Tani walked confidently into the school building,
glancing down at her schedule. The
noise and hustle of a normal school morning assured her that things couldn't be
too different. "Locker 445," she
muttered, looking at the numbers on them.
Finding it to be on top, she entered her combination,
two-twelve-two. Lifting up, she looked
inside of it for the first time, thinking how very small these were compared to
the ones at her old middle school, which were twice as tall. Swinging her backpack off her shoulder, she
removed her black Mead 5-star binder, and shoved the blue bag inside, not
bothering to zip it up. Before she
closed the locker, she felt the pocket of her pants, making sure that her
customary black Pentel RSVP pen was in its place. She then slammed it shut.
Room 207, English, grade 7. She
sighed, looking at the nearest door.
Room 101. The lady at the desk
hadn't been kind enough to give her a map.
Looking around, she saw no one who remotely resembled someone
approachable. They were all wearing
terribly uncoordinated outfits. One
girl was tall and blonde, and had buckteeth.
She looked at Tani with a superior sneer, her eyebrows knitting together
and her upper lip revealing her slightly yellow teeth in disgust.
"Who," she said slowly, "are you?"
"A lost little girl looking for English 207,
instructor, Mrs. Magner," Tani replied easily.
"Good luck," she snapped imperiously, turning back
to her friends, tossing her head and laughing a high, falsetto laugh.
"Let me guess, you're a cheerleader," spat Tani
angrily. She hated people who looked at
her with their lip up.
"That's right.
Lost little girl, why don't you turn around and go home?"
"Lost little girls normally don't know right from
left, but I can tell you can't see the line between ignorance and stupidity,"
she replied, a spark of challenge in her eyes.
She didn't notice the boy behind her gaping in admiration.
"Oh look, it's two of a kind! Dorkface, look, I've found you another
girlfriend! Maybe this one isn't as
dweebish as the other two-honestly, at least she didn't call me a snot-faced
snot-head."
"Snot-faced snot-head?" Tani laughed. "I should
say not. By the way, are you SURE
you're not a squirrel? I mean, you're
missing the tail, but you've got the teeth and the brains to be one."
Gordo gasped from behind her. He knew enough insults to know what that one
meant, even if Kate didn't. (AN: A squirrel is a prostitute…ask anyone in my
science class.)
"Squirrel?" The blonde giggled. "Well, at least I don't need braces," she
said, pointing to Tani's silver ones.
"I wouldn't be too sure about that. Your teeth look a little yellow to me. When was the last time you went to a
dentist?" she inquired innocently.
The blonde scowled.
"It's only the first day. I will
make the rest of this school year miserable for you."
"Oh, that's a threat, is it?"
"Could be!
I'll see you around."
"Around?" She laughed sardonically, mimicking the
girl's speech. "You must talk funny up
here. Anyway, I'll be around, and rest
assured, it's not easy to create my idea of a living hell, at least, not in
school. Now, could someone please tell
me where room 207 is?"
"As if!" said one of the girl's groupies
mockingly. "Ask dorkface over there."
Tani turned on the heel of her gray Nikes and found herself
face to face with a boy of exactly her height, with shocking green eyes. "Hope you're a smart dorkface," she said
with a slight smile.
"Oh, I wouldn't know about that. Wide information sources, valuable insights
into human nature, certainly."
She grinned.
"I've yet to find anyone else who's uttered that intelligent a
sentence."
"So-you're looking for 207? I'm going there right now."
"That's great!"
"Hmm…well, sure, if you like tough teachers…I've
heard so much about Miss Magner…"
"I love English!
I was going to be the editor of my school newspaper, but then Dad found
the job here…" she trailed off.
"You don't like it here?"
"Well, it's not that. It's very scenic, but it takes me a lot of time to make friends,
if you know what I mean."
"Yeah, I really do.
Lizzie and Miranda-" He paused
upon seeing her uncomprehending look.
"My best friends. We've known
each other since kindergarten, and they weren't really friends with me before 5th
grade. I've always been a bit of an
outcast."
"Same. It's
probably because either I talk too much, or because I'm always writing when
they DO want to talk."
"I really like science, so I take a lot of
notes. I guess you could say I'm
weird."
"Hey, sometimes nonconformity isn't all bad. Once I start to 'blend' in, I'll pull wacky
stunts just for the hell of it, you know?"
(She made quotes signs to illustrate her point when she reached the word
"blend".
"Yeah! Look,
here we are." He opened the door and
held it for her.
"Thanks," she said, going in.
Two girls were sitting in the back, in a row of
three desks, with one desk in between them.
One was wearing yellow platform sandals, blue capris, and a pink t-shirt
with orange flowers on it. She had
blonde hair and blue eyes, and was quite pretty, although her hair didn't
flatter her slightly round face in those tiny braids, and her outfit didn't go
together at all. The girl next to her
had short black hair tied back in a single ponytail with streaks of bright blue
interwoven with it. She was wearing
orange capris, bright green sneakers, and a purple shirt. Tani raised her eyebrows. They certainly provided a stark contrast to
her black jeans (slight flare), semi-tight black tank top, dull silver flower
shaped earrings, and the silver chain around her neck with 'SEXY' in
diamond-studded letters dangling from it.
Her shoulder length brown hair (actually, it had gold highlights from
the summer in Brazil, and it looked shorter than it was because it was wavy)
was in a high, loose, ponytail, with most of her hair hanging loose down the
back of her neck. Two strands framed
her face, which had scattered pimples, not noticeable unless you were very near
her.
"Hi, Gordo!" called the blonde one. She was slightly paler than the black-haired
one.
"Hey, Lizzie, Miranda," he said. "By the way, you never did tell me your
name," he said, turning to her.
"Oh, my name's Anita, but everyone calls me Tani.
Well, my little brother calls me Neeter, but everyone ELSE calls me Tani."
"My name's David Gordon, but everyone calls me Gordo
except for my parents. They call me
David."
"You're not fat," observed Tani astutely, looking at
his slender frame.
"What?" said Gordo, caught by surprise.
"Spanish, Portuguese. Actually, it's a common American mispronunciation…"
"You speak another language?"
"I'm fluent in Portuguese, although my reading's not
so hot and I can't write, and I can understand Spanish, but my sentences are
choppy and I sometimes misphrase them them.
Reading wise, I can get the gist of a sentence and translate it roughly…"
"Wow," breathed Gordo.
"I really wanted to take Latin, but they only
offered it in high school where I used to live, and I didn't want to leave the
program they had at my area school for accelerated students to go to the middle
school they offered it in 8th grade at. Hopefully I'll get to take Italian this summer, and I took some
French in the 3rd and 4th grades. I can pretty much understand all romance
languages because they're all similar, and it really expands your vocabulary
and makes you think about word origins when you're speaking…Oops, you're not
really interested, are you…"
"Quite the contrary, I find it fascinating," said
Gordo, gazing at her in increasing interest.
"Gordo," interrupted Miranda, standing up and taking
his elbow, "we haven't seen you since June!" Gordo had spent the entire summer
at the University of Virginia in a computer, math, and science enrichment
camp. "Come sit with us!" she urged,
while Lizzie stared at Tani. Gordo
looked helplessly at Tani.
"There are only three seats," he said to Miranda.
"Well, obviously!" said Lizzie irritably. "Have you forgotten that there are three of
us? Honestly, Gordo, with all those
math camps, I'd have thought you could at least count to five."
"One, two, three, four, five. Could we please move where there are four
seats in a row?" he requested politely.
"We ALWAYS sit in the back! Why should we change?"
"Because Tani is cool?"
"Oh, hi," said Miranda disdainfully, with an
expression reminiscent of Kate's, minus the buckteeth and plucked
eyebrows. "She dresses like Parker,"
she whispered to Lizzie.
"Nah, Parker wears dorky shoes. Nikes are cool,"
Lizzie whispered back.
"But she's wearing dark colors."
"True."
Tani frowned.
She didn't like people who whispered.
It was a very rude habit. She
knew they were talking about her, but she didn't mind. Gordo seemed nice.
"You know you can say whatever it is out loud," she
suggested. "People used to call me a
he-she, before I grew my hair out. I
don't really care what you think about me.
Not to be rude, but I don't need friends who are too cowardly to share
their negative opinions."
"A he-she is a what?" asked Lizzie.
"He-she: Homosexual."
"Huh?" said Miranda.
"Homo: Latin: same.
Sexual: Self-explanatory. Someone with an attraction for someone of
the same sex."
"EEW, lesbo, get away!" shrieked Miranda.
Tani rolled her eyes and walked towards a row of
four desks, 2 of which were filled by the blonde bitch and one of her little
friends. They were comparing their fingernails. Tani sat next to one.
"Hello, I don't think I've introduced myself."
"I don't WANT to know you," she said, turning away.
"Nice nails," said Tani. "A little long, I personally keep mine short for piano. Baby pink is nice," she said, motioning to
Kate's nails, which resembled talons, "but I think hot pink more suits
you. You have a very ostentatious
personality, has anyone ever told you that?
Where do you get them done? I
still haven't found a decent cosmetologist."
The other one looked at her strangely. Hers were a dark navy color.
"That's more my style! I personally think dark colors leave more to the imagination and
provide for more efficient heat/body radiation."
"You're weird, you know that?" she asked.
"No, not weird.
I just have different interests than the typical person."
Gordo chose that moment to sit next to her. "Tani, the blonde one is Kate. She's the vainest girl in school."
"I'd noticed," said Tani dryly.
"The other one is Melanie, her minion."
"Ah, so Kate is one of those stereotyped dumb blonde
cheerleaders that everyone hangs around with for no apparent reason other than
to 'be cool' because everyone either likes her or pretends to?"
"Something like that," said Gordo with a smile.
"I have many conceptions of popularity."
"As do I."
'The whole 'you're popular with your friends'
conception is off the wall. I mean, if
they didn't like you, they wouldn't be your friends, would they?"
"Exactly."
A short, wrinkled lady who resembled a prune walked
into the classroom. "Quiet, class," she
said.
"So you're sitting here instead of with your
friends?" inquired Tani.
"Yeah.
They're being unusually possessive today."
"Quiet in the third row!" the woman (presumably Mrs.
Magner) barked. She was wearing a long
brown dress that appeared to be made of wool.
It did nothing whatsoever to flatter her already unattractive
figure. She plopped her immense bulk
down in a chair behind the teacher's desk and picked up a thin blue book. She opened it and picked up a pen.
"Adirondack, Michael."
"Present."
"Bumback, Katayoka."
"Here!" said Kate, waving her French-manicured
hand.
"Coles, Miranda."
"Hey."
"Coles, Miranda?"
"Over here!"
"Please respond as 'here' or 'present."
"Here!" said Miranda in exasperation.
Mrs. Magner scribbled a note in her book.
She read a few more names before arriving at
"Kesler, Danny."
"Here," said a boy lazily. He could have been cute, but the self-satisfied smirk on his face
irritated Tani.
"Kinney, Anita."
"Here."
"Gordon, David."
"Here."
She continued down the list in her rasping voice for what
seemed an eternity. "You will be seated
in alphabetical order," she droned. She
pointed to desks. Much to Tani's
dismay, she was on the end of a row, and Gordo was across the room from her, at
the beginning of another. The self-absorbed
boy was next to her. He looked fairly
stupid. Magner was now writing on the
board. "Write an autobiography, to be
presented at the end of class."
