Every day the final bell rings at 3:35. Jesse will be at his
bike 3:40. So if I want to see him, I have to have all of my books and
everything I need with me in my last class, which is History with Mrs. Douton. Actually,
the first semester it was Social Studies, and now it’s History … American
History. I love Mrs. Douton because she tells it like it’s a story, and I remember
it because it’s interesting. I had a Social Studies teacher in a different city
a couple of years ago named Mrs. Stevenson, and she was horrible. If I was
doing something wrong she would come up to me and grab my arm and start
screaming at me with her teeth clenched and point her brown, fat, crooked
finger in my face. In front of everyone. I have never been screamed at by any teacher
or anyone in my whole life, for the most part. I mean, yes maybe my mom or dad once
or twice, here and there. But I’m kind of a quite and shy person and if there
is one thing I hate, it is being yelled at. Especially in front of other
people. So if Mrs. Stevenson had just come up to me and said, “If you don’t
stop acting bad, I am going to yell at you in front of the whole class,” I
totally would have stopped doing what I was doing and would have been as good
as any kid could have possibly been. Mrs. Douton is a great teacher and I love
her class. Best of all she has us take essay tests instead of question and
answer or multiple-choice tests – where you have to remember names and
dates – and I love that. I love
essay tests because I get to write about what I know. She taught us that the
best way to write an essay test is to start with what you want to say in the
first paragraph, then follow it up with paragraphs where you go into more
detail about what you said in the first paragraph, and then write a final
paragraph wrapping it up. So if the question were, “How did the civil war
impact the south socially, politically and economically,” I would say something
about how the South was negatively impacted socially, economically and
politically by the civil war, and then I would write three paragraphs on each
of those areas, and then I would write a final paragraph summing up what I
said. I do very well on these essay tests. In fact, I have the highest score in
the class. The only reason I know that is because there is another girl who
wants to be Mrs. Douton’s pet, and she wants to be the best in the class, and
when she thought she had the best score on an essay test, Mrs. Douton told her
that, actually, I was the one who had the best score. Ever since then she
compares her scores to mine. I always seem to get one or two points more than
she does every time. It drives her crazy. I don’t really care, but I do get a
little satisfaction watching her get so irritated. She is really pretty and has
big boobs … like really big boobs … and all the boys like her. One of the
reasons I like Jesse is because he doesn’t pay attention to her. But he doesn’t
pay attention to anyone. I have this fantasy that if he would get to know me,
that maybe I could be the one person who understands him and maybe he could be
the one person who understands me. The other day I was walking to my locker and
this really popular girl named Michelle, out of nowhere, yells my name. I don’t
think she has ever spoken to me, so I was a little freaked out. Kids don’t
really hurt each other at this school like they did at my last school, so I
didn’t think she was going to hurt me. But why all of a sudden would she want
anything to do with “the new girl.” I stopped and pretended like we chit chat
every day in the hall and said, “Yeah?” And she says, “Are those your favorite
pants?” And I say, “Yeah.” Because they are my favorite pants. My grandmother
bought these pants for me right before we moved here and they are really cool.
They were expensive and I never get expensive clothes because my parents can’t
afford it, but she bought them for me as a going away gift, so I could start
school with some new clothes. I love them because they make me look skinny and
the part around my ankles is pegged the way I like them. I couldn’t believe she
was asking me that question, because, yes, indeed these are my favorite pants.
And then she smiled and said, “I thought so because you wear them all the
time.” There were two popular boys, Tim and Sean, standing with her and they
laughed and went back to ignoring me. I looked over and Jesse was sitting
reading at a picnic table near by. I don’t know if he heard what she said. I
can’t decide if I wish he heard her and hates her and therefore likes me
because of it, or if I hope he didn’t hear her because it was really
embarrassing. I mean, not all of us are so rich that we can buy enough pants
that we can wear a different pair every day. All the things I could have said
in that moment… none of them came to me in the moment. Later that night I kept
going over and over it in my head. I decided that the best approach would have
been head on. Instead of coming up with an equally nasty response, I would just
call her out on being mean. I would say that my family is poor and that we
don’t have the money to buy lots and lots of clothes, but that I wash my
clothes and do the best I can, and then I would thank her for taking the
opportunity to humiliate me in front of others and tell her that I hope being
mean makes her feel really good about herself. I just want to say that I really
love these pants and even if I did have 20 pairs of pants, I would still wear
these pants a lot. Maybe if Jesse did hear her, he knows that I, too, do not
have a lot of friends, and that because I didn’t say anything back he knows
that I am quiet and shy like he is, and that because we are both that way and
have very few friends we would be perfect for each other. I don’t mean we have
to be boyfriend and girlfriend. Maybe we would just be best friends who understand
each other. But we are only in one class together, and I never get to see him.
So at the end of the day I take all of my stuff with me to history class and
sit by the door, and as soon as the bell rings, I race out the door and pace
myself to arrive at the bike racks right about the time Jesse does. I walk by,
paying close attention to not pay attention to Jesse, and then time my steps to
be halfway down the hill as Jesse rides by. I make sure that there are no other
kids around me so that when Jesse rides by, he can clearly see me. Alone. Just
like he is. I wonder if he even knows my name.
