Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life Chapters 11 - 15 Summary

Chapter 11

As little sisters do, Georgia barges into Rafe's room. She wants to know what Bear said to Rafe.
Rafe's not talking. He offers her a pudding cup instead. Mostly, he doesn't want her stuck in the middle between him and Bear. She's only nine.
With Georgia finally gone, Rafe can finally get to work on his master plan. He's breaking bad, Walter White-style.
Okay: his rule-breaking isn't quite as illegal and evil as Mr. White's.

So, the whole rule-breaking plan has a name—Operation R.A.F.E. That stands for Rules Aren't For Everyone. Nice touch.
One day, Rafe hopes to get rich off his idea. Lots of kids will do their own Operation R.A.F.E.'s. He'll just be the first. Maybe they'll even dedicate a theme park to him.
But one thing at a time. The HVMS Code of Conduct has 112 rules. Rafe gives each of them a point value. You get more points for doing riskier things. Or more points for doing things in front of witnesses.
For the first time in his life, Rafe is actually looking forward to going to school the next day.

The next morning, Rafe's mom asks about the first day of school. Rafe doesn't want to lie to her exactly, so he says it wasn't quite as bad as he thought it would be.
Still, that's high praise coming from Rafe. Whatever he's doing, he should keep it up, Mom tells him.
Oh, he will. Don't worry, Ma.

Over the next few days, Rafe breaks some pretty basic rules. Chewing gum. Running in the hall. Eating in the library,
But it's not super fun. It needs something. It needs Leo.
Sure enough, Leo comes along and tells Rafe he's gotta do something big before the end of the day on Friday.
If he doesn't he's going to…lose a life. He's only got three of them left. You know, kind of like a video game. That's a new rule Leo just made up.
(Huh. For an operation that involves breaking rules, R.A.F.E. sure has a lot of rules.)

Turns out Rafe's last class of the day is Mrs. Donatello's English class. The Dragon Lady.
They're reading sections from Romeo and Juliet. Rafe gets assigned the part of Paris. (Ugh. That character is more boring than a toast sandwich.)
Then Rafe has a pretty great idea. Luckily, Paris doesn't come in for a few pages, so he has time to work out his own little Shakespearian monologue.
When it's his turn to read, he busts a rhyme that ends with, "I think this play is stupid, so guess what? I'm out of here and you can kiss my—"
Yeah. This doesn't go over well.
But Rafe doesn't care. He thinks it's the bee's knees because everyone in class is laughing. And they're not laughing at him. They're laughing with him.
He's a winner now. Rafe: 1; Dragon Lady: 0.