"Tom! C'mon it's time for school – you can't miss the bus again!"

Thomas yanked a t-shirt over his head and he studied himself in the mirror. He checked his jawline for any changes, flexed his arms to see if he had any new muscle on his biceps, and sighed before picking up his cell from the bed.

"Nope, still same old Thomas," he said to Newt.

"Well what were ya expecting shank? That you'd wake up on your birthday and be a bloody model or something?" his friend snorted.

"No…but see, I just thought that this would be the year that, ya know, would be different," Thomas replied. He strained his ears through the closed door when he heard his mom yelling at him from downstairs and he shook his head with a small smile.

"Sorry Newt, gotta run – my mom's yelling at me to get down there – probably going to embarrass me in front of everyone about being the birthday boy," he said.

"Good that, see you in a bit Tommy!" Newt replied before hanging up.

Thomas threw a jacket on and slung his backpack over his shoulder before jogging down the stairs, falling in behind Chuck who was stifling a yawn.

Teresa emerged from the kitchen and crossed her arms over her chest as she waited for her brothers to descend the stairs. "You missed breakfast slintheads," she announced as she waved a piece of bacon around. "Bacon was extra crispy today."

"Augh!" Chuck groaned as he ran a hand across his face. "Seriously?! There's none left, right?"

Teresa smiled coyly at him and replied that she never said anything about it being all gone. Chuck's eyes widened and he dashed towards the kitchen, crossing his fingers that he wasn't too late. Thomas began to head towards the kitchen too but was stopped by his mom shepherding Chuck toward the front door with lunches in hand.

"Here you go Teresa," she said as she handed Teresa her bright blue lunchbag. "I put organic black beans that you have to soak overnight in your lunch, just like you wanted. Also bought some of that spicy chorizo you're crazy about lately."

"She's only eating it to impress Brenda, ya know!" Chuck smirked.

Teresa glared and swung her lunchbag at Chuck's face, only to have her younger brother duck, grab his lunch, and scurry out the door before her. She rolled her eyes and followed him out the door, twirling her keys on her finger. Thomas pretended that he hadn't seen that. It wasn't fair – just because Teresa had gotten several acceptance letters into high profile universities and colleges, including multiple grants and scholarships, she had been surprised with a new car, courtesy of their parents and relatives. She only let her friends ride in the car and never let Thomas or Chuck drive with her to school, save risk being seen by her classmates.

It's your birthday shank, Thomas told himself as he smiled at his mom before accepting his lunch. Things could change in the blink of an eye any moment now.

"Here's some toast and two pieces of bacon," his mom said as she handed them over, wrapped in a paper towel for the bus ride over. "If you had been down sooner, you might have been able to get the rest of the jam you liked so much instead of talking to Newt."

"Thanks…" Thomas said as he accepted them from her. "Um, you don't have anything else to say to me?"

"Well, make sure you come home on the bus with Chuck – you're watching him tonight while we take Teresa and her friends out for dinner to celebrate," his mom replied as she dusted her hands off. "I'll leave money for pizza or takeout – whichever you boys prefer. Now, you should get going – school's going to start soon and you don't want to be late." She patted his shoulder before heading back to the kitchen.

Thomas stared after her and shook his head as he headed for the bus, snapping a piece of bacon in half. "Un-shucking-believable," he muttered under his breath. "They forgot my birthday." He crunched the bacon quickly as he ran to catch the bus, stuffing the rest of the breakfast leftovers in his pocket so the bus driver wouldn't yell at him.

He picked a seat in the middle, away from the driver's prying eyes. He wolfed down the second piece of bacon when no one was looking before breaking the slices of dry toast into pieces. He saw that Chuck had found his friends and they were busy comparing HexBug collections. He rolled his eyes as he looked back at the front, sneaking pieces of dry toast into his mouth as they passed a few bus stops.

He frowned when he spotted Newt standing at the bus stop near his house and raised his brows at his best friend as he boarded. Newt rolled his eyes and sat down next to him.

"Gally's car was full – shank forgot to tell me that he already promised to take Winston, Jeff, and Beth to school for a week until Winston's car comes back from the shop," Newt said as he put his messenger bag on his lap.

"What's Beth's excuse?" Thomas asked as he choked down the last dry piece of toast. He wished that he had brought a water bottle with him – it was agony trying to get that stuff down his throat when it had no jam or butter on it.

Newt rolled his eyes as he crossed his arms over his chest. "Her bike needs repairs. I have a feeling that she damaged her own bike in order to convince her parents to get her a better ride." He shrugged before covering his left ear when a passing student blasted his hip hop music on high volume with his Beats Pill. "Anyways, how'd it go with the birthday embarrassment and klunk?"

Thomas huffed and looked out the window, his lips pursed. "They forgot."

Newt blinked and leaned forward in his seat, turning towards Thomas. "You're joking right? Thought your family was all for birthdays and making a big deal out of them."

"Yeah, well not this year," Thomas grumbled as he looked back at Newt.

Newt patted him on the shoulder and shot him a sympathetic look. "Right Tommy, it's still early in the day – maybe things will change!"

"Yeah sure they'll change," Thomas grumbled after their fourth class of the day.

Newt caught up with him and stuffed his quiz back into his bag. "All right shank, so ya didn't do so well on this quiz but there's always the next one!"

Thomas shrugged and pretended to agree when he actually felt like punching his locker door and screaming in frustration. It wasn't just that C– on the Spanish quiz that was bothering him. During his second class, he swore he wrote down and read the correct pages assigned for the play they were reading in English but it turned out that they were already two acts and a scene ahead of the one he had written down. He explained to the teacher his mistake when she called on him and she shook her head at him before marking his as 'Unprepared' in her class book. His teacher in Math had surprised them with a pop quiz on logarithms – luckily he had been able to figure out most of the problems pretty quickly though. Then for Humanities and Art Studies, he tried to get assigned one of his favorite architects, only to have Harriet and Teresa call dibs on the only two architects available for their research paper due in a few weeks. He got stuck with Marcel Duchamp, which made him less than thrilled since the guy focused on making everything a parody of something else.

"Well, Study Hall's next," Newt spoke up as he put away his Math and Science textbooks. "Ya think the bloody teacher's actually gonna make us do anything in there?"

"Probably not," Thomas said with a shrug of his shoulders. He grabbed his assignments from Home Economics just in case before re-locking his locker.

Thomas lifted his head from his Home Economics assignment on figuring out a mystery recipe and checked to see what the teacher was doing at that moment. For the first time this year, the grumpy shank actually had been keeping an eye on them for the first 20 minutes, walking up and down rows to make sure they were all working on something. Thomas had finished all of his assignments and had been waiting to see if the teacher had finally settled into his seat to take his usual nap. Sure enough, the shank had his legs propped up on the desk, his head lolling backwards over the back of the chair.

Thomas fished out a folded square of paper from the front pocket of his backpack as quietly as he could, zipping the pocket shut slowly, in case the shank woke up. In between Math and English, he had run into Brenda, his friend and potential girlfriend for his sister Teresa, who had slipped him a piece of paper and told him to fill it out and share it with Newt. She had winked at him after giving it to him, which led to a jealous Teresa dragging him to gym where the squeaks of the basketball sneakers on the courts masked their conversation.

Thomas had let Teresa snap at him for trying to sabotage her chances with Brenda before he had insisted that he had no interest in her girlfriend or potential girlfriend, whatever she was now. Teresa had yanked the folded paper out of his hands to skim it. When she saw what it was, she shook her head and told him that they should split now and get to class before anyone else saw what happened. Thomas didn't think twice before stuffing the paper back into his bag and booking it to make it to Study Hall on time.

He looked around at his neighbors to make sure no one was looking at him before he unfolded the paper. He felt his ears burn when he saw what it was – a sex questionnaire.

Confidential

1) Have you ever touched yourself?

2) Ever reached an orgasm?

3) Have you ever touched it on the opposite gender?

4) How far have you gone with someone?

5) Do you ever want to do it?

6) With whom? (Don't worry, your name's not on this!)

7) Does (s)he know you want to do it?

Thomas licked his lips nervously before clicking out more lead on his mechanical pencil and answering the questions.

1) A few times by accident really.

2) I don't think so.

3) No I don't think so.

4) Just hugs, but for friends.

5) I guess so.

He hovered his pencil over the paper when he reached the sixth question. He bit his lip and wished his face didn't feel so warm – it was probably red by now. He desperately wanted to skip this one but Brenda said he was safe (supposedly!) to put whatever he wanted on the sheet and to not worry because his name wasn't tied to it. He didn't need to think twice about who he'd want to do for his first time.

Just one look, Thomas told himself as he lifted his head up from the desk. He checked his neighbors again to make sure no one was watching him and turned to look over his shoulder at the guy sitting behind him in the row to his left, next to Newt. Minho Park, captain of the Cross Country team at Wicked High and one of the most popular seniors at school.

This was the only class they had together, as Thomas was a sophomore and taking different classes. One time he ran into Minho when he was bringing cookies for a Bake Sale that the Science Club put on to raise money for new equipment in the labs. Thomas had been running late, thanks to Chuck hiding his backpack, and had run smack into Minho and his senior friends with the plate of cookies. He had tried to keep it together when he saw Minho, managing to get out a decent sounding apology without looking like a complete slinthead. Gally had put Thomas on the spot, saying that for walking into them, the Greenie owed each of them a cookie, free of charge. Minho had rolled his eyes and pushed Gally away, saying that coach would kill them if they were caught eating cookies before Weight Training. Thomas had been grateful to get out of that but when he got to the table, he swore that he had baked three dozen sugar cookies in the shape of a beaker, discovering that a few were missing. He hadn't paid much attention after noticing Minho speak up and pushing his friends away, but he had a feeling that one of them probably slipped a few from the plate he had in his hands. Whatever, it didn't matter that day.

Ever since then, Thomas only saw him in passing and in Study Hall. Sometimes Minho would be sleeping, probably due to his rigorous schedule for his last year, and other times, he'd be doing an assignment or doodling something on a scrap of paper. Today, the senior was looking out the window, his hand propped up under his sharp, angled jawbone. He was wearing the school's cross country team jacket over a tight-fitting v-neck shirt, black jeans, and a pair of monochromatic sneakers.

Yeah, I have no shot with a guy like him, Thomas thought as he stared, quickly checking on the teacher from the corner of his eye.

Minho blinked as he stared out the window and he sighed. He couldn't wait to get out of this shucking place – it seemed like forever he had been here in this small town. It had been months since he and Brenda had broken up – she came clean and admitted that she liked both guys and girls, only she had her eye on a certain girl for a while. He had been fine with letting her go, saying that if she cared about the shank, she should try to see if it would work out. He had felt there was a void in the relationship for a while – Brenda was fun but he wondered if it was the right fit. At Gally's persuasion, he had gone on a few dates with some other girls but none of them went much further than that initial date.

He checked his watch to see what time it was. 15 more minutes of Study Hall then he had Weight Training. He felt a pair of eyes on him and he looked up to see two warm brown eyes, similar to the makeshift whiskey that Gally tried to make one night, looking at him. He sat up a little straighter in his seat and tilted his head to the side.

Shuck! Thomas thought when Minho looked up. He made up his mind to pretend he was looking at the clock on the wall adjacent to them before looking back down at the questionnaire.

6) Minho Park

7) NO

Minho leaned forward and stared at Thomas, who was hunched over his desk fiddling with some paper. Was Thomas Murphy looking at him?

Yeah, Minho knew the Greenie – Brenda mentioned him a few times and then he ran into the guy one day with cookies for some bake sale. Poor shank had ticked off Gally but Minho was not in the mood to deal with Gally's attitude that day, so he dragged the shank away, telling him that coach would be on their shuckbutts for eating cookies in front of him. Once they walked away, he realized that Ben had swiped cookies from the shank's plate when he wasn't looking and Minho had hit him on the head, intending to make Ben return them.

"Sheesh Min! They're just cookies – Greenie had a lot of them!" Ben protested as he handed them out. "Besides, its kinda weird to just give them back, right?"

Minho had gotten a cookie pressed into his hand and he rolled his eyes as he stuffed it into his lunch bag for later. He ate it after Weight Training once he had left the locker room, studying the beaker shaped cookie that had a thin layer of lime green icing with white lines and numbers on the side. It looked pretty good – shuck, maybe like something you'd see in a bakery. He took a small bite, which quickly turned into a bigger bite, then another, until the cookie was gone. It was light – not too sweet, crunchy on the edges, and soft in the center. Shuck, I could go for another of those cookies now, Minho thought as he stared at Thomas's back.

Thomas folded up the questionnaire and reached behind him, dropping the folded rectangle of paper onto Newt's desk. Or so he thought.

Minho watched as the paper dropped on the floor and he stole a glance at Newt, who was asleep, his arm draped over top of his messy blonde hair. He snorted quietly and shook his head at Newt.

Thomas hadn't noticed that the folded paper didn't make it to the desk behind him. Minho looked around, noticing that everyone was either working or sleeping before he stretched his leg out, his foot closing on top of the folded paper. He checked to make sure that no one was watching him before dragging his foot with the folded paper back towards him. He picked up the folded paper and stowed it into a pocket just as the bell rang, ending Study Hall.