Yes, and he is ready for Cindi

"What the heck happened to you?" Cindi looked at Matt like he'd grown a second head.

"For some reason, those football jerks don't like me."

"Well, you do have some unlikable characteristics."

"Wow. And here I thought we were friends."

He couldn't exactly read Cindi's face but his quip certainly got some sort of reaction. Damn, he was going to have to sign up for girl-reading if he wanted to make it farther in this world. And he did.

"So," she said after a pause long enough that Matt knew it had some meaning, "we go ahead with the plan?"

Oh, yeah, the plan. As in, getting Tanya and Natasha onboard. He was a little less sure about the plan now than he had been before he'd had his head rammed into the wall a few times too many but he wasn't ready to give up.

"Right," he said.

The 'plan' wasn't rocket science. The two had gone over their textbooks and memorized some technical words that would make them sound like they knew more than they did. Once they had the pig out, they'd use the words, sound like they intended to bust the grading curve, and see how Natasha and Tanya reacted. They'd also flirt and pretend they were wildly attracted to each other... proving that Cindi was capable of attracting a guy and that Matt was worth attracting... which would, according to Cindi, give her a chance to move into better circles. Matt would also see how the Justin and Freddy reacted which was frightening given the warning he'd just gotten. Still, the jerks seemed intent on terrorizing him no matter what he did so he might as well try.

"Something funny here," Cindi said. "Would you guess this deformation in the spleen is of pathogenic or mutagenic origin?