12 Torridian   The Trainer 13
#1 - High School Daze - 03/14/86 FRI

Madonna clones outnumber all others by at least a factor of three to one. None of them are looking especially virgin-like, however.
As one student opens a locker revealing a movie poster adorned by Tom Cruise, another student cranks up a boom box for seventy-three delightful seconds of “Let’s Go All the Way”, before a faculty member intervenes. In a testament to the postulate that ‘testosterone and hair spray don’t mix well’, another faculty member rushes to break-up a fight between a five-foot-six senior Lieutenant Marion Cobretti look-alike and a pair of junior Pet Shop Boys. It’s not clear who started it, but the guy who looks like Sly is being hauled off to Vice-Principal Howe’s office.
In another part of the hallways, John — a brash, overconfident specimen with a raging case of senioritis — gives Andy a nod. Then the pair proceed to carefully apply the correct vertical forces to a cottony, white undergarment so as to achieve the perfect hinder-binder as a gift to always be treasured and solemnly regarded by their fellow freshman.
The entire five-minute transformation of the hallways to a festive carnival atmosphere is always an exciting time for the faculty, who are the unwitting keepers of law and order of the hallways, ramps, and crossings. Having spotted the hapless freshman flailing like a bug high above the crowd, two more male faculty break into a sprint in an attempt to apprehend the perpetrators.

M.B.H. Computer Lab — 2:00 p.m.

As the second bell sounds, coaxing the remaining fragments of the student body into their respective rooms, Andy arrives at the computer lab with John.
“Dude, you in here?” John calls out to Bobby.
Wielding a 5¼-inch floppy disk, Bobby slides out his chair to come into view and replies, “Yeah, what took you so long?”
Andy takes the opportunity to clarify the situation. “John was testing his theory about the ultimate prank being the atomic hinder-binder.”
“What’s the verdict?”
John gestures somewhat animatedly as he gives his reply, “It felt”, he nods, “satisfying, but it’s definitely not the ultimate prank.”
As they walk toward Bobby, he frowns with disappointment.
“What would be the ultimate prank?”		 “What I’m going to do to Pattycakes.”
“Please let me help,” begs Bobby.
“Dude!” nods John. “For starters, I’m going to hoist her ‘mo-ped’ up her tree, put Vaseline on all her doorknobs, and spread a shag carpet on her pillow.”
“Duuuuuuude!” harmonize both Andy and Bobby with enthusiastic approval.
“I thought of doing that to Jacqie after she narc-ed on me for starting the fire in the chem. lab, but after I saw the gun her dad gave her for Christmas, I…”
Andy interrupts, “Her dad gave her a gun?!”
The curiously omnipotent John enlightens his brethren, “Yeah, sig p-225 nine, with eight in the mag.”
“A Sig/Sauer 9mm Lugar semiautomatic?!” announces Andy, with stunned animation.
“That’s right, Einstein. She calls it her Kat — not sure why. But, I guess that’s what you get when your dad’s a cop.”
With uncanny timing, Jacquelyn walks through the doorway with Melissa, dressed in her cheerleader’s uniform, with blond, kinked, big hair and makeup the envy of every ardent reader of Cosmo. Her eyes glance past Andy’s football jersey, settling on his cute, but aromatic, butt.
Melissa turns up her nose as she nears the boys. “What smells like Shepherd’s Pie in here?”
Jacquelyn smiles at Bobby as an embarrassed Andy desperately tries to redirect everyone’s attention by turning to Bobby and changing the subject. “So what did you have to show us?”
They gather around Bobby as he inserts the large, thin, black floppy disk into the bottom drive next to the silent, beige Apple //e. With no hissing fan needed to cool it and no whirring hard drive, the clicking of the keyboard is distinctive against the silence of the room as he types “CATALOG.” Hitting the Return key, he turns to his audience as the black screen of the monitor slowly churns up a list of files in a slightly fuzzy, bright green, big dot-matrix font.
Proud as an expectant father, Bobby goes into the details, “Check this out! I compiled an image encryption utility using my new assembler. With successive bit-shift and exclusive-or patterns, I can process an 8k picture in just a few minutes.”
Melissa rolls her eyes and sighs with genuine boredom.
“8k?” inquires a confused Andy. “You know, K, kilobytes. There are 1,024 of them in one megabyte.”
“You’re such a geek!” condemns Melissa.
Bobby is unwavering. “Correction: ‘super genius.’” Christmas."

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