12 Years Old

For the rest of the summer, I resumed my routine of relaxing and having playdates. I tried to forget about what happened at summer camp as much as I could.

John Jo came over to my house, where he slept over for the first time. We played a few video games, and then he told me that he wanted to take me to a place called Planet Cyber, a cyber café that had all of the best online PC games. I knew nothing of the sort, but it was just down the street from my mother’s house. I walked there with him, eager to experience something new.

This was my first experience with online gaming. Playing video games with people over the internet invoked a whole new level of fascination in me. Talking to people over AIM was fun and new, but this... this was tremendous. I always loved playing multiplayer mode on video games when I had friends over. With online gaming, I could do it whenever I want. I was a novice to these new games on the PC, but I got the hang of it after playing with John Jo for a few hours. The games we played were Day of Defeat and Counter Strike.

Mother took me and Georgia on two little vacation trips in the same week. For the first trip we went to Long Beach, where we stayed at the Hyatt hotel. It reminded me of our little trip to Ventura two years previously. We visited the Harbor and the aquarium. The three of us really bonded on this trip.

We went home for a couple of days before going on the second trip. For the second trip, we went to Legoland and stayed at the resort there. The resort was exceedingly beautiful, with a huge swimming pool and spa. We met up with a family of one of Georgia’s friends and explored the entirety of Legoland.

When we got home from our marvelous trip, I had another sleepover with John Jo. He loved the fact that I lived near Planet Cyber, so he would soon be calling every week, asking to come over.

I saw Charlie a few days later. Charlie was also familiar with Planet Cyber, and when the two of us went there, he introduced me to an RPG game called Diablo 2. I didn’t know what to make of this game, it was like an adventure game similar to Banjo Kazooie and Donkey Kong, but much more mature, with the ability to interact with other players online.

It was only a matter of time before I started inviting John Jo and Charlie to sleep over at the same time. When the three of us went to Planet Cyber as a group, I had an absolute blast. It was one of the best experiences of my life.

At father’s house, father would frequently invite his new friend Alexander Bubenheim over. Alex Bubenheim was a boisterous German man who worked as a composer and lived in the Top of Topanga community. Alex had a son named Lukas, who was a couple of years younger than Georgia. Lukas was a very girly and immature little boy, but I found him to be very amusing. They would come over almost every weekend that I was at father’s, and become a big part of my life there.

Seventh Grade began. My coveted summer break was all over. On the first day, I noticed some people I met during summer camp start school there as Sixth Graders. One of them was Patrick Dib, the younger brother of Alex Dib. I would always view Patrick Dib as an obnoxious, rude lout. He was very ugly too, and it annoyed me that he carried himself around as if he wasn’t a freckled, chubby-faced imbecile.

I said hello to everyone I knew from last year, including Robert Morgan and his clique of popular kids. There were also a flock of new kids who transferred from the Pinecrest in Van Nuys. I was soon to meet them. Among these were Alfred Graham, Anthony Glukov, Jonny Noone, Derek Olsen, Garrett, Rafael, and Edward. They already knew each other and always hung out together at the start of the year, but I soon noticed that each of them soon integrated into the already pre-established cliques of Pinecrest. I was jealous that Jonny Noone, an obnoxious Mexican kid, immediately became popular with the skateboarders because of his cocky attitude.

Alfred Graham, a half-black boy whom I would have a semi-friendship with throughout the years was intensely disliked by everyone, mainly because he was ugly and had a habit of intentionally annoying people. He would eventually become friends with the skateboarders, however, due to his interest in the sport.