Firstly, Tim G. Tim is a germaphobe and, oh, of all holy ironies, he gets sick more than any other student does his age. Consequently, he misses a lot of school, but he still manages to keep up. Some people would question whether there are actually people so afraid of germs that they carry a bottle of disinfectant everywhere they go. However, such people do indeed exist. Tim is a couple votes away from becoming their president.

Secondly, Donnie Fine. Donnie is in the same grade as Tim. In fact, he’s in the same English class. And for those who enjoy detail, Donnie is the same height as Tim, as well. Unlike Tim, though, Donnie has no terrible fear of germs. What he does have is short-term memory loss and often forgets where he’s going the minute he’s left the house. Donnie’s mother has had countless talks with doctors over the years as to why Donnie has the problem he has, but those dang doctors seem to be of little good for the Fine family.

Maybe it was the work of up above (or down below) that made these two social misfits partners for the upcoming English project. Or maybe their English teacher is a sadistic person who, upon recognizing these awkward disabilities in both Tim and Donnie, decided to make them both suffer. Either way, these two boys are going to have to get together this afternoon and get down to work.

*  *  *

Tim was sitting on his couch, his head sprawled back, moaning sporadically when the phone on the table beside him rang. He groggily looked at it and picked it up with his pale hand. It still rang away as he brought it to his other hand, which was holding his always-present bottle of disinfectant. He sprayed the phone a couple times, wiped the handset, and then answered.

“Hello?”

“Hello, uh, Tim?” said a nervous voice through the phone. “This is Donnie Fine, from English. You don’t know me, I think, but, uh, we had a project assigned today while you were away, and the teacher said I had to do it with you. Oh, and this is Donnie Fine, by the way. From English. Now, I don’t think you know me, or anything, but—”

“Hold on, Lonnie, I can barely hear you.”
 
Tim roved his thumb over the many buttons on the telephone before settling on one. As soon as he pressed it, an irritating “on-hold” music began to emit from his phone. He stared at it, bewildered just by the fact that his phone could do that.
 
Poor Tim had never been good at technology. Once in a while he got something right, but it was more often than not that he broke something valuable. It got him in his mother’s bad books from time to time, like when he somehow set her entire stereo system on fire. Or when he plugged the A/V cords of his N64 into the microwave and the power cord into a bucket of water. But she couldn’t blame him much. How could anyone blame a guy who tried to hook his keyboard up to his DVD player?
 
Donnie, sitting in his spacious bedroom, the walls adorned with countless accolades, cringed at the awful music coming through Tim’s phone. He was apprehensive about working with Tim. For one thing, Tim was home sick a lot. For another, Donnie usually did fine on his own, anyway. That’s why he was Donnie Fine. (Well, that, and it was his actual last name.) He had many achievements throughout his high school career: the Debate Club President, the Drama Club’s Acting President, a finalist in the Pong Club, a winner for Best Use of Shadow in Photography class. He had even been on the Principal’s List three years in a row and was a shoe-in for this year, so long as he didn’t lose any marks on this English project he had to do with Tim. And he knew that if any marks were going to be lost, they would be lost because of Tim.
 
To add to Donnie’s nervousness, he didn’t even know who Tim was.
 
After struggling with the phone for a few moments and a couple alarming coughs, Tim was talking with Donnie again.
 
“Okay… okay,” he said. “Tell me about this project.”
 
“Ah, it’s one of those, uh… um… oh jeez. Wait! I wrote it down. Where’d… where’d I put my backpack?”
 
Donnie rested the phone on his bed and stood up. He began to scavenge around the bedroom for his bag, occasionally muttering “What was I looking for” to himself.
 
It was deduced that Donnie had been having memory problems since birth when he would forget that he, for example, had a dirty diaper, and would therefore become confused and frightened by it. His condition had continued into later years, still causing him to forget such seemingly simple things as taking the lens cap off his camera.
 
Donnie picked up the phone again and put it to his ear. “Who is this?” he asked.
 
“It’s… it’s Tim,” Tim replied, a little perplexed. “Your partner for the English project. Yeah. The project. Yes, tell me all about it. Ah, hang on, I’ll get this down on my computer.”
 
Tim walked the couple steps to his computer desk and sat down in the leather chair. The moment he started up Microsoft Word, the computer crashed. He furrowed his brow at the screen, then pulled a pad of paper and a pen out from one of his desk’s drawers and began to write.
 
“Okay. Right. Oh, that unit. Yeah, that’s fine. All right, good. Yeah, you come over and we’ll get started.”
 
Tim hung up the phone and sniffled. Then he realized that Donnie didn’t know his address. He bit his lip and picked up the phone again, looking for the right button. He hesitated for a second, then pushed one. The same annoying “on-hold” music began to play from his phone.
 
Meanwhile, Donnie had already left his house and forgotten why.