The High School Food Chain

A food chain, every high school has one. There are the jocks, at the top of every chain, synonymous with the whale. Better yet, they are tantamount to the great white shark because they are absolutely vicious and could eat people like me for dinner. Then, there are the jocks’ female equivalents, the cheerleaders. They strut across the halls like they own the school, and in effect, they do. All they are required to do is put on their pretty little skirts and do some decent flips at football games to prove to every boy at Ridgeton High School that they are worth it. They are also at the top of my food chain. I would say they are synanamous to the whale as well, but that would be misleading, because a whale consumes 40 million krill per day. A cheerleader, in comparison, consumes a baby carrot, a small plate of fries, and one water bottle of Fiji per day. They are not exactly the whale type, although proportionately, their brains would probably be about the same size…
Of course, there are numerous other cliques, but I would go on for days and days describing them, their habits, where they hang out, what foods they like to eat, their values and virtues, etcetera. Right now, it’s time for me to get to the bottom of my little “high school food chain,” the group that I’m in, the krill. Yes, it’s true. I’m a nerd. Have you already been able to tell? I am the captain of the debate team and captain of the chess team as well as an A+ student, and for me, high school is just an experiment. I have been able to decode the most elaborate cryptography and work through Einstein’s theories pretty smoothly, but never have I been able to crack the mystery that is high school. It’s been a complex study, and I learned long ago that the only way I can crack the code of teenagers is to go behind enemy lines.
My first target was the “upper class.” They’re the epitome of high school and definitely the perfect place to start. Why not begin at the top and work my way down? It sounded like a good plan to me. Here goes my attempt, the key word, to find information on the sharks and the whales.
You see, although I’m a nerd, I have friends, not a whole bunch, but a few. We do homework together, we’re lab partners, and we sit at the same table for lunch, and in my dictionary, that’s what a friend does. You see, one of these friends, Katelyn has a slight problem. Well, she has a crush. I know what you’re thinking. Can nerds really have crushes? You were pretty sure we weren’t even humans, right? Wrong. Nerds have crushes. However, I’m not really talking from experience. I prefer not to interact with the male species.
However, this isn’t about me. This is about Katelyn and her crush/ obsession, which is not on some guy within her reach, by the way. It’s on Sam Rothwell. Who is Sam Rothwell, you ask? Well, let’s just say that he is at the height of our hierarchy, practically untouchable, or so I thought.
Naturally, as a concerned friend, I confronted her about her peculiar choice in males. Do you know what her reply was?
“Well, he’s just so hot!” she explained.
What kind of vapid, ignorant, conformist answer is that?
“Well, according to my studies, unfortunately, you have no chance of being able to date him. Face it, half of the girls in this school can’t even touch him. As your friend, who has also done research on the debatable sanity and complexity of teenagers, I should tell you that this obsession of yours is kind of hopeless.”
Then, I thought of it, my brilliant plan. I yearned to get some data on the cheerleaders and jocks, and this would be the perfect opportunity. Now, I had someone who was longing to be one of them, for the wrong reasons, of course, but beggars can’t be choosers. I had figured out a plan. Of course, I was going to use my friend in the process, but research comes first, right?
I waited for her to stop staring at him, but when I saw that my waiting was hopeless, I chose to prove my point. “Well, you know what would make it easier for you to make him notice you, right?”
She sat upright abruptly. “What?”
“All you have to do is find some way to become popular. Maybe, try out for the cheerleading team. Didn’t your mom make you take gymnastics for a few years? Pretend to be cool, and you’re in. Then you’d really be able to grab his attention,” I explained.
“You know what? You’re right. I would probably be able to make the cheerleading team too. Maybe I’d even have a chance with him then, after all this time!” she squealed.
“See, that’s the spirit, but you just have to promise me one thing,” I replied.
“What’s that?” Katelyn asked.
“You have to promise to tell me all about it! I want to know absolutely everything about your newfound popularity! It’s going to be so fun!” I exclaimed, pretending to be genuinely excited.
That’s how it all began. I got someone to do the dirty work for me, and for the next few weeks, I was happily picking up scraps of information from her, all of which I recorded in my journal. Along with the relevant research came the typical talk about how big his muscles are or how “good he would look if he wore a light blue shirt because it would match his eyes” and so one and so forth. The point was I was getting the facts and Katelyn was getting the guy. It was a win-win situation, at least at the time.
After a few months, I had gathered all of the information I needed. My journal was filled with scribbles about the usual, and I was just going to tell Katelyn that she didn’t need to tell me all about her daily activities with the “socially acceptable.” I was walking to her locker some time after the bell rang, and I couldn’t find her. Naturally, I went around the school searching for her until I went to the girls’ bathroom. I heard some sobs and sniffles coming from one of the stalls, and I hesitantly called out, “Katelyn?”
A choked voice replied, “Rebecca, is that you?”
“Yes, it is. Do you want to come out and talk? What’s wrong? I have been looking all over the school for you!”
She opened the door of the stall and ran out. Katelyn put her head onto my shoulder, and immediately, tears began streaming down her face.
In between sobs, she explained, “I was with Sam today, and…he said that he really liked me…so I thought he was going to finally ask me out…but then he said that he wasn’t sure he wanted to be in a relationship right now…he said he was really sorry then walked off…and I was really sad but I didn’t get mad until…I left the classroom too and took another route to my next class because I wanted to stop by the bathroom and…I saw him…kissing another girl.”
I honestly had no idea what to say. I was totally caught off guard, so I awkwardly held her and patted her on the back as she sobbed on to my shoulder. I had never been in a situation like this before, and I was totally unprepared. My experiment had taken a surprising twist, which made the need to continue research even stronger.
From then on, I chose to collect my own data without anyone else’s assistance. That way, I could get the information first hand, which proved to be very effective. I had learned my lesson. Besides, if I ever wanted to be a scientist one day, I had to do my own research. I had to uncover the truly complex, and high school is about as close to complex as anyone’s ever going to get. Therefore, ever since, I have been working as the “high school detective,” figuring out what makes each group tick.
I cracked the code of the Goths, which wasn’t too hard. A quick stop at the mall to purchase black clothes and makeup was enough to pull that look off. Next, I tried the band geeks. I told them I played the drums although I hadn’t picked up drumsticks in my entire life, but I started banging around and they believed me. I also started using the terms “sick” and “rad,” and I was able to fit in with that group just fine. I even fit in with the environmentalists although it took a great deal of work. I had to pretend I was a vegetarian. No chicken at lunch for a month. It was torture to say the least, but I was able to record the information and put it in to my lab notebook with the rest of my accounts in the journal, “high school: the teenage mystery.”
Over the course of my studies, I have gathered numerous valid sources, and I have written pages and pages of notes on the brains of teenagers and of high school in general. Every day, I felt as if I was getting closer, but somehow, I was always far off. Then it hit me that there was no true answer, solution, or pattern like all other things in science. This was an experiment based on impulse and inclination rather than hard-core evidence, and as an amateur scientist, I should have realized the inevitable results of the experiment. I must admit that although this experiment was not based on absolute patterns and fact, it was just too interesting to avoid. Now, at the termination of my studies, I have been able to conclude the sole, unavoidable fact: Teenagers have been able to defy science itself, for they are totally unpredictable and inarguably insane.