FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

-5-

After the disaster that was the first day of school, I set a goal for myself--to make it to my second half of classes without incident.

"Try to get along with the other children today," Grandma said as I prepared to walk out the door.

"I made a friend yesterday," I replied. "Surely that counts for something?"

Grandma gave me a look, the kind that parents give when they are still pissed from the night before.

"How about we cut the smartass chit-chat and you go before you miss the bus?" she snapped.

I wanted to say "but I can get there faster by flying" but that would have worsened the situation. I wisely darted out the door and headed toward the bus.

*****

If I had to describe keyboarding in one word, it would be 'uneventful.'

The instructor, Mr. Barkchap (apt name, I might add) was a tan male with wild greying hair and pink eyes with all the charisma of a stick of chalk. His style of dress was at least one hundred years out of date and his voice was so monotone and boring it could put even the most attentive of students to sleep. On his snout perched a pair of glasses with one lens missing.

He called the roll, and each student raised their hands. I could feel the stares as my name was called and could have sworn I heard someone whisper "That's the dude who laid Cu-Cu out."

_ Cu-Cu,_ said Sparktrivis with thinly-veiled disdain.

"Please log into the workstation," said Barkchap. "Your log-in name is your first initial followed by the first four letters of your surname. Your password is your government identification number."

It took no more than two minutes for everyone to log on. "Now," he continued, "open a document in Dragonsoft."

Dragonsoft was a word processor that was widely used at that time. Despite its popularity, it was, by all means, a piece of shit riddled with issues, none the least of which was freezing constantly. Even at that young age, we all knew how terrible Dragonsoft was and let out a collective groan.

You'll do worse things in your lives if you live long enough," droned Barkchap. "Open it."

Dragonsoft miraculously booted up on everyone's computer with no issues.

"We will now practice the proper way of typing. Place your fingers on the keys as the diagram shows."

We all looked at this huge picture of a keyboard with someone's fingers on it and adjusted accordingly.

"Now I want you to type one page about anything you want, but you cannot 'pluck' the keyboard--you have to use the correct fingering for each key. The diagram is there to help you."

It took an entire thirty minutes to type one page with this method. I hated every minute of it.

I was pushing Ctrl+S when the bell rung.

"Save your documents, close the program, and log off," said Barkchap.

I saved the file in my home drive and did as Barkchap instructed. The day was going well so far.

*****

The P.E. instructor, Mr. Calvinstamp, was a brown, bald, tall, heavily built, 'dragonly-dragon.' He doubled as the middle school football coach.

He was also, as I would soon determine, a dick.

Calvinstamp paced back and forth, eyeing us with clear contempt as we sat on the bleachers; he was probably brewing up ways of how he would torture us under the guise of exercise.

Finally, after five minutes of tension, be broke the silence.

"Who brought gym clothes today?" he asked in a gruff voice. All but five raised their hands.

Calvinstamp chuckled the kind of chuckle a cartoon villain would make. "You five," he said, pointing at each of them in turn. "Twenty-five laps around the court, now! The rest of you, go change!"

Most of the kids ran to the locker rooms as if their lives depended on those clothes. Me and a few others calmly walked to them.

As I was changing, one of my peers spoke to me.

"You're gonna get it," he admonished.

"Get what?" I asked.

"You're the guy who sent Curin to the hospital. Coach Calvinstamp was looking forward to him taking charge and curbstomping all of our opponents. He's not happy about what happened yesterday."

He walked off.

_If you made friends as easily as you did enemies, you'd be the most popular kid in school by now,_said Sparktrivis.

_ Coach Calvinroids can throw whatever he wants at me, and I'll throw it back with twice the force,_I replied.

I walked out of the locker room and took my place on the bleachers. The kids who were not prepared were still running, and they looked sweaty. The coach was nowhere in sight.

One the kids had slowed down to a walk, when all of a sudden the coach reappeared, pushing a cart of dodgeballs.

"You there!" he barked at the walker. "Five more laps! The rest of you, sit down!"

The other four runners happily plopped down onto the bleachers while the slacker toiled. All of us watched as he ran his five additional laps. He then plopped down onto the bleachers as well.

"Now let's split into teams," growled the coach. His eyes met mine and an evil grin spread across his face. Uh-oh.

"You," he said, pointing at me, "you will be one team..."

_ I don't like where this is going,_worried Sparktrivis.

"...and everyone else will be the other."

The coach then pushed the cart of dodgeballs to the other side of the court, out of my reach. Then he blew his whistle.

"Standard dodgeball rules apply. Go!"

The rest of the class darted to the cart while I calmly filed to the other side of the court. It took five whole minutes for the other side to get in order.

Calvinstamp blew his whistle. "Begin!"

Six balls flew at me all at once. But I was quick and skinny. I dodged five of them and caught the last, then hurled it at a blue-haired dragoness. It socked her cleanly in the face.

The whistle blew. "Out!" shouted Calvinstamp. Under the gruffness of his voice, I could hear the utter disbelief.

The kid whose ball I caught and the dragoness I eliminated trudged towards the bleachers while another red, rubber fusillade came at me. Now the whole class was hurling balls.

The first one came straight at my face. I ducked to avoid it. Two through seven missed completely. Eight through sixteen had me doing flips and slides to avoid them. But seventeen was the trickiest of all.

The ball came soaring towards my privates immediately after I dodged ball sixteen. I jumped and did a split in midair. It narrowly missed.

Ball eighteen soon followed. I caught it easily, picked up another ball I dodged earlier, and threw them as hard as I could. Two clean hits.

Five down, twelve to go. I could feel the coach glaring at me as he shouted "Out!"

Six more balls came. I caught two and hurled them back. Four more dragons out. Eight remained.

The next wave was considerably smaller at three balls since they had been carelessly given to me. I avoided two and caught one, dodged another incoming ball, then threw it at the closest target. Down to six.

The remaining ammunition the opposing team had was soon used up, and I picked off the last six one-by-one, making sure I got the bastard who threw the ball at my crotch in_his_ crotch.

The coach was visibly angry, so much so that he was trembling. "Go change before the bell rings," he growled through clenched teeth.

The class marched to the locker rooms. The same guy from earlier approached me again.

"I guess I pissed him off," I said.

He nodded, grinning. "That was amazing!" he exclaimed. "You made him so angry! But he's really going to bring the pain now."

"I take it no one likes the coach," I replied.

There was a collective nod from the group.

"No one except his pets, the football players," said someone.

"Well then," I began, "I'll do my best every two days to ensure the coach's blood pressure goes up."

There was a roar of laughter. We eventually did change and emerged from the locker room as soon as the bell rang.

The coach was waiting for me--by that, I mean he actively blocked my path to get around him.

"Yes, coach?" I asked innocently.

"No one has ever won in one-man dodgeball," he snarled.

"Well, there's a first time for everything," I replied coolly.

That made him really mad. His face met mine and our snouts could not have been more than an inch apart.

"I'm going to make you bleed, boy," he threatened.

"I'm quite sure this pathetic attempt at intimidation would work on your football players, but I'm different," I replied. "You_don't_ scare me."

He backed up then and laughed. "That's cute, coming from a little twig like you."

"This little twig took down your biggest prospect," I said.

The derision vanished and was replaced with anger. "H-how dare you--"

"I can't continue this pointless dialogue with you or I'll be late for lunch," I said, cutting him off. Then, in the most trollish way possible, followed with: "But please do try harder next time."

I walked off with the biggest grin on my face as Calvinstamp threatened to erupt.