Make the Grade (Short Story with picture!)

Make the Grade

Written by: SteeleBlazer

            Johnny "Thunderbolt" Thompson, the college football Phenom, found himself in a scholastic slump. While he might have been a titan on the football field, he had a tiny presence in the classrooms. He preferred flattening linebackers, not tackling textbooks. Despite his towering physique, his grades were more anemic than a couch potato’s resolve to exercise. His coach, whose patience had run thinner than Johnny's algebra notes, laid down the law: "Strengthen those grades or you're off the team!" Desperate to remain eligible, Johnny had a smart idea and volunteered for an extra-credit science project led by Megan Martin, who he always thought was a great big nerd, and he didn’t see what was so great about science.

            Johnny was certain he’d cruise through this and get the grade boost he needed, but he was in for a real shock… And that shock came from that strange sci-fi contraption of Megan’s. Suddenly, Johnny's muscles deflated like a punctured football. Meanwhile, Megan emerged from the experiment transformed, and it wouldn’t be long before she’d get the nickname Mega-Megan! She was no longer just a great big nerdy girl; she was now a great big muscular nerdy girl, flexing her newfound mega muscles and proclaiming with a large booming shout, “The experiment was a success!” But, how could it be a success for Johnny as he was now scrawnier than the team’s towel boy. And while everything might have gone right both for experiment and Johnny’s plan to strengthen his grades, everything had personally gone so very wrong for him as he was now weaker than what his poor grades ever were. And while he might now have been academically eligible for the team, he just now couldn’t physically make the grade. He had learned the hard way that sometimes you really can be too smart for your own good.