Chapter 2: Recess
"Hey ugly!" he called from the door frame, his chubby hands cupped around his mouth. His blue shirt was stained with snack time's grape juice and his laces were tied in a messy knot.
She turned at the sound of his voice and then turned away, moving her dolls slowly around the small house she had built from sticks for them. It crudely resembled a tipi and was held together with her bright pink hair band. When she no longer paid attention to his yelling, he stomped over to her spot by the jungle gym. His cronies followed closely behind him and began laughing at her small tipi.
"Hey! I was talking to you, ugly!" he yelled, pulling her hair sharply. She simply shook her head, refusing to look at him.
"Go away, Paul." she whispered, sniffling at the warm tears that burned behind her lids.
"I'm talking to you!" he yelled, his temper flaring at her apparent refusal. When she did not look at him, he lifted his foot and crushed the small wooden house she had built for the dolls.
She stopped playing with her dolls and placed them gently beside her. He kicked the ground and dirt sprayed over her legs and dolls. He grabbed a fistful of her hair and shook her head around.
"Next time, look at me when I'm talking. Got it?" he said before letting go and walking away.
She tried to hold in her crying but it was too difficult. Her tears stung with the burning pain of embarrassment and self-defeat. It was a daily routine; he bullied her constantly from the moment she entered the class to the moment she stepped out. Teachers brushed it off as playful teasing, and she never told her parents. She didn't want them to remove her from her school. She didn't want to move from La Push.
Lifting her dolls, she shook out the dirt and watched as they fell in a sprinkling back to their home. Even though they fell in a flurry of black, they landed neatly into their respective places on the ground. Collecting the sticks from the ruined tipi she wrapped her hair band around them and tucked them into her skirt pocket. She picked up one of the dolls and gently brushed off the flecks that had pooled around her eyes. There was a smudge on her cheek that refused to be wiped clean. Staring at the doll she brushed the hair back. She wouldn't go away.
The only audible sound was the white noise of crayons scratching against paper. They were coloring a map of Washington. She carefully traced the state first; outlining it in a pretty blue and then filling it with a softer shade. Inconspicuously, she peeked at the mess of color Paul was creating beside her and stifled a giggle. His ears caught it, however, and he dropped his crayon into the communal box before them.
"What are you looking at, ugly?" he snarled, his hand grabbing another crayon, this time from her personal stack.
She remained silent and continued to color her state, choosing to not say that his state was not such a masterpiece.
"You think my drawing's ugly?" he pushed, shoving her aggressively. The action caused her to draw a long, jagged dark blue line across her state. She stared at the line and calmly lowered her crayon.
"Woops." he said derisively, drawing a thick black line over her page to worsen the drawing. When she responded only by picking another blue and continuing to color, he clenched his fist and swiped her small stack of crayons off the table. They clattered to the floor; breaking in halves, their colorful shards scattered everywhere. The sound was drowned in the noise of students yelling and playing around them, work forgotten. The teacher was chatting on the telephone, ignorant to her surroundings.
Her chair screeched as she pushed away from the table, his eyes watching her every movement. She bent down and began to brush the pieces towards her with her hands. She felt his uncomfortable gaze upon her but paid it no mind, her nose prickly with tears. They fell like tiny clear beads on the tiled floor, making small pools of paint from the crayon's colorful pieces. His mouth quivered slightly, his ounce of shame appearing on his face.
"Sorry, Jenna..." he said.
"It's okay, Paul." she said softly.