and he wasn't as smooth -- seriously, what would make someone think that making out with a girl is exactly the time she'd want to hear about sexual favors one had received from other women? -- but I sort of orbited him in a very elliptical holding pattern from middle school right up till my sophomore year in COLLEGE. Hence the wish, once Bud Spinelli showed up in your story, to duck under something -- I still can't believe I went on being that stupid!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Oh god, I was a total Rodney. Possibly this is why fandom goes so crazy over McKay?? Except I didn't invent any geeky things and was desperate to be cool. So there's some of me in April as well. I am always amazed at how stories and people or scenes I may just have invented off the cuff can resonate with people; it is so interesting. So that Bud Spinelli who was really just an excuse for April and co to go to math club (and then turned into someone I found quite sexy, in a love-hate kind of way) should resonate with you on a different level.

hat making out with a girl is exactly the time she'd want to hear about sexual favors one had received from other women
Eeek. Actually, this reminds me! When I first met t'man who is currently t'h, he spent hours telling me about his current flame!! And I just smiled and nodded sympathetically. She then ended up marrying the brother of my own first flame (who turned out to be gay).

[brightest-blue.livejournal.com]

Hee! I love this! Especially the 80's fashions. And that Rodney invented the cell phone and texting. And SuperDarius! Wonderful!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you, my dear! It's too kind of you to read in a random (?) fandom. (Hey, I just rhymed that and I like it!) Ah, those fashions. And yes, of course Rodney invented everything. *g*

[whetherwoman.livejournal.com]

I just found this and it is hilarious and totally, totally canon.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Oops, how did I never see this and respond? I'm so sorry this is so late but: thanks so much for your feedback and I'm so happy you enjoyed this story!

Oh yes, and totally canon. Totally. ;-)