Tuesday, May 7

School

7:15 a.m.

School. Possible the most boring place on the planet. Oh well, at least I get to see my friends. Walking to the band room. The meeting place for our little group.

Alex and Charlie, together as usual, and laughing. Nicole sitting not too far off. Mary and Ashley A. sitting on the chairs, Mary giggling loudly and Ashley saying absolutely nothing the whole time. The majority of us are freshmen, with a few exceptions such as Eric the Bike Man, Charlie Alex’s Boyfriend, and the not-yet-here Ashley J.

I sit down and wonder if anything interesting will happen today. Once a group of guys padlocked a Cd-player in a cupboard with Titanic and NSYNC on full blast. It drove Mr. Hilden mad, especially when they couldn’t get it out and it was so loud the whole school could hear it.

Nothing like that happens today, though. Some people make up ways to kill Danielle, her Royal Highness the Queen of Witches, most of them either very violent or very absurd.

Pumathang the Goddess enters. All members present look up to wave or shout their greetings. She is not in band. She is not in sports. She could easily be in anything she wanted because she is so good at everything, but she chooses not to be. She chooses video games.

She has to be the coolest person in existence. She wears all the right clothes: Abercrombie, AE, Aeropostale. Tight shirts with a zip-up shirt over them, bell-bottoms. Perfectly shaped, thin eyebrows (she doesn’t get them waxed). Her hair is dark brown with blond highlights, cut slightly above her chin. You can never be sure how long it is because she curls it outward for the ever-trendy soft-yet-spiky effect that has recently become popular in our school. You would not believe how many people have copied her various hairstyles.

She is popular. She is neither snotty nor stuck up. She is nice, outgoing, and friendly. She is rich. She gets everything she wants. She is perfect. She is Pumathang, and that speaks for itself.

Puma acknowledges her groupies and heads over to where Alex and Charlie are sitting. DISCUSSION taking place. She is momentarily distracted because her Argumentation partner has tracked her down to go over the debate taking place later on. Argumentation is a tenth-grade class.

I continue sitting on a chair by Ashley A. and listen to them laugh. Alex claps a hand over Charlie’s mouth to muffle a rude comment about some random person entering the band room. Turns out to be Ashley J. Ashley is THE most popular name in our school. I believe we know nine in our grade alone.

Bell rings. Time to go to class. While I struggle to remember whether today’s first hour is gym or study hall, The Goddess and her entourage exit the band room. The Goddess is going to math class. She is two years ahead of us other freshmen, and spends her time chatting with the upper-classmen while somehow managing to complete her trigonometry assignment on time. Ironically, she hates math.

I have gym.

10:30 a.m.

Fourth hour history. Mary sits across from me. Students around us plotting a scheme to plant the recycle bin in front of the door in a foolish attempt to keep Mr. Kluz from entering the classroom and beginning another Holocaust lecture.

Puma enters. I move my feet from off the top of her chair just before she sits down. Kasey returns Mary’s book. Susan plants the recycle bin. Roni enters and sets off the trap. She is shouted at until she replants the recycle bin. Chad enters with Mr. Kluz just behind him. The trap is spoiled once again, and we must endure another gruesome video about the concentration camps.

10:34 a.m.

Puma produces a folded up note, which turns out to be more of the much-loved Danielle humor we love so much. Today’s funny pictures include ‘the feminine dog,’ ‘the princess of pot,’ and ‘wide load.’ The first is self-explanatory, the second involves Queen Danielle sitting on her toilet throne with a plunger in hand, and the third involves a symbolic picture of an elephant’s gigantic rear side, which represents her notorious ego. Mary giggles loudly.

After the notes are passed around the class, our only source of entertainment is the concentration camp video. I realize the Holocaust was a very bad thing, and that horrible things happened to the Jews and other groups of people, but I wish the videos could be less graphic.

I stare at the back of Puma’s head and wish I had hair like hers. I’m not saying that the way normal teenagers, who hate their hair and always complain about it, do. I’m saying that because my hair is dark brown, wavy, and snarly. It looks exactly the same no matter what I do to it, whether I brush it, don’t brush it, or mop the floor with it.

Why can’t I have hair like Puma’s?

11:20 a.m.

Ashley A. is waiting for me when history is finally over. She doesn’t say much, but she walks upstairs with me to English. Puma is in my English class, too. We got our reports back a few days ago, and she got a hundred percent. No matter what teacher, she seems to manage this all the time. Lucky.

"Do you have the notes for science?" Ashley asks me. I nod.

Puma is in Biology-E, the advanced tenth-grade class. She is in Argumentation, the advanced tenth-grade speech class. She is in Advanced Algebra and Trigonometry, the eleventh-grade math class. She is a ninth-grader (although she looks older).

I am taking Advanced Composition next year, an eleventh-grade class. So is Puma.

10:25 a.m.

Ms. Carlson (as of last week, now also known as Ms. Ford)’s fifth hour English class. Fortunately, the Romeo and Juliet plays are over.

"Can we sit where we want today?" Puma the Goddess asks Ms. Carlson/Ms. Ford. She has been working on this project for a week now, and C/F is expected to give in any day.

"Not today, but pretty soon. There are, what, eighteen days of school left?" C/F answers.

"Sixteen!" someone yells, and the class cheers.

C/F frowns. "That means I have eighteen days." The class laughs. She deserves it for giving us a seating chart after a whole quarter of letting us sit where we want. We don’t even talk that much, honestly!

The entire class period is to be spent reading Speak. We are only supposed to be on page 92 by the time class is done, but nobody stops when they are done because it is a fairly good book, one of the few that teenagers will actually read. Personally, I like to read all the time, but I guess most people my age don’t, unless the book involves, dating, sex, or a swearing extravaganza.

Halfway through class we are interrupted by an announcement saying ‘the Bloodmobile is full’ and those who signed up to give blood can’t do it anymore because there’s no room left. Nobody pays much attention to the announcement, unless they happen to be a vampire. Only seniors were allowed to donate blood anyways. I don’t know why they’d want to.

12:30 p.m.

Lunch! There are two groups of people at lunchtime: the hungry ones that practically run to the lunchroom, and the slow ones that gab with their friends while slowly making their way there. Unfortunately, both share the same hallway, which means much shoving and pushing for both types. Unfortunately, freshmen are most likely to be bullied. Unfortunately, I am a freshmen, and I am also short.

A hundred pushes and shoves later, we arrive in the lunchroom. We are fortunate to have a semi-decent menu, with fries, ice cream, and Hostess snacks. The school’s own ‘Hearty Helpings’, however, are horrible. especially the macaroni and cheese. It’s like glue. It actually sticks to the plate if you turn it upside-down (I actually performed this experiment)! It’s what crap wants to be when it grows up!

There is no macaroni and cheese today, but a Gatorade sounds good just the same. When I get really bored, I start sliding it back and forth across the table between my two hands. I do the same with the cap. It usually ends up on the floor sooner or later. Once the bottle got out of control and landed in somebody’s lunch on the other end of the table. Technically it wasn’t my fault.

12:55 p.m.

Lunch is over. I somehow manage to avoid the beatings of the crazy hockey player known as Betsy. She makes it a habit to kick me or shove me into a locker daily, but today she seems occupied with something else. I don’t stick around to find out what.

I should get a restraining order on her.

2:00 p.m.

German. Frau Wilmont’s class. She is possible the most crazy teacher on the face of this planet. Verückt is the German term, and she uses it often, although not on herself.

Betsy sits with me in the back and harasses me. But then again, Betsy’s punches and paper-stealing are almost welcome compared to Frau Verückt’s ‘Personalized Mini-Stories’ or as she herself calls them, P.M.S. The majority of them are about Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake washing cars and throwing up in them. Britney erbricht dich in Justins auto! Oh no! A teacher’s miserable attempt to make the lesson ‘fun.’ Not to be confused with ‘funny,’ which is reserved for the time we learned schlagt das popo mit einem handtuch, or, ‘smack the butt with a handtowel.’ Complete with her illustration on the overhead.

There were a few funny stories, though. One was about David Boreanaz slapping his giant butt on the wall of the bathroom-with-no-toilet-paper. Another was about Gretel, who forgot to pack her underwear for a trip and had to borrow somebody’s old ones. Rumor has it that these stories were written by Puma Goddess. It’s not her fault she catches on fast and all teachers favor her.

Rumor also has it that most of the stories Puma writes have to first be edited by Frau Verückt. Oh well, they’re still funny. If you understand German, which I do because I also catch on fast. Some others in our class aren’t so lucky. The only lesson absolutely everybody seemed to understand was the ‘butt-slapping’ lesson. I am a firm believer that FV’s illustration was the main reason.

Home

3:30 p.m.

Home at last! I prepare to wade through the high tides of my room, but the ‘ocean floor’ is visible and I remember that it is currently low tide because my mom made me clean it last night. Oh well.

I heave my bag onto my bed and flop down next to it. I wonder what Puma’s room is like. I wonder if I’ll ever know, because somebody like me is not likely to be invited into the living quarters of a goddess. I wonder what homework I have to do, but I can’t seem to remember. I’ll do it later.

8:30 p.m.

I am being attacked by dogs. One is named Coalie, the other is Hobo. Both are savage beasts, and both have jumped onto my bed to bombard me with a doggish welcome. I love them both dearly, but I can’t help wonder if all dogs are like this.

8:35 p.m.

I have removed a can of Mountain Dew from Coalie’s mouth, and retrieved a sock from Hobo’s.

8:36 p.m.

I once again remove the can of Mountain Dew.

8:37 p.m.

This can of Mountain Dew owes me big time.

8:45 p.m.

The evil mother arrives in the house.

"Michelle?!" she yells.

I hope it isn’t the ‘fix yourself some macaroni and cheese’ routine. It’s all I ever get for supper, unless we walk to Taco John’s. We always have to walk, since The Evil One cannot drive. And I can’t ride my bike, because it’s still hanging upside-down from the ceiling of the garage.

"Michelle, where are you?!!" the voice shouts. I had better go and see what she wants.

9:10 p.m.

It’s macaroni and cheese again.

9:30 p.m.

I retreat to my room only to discover a shredded Mountain Dew can. I’m too tired to do homework. Fortunately, I have study hall first hour tomorrow. I’ll do it then. I shove the two Four-Legged Servants of Satan aside and sink into my soft, comfy bed.

9:40 p.m.

I give the two Four-Legged Servants of Satan a few more shoves and try to ignore the pain in my leg. Do devil-dogs have sharper teeth than normal dogs?

Part 1 | Part 2
Home | Me | Friends | School | What's Cool | Michelle Story | Message Board