Peppermint Patty often thought about herself in comparison to all of her peers, and Lucy in particular.
She was so much better than her.
Lucy was smart-she had A's as opposed to D-'s- and she was pretty: flawless features, thick black wavy hair, a petite and curvy figure that conformed to her favorite navy blue dress.
Peppermint Patty wished she was her every single day of her life. Not to mention the way Lucy looked, but also that people liked her. Sure, she was a crabby bitch that controlled every one she knew, but people were drawn to that sort of power. Drawn to the good feeling they got when they were submissive under her despotic reigns. Peppermint Patty always found that curious; why did people like someone that made them feel poor?
Years ago, six to be precise, when she was only in the fourth grade, only staring out across the hot and desert-like baseball field, or rolling in the muddy patch of a ground with a football, or even going for a walk in the forest with Marcie, was when people liked her.
Elementary, then Middle school both passed slowly, with more D-'s than she could count, no pun intended. What Peppermint Patty valued most- athleticism- became obsolete, and the girls donned make-up and short skirts to attract the boys that really weren't that interesting anyway. She took up softball and basketball, and while she excelled incredibly at both, she was a pariah; the girls wanted nothing to do with her masculinity and desertion of feminine expectations. Marcie was still her friend, though, however distant and different she became. The once awkward and shy girl filled out, receiving both smooth hips and breasts that she took no hesitation in flaunting.
Peppermint Patty would sometimes strip herself of clothes and stare in the mirror, studying her body meticulously. She was very thin, as she had always been, and not in the good kind, like some women strove to be. She was lanky and tall, her body having no mass to it and her torso being stick straight with no waver to it at all. What little breasts she had were hardly noticeable, anyway. She wanted to cover her face in make-up, hiding the explosive freckles on her nose and cheeks under the veneer of peach-colored powder. She didn't own any make-up, though, despite her secret desire for some. It wasn't like she could just change, she couldn't just come to school one day with a clear face and a large bust that complimented her frame, or re-dub herself "Patricia," instead of that awfully childish nickname she had always had. People would talk.
But it wasn't as though they didn't talk already.
Did you see how horrid she looks?
How come she's too skinny?
Look at those pimples! I bet they're from sweating all the time.
All day, everyday, as she walked from boring class to boring class she could hear the giggles and sneers of boys and girls alike who just wanted to bring her misery.
Lucy, especially.
Lucy, the girl who had been her friend for so many God awful years, initiated most of the agonizing comments, based on stories of Peppermint Patty in her childhood, doing stupid things, and saying stupid things, and being just plain old ridiculous. What the other students didn't know, was that Lucy had been there, too, participating in all of it. She was stupid, too. But Peppermint Patty never said anything to try and prove it; she would be even more humiliated, and she knew it.
So at least once a month, maybe every other week, maybe even twice a week, Peppermint Patty would suddenly appear at Marcie's house after school, and Marcie would let her in, no questions asked, no hesitation in letting her in or giving her full custody over the fridge to make herself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and microwave a marshmallow just because it felt good.
And despite Marcie's modern and pink room, filled with posters of famous singers or a mile high stack of albums next to an even bigger stack of shoes, Peppermint Patty would make herself at home, sitting on the edge of her best friend's bed and letting loose the tears she had suppressed all day from start up until the very moment. And Marcie, still no questions asked (for she knew the answer, anyway), would wrap her beautiful and feminine arms around Peppermint Patty's tired and aching body, and let her cry until she had no more tears left in her eyes. She would hold her, because Marcie felt that she, too, was beautiful and feminine, in as unique a way as there was.
When that was all over, and all that was left were a few hiccups and the redness in her eyes lessened, they would relive their childhood, of which both missed so very much. They would sit down on the carpet and call up Charlie Brown, curling the telephone chord flirtatiously in their fingertips as he awkwardly sighed and stuttered at a loss for words. Chuck, as she had affectionately called him since the dawn of time, was older now, just as she was, but in a different way. Still a block-head, still wishy-washy and uncomfortable, but he was handsome, no doubt. The boy had become taller- shooting up a half a foot or so- and his shoulders broadened and his voice deepened with masculinity. Though the little red-headed girl was still the object of his unrequited affection, Peppermint Patty found it nostalgic to call him up, Marcie listening attentively next to the speaker, and hear him stutter awkwardly in his changing voice that cracked tentatively. When the immaturity passed, and the two girls hung up and burst into relentless giggles.
They would retreat to the backyard and toss a baseball or football, depending on whichever was in season, and Peppermint Patty would throw with gliding ease across a well manicured lawn, to which Marcie would catch with poor accuracy and clumsiness. And though immense talent contrasted heavily with a lack of coordination, it was okay, because unlike at school, it didn't matter whether one was talented or a complete failure at whatever activity was in question; the basic matter was (as it had been when said persons were under the age of ten) that you were having fun.
And oh, how Peppermint Patty missed those times; when her friends would gather around the baseball field, if not for a game, then to just talk and be as they were: Childhood friends. It bothered her that all of them had slowly drifted away from one another. When was the last time she talked to Schroder? Linus? Franklin? Sally? She even fondly reminisced over the time she and Lucy nearly got their ears pierced.
She missed every last one of them, and even though she implored herself to grow up and forget, memories were both her best friends and her worst nightmares, plaguing her of the good times, the old times, and all the times that no one was better- everyone was friends and equal in their love for the wonders of childhood and one another.
I don't even know. I felt compelled to write something other than Zelda, and I love Peanuts.
So I dedicate this to my dad, who gave me all his Peanuts comics and now I'm obsessed.