I am hated by my family. They hate their odd, brunette sister. Their
complaints never cease. There, my life. A warped faerie tale, except
unlike a faerie tale, no personal deity will retrieve me from this torture.
No, I have nothing except my lame attic room with its many spiders and
many more dust balls. My life. Cinderella lived happily ever after, what
about me? I just have college next year. Holed up for another three
months of torture. Of course, I have the prom to look forward to and
graduation and other social events in which I will remain Outcast.
School is no heaven. Study, eat, study, always silent, no one ever feels kindly toward me. I'm not ugly, my clothes just are all too big and my jeans are all torn in one place or another. Underneath all my immense sweaters I'm slender and tall. But who cares? I hide behind my black glasses and mousy hair and no one has to see my soul. My soul is not seen even by me, it is not the hard working student, or the hated sister, or the vivid dreamer, or even the high school artist. I am me.
The prom, talked about for months before the event. I doubt it will be amazing. The idiotic prom committee is a bunch of air headed popular jerks that come up with all their ideas when they're drunk, stoned or high.
At school, I look at all the notices. HA! The prom committee has finally realized that getting high doesn't help you think. I was waiting for that. Taking the flyer with me, I walk down to the room mentioned. Knocking, I walk in and lay the flyer on the desk.
"So, getting stoned stopped helping you?" I ask innocently. They gasp in horror and shock. That's not surprising, no one but me knows all their secret smoking spots. I know them because all those spots were the places where I used to hide. Blackmail is so useful when you're a social reject. Grudgingly, they allow me into the committee. I drop my drawings on the desk and walk out. Suddenly I'm in the inner circle of popular girls; the prom might be something to remember.
School's over, I use the pay phones to call up the dressmaker I've been working for for years. The owner doesn't mind, I didn't think she would, she likes me. The prom committee has done nothing, no theme, no money, no nothing. I just tell them that the theme should Medieval and that they should have a car wash. With that I walk out.
In a week the prom committee set up a car wash in the sleazy town plaza and all the popular girls are in skimpy bathing suits washing drunken sick-os' cars as the guys inside stare at the girls' boobs. Because I'm in the prom committee I have to be there too. I just write in some notebook.
A few days after that, the official theme of Magical Medieval Midnight is announced. The alliteration is corny and sickening, but I didn't make it up. An over-involved teacher, who decided that the prom should really be done by teachers, did. I skip most of the prom committee meetings anyway. Sometimes I go just to drop off some of my drawings. No one else has any better ideas.
All agog. That's my sister about the prom. She's not old enough really, but she got asked by an older boy and so she's special and popular. Mother is buying her a dress, shoes and all the many other mindless accessories. They bond through shopping. My dress doesn't exist yet. The junkyard might yield a wonderful prom dress. I have a lot of money, just none to squander on a stupid dress I'll only wear one night.
Rumor is a mysterious thing. At one time it might turn some popular girl into a superstar, yet it could also ruin relationships that have lasted for years. But, beyond that, it always begins with reality, be that true jealousy or wrongly said fact. Rumor has it; Popular Boy #4 doesn't have a date. That shocked crowds so now Popular Girls #3-8 and Every Other Dateless Girl are trying to woo him. Ha! Idiots all of them. I try not to laugh hysterically at them. That might hurt their precious, delicate feelings. Laugh away, I say.
One more car wash and the prom committee will have enough to buy decorations. Bake sales were too Girl Scouts for them. Whatever, bake sales make more money. Church ladies have too much money; they're the ones who think bake sales are cute and stock up on blueberry loaves. Drunken sick-os just have rusted cars, but Popular Girls #2-11 want to be prostitutes when they reach adulthood. Skimpy bikinis are so cute on them!
Countdown began. Five more days until Saturday, the prom day. For most people, their test grades don't matter unless no one else has their Christian Dior dress or their Chanel handbag. Friday shouldn't be called school, more like continual lunch. Teachers have no control, many didn't try. They shouldn't, the prom is the one event Everyone has been anticipating.
Saturday morning I fall out of bed and finally shower. No one's home, my sister's off getting her hair and nails done, Mother with her. The doorbell rings when I'm finally dressed. I shuffle over to the door. Popular Girls #2-5 grin at me when I open the door.
"We, like, thought that after all you, like, did for the prom, like, the theme and the fundraisers, we should, like, help you get ready. Our resources are, like, pooled so, like put on shoes and we'll, like, take you to the mall and we can go shopping!" Popular Girl #5 explains. After running to grab my purse and some money I follow them into their car. Popular Boys #4-5 is driving, so the Popular Girls and I have to squeeze into the backseat.
Popular Boy #4 says, "Who are you?" I smile brilliantly and stay silent. Finally we arrive at the capital draining ant farm Popular Girls call 'fun.' They steer me into an expensive store with walls covered in glittery polyester. Pink, purple, blue, white; all the dresses they hold up to me are sickening and gaudy. I do decide to try on a shimmery gauzy silver dress and a satiny sleeveless black dress. The size of the dresses shocks them, too small I guess. Too many Twinkies eaten in secret when they were supposed to be on a strict diet. I show off the dresses and I look 'like gorgeous' in the silver one. With all of us paying for it, none of us had a large decrease in their finances. The next store is my pick. I buy thin silver bracelets and clear Plexiglas shoes. So much for the Malibu Barbie meet Moulin Rouge look. Now it is Tinkerbelle meets Cinderella and the whores cover their bare boobs in shame, I am so much cooler than scantily clad chicks. Popular Girls #2-5 buy me long silver gloves.
My hair is 'like' a catastrophe and my bitten nails are 'like' a disaster, they say. Finally Popular Girls #2-5 leave the mall with similar elaborate dressy buns. I leave with loose, now wavy strawberry blonde hair. My nails are fake and pink and my purse contains grey and pink eye shadow and shiny pink lipstick. Prom, meet your match! I am the perfect prom goer. A modern Cinderella.
Find my own transportation, I tell myself. Popular Girls #2-5 will ignore me after today. Their debt paid. Except Popular Boy #4, the one who has been wooed by Every Other Dateless Girl is taking me. He thinks my loose hair is hott and sexy, almost retro. So I look like Brittany Spears. She's hott and sexy to boys too.
The prom is just like I drew it. All glittery and dark. Castle silhouettes are painted on the paper covered walls, clear balloons are held up in a net on the ceiling. A faerie tale ball. Boys get to fondle their dates in dark halls and girls get to flirt with others' dates. Me, I just sit and consider that I'll probably be laid by some boy I despise. Oh well, my fate could always be worse, I'm going to college in a few months.
I'm stared at by Popular Boys #2-13 when I go onto the dance floor. A mysterious princess, maybe the prom is a warped faerie tale, or not. The first slow song comes and goes, Popular Boy #4 my partner. I hate his boring intestines, but luckily they are hidden beneath his tuxedo. He is not at fault for my boredom of him, he is Popular, I didn't expect much.
Warped or not, the prom has advantages. I dance until my feet hurt and my plastic shoes are covered with sweat. Girls nibble cookies while insisting the fat content does not exceed that of the sugar. My sister glares at the unknown princess who took all the Boys' attention. The unknown princess is her sister in a dress instead of her too big sweaters and jeans. What irony! I always told her she ate too many snacks and had a few too many helpings of dessert. Bulimia ruins your teeth, o sister of mine.
Life is good. I am popular, those girls may take many of the known illegal drugs, but they accepted me. So much for Outcast. The drugs I can avoid, but Popular Girls #2-5 are not as bad as I thought. I have all their e- mails in my yearbook which I plan to pack when I go off to college.
I will graduate and go to the other side of the country to one of those nice northeastern universities that accepted me and gave me a scholarship. Ah, I will leave my sisters and my jealous mother and conniving father and forget them all. College could only be better than my home life, but I leave my new found friends.
School is no heaven. Study, eat, study, always silent, no one ever feels kindly toward me. I'm not ugly, my clothes just are all too big and my jeans are all torn in one place or another. Underneath all my immense sweaters I'm slender and tall. But who cares? I hide behind my black glasses and mousy hair and no one has to see my soul. My soul is not seen even by me, it is not the hard working student, or the hated sister, or the vivid dreamer, or even the high school artist. I am me.
The prom, talked about for months before the event. I doubt it will be amazing. The idiotic prom committee is a bunch of air headed popular jerks that come up with all their ideas when they're drunk, stoned or high.
At school, I look at all the notices. HA! The prom committee has finally realized that getting high doesn't help you think. I was waiting for that. Taking the flyer with me, I walk down to the room mentioned. Knocking, I walk in and lay the flyer on the desk.
"So, getting stoned stopped helping you?" I ask innocently. They gasp in horror and shock. That's not surprising, no one but me knows all their secret smoking spots. I know them because all those spots were the places where I used to hide. Blackmail is so useful when you're a social reject. Grudgingly, they allow me into the committee. I drop my drawings on the desk and walk out. Suddenly I'm in the inner circle of popular girls; the prom might be something to remember.
School's over, I use the pay phones to call up the dressmaker I've been working for for years. The owner doesn't mind, I didn't think she would, she likes me. The prom committee has done nothing, no theme, no money, no nothing. I just tell them that the theme should Medieval and that they should have a car wash. With that I walk out.
In a week the prom committee set up a car wash in the sleazy town plaza and all the popular girls are in skimpy bathing suits washing drunken sick-os' cars as the guys inside stare at the girls' boobs. Because I'm in the prom committee I have to be there too. I just write in some notebook.
A few days after that, the official theme of Magical Medieval Midnight is announced. The alliteration is corny and sickening, but I didn't make it up. An over-involved teacher, who decided that the prom should really be done by teachers, did. I skip most of the prom committee meetings anyway. Sometimes I go just to drop off some of my drawings. No one else has any better ideas.
All agog. That's my sister about the prom. She's not old enough really, but she got asked by an older boy and so she's special and popular. Mother is buying her a dress, shoes and all the many other mindless accessories. They bond through shopping. My dress doesn't exist yet. The junkyard might yield a wonderful prom dress. I have a lot of money, just none to squander on a stupid dress I'll only wear one night.
Rumor is a mysterious thing. At one time it might turn some popular girl into a superstar, yet it could also ruin relationships that have lasted for years. But, beyond that, it always begins with reality, be that true jealousy or wrongly said fact. Rumor has it; Popular Boy #4 doesn't have a date. That shocked crowds so now Popular Girls #3-8 and Every Other Dateless Girl are trying to woo him. Ha! Idiots all of them. I try not to laugh hysterically at them. That might hurt their precious, delicate feelings. Laugh away, I say.
One more car wash and the prom committee will have enough to buy decorations. Bake sales were too Girl Scouts for them. Whatever, bake sales make more money. Church ladies have too much money; they're the ones who think bake sales are cute and stock up on blueberry loaves. Drunken sick-os just have rusted cars, but Popular Girls #2-11 want to be prostitutes when they reach adulthood. Skimpy bikinis are so cute on them!
Countdown began. Five more days until Saturday, the prom day. For most people, their test grades don't matter unless no one else has their Christian Dior dress or their Chanel handbag. Friday shouldn't be called school, more like continual lunch. Teachers have no control, many didn't try. They shouldn't, the prom is the one event Everyone has been anticipating.
Saturday morning I fall out of bed and finally shower. No one's home, my sister's off getting her hair and nails done, Mother with her. The doorbell rings when I'm finally dressed. I shuffle over to the door. Popular Girls #2-5 grin at me when I open the door.
"We, like, thought that after all you, like, did for the prom, like, the theme and the fundraisers, we should, like, help you get ready. Our resources are, like, pooled so, like put on shoes and we'll, like, take you to the mall and we can go shopping!" Popular Girl #5 explains. After running to grab my purse and some money I follow them into their car. Popular Boys #4-5 is driving, so the Popular Girls and I have to squeeze into the backseat.
Popular Boy #4 says, "Who are you?" I smile brilliantly and stay silent. Finally we arrive at the capital draining ant farm Popular Girls call 'fun.' They steer me into an expensive store with walls covered in glittery polyester. Pink, purple, blue, white; all the dresses they hold up to me are sickening and gaudy. I do decide to try on a shimmery gauzy silver dress and a satiny sleeveless black dress. The size of the dresses shocks them, too small I guess. Too many Twinkies eaten in secret when they were supposed to be on a strict diet. I show off the dresses and I look 'like gorgeous' in the silver one. With all of us paying for it, none of us had a large decrease in their finances. The next store is my pick. I buy thin silver bracelets and clear Plexiglas shoes. So much for the Malibu Barbie meet Moulin Rouge look. Now it is Tinkerbelle meets Cinderella and the whores cover their bare boobs in shame, I am so much cooler than scantily clad chicks. Popular Girls #2-5 buy me long silver gloves.
My hair is 'like' a catastrophe and my bitten nails are 'like' a disaster, they say. Finally Popular Girls #2-5 leave the mall with similar elaborate dressy buns. I leave with loose, now wavy strawberry blonde hair. My nails are fake and pink and my purse contains grey and pink eye shadow and shiny pink lipstick. Prom, meet your match! I am the perfect prom goer. A modern Cinderella.
Find my own transportation, I tell myself. Popular Girls #2-5 will ignore me after today. Their debt paid. Except Popular Boy #4, the one who has been wooed by Every Other Dateless Girl is taking me. He thinks my loose hair is hott and sexy, almost retro. So I look like Brittany Spears. She's hott and sexy to boys too.
The prom is just like I drew it. All glittery and dark. Castle silhouettes are painted on the paper covered walls, clear balloons are held up in a net on the ceiling. A faerie tale ball. Boys get to fondle their dates in dark halls and girls get to flirt with others' dates. Me, I just sit and consider that I'll probably be laid by some boy I despise. Oh well, my fate could always be worse, I'm going to college in a few months.
I'm stared at by Popular Boys #2-13 when I go onto the dance floor. A mysterious princess, maybe the prom is a warped faerie tale, or not. The first slow song comes and goes, Popular Boy #4 my partner. I hate his boring intestines, but luckily they are hidden beneath his tuxedo. He is not at fault for my boredom of him, he is Popular, I didn't expect much.
Warped or not, the prom has advantages. I dance until my feet hurt and my plastic shoes are covered with sweat. Girls nibble cookies while insisting the fat content does not exceed that of the sugar. My sister glares at the unknown princess who took all the Boys' attention. The unknown princess is her sister in a dress instead of her too big sweaters and jeans. What irony! I always told her she ate too many snacks and had a few too many helpings of dessert. Bulimia ruins your teeth, o sister of mine.
Life is good. I am popular, those girls may take many of the known illegal drugs, but they accepted me. So much for Outcast. The drugs I can avoid, but Popular Girls #2-5 are not as bad as I thought. I have all their e- mails in my yearbook which I plan to pack when I go off to college.
I will graduate and go to the other side of the country to one of those nice northeastern universities that accepted me and gave me a scholarship. Ah, I will leave my sisters and my jealous mother and conniving father and forget them all. College could only be better than my home life, but I leave my new found friends.