Page 9 - Cyber Nightmare

finished, he put on some body lotion and smelled himself
again. Very nice, he thought. Now he felt better about
himself.
That evening, he couldn’t get his mind off the message.
5 At first he thought someone was just trying to be funny,
but then he got the idea that if it was a joke, it was a very
bad one. Again he asked himself who had sent it. He went
through a checklist in his mind, people who might have
done it, but came up with nothing.

10 Normally, Neil didn’t spend much time worrying about
things. His busy life didn’t allow him much time for
looking back. Besides, one of his basic principles was
not to dwell on negative things. But this message had left
its mark. He had always been a confident guy, very sure
15 of himself. The message had put a little dent in his self-
esteem. He showered more often now, sometimes twice a
day, and used expensive lotions and aftershave.
When Darby noticed the change in Neil, how different
he smelled, he decided not to say anything about it at first.
20 But a few days later, when the guys on Neil’s basketball
team noticed it, there were lots of comments.
Neil felt like he was between a rock and a bad place.
Being razzed for smelling too good was almost as bad as
being told that you stink. If only I could forget about this
25 whole business, he thought, and just go back to smelling
like myself. Unsure about what to do, he wished that he
could discuss it with his dad, but his dad, as usual, was
away on business. In the end, he decided to have a serious
talk with Darby about it.

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