That bloody assignment!

It was now 3:17 p.m. and in the space of thirteen minutes I had managed to destroy all the things that had been good in my life. OK, so maybe I was exaggerating, but this was no time for restraint. I tried to imagine Andrews’s face when I explained how my life had fallen apart in one phone call and that was why I couldn’t complete the assignment I’d had roughly six weeks to do. But I knew the heartless bastard wouldn’t have a bar of it. In fact he’d love it. It was exactly the ammunition he was waiting for, so I’d just have to put up with the black eye and wrecked love life ’cause I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction.

I stared at the computer screen. I typed in STEREOTYPES and spent half an hour changing the font and size. It was killing me.

I tried to go back over it step by step. I remembered Andrews going on about how I had to use the musical as a text. What the hell was that about? How could the musical be a bloody text? The guy was obviously having a laugh.

I played about ten games of solitaire in disgust and arrived back at the same blank screen. OK, so stereotypes in the musical … But the people in the musical were people, not bloody stereotypes.

I guess I could talk about the geeks. Fair enough, in the beginning I might have written them off as stereotypes, but when I got to know them they became individual kids. They were still a bit geeky, but when you got down to it they were only kids who happened to like playing their instrument and staying indoors more than team sports.

Then there was Zach, who didn’t give a rat’s whether he was a walking stereotype or not. And then when you got to know him he became a kid who understood stuff because he was smart and he’d had someone in his life walk out on him and he’d spent the last few years trying to understand that. So he kind of understood other people’s stuff as well. He was different, but there was no way he was a stereotype. He was too bloody unique to be a stereotype.

Then there was Mark, who looked like the walking stereotype of the footy player but was gay, and smart. Chris was a mixture of types—the all-around nice guy, responsible jock who reckoned he’d never make it with the girls, but that’s not all he was. Elizabeth was the same, I suppose. Miss I Will Succeed and Miss I’ve Got It All Together, but she had paranoid stress-heads for parents who wouldn’t let her have a boyfriend unless he was a bloody saint.

Come to think of it, if you pulled apart anyone you knew, they could never be just a type because if you bothered to get beyond the bullshit you’d get to see them as individuals. It was as simple as that.

And me? Well, I was the walking stereotype in comparison to all those other people. But I don’t reckon I knew it. I was walking around trying to be exactly what everyone expects an adolescent male to be.

I worked hard at being the guy who was always in trouble with the school but still kept his head above water. The kid who was well known for not doing outstandingly at school but who could pull it out when it counted. The kid who was popular with the popular crowd but still accepted by all. And you know, it was all crap.

I started to get some of my ideas down on the screen. It still didn’t make total sense, but I think I was starting to get it. And even if I wasn’t, Andrews was getting it anyway.

It was 9:35 p.m. My eyes were aching and my head hurt. But I went and got another glass of OJ and settled in for what was going to be a long night.