The Election

Looking back, I have to honestly admit that I have done things that I'm not especially proud of. It's kind of cliché, I guess, but I tend to see even the really awful, stupid things I've done as a learning experience. I mean, I've learned a lot about myself. I'm a terrible, rotten, murdering, amoral, avaricious scumbag-and that would happen to be on a good day. But at least I admit it. That's one of the reasons I'm probably not cut out for politics. That, and I don't really care for what it makes me. Worse, for one thing.

See, I've always had a competitive streak. Sports, board games, Quizzo, arguments, duels to the death, I always go for the throat. So far, so good. But how important can winning be, after all? Sometimes it is life and death-but sometimes, I get that way over stupid things. Like the sixth grade elections at Franklin Elementary.

Sixth grade-pretty much a bad year for me all around. In fact, I don't think the year I turned twenty-one, died the first time around, and inadvertently created a weapon of mass destruction even comes close. My parents were going through a rough time, I think having something to do with my grandfather's trial, so I was sent to live with my paternal grandparents. And since I was no longer living in the same neighborhood (and because my grandmother never really approved of me being in Catholic school to start with), I got sent to Franklin. Meaning I had to be "the new kid". Worse yet, I had to be the new kid the same year puberty kicked in. Even worse yet, I was the new kid with a jailbird grandfather, a mother drying out, and a father who was certifiable.

Yep, a very bad year. But there were some things that made it tolerable. Some things, in the persona of Mr. Matarazzo.

Mr. Matarazzo was amazing. I might just be saying that because he was my first real crush-sort of setting up the precedent for an interest in older men that has been my curse ever since. But actually, I mean it-he cared. There were two new kids in class that year, and he kind of took both of us under his wing. He said he knew what it was like to be an outsider, himself, sometimes. And he said it like he meant it, too, and wasn't just saying the kind of things adults say to sound understanding. He took time out to see how the both of us were doing and really helped me to adjust.

The other kid? Well, the other kid, not so much.

I made some friends right off the bat because the other kids thought I was cool. I know how lame that just sounded, so bear with me-I don't mean, like, "Wow, what a nifty person she is." I mean-"Wow, what a bad-ass, I wish I did that." You could say I acted out a little. A little bit a lot. Okay, I was a terror. And I think it encouraged the others, a little. I can tell a story about the day we made the substitute teacher cry that still brings tears to * my * eyes. But the other kid-he just couldn't hack it, you know? And seriously, if you can't hack sixth grade, people catch on to that.

It wasn't that he wasn't smart. No-I mean, he was scary. I know I'm scary, but this kid, was scary. He blew through tests like he'd done the work before a few hundred times. Mr. Matarazzo was a history specialist; he could tell stories about the Civil War that would make you feel like he was there, and the World Wars? Forget about it. But the other new kid? He would ask him these questions…weird questions. Questions the rest of us didn't even get. It was creepy.

And the way the kid dealt with the rest of us was creepy, too. Most boys that age tell bathroom humor jokes-but his level of humor was a little more…I can't call it sophisticated. But it reminded me of when my dad and some of his ex-Marine pals would get together. You know-stuff like that. And I particularly didn't like the way he looked at me, or talked about me.

See, Mother Nature was playing just one in a series of nasty jokes on me. At eleven, I did not look eleven. I tried everything to hide what was going on-sweat clothes. Excuse notes to keep out of gym class. It was gross. I tried to be the world's biggest tomboy-but once your bra strap gets snapped, sweetie, it's all over. And I got nothing but grief over it. So, naturally, I had to be antagonistic in return. And the other kid made it so easy. He was a squirt. Blond hair, big blue eyes, nasty mouth-something about him just brought out the worst in me.

Mr. M noticed I was being particularly cruel to him and asked me to be sympathetic, but really, I wasn't buying any of his line. I mean, he even told me that the kid had been through a lot more than me. Mr. M, obviously, did not know about my family. But I forgave him about that. Having a massive crush made me nothing if not forgiving.

It also made me nothing if not jealous about the way the other kid monopolized his time. Every time I turned around, there he was. And he was…smarmy. Like, this total little suck-up to * my * favorite teacher. It really got on my nerves. So when Mr. M decided to hold class elections for president and I saw that little twerp's hand go up-mine went up too. And that's how two new kids ended up on the ballot for sixth grade president.

My grandparents were thrilled with my ambitions. Pops made signs for me in his workshop, and Gran made brownies. If the advertising didn't get them, outright bribery might. I pressed flesh. Namely, I made one little punk fourth grader lick an actual live bug, which earned me a rather excellent reputation. I mobilized the girls in the class. Obviously, it made more sense to vote for me over the * boy *. The honor of our gender was at stake. And besides, there were four more girls than boys. We had the numbers-we had the power. I figured, the election was mine. I mean, honestly. What did the other kid have?

More and more of Mr. M's time, I realized. I just barely caught some of their conversations, but I got the weirdest feeling they talked about me sometimes, and I definitely did not like that. I wondered if the weird kid * liked * me or something, which very much creeped me out. But he looked at me, sometimes, like he knew something I didn't. Like he seriously hated something about me, but…I dunno. It was just weird.

Anyway, the other kid was also taking the elections pretty seriously. He mobilized the boys, telling them that I wasn't * good * enough to be class president. I wasn't even pretty. (I'll have you know I was going through an awkward phase, but not that awkward. Or at least, I don't think I was that awkward.) And I was a lesbian. And I stuffed my bra. This had an impact on the others. Things rose to a head, so to speak. My straps were tweaked more than once. Brownies would not fix the problems he was causing me. Such problems needed to be redressed.

As I said, Mother Nature was playing a joke on me, second to the one that got played on me by Stanford and Binet when they rigged the tests in my favor, and possibly third to the one played on me by the Game fairies when they-well, made me what I am today. I was…no, forget that. I am not a small-boned girl. I've seen other Immortal women-I'm built differently from them. Amanda, Cassandra…they have height. They have…bone structure. I have muscle. I'm…a big gal. And even at eleven…

Well, I had also just had some kind of growth spurt. But anyway, the other kid was, like…you know, the kind of kid who looks ten when he's eleven. Boys mature a little slower. I was bigger. And I had another nasty advantage-my old man. I mentioned he was certifiable. What I also should mention is, he taught me some fairly advanced hand-to-hand. Can't say me and Dad never * bonded *.

Long story short, I met the kid in the school yard. He'd been having some kind of conversation with Mr. M ( *my * favorite teacher, mind you), and I waited. It was getting dark, but I figured my grandparents would understand-they were the understanding type. I saw him, but a little late-it was as if he was already looking around for me! I didn't get it. I was hoping to catch him by surprise, and throw my bookbag at him while he wasn't looking. But he had the jump on me-and something else. He unzipped his duffel bag before I could properly start kicking his head in-and he had a wacko little machete or something.

That weirded me out, but I kicked it out of his hand. No way was I going to let him pull a weapon on me. (I carried Mace, myself, not that I ever considered using that. As my dad would say, "Wimp's weapon.") And then I set to work, on his face. I went postal.

He took it well, though. I mean, I wailed the snot out of him, but he kept coming up for more. After all, I had him outclassed, physically-but there was something weird about the way he kept getting up. It was like I was hurting him-but not really hurting him. I must have smacked his nose open twice-but he didn't even really bleed all that much. I started getting freaked out. I figured I might be beating on his head forever before he just got wise and laid down.

But then something stopped the fight. He turned his head, and his looking around made * me * start looking around. I could see Mr. Matarazzo coming across the school yard, and the weird kid started playing hurt. Realizing I could be seriously in trouble, I booked it out of there. Number one, simple assault is not ladylike. Number two, I figured I probably looked like heck. Number three, I didn't exactly want to get, like, suspended or expelled or whatever. It would have seriously disqualified me for the election. Not that I didn't think the weird kid would rat on me.

Turns out, he didn't. But it wasn't a good thing. No, not at all.

The next day, I came in for school wondering if the weird kid would be in, or if he was too messed up. I had a nice fat lip that lipstick wouldn't cover up and it hurt when I sat down-my grandparents, it turned out, had a limit to how understanding they were willing to be with me. But the weird kid wasn't there. Neither, for that matter, was Mr. M.

We got a substitute teacher, but we very nearly behaved ourselves, pretty much sensing something was wrong. Just before class let out, we got an announcement that he was dead. One girl actually screamed. And everyone was just-sad. Like, ruined. I went home, told my Gran and Pops, and then cried for three days. It was so senseless, that we could have a really great teacher like him, and then he was dead. I stayed home that week. They couldn't even get me out of my room.

When I went back, I figured I would try to work it out with the weird kid. After all, it wasn't like we were still going to have the stupid election, anyway. But he was gone, and no one really knew why. It was the strangest thing-not like I missed him, or anything.

Anyway, the rest of the year was all substitutes. You'd think there would be some respect for the dead, but you know how things really are. The adults played it off like he died in an accident or something, but there was a rumor that he was found in a dumpster without his head. And that was how it probably really was, not that I really believed it then.

See, at the time, it made no sense, it was just a really awful thing. But now that I'm older, and wiser, and have been dead a few times, it makes a little more sense to me. Why Mr. M was such a good teacher, and why he was so good with history. Why the weird kid was so damn weird.

And even though I've given it a whole lot of thought, and tried to see it from all sides, I'm going to tell you the simple truth-I still have no sympathy for that weird kid. And if I was bigger than him before, I'm a lot bigger, now.

And that, as Forrest Gump says, is all I have to say about that.

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