Travis Stoll, You Are So Not Funny

a Percy Jackson and the Olympians story

By Emily Helene

Chapter Five: How To Deal With Pests

Travis

If he hadn't have been late for class, finding his spot in Ms. Rees' second period geography would have been easier than tricking a handful of first-graders into eating sidewalk chalk. When you're Travis Stoll, any act involving charisma, practical jokes and mind games might as well be automatically listed in his student folder. No, it should have been simple. If he hadn't have been late for class he could have slipped somewhat soundlessly, though he never let an opportunity like a grand entrance run amiss so it wouldn't be all that soundless, into his seat at the back of the room. Ms. Rees' class was perfect because with assigned seating he could sit at the back and sketch detailed blueprints of his latest and greatest ideas. All of this would of course go undetected by the fresh-out-of-teacher's-college eco-freak-but-sometimes-cool instructor because the four other desks in front of him would block her view making him virtually untouchable. That, and if he shifted just right, he could throw rolled up balls of notebook paper at precisely the right angle and hit the leg of Katie Gardner's chair. This gave him both something to do and a means of getting her attention, an obvious plus.

Usually, he'd hit her with a crumpled up messages that she'd never respond to but sometimes she would unwrap and smooth them out, smile to herself and shake her head. Those were the best days because her smile always lit up her face and it was sort of cute. But not really. Mostly gross. But maybe just a bit cute.

Whatever, it was a good seat.

In other words, if he hadn't have been late for class, everything would have fallen into place. But, seeing as Connor saw fit to involve him with his latest prank involving the lunchroom ceiling, macaroni & cheese, super glue and a furious lunch lady, he was forced to enter class five minutes after the bell. Instead, he was sitting at the front of the room which had no view of the window or Katie. It also prevented him from doing anything but the assigned seat work which was honestly, just a pain in the ass. Sitting at the front sucked, to say the least.

He was surrounded by posters about environmental awareness and maps of the United States in bright, classroom-friendly colours as if the colours blue, red and electric purple would make learning about American geography suddenly riveting. The chalk board was bare, save a few chalk markings that had failed to make the cut of the eraser. If they really wanted to be interesting, why not have planned practical jokes and pranks every period? That was way more fun than some lame coloured posters.

He wasn't even all that sure of what had been going on all period. He had no clue what time it was or how much class was left really. He had more important things on his mind like, well, nothing. But he still couldn't be bothered to pay attention. What he did know is that the class was discussing something like naming and locating the 50 states but he couldn't be sure and didn't care enough to actually listen in. Besides, why participate in class when you can stare intently at the chalk markings that went un-erased that, because of your ADHD, do very little to entertain you.

Maybe I'll count them, he thought, letting out a sigh of boredom, 1, 2,3…wait, is it counted as one if it touches another line or are they separate? Ugh, forget it. Even that was too much to think about. All that he wanted to do was go back to his usual spot but clearly, that wasn't an option. Another somewhat deep sigh of boredom escaped his mouth but unfortunately didn't escape the ears of the teacher.

"Travis, are we boring you?" Ms. Rees seemed to materialize before him, eyes somewhat annoyed but mostly errant, as if she had some gruesome fate in mind for the troublemaker. She was a teacher so it probably consisted of making him answer a question which could be absolutely terrifying in its own right. Most of the time Ms. Rees was a decent teacher, so instead of slumping further in his seat like he would have done with his math instructor, he made an attempt to sit up properly. Mind you, it was just an attempt so it was unlikely she would even detect his minute change in posture.

"Do you want me to answer that honestly?" He grinned, pouring on the charm and crossing his fingers inside of his desk. This type of thing didn't usually work on Ms. Rees but hey, today was a new day and you never know what might happen.

She rolled her eyes at her young pupil and for a split second, it seemed like she was going to let him off the hook for talking back to her. Maybe she was finally starting to admire his natural comedic gifts.

"Yeah, nice try, Stoll," She laughed, her light voice amplified as the rest of the class chimed in. "Did you hear the question at least?"

Travis racked his brain as Ms. Rees stood before him, figuratively tapping her foot with apparent impatience.

"Well," Travis said, stretching his legs under the table and clearly getting comfortable, "Whatever it was, it had to do with geography."

This made the class laugh harder and even though he knew he'd be punished for sure, it was just too much fun to pass up. Then he had an idea. Maybe, if he could egg Katie on enough, he could drag her down with him. Then at least, detention wouldn't be too horrible.

"Listening pretty intently, I see" she said. Though her tone was authoritative but there were the beginnings of a smile at the corners of her mouth. Travis had a deep suspicion that maybe Ms. Rees had been one of those badass students in school. For whatever reason, she tolerated his antics and didn't yell at him. Well, not too much anyway. "More specifically, we were talking about the key exports of each state, Travis. What are five of Delaware's significant industrial exports?"

Contrary to popular belief, thinking up snide but not rude responses that garnered both the respect and entertainment of his classmates while not pissing off his teacher in the process was a pretty strenuous task. Comedic didn't just happen, really. You had to really work at it. At that point, his cleverness was failing him and he completely froze.

Katie

What an idiot. Why couldn't he just sit in class and pay attention like everyone else? Then at least he would know what was going on instead of getting completely blindsided by every question that didn't have to do with the adhesive qualities of peanut butter or the best angle at which to launch a milk-filled water balloon in order to nail your lactose intolerant target. She rolled her eyes at him, sitting there frozen and on the spot.

She had to admit, she kind of felt bad for the guy, even if he was consistently asking for it. Getting put on the spot when you have no idea what to say is never any fun. She even finds herself in similar situations in math class when she spends a few moments too long admiring the growth of the community's Eco Club garden. Maybe that way why she found herself lifting her pencil and neatly printing explosives, textiles, paper, plastics, and chemicals in the upper right hand corner of her notebook page. It wasn't even a hard question and yet she was helping him anyway. Careful to make as little noise as possible, Katie ripped the corner out of the book and folded it neatly in half before balling it up and preparing to throw it at her dumbfounded target in the front row.

If she just threw it now, willy-nilly without any sort of diversion, she would definitely get detention and her father probably wouldn't like that too much. Not that Katie enjoyed sitting in an empty room with Mrs. Vice, the math teacher who smelled like gym socks. In fact, that was one of the primary reasons why Katie avoided getting in trouble. Once you smelled it once, it was with you forever.

Why was she even doing this for Travis? Why was she risking herself? It made absolutely no sense. All that he did was terrorize her since kindergarten. He always knew exactly how to push her buttons and exactly which types of pranks to pull on her. She owed him absolutely nothing. Maybe she just felt bad for how pathetic he was. Or maybe, the notes that he threw to her every day that explained how bored he was or that gave the punchline to his latest and greatest joke were really getting to her. He wasn't that bad, just a bit of a goof. Or a lot of one. She could even admit that the little dorky, half-smile he did when he wasn't entirely sure of what to say during presentations had a sort of endearing quality to it. Not cute, really but kind of. Kind of. Mostly though, it was just because he was pathetic.

She let out a deep breath she didn't realize she had been holding in and made up her mind about what she was going to do. Her pencil case was right there. It would be really easy. Besides, the amount of times that thing had fallen off her desk and broken open strewing school supplies everywhere was almost too numerous to count. She couldn't believe she was doing this but, here went nothing.

Her elbow brushed the corner of the bright green plastic box with just enough force to send it sliding toward the floor where it promptly unlatched and met the ground. The loud and unexpected clatter got the attention of everyone in the class but before they realized it had come from her, she had whipped Travis in the back of the head with the little balled up piece of paper. She hoped he was smart enough to know what to do with it.

Ms. Rees looked up at her, surprised by the noise and Katie's face turned a deep scarlet making her face darker than her hair. "Sorry, Ms. Rees" she mumbled and quickly got down on her hands and knees to clean up her distraction. A few people whose desks her close to hers got down and tried to help her but there wasn't too much to pick up plus she felt bad accepting help when it had been intentional. It just felt wrong.

She cast a sideways glance to the front of the room when she stood up to return to her seat. The tense posture of fear-stricken Travis had vanished and was replaced by the calm, cool and collected demeanor everyone recognized as one of his characteristic quirks.

"Could you repeat the question, please?" Travis asked, running a hand through his mop of brown curls. Even though she couldn't see him, Katie knew his blue eyes were gleaming at the thought of impressing the teacher without putting in any work. She should have stayed in her seat and just watched him crash and burn as always. He wasn't going to care that she'd saved his ass, it would have been better for her if she had just remained quiet. Quiet is good because nothing gets messed up. Quiet is familiar.

Now that the commotion had died down, Ms. Rees reverted her attention to the boy whose angelic front was about as convincing as a crumb-covered four year old insisting that no, they hadn't eaten the cookie. "I asked you to name the five most significant exports of the state of Delaware. Have you had some stroke of genius in the last thirty seconds that has somehow enabled you to answer?" She asked, growing bored with Travis and his deviation from the lesson.

"If you're talking about their massively successful industries in explosives, textiles, paper, plastics, and chemicals, then yes I know what you mean. If not, it's anyone's guess." He sat back in his chair and despite being the one who set that very action into motion, Katie remembered all over again why she disliked him. He was arrogant, smug and all kinds of clever but not in a good way. He only used his talents for 'evil' and it was just dumb. He wasn't even that funny. Not really.

The teacher raised her eyebrows in surprise because truthfully, while she'd anticipated a somewhat sassy remark from Travis, she had never expected that it would be correct. She tried not to let her obvious astonishment show in her tone as she said, "Well then, why were you holding out on us, Travis?"

"It's more exciting to live on the edge," he shrugged but Katie just rolled her eyes.

With that last remark, the bell sounded and Katie tried to push thoughts of Travis Stoll's stupidity out of her mind so she could focus on the task at hand that was the Eco Club meeting. Every Thursday at lunch, a few of the school's more environmentally conscious students discussed ways to make the school more eco-conscious and green minded. Their latest project was a community garden that families could 'adopt' for a week at a time to grow produce and flowers for both the school's snack program and less fortunate members of the community. So far, it was pretty successful but there was the ongoing issue of pests who liked to come in and ruin it on a regular basis.

Just as Travis was about to leave the classroom, she heard Ms. Rees call him back and pull him aside for a few moments to chat. He was probably getting in trouble for being a smart mouth again. Serves him right, she thought. After a couple of minutes, Travis headed to the back of the room and took up residence in the desk by the window where he usually sat and pulled out his sandwich. Maybe he has lunchtime detention, she thought.

Either way, it didn't concern her. As long as he stayed away from the Eco Club meeting, she didn't care where he was or what he was doing.

"Oh, Katie?" Ms. Rees' voice shook her from her thoughts. She popped her head up as the teacher motioned her over too. "Now, I hope you don't mind but I have to cover Mrs. Waboski's lunch duty for fifteen minutes so that means Travis will be here doing some quizzes that I've assigned for him to do in the back. He shouldn't bother you and I'll be back to talk to him and then have you get me up to speed on the game plan for the club, alright?" She offered Katie a warm smile that was equal parts apologetic and trusting of Katie to make the best of the situation.

"It's fine, Ms. Rees. We'll try not to let him distract us. Unless he starts to throw things."

Ms. Rees laughed but she Katie was dead serious. Last time a teacher had left them alone together, he'd thrown a bean plant at her face and she had reacted in a way that could be described as anything but calm.

"I'm sure you can handle it, I'll be back soon."

Katie took a deep breath and turned towards the middle of the room where she began to move the desks to arrange them into a circle of eight: enough for each member of the group. The sound of metal screeching across linoleum grated on her ear drums but she was growing used to it. She was just adjusting the last desk when the rest of Eco Club spilled in, reusable lunch bags made from recycled materials in hand. She glanced over at Travis whose lunch resided in a clear plastic bag; the type that you got for 5 cents at the grocery store and that took forever to decompose in a landfill site.

Once everyone had sat down, she pulled out her notebook and canteen of hot chicken noodle soup effectively starting the meeting. She did her best not to glance over at Travis again and focused on the meeting.

"So I have a few ideas about how to make the garden even better..."

Travis

Well this was just great. He'd smoothly answered a question thanks to Katie Gardner of all people, left his teacher slack-jawed and still managed to somehow get assigned three extra quizzes on exports, imports and population. Great. When was he ever going to use any of this in the real world? No one cared about where you got your bananas from as long as they were in your fruit bowl at home when you wanted one after school.

He had to hand it to Katie, though, her diversion had been top notch, not to mention a complete and utter surprise. She was the last person he'd ever expect to bend the rules and on the off chance that she did, he was the last person he'd ever expect her to bend them for. Travis was no math genius but something wasn't adding up here and it definitely wasn't the population question he was supposed to be working on. He tried not to entertain the idea that she was head over heels in love with him for too long, though it was kind of funny to think about.

Speaking of Gardner, she was still here now working with the Tree Hugger club on the community garden. Even though he wasn't one for gardening, the tomatoes that they grew were the juiciest ones he'd ever seen. They made perfect pranking projectiles because they exploded with just the right pulp to mush ration.

She was talking about squirrels and birds getting into the garden and attacking the plants which definitely sucked but he was far more interested in just watching her. She still wore her hair in a long blond braid that reached half of the way down her back and her bright green eyes flashed from person to person as she hungrily took in their ideas and wrote them in rapid-fire cursive on her notebook. She was always writing in that thing. Not that he really noticed what she did all the time because it wasn't like he watched her all the time or anything - that would be weird - he just sometimes liked to look at her and when he did she had the notebook.

She had grown up a lot since kindergarten too. She didn't cry about stupid little things like bean-plants any more but she was still as comfortable being a leader as ever. In a lot of ways, he envied how easy she made it look. She had the attention of every member of the group without really trying. For crying out loud, she had his attention and he could barely hear what they were talking about. She had always been kind of pretty but now she was kind of really pretty, though he'd never tell anyone he thought that. A lot of boys probably thought it.

One thing that hadn't changed was her reaction to his pranks. He could still nail her every time with bugs in her lunch pail or a sly remark about her face and get a witty and clever remark. She always fought back and never reacted like the other girls when he pulled one over on him. She called him out on his stupidity and then out-smarted him on the spot. He had to admit, it was kind of unnerving and scary but it was kind of cool too. It made her different which he liked.

Not that he'd ever tell her that himself. What would he do, just go up to her and say, "I like how you give me a hard time when I tease you. Also, I think you're cute. Wanna date?" While it didn't always seem like it, Travis had in fact progressed mentally beyond five years old. You just didn't say those things. Instead he decided to try what he did best: screwing with her.

She was up and out of her seat now, standing at the chalk board with a piece of white chalk poised in her delicate hand. She quickly wrote pest prevention ideas and put it in a bubble to make a thought web. "So who has an idea of how to get rid of these pests?"

One of the younger girls in the group raised her hand shyly.

"Yeah, Tracie?"

"Maybe we could leave a snack for them in the garden so they eat that instead of the plants?"

"What does everyone think?" Katie asked, eyeing the group with piqued curiosity. Everyone, except for the spaced-out boy sitting beside Tracie eating pudding, was nodding their heads in agreement as Katie drew a line branching off the central hub and scrawled in the suggestion.

"Won't work," Travis said, his voice loud and clear over the occasional squeak of chalk on the black board. It wasn't a very lively club, now was it?

Katie looked up at him and narrowed her eyes. "Stick to your geography, Stoll. No one asked you."

"Yes you did, actually," he smirked, standing up from his seat, abandoning his hopeless geography assignments. "You asked what everyone thought and I told you that it wouldn't work. The animals in question aren't going to care if you put a different snack for them; they'll eat whatever they feel like eating."

Just by looking at her, Travis knew that she knew that he was right. She didn't want to give him the satisfaction though.

"Well then, Einstein what would you recommend?" she challenged, looking him straight in the eyes. Travis got the sort of nauseous but sort of happy feeling that looking at girls often described as butterflies when she stared him down like that. That and fear.

He thought for a second, trying to come up with an idea that would actually impress her. He tried to think about the existing garden and any flaws in the planning. If he could remember correctly, the garden was shaped like a giant rectangular sandbox and rested right at ground level where it was easy for them to get in. Coming up with no ideas, he decided to picture it like a prank. If he were a garden, how would he prevent pesky little creatures from eating him? Then, he had it.

"Raise it."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me, raise the garden," Travis said. "It's flat along the ground, right?"

Katie nodded.

"So surround it with like wood or something and that should keep all of the whatsitcalleds from crawling in and eating everything."

Katie stood there for a moment, mulling over his idea. It had made perfect sense in his head and still seemed to make sense when he said it aloud which didn't always happen. He stood there, waiting and hoping that she wasn't going to rip him a new one simply for opening his mouth. Like he'd said before: she was scary.

"Not all of the animals are on the ground, idiot," she rolled her eyes but her curiosity had been piqued for sure. "That might be decent for squirrels and rabbits and stuff but what about the birds?" It was another challenge; she was testing him to see if he actually knew what he was talking about.

"Oh, right." That took him by surprise. What was with everything taking him by surprise today? Did he get absolutely no time to plan before an answer was expected. Luckily it didn't take him too long to come up with another idea. He was on a roll today.

"Aren't birds like afraid of a lot of things? Loud noises, shiny objects?"

"Are you seriously suggesting that we get a blinged out scarecrow that makes some sort of annoying noise?" She didn't look impressed. It wasn't what he had been thinking exactly but it was even better than what he was thinking.

"Yeah, that'd be awesome! And it could like have a whipped cream launcher to shoot at the birds when they get too close and it could like yell at them and stuff and it would be like a full-tilt security system..." he would have gone on forever but one look at her face said that he had taken things too far again. "What?" he demanded, "That's a really sick idea, it'd just be really hard to do."

"Something like that would probably do our garden some good though, don't you think?" asked Ms. Rees. Neither Katie nor Travis had noticed her come in, they had been too absorbed in their own conversation to really notice any changes in their surroundings. Katie blinked and whirled around to meet the teacher.

"Uh what do you mean, something like that?" she asked, unsure of why the seemingly practical Ms. Rees would agree to a whipped cream launching, alarm blaring device.

Ms. Ress looked over at Travis, studying him inquisitively. "It's not a bad idea to have a scarecrow with a shiny baubles on it. We could do a used item drive asking for things like old CDs, metal soda can tabs, old jewelry...that sort of thing. It could be a group project and I think it would be the perfect way for you to get focused, Travis. And Katie, I know how you always like a challenge. I'm putting you both in charge of re-doing the garden to make it pest-free!"

The wheels began turning in his head, "You mean I can do this instead of the extra hour of geography work?"

"Not if this will keep you focused and more prepared for all of your classes," she said.

"Alright, high five!" Travis reached his hand in the air, a big smile appearing upon his face. No more geography, no problem!

She eyed him cautiously, "I will however, reassign it if Katie and I don't feel that you're contributing enough to the group and to the garden remodel."

"Yeah, yeah. Don't worry, Travis is on the job."

"...which is exactly what I'm worried about," grumbled Katie. If he messed this up and turned it into some world-class prank with Connor, he was in for something else entirely. The Eco Club was her domain and if she could keep Travis Stoll in line, she was convinced that there would be nothing she couldn't handle.

"Awesome," Ms. Rees smiled at the unlikely pair. "You two can figure out a time that you can get together to do the majority of the planning and let me know. Keep me up to date on your progress, alright?"

"Yeah, definitely," Katie smiled. She must be coming around, thought Travis. She turned to him, holding his blue eyes with her striking green ones. "Partners?"

He reached out his hand for her to shake, "Partners."