The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth - Alexandra Robbins [23]
Like most outcasts in school—including many of the thousand-plus people I contacted for this book—these “characters” were excluded because they were different, because they didn’t or wouldn’t blend in. But to me, the qualities that set them apart from their classmates were intertwined with the qualities that made them stand out from the crowd in positive ways. I saw in each of these embattled individuals sparks that convinced me that they would thrive once they left the school setting, characteristics they unveil, amidst their trials and tribulations, throughout this book.
As part of my argument that cafeteria fringe should be highly valued, I wanted to help the main characters learn to see the value in themselves. So I took an unorthodox approach by offering each of these individuals a challenge in the middle of the school year. In my twist on traditional makeovers, I wanted to know whether they could alter people’s perceptions of them without directly changing who they truly were. And whether that tweak in perception would in reality create an opportunity for them to improve their high school lives.
Every member of the cafeteria fringe has something to offer. One only has to care deeply enough or look hard enough to find out what that is. I decided to write a book about quirk theory because too many students are neglected or disparaged due to qualities, interests, or skills that we should instead nurture and embrace. I issued the challenges to discover what happens when we do.
BLUE, HAWAII | THE GAMER
Blue had planned to go home after school, but he lingered after his last class, hoping to spot Jimmy. A pudgy fellow half-Korean, Jimmy was considerably taller than Blue, who was five foot five and muscled.
Since the IM conversation in which Herman had offended him, Blue had withdrawn from his friends. Although he still liked Jackson, Ty, and Stewart, who sometimes joined him at the arcade, Blue took such pains to avoid Herman and his followers that he avoided the cafeteria altogether. This new distance was relaxing. “Sometimes,” Blue explained later, “you just have to log out, you know?”
Instead, he spent lunch, recess, and before and after school killing time in the AP Government classroom. Sometimes he biked to school ninety minutes early to unwind there. The tiny classes (Blue’s class had nine students) left the large room always at least half-empty. The teacher, Ms. Collins, had created a welcoming lounge area with beanbag chairs. Blue was supposed to be her teaching assistant, but he had been wrangled into TA-ing autotech instead because of his expertise in the subject. He helped Ms. Collins with her computers anyway, fixing and improving them whenever he could.
From a distance, Blue saw Jimmy enter the classroom, where a handful of students had congregated. Blue followed him, planning his strategy on the way. Kaloke’s “hallways” were sidewalks ringed with hibiscus, bird of paradise, and other tropical flowers whose scent drifted with the trade winds through tall open-air shutters into classrooms overlooking lush mountains. From some classrooms, students could see the horizon of the Pacific Ocean.
Blue stood at his usual spot by the teacher’s desk for a few moments, fiddling with his iPhone. Then he called out, “Hey, Jimmy, I’m gonna sit with you.”
“Okay!” Jimmy said, smiling.
Blue grabbed a laptop from the classroom’s computer cart and slid into the chair next to Jimmy, where he pretended to do homework.
A few desks away, four girls discussed AP classes and colleges. Blue stole glances at Jimmy, who gradually set his homework aside as he tuned in to the conversation. “Hopefully I can get into MIT,” he told Blue.
“Why, what do you want to do?” Blue asked.
“I want to work for NASA one day, or Boeing. But I want to work on the planes, not fly them.”
Blue was intrigued. It was unusual for his friends to want to attend a prestigious mainland school. He