Janella perched in an armchair in the rec room, legs tucked underneath her and laptop open on her lap. Her fingers were flying over the keys, eyes flicking up occasionally to skim over and proofread her work. Dinner had just ended about fifteen minutes ago, and she was taking advantage of the momentary calm to get a jump on her homework.
"Done!" she said triumphantly, tapping in the save command.
"Vith vhat?" Kurt asked, appearing behind her chair. She wrinkled her nose.
"An essay assignment I had," she said, trying to fill her voice with disgust. "Man, I hate homework!!"
"Ditto!" Kurt said with a laugh. "Vhat did you have to write about?"
"It was for my psychology class," she said. "We had to write an essay about cliques, and why people become part of them. Then we had to 'classify' our friends, putting them in the cliques they're a part of."
"Sounds interesting," Kurt said. "Mind if I take a look?" She shook her head.
"Nope. Here." She pushed the laptop into his hands and slid onto the arm of the chair, allowing him to sit. He smiled at her and made himself comfortable, scrolling up to the top of the document and beginning to read.
"People say that kids today have no sense of loyalty to the people who really matter: their families and friends. Of course, by friends, I mean the people who love and care for you for who you are, who always stand by you, and who understand what goes on in your heart of hearts. Ask some kids today, though, and you may not get this same definition of friends. Nowadays, a friend is the person like you on the outside, who belongs to your social circle. Most kids do not have real, true friends anymore. In fact, you shouldn't be surprised to find that someone who has called him of herself your friend one day turns around and is stabbing you in the back the next.
There is very little stability in the social circles of today's youth, which is why cliques are often so discernible in a high school cafeteria or mall food court. One of the biggest needs of a teenager is the need to be accepted. So, when accepted into a clique, into a group of friends, some teenagers are often willing to bury their real personality under one they feel is most likely to be accepted by the group, so their chances of remaining increase. However, one wrong move, one misplaced statement, and a teen can find him of herself cast out from the group they thought their friends. So, they trade their old personality for an equally false new one, and try to fit in somewhere else.
All the people I count among my friends can be classed into cliques, and most likely, they would all fit in quite well.
Take, for example, Scott Summers. He is a Leader. He is responsible and trustworthy. If you need someone to organize and event, Scott is a very good choice to make, for he is sure to get the job done and well. He is reasonably athletic and quite good-looking. He does well in school. His friends are likely to be Leaders like himself, which can result in power play between them, but nothing serious. Scott is the type of boy every teenage girl's mother wants her to go out with.
We can also look at Jean Grey. She is a Popular Girl. This means she's pretty, smart, athletic; in other words, perfect. As Popular Girl, she can do no wrong. She's always decked out in designer clothing, she always has the right thing to say, and she never commits a social error. She catches the eye of all the Jocks, and she and her friends, the other Popular Girls, make sure no members of the team are available.
Another girl easy to categorize is Kitty Pryde. She is you typical Valley Girl. Her favorite hangout is the mall, where she and her other Valley Girl friends check out the hot guys and shop for the newest trends in clothes, jewelry, and makeup. Though not blond, she does seem to be a bit ditzy. Since the Popular Girls lay claim to the best looking among the pickings at your average American high school, Valley Girls tend to go after the Bad Boys, the ones who, though they might look good, are too far below the Popular Girls to even be considered.
Similar to the Bad Boys are the Skaters, those athletes not interested in the classic sports offered by the school. They excel in, you guessed it, skateboarding, and often skateboarding's brother sports, surfing and snowboarding. Usually quite punky, skaters don't give a hoot about the 'trends' that sweep the Popular Girls and the Jocks. They are devoted to their life's passion: skateboarding. Though my Skater friend Evan Daniels is a guy, this clique is co-ed, and both guys and girls can be Skaters.
Skaters can be said to be Jokers who have found a solid outlet for their energy. Jokers are people who, try as they might to fit in, tend to be outcasts, often for the most trivial of reasons. So, in an attempt to cover their faults, Jokers joke around. They always have a wisecrack on hand, and actually are highly effective peacemakers, often able to defuse tension between two parties with their lighthearted antics. Want to see a Joker in action? Hang around my buddy Kurt Wagner, and you will see what I mean. Though Jokers come in both sexes, they tend to be guys.
Speaking of people who don't exactly fit in? Do not forget the Goths, like Rogue. Goths are a breed apart. They dress in dark clothes, most usually black and red. Their pale complexions set off their dark, heavy makeup and often-black hair. The Goths like to be left alone, which most people consider a good thing, since the majority of teens in America today do not appreciate free form poetry or heavy punk music. Where a Joker always has a humorous anecdote on hand, so a Goth has a moody observation on human failings.
The real outcasts, though, are just that: Outcasts. People like me; Outcasts do not give a damn about popularity, or conforming. Though they tend to have a unique style of their own, it is disguised under an apparent unconcern for what they wear or look like. Outcasts are deep people, with an often-detached perspective on teenage social interaction. They listen to bands you have never heard of, read books by authors you never knew existed, and have interests in things you outgrew long ago. The thing about us Outcasts, though, is that we almost fit in everywhere. We have the makings of Skaters and Goths, Popular Girls and Jocks, Leaders and Jokers. We just chose not to discard who we truly are for what someone else wants us to be. Sadly, among all these cliques, Outcasts are the ones who tend to be the most true to themselves.
There are many more cliques than the ones mentioned here. There are Punks and Posers, Preps, Geeks, Nerds, and Hicks. There are Hackers and Druggies, and, cruel as it is to say it, Idiots, and I haven't even begun to get into ethnic cliques. I just don't happen to name any of their numbers among my friends.
Now, look back up at the cliques described above. Do you notice something about us, about my friends, which may seem a bit odd? That is right. We are not all from the same clique. That is because, even though we may all fit perfectly into a set and defined boundary, we are different. We have one quality that most teenagers today do not. We know the real meaning of the word friend.
We know that, despite whom we may hang out with when we are at school, we will always be there for each other. We can rely on each other for help and support during hard times. We don't discriminate against each other because of how we look or act, what we wear, or whom we date. Our bonds go deeper than that, and we know that what we share will last past graduation day, which is more than the members of most of cliques described above can say. We are friends, in the truest sense of the word."
Kurt sat back in the chair, and looked up to Janella.
"I see you neglected to mention zat all of your friends are members of ze most exclusive clique of zem all: ze X-Men," he said. She glared at him
"Oh yeah, like I can really put that in a school essay," she said. He laughed.
"I know," he said. "I vas just kidding!"
"See?!" she exclaimed, gesturing grandly at the laptop and nearly falling off the arm of the chair. "What did I say? You're a Joker!" He nudged her with the tip of his tail, and she slid off, landing hard on the floor. He leaned over and crossed his arms, resting his chin on them.
"I vouldn't show zis to some of ze others," he said seriously, seriously enough for her to look up in surprise. "You're, vell, quite frank in it." She shrugged.
"You're the only student here who know my background, Kurt," she said. "Some kids nowadays are being raised with their minds filled with anti-mutant sentiments. I was raised with anti-human sentiments, and by human I mean every bipedal primate on this planet. I can't help it if I have a less than favorable view of my own kind."
"Oh."
"I mean, I try not to be so obviously negative in everyday conversation," she continued, "but when I'm writing, I can't stop. You should have seen the essay I wrote for my World History final last year! It was all about how it is human nature to want to dominate other humans!" She let out a harsh sigh, crossing her legs, propping her elbows on her knees and dropping her head into her hands.
"Hey now…" Kurt said gently, reaching down and patting her shoulder. Abruptly, she began to sob.
"I mean, I like individual humans," she choked out. "I like you, and Scott and Jean and Kitty and Rogue and Evan, and Professor X and all of them! I just don't like humanity as a whole! I hate what we're doing to this planet, to ourselves, to each other! I hate the way politicians play all these little games with each other! I hate the way people only care about themselves, and are willing to sell out their own families out if they'll make a profit!!" Kurt bit his lip and slid off the chair, wrapping his arm about Janella and pulling her close.
"Calm down, Janella," he said. "Take a deep breath. Not all of us are like zat. Some of us are good." She sniffled, and dashed the tears from her ears.
"I know that Kurt," she said. "Like I said, humans as individuals aren't that bad. But that's where the problem lies. I only hinted at it in my essay; humans aren't individuals any more. They don't think for themselves. They get their opinions from TV, or the newspaper, or somewhere! They don' think for themselves any more!"
"I don't know about zat," Kurt said. "Some people…"
"The most famous free thinkers were shunned and ignored as insane during their lifetimes," Janella said dully. "It wasn't until after they passed on that their ideas were regarded as valid and given the credit they deserved." She paused, and took a deep breath, letting it out in an exaggerated sigh. "It's not like I don't think that you or the other X-Men don't think for yourselves. In my opinion, mutants have the capacity to become the greatest free thinkers on the planet. They're a new perspective. But when you guys are in school…" She trailed off.
"All we really want to be is accepted," Kurt murmured. She nodded.
"I know. And I respect that. I'm already shunned. Like I said, I'm an Outcast, at least at school, and I've always been. Me and Reno; two of a kind outside the swing of things, ignored; and I'm used to that. But I think it offers me a clearer perspective on things."
"Maybe I should try being an Outcast for a while," he suggested lightly. She laughed.
"Nah," she said emphatically, standing. "You're much too fun to be an Outcast." She struck a pose, and affected a deep voice. "We're a melancholy bunch, we are." Kurt laughed and stood also, giving her a playful shove as he did. She grinned and poked at him with her tail, before picking up her laptop and gathering all the associated cables. She yawned.
"I've got to go find a printer so I can have this printed out for tomorrow," she said. "Then I'm hitting the sack early. I'm tired." She waved to him as she strolled jauntily out of the room, giving no indication that she had been sobbing out deep psychological truths on the floor a moment ago. Kurt watched her leave, and turned and walked to one of the windows, looking out over the darkening grounds, tail swinging from side to side thoughtfully. His usually lighthearted friend had just given him an earful to think about, and he got the feeling he would be lying awake in bed for a while tonight, going over what she had told him. Unbidden, the chorus of a popular song from a while back came to his mind: "We are, we are the youth of a nation; we are, we are (we are) the youth of a nation." He turned away from the rec room window and headed for the door. He'd have to see Kitty later and see if she had a CD with that song on it. He wanted to see what the lyrics really said.
*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*
Yesh, here it is, folks. All…done and what not. I'm not sure when I'll post the next one, so keep an eye out!
And review!!