Geekhood Read Free Page A

dry, he’s more like a walking drought.
    “Yeah, yeah,” I say, grinning. “And what about you losers? What did you bring?”
    In an instant, they present me with an ogre, an undead warlord and a goblin wolf-rider. Each of them is pretty good in its own way. Of the lot, Beggsy’s wolf-rider, which has been deftly dry-brushed, then highlighted to show off the intricacy of the model, has the most chance of winning anything.
    A bang on a gong from Big Marv pulls us out of ourweighing-up: Battle-Fest is underway!
    We go in, Beggsy leading the way. He heads straight for the role-playing table and quickly digs into an adventure. Matt heads for the war-gaming table: it’s a more mathematical game, which suits his personality, but he waits on the sidelines to size up the competition. Me and Ravi have been given the job of handing in our competition entries and, after registering them with Marv, we take some time to check out what we’re up against. There’s some really eye-catching stuff here, not least an Elf mage and a demon of some sort – they both look as if they could leap off their stands. Ravi raises a wry eyebrow too. It’s going to be a close finish.
    For me, it’s straight over to the painting workshop. There’s a guest artist from the miniature-making company giving away some of the arcane secrets of brushwork. There are a few stools for people who want to get in and try their hand, but they’re taken, so I watch for a bit and then go and look at the new model releases “fresh from the forge”.
    One of them – a gargoyle – catches my eye. I think I’m going to have to buy it. As I study its bare metal form in the blister pack, imagining how I would paint it and how the finished article might look, I fail to notice that the general babble of Geek-speak around me has dropped to a hushed level. It’s only a gentle tap on myshoulder that snaps me out of my artistic reverie, and I turn round to see the last thing I would ever expect to see in The Goblin’s Hovel, at Battle-Fest, at 2.45 on a Saturday afternoon.
    It’s a girl.

    If you haven’t worked it out yet, girls don’t do this. They don’t come to the Hovel. They don’t like goblins and dragons. They don’t paint miniatures. They don’t play role-playing games or re-enact fictional battles. And they don’t come near Geeks like me.
    Especially if they’re pretty.
    And this girl is pretty.
    She’s about my height and my age, and a bit of a Goth. Her hair is black and shiny, cut into a Cleopatra-style bob and there’s just a little too much black eyeliner round her clear blue eyes. While she hasn’t gone for the black lipstick thing, she’s obviously powdered down her skin, giving it that slightly ethereal look. In contrast to her pale skin, she’s dressed in black from head to toe: black top, fingerless gloves, black nail polish and a long, floaty black skirt. There’s a couple of silver, Celtic-style rings on her fingers and some sort of ankh (like a cross with a hoop at the top) hanging roundher neck. This is where it pays to be a Geek: I can identify obscure bits of jewellery – I’ve probably painted tiny versions of them somewhere down the line.
    Of course, being tapped on the shoulder by a pretty Goth girl sends my Exterior Monologue (EM) and my IM into complete conflict. My EM tries to communicate the idea that this happens to me all the time – that I’m not in the slightest bit intimidated by her being of the OPPOSITE SEX and that I might not actually come to this nest of nerds that often. I do this by blushing madly, scratching my head and shifting my weight on to my back foot. Suddenly, it’s like my body is an ill-fitting suit that belongs to someone else. All the moisture in my mouth evaporates and my tongue seems to swell up to the size and shape of a melon.
    IM: You’reagirlyou’reagirlyou’reagirl,you’reaPRETTYgirlyou’reagirlI’mageekI’mageekI’mageekI’mageekyou’re