and I’m not gonna stop until I get somewhere.
What are you going to do about it?
I don’t care if I piss you off,
calling you off
those kids.
Yeah, we’re both on top
But you just
sunk
a little
lower.
Slivers of Purple Paper
by Cyn Balog
Every high school class has one. One person whose name is synonymous with tragedy, whispered with a serious shake of the head or a “tsk, tsk.” High school is painful as it is, but for some it’s downright torturous. I’m talking about the one who didn’t live out the four years, the one for whom all the pressure was just too much.
In my school, that person was Avery.
I had nothing in common with Avery. Avery was smart and athletic and popular, all the things people like me wished we could be. If you put my picture in front of the members of my graduating class, most would probably say they’d never seen me before in their lives. I’d been in the school district since kindergarten, and yet, I was the invisible one. My classmates didn’t think of me. They would describe me, if they absolutely had to, in one word: shy.
How do I know this? Because in seventh grade, my health teacher decided to do a project aimed at boosting our confidence. We arranged our desks in a circle and were each given a little Chinese takeout box and a few scraps of purple construction paper. On top of the boxes, we wrote our names. Every thirty seconds, we had to pass the boxes to the right. It was the job of the others in the circle to write one nice thing about the person whose name was on the box on a piece of purple paper and slip it into her box.
I can’t tell you how excited I was when we started this assignment. It was so different from any assignment I’d ever done. We never went around paying one another compliments, and I was dying to see what nice things people thought about me. I’d hoped “generous” and “helpful” and “smart” would be there. Maybe even “nice blue eyes.” There was plenty of fodder to fill that box, even if you didn’t know me.
I took the assignment as seriously as possible. I’d been made fun of by several of the boys in the class for my giant beak of a nose, and though it was hard to come up with compliments for those people, I managed. “Always speaks his mind” and “Honest” were a few I’d written down. For some, it was easier. It was easy with Avery. We were neighbors, and though I didn’t know her well, she was always kind. As I watched her scribbling, I wondered what people would say about her. What kind of amazing box of compliments she would end up with.
Maybe I was being naive, because I learned that day that seventh graders do not take the opportunity to build up a person when they can instead tear that person down. When I received my box at the end of the assignment, the same word was on each of the twelve sheets of paper, in different ink and handwriting:
SHY
I stared at each paper for only a second. Just looking at them hurt. Of course the assignment was nothing but a joke to most of my classmates. How stupid and pointless to praise others when all they’ll do in return is shoot you down! After all, I just looked like an idiot throwing all these compliments at people who didn’t think anything of me. I was about to stuff the whole thing into my backpack when I pulled out the last slip of paper:
She might not say much, but when she does speak, she always says something special.
There it was. The reason that I still remembered that assignment, though so many years had passed. Because I took that sliver of paper and stuck it on my bulletin board at home. As a reminder that I meant something. That I was special. I looked at it every day during high school.
Five years later, Avery killed herself. It was shortly after high school graduation. Nobody knew why. It was one of those big mysteries; even her closest friends shrugged and complained about the senselessness of it all.
A few years after that, her mother finally got around to cleaning out her room. Avery had a lot of books, and her mother thought I might like them. When I went up to her room, I noticed all the trophies and awards. She was a great student and athlete, and I couldn’t believe that with all these things that screamed how special she was, she could still feel that life wasn’t worth living. I ran my eyes over the room, stopping at her bulletin board. There was a sliver of purple construction paper. On it, I recognized my own handwriting.
Lights up every room she enters with her effervescent personality.
Who knows what the other people in class had said. She’d kept mine. It had meant something to her. Only then did I know that she was the one who had written the compliment that I’d saved. She was the only other person who had taken the assignment seriously. It made me wonder whether, if she had received more of those purple papers throughout her life, things would have been different.
This is what I know now: actions and words, however small they may be, mean something. And whatever situation you may be in, filling a person up is so much better than tearing her down.
I remember back then thinking, It’s so hard to know the right thing to do. There were so many people telling me how I needed to act, who I needed to be, what I needed to say and do, that I felt like I was navigating a minefield. The funny thing is, though, looking back, the “right” path was simple.
Sometimes it takes bravery. Sometimes it takes going against the tide. But kindness is never, ever the wrong choice. And may you never be made to feel guilty or embarrassed for the little slivers of purple paper you send along the way.
The Sound of Silence
based on a true story by claudia gabel
From behind, you’d swear Frances Doyle is a boy. Baggy pants that hang low off her straight hips. Button-down shirt with sleeves rolled up to the elbows. Short blond hair that gets trimmed with an electric razor at the barber shop every other Tuesday. But from the front, there is no mistaking it—Frances Doyle is most certainly a girl. Pink, pouty lips and long, full eyelashes that make all the senior queen bees jealous. Perfectly perky 34Cs, which belong in the pages of the Victoria’s Secret catalog. Small but delicate ears that are pierced from the lobe all the way up to the cartilage at the top. If only she’d wear a dress or high-heeled boots or a tight V-neck sweater to school, things would be a whole lot easier.
But Frances never does and it’s pretty obvious why. Although I can’t say for sure, because she and I have never really spoken before. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever heard her say anything to anyone. Not to answer a question in history class or to make a joke to one of her friends at the lunch table. And not a single word to the pack of grade-A butt holes that are tailing her through the hallway right now.
“Hey, dyke!” Bruce Mitchell shouts, his voice just as loud as when he calls plays on the football field.
Frances keeps her head down, eyes locked on the tiles in the floor.
It’s Ted Hall’s turn to peg her now. He has been copying Bruce’s every move since the first grade. “Stop ignoring us, lesbo! We want to talk to you.”
I stand by my locker and hold my books close to my chest, watching the spectacle and swallowing hard. This happens every day with each change of class. The flurry of students in the hall acts as camouflage. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one seeing what I’m seeing. But then I glance over at snotty Hannah Prince and her group of megabitches. They are doing that trademark teenage girl whisper-giggle thing as Frances and her tormentors walk by. So I’m definitely not alone in the audience.