Frances stops at her locker, hands shaking as she attempts to remember its combination while Bruce and company swarm her like angry bees.
“So, Frances, eat anything juicy lately?” Taylor Wells gets within an inch of her face and wags his tongue around.
I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.
The goons laugh. Not one of them tells Taylor to let her be. Suddenly, I am very grateful that none of the boys at this school has ever expressed any interest in me.
Bruce slaps her hard on the shoulder, like she’s just one of the guys. “Come on, you can tell us. We’re your best friends!”
My heart feels like it is being drilled by the beak of a woodpecker. I pray for the next bell to sound. That will scatter Bruce and his friends like a horde of roaches. I doubt any of them want to get written up. They’re always in trouble for something, but never for this. I don’t think Frances has ever turned them in. She must believe what everyone else does—tattling on these losers will make the target on your back ten times bigger.
Frances opens her locker and grabs a spiral-bound notebook. I can’t help but notice the display of photos on the inside of the door—pictures of Frances with her arm draped over another girl, both of them smiling radiantly. They actually kind of look alike. And from the grins on their faces, you can tell they’re really happy.
What’s so freaking wrong with that?
When Frances shuts the locker and turns around, Ted slaps the notebook out of her grasp, amusing the chuckle-heads that surround him. My skin feels white-hot as I watch Frances reach for the notebook and hear Taylor cackling while he kicks it down the hall. The notebook lands at the tips of my red patent-leather ballet flats. Everyone else keeps moving along as though nothing out of the ordinary is happening. Someone even plants a Converse sneaker on the notebook, tearing out a couple of scribbled-on pages.
Even Frances’s homework gets stepped on.
I know what I should do. Take a deep breath and pick up this notebook. Go over to Frances and offer to walk her to class. I don’t even have to acknowledge Bruce and his gang of idiots. We can exit this horrible situation gracefully. In fact, our female solidarity may be so awe inspiring that the hearts of these homophobes may grow three times their size, just like in How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
Then I feel Frances’s glistening, sad eyes on me, and I can’t move. I’m not even sure if I’m breathing, that’s how still my body is. There’s no doubt that she’s talking to me for the very first time. She’s asking me for help, and I want to. I really want to.
But I’m afraid. One hundred percent frozen solid with fear. I’m ashamed to admit this, but I don’t want to give anyone a reason to attack me. I’m not as strong as Frances, who shoves past Bruce amid a barrage of insults that would rip through my heart like a fishing knife.
When she steps in front of me, her neck is completely flushed and her lips are tightened into a thin line, like she is stopping herself from screaming. Instead, Frances bends down and retrieves her notebook, then silently stalks off to the bathroom—the only place she can escape the taunting.
Bruce starts fist bumping his pals, but then the bell sounds and cuts their celebration short. They dart off in different directions, still howling with laughter. The hallway is empty, but I’m still a thick block of ice.
Here’s your chance, I think. I could sneak off to the principal’s office without anyone seeing me. Or I could pop into the bathroom and ask Frances if she’s okay. I go back and forth in my mind for a long time.
When my legs are finally able to move, they take me directly to Mr. Caldwell’s math class. He gives me a tardy slip as I stroll in. I tuck the piece of paper in my jeans pocket and sit down at my desk, quiet as a mouse.
I’m a coward. That’s all there is to it.
Scary thing is, I’ll have a chance to redeem myself once class is over, and eight more opportunities tomorrow.
And the day after that. And the day after that. And the day after that . . .
Starship Suburbia
by Maryrose Wood
I was bullied in middle school (we called it junior high back then). I was never beaten up or threatened, but I was teased quite a bit for a couple of years. It was because I was a mess.
My family lived in a nice middle-class suburb, but we were fakers. There were five of us: one alcoholic, cigar-smoking, compulsive-gambling dad; one stressed-to-the-point-of-insanity mom; and three smart, shell-shocked kids who were trying to stay out of the crossfire.
We were short on funds and meaningful parental supervision. I often went to school in the same clothes for days on end. Laundry and bathing were an issue. The septic tank was full, but we couldn’t afford to get it emptied. “Don’t flush until you have to!” was the household motto. We were supposed to put all our toilet paper (used, I’m talking about) in the wastebasket.
That other families flushed their toilet paper was a revelation to me. Almost as much of a revelation as the fact that Star Trek was in color. We had a black-and-white TV set. When I saw the show at a friend’s house, I gazed in wonder at Captain Kirk’s mustard-colored polyester shirt and the way it stretched across those impressive, interplanetary pecs.
As for me, I didn’t have a pristine Starfleet uniform to slip into every day. Daily showers were not encouraged. Face it, I was unkempt. I probably smelled bad. In elementary school no one cared. In junior high it became a problem. Seventh-grade girls notice these things.
Interestingly, adults rarely did. Once, a neighbor gently suggested to my mom that, at twelve and already stacked, I might need a bra. Mortified, and without stopping to discuss it or check what my size might be, she went and bought one and tossed it at me, still in the bag. Imagine my surprise when I looked inside!
She said I should wear it because the neighbor made a crack about my bouncing baby B cups. I can’t even remember how long I made do with that one ill-fitting bra. I didn’t dare put it in the wash; I was afraid I wouldn’t see it for a month!
Another time, a relative whom we rarely saw discreetly bought me some deodorant. I used it until it ran out.
So, dirty kid in dirty clothes, mouthful of braces, bra straps chronically slipping down my arms. What would you do if you were a middle school girl? Would you make comments? Mean ones?
You might. Some kids did, most didn’t. I was never without at least a couple of friends. Things sorted out as I got older and figured out how to take care of myself. Meanwhile, the family drama shifted from beer and septic tanks to my dad’s horrific lung cancer. He was sick throughout my high school years and died shortly after I turned eighteen.
By then I’d found my social niche. The former teasers got older, too, and nicer. We all ended up friends, more or less. To this day, doing laundry is my favorite household chore.
The kids who teased were wrong to be mean, and it hurt a lot at the time. But, you know, at least they noticed something was wrong.
I kind of wish the grown-ups had, too.
Kicking Stones at the Sun
by Jo Knowles
When we were kids, my brother, sister, and I took the bus to school every morning. We lived in a rural area and didn’t have one of those cool-seeming bus stops where a bunch of kids from the neighborhood gather and wait together at some selected spot. We waited alone at the end of our driveway. In the early years, my brother, who was five years older than me, would ham it up while we waited. He’d go out in the middle of the road and adjust his feet just so on the double yellow lines. We lived at the top of a hill and he’d get down into a tuck position and say he was about to make history skiing on the longest skis in the world. My sister and I would jump on and ski behind him.