So we get a week off from the rigors of school, and then, right after celebrating the New Year, BAM! It’s back to school.
Let me tell you a little about my week off. For Christmas we had a few people over. Ronnie and Lizzie came, but there was a tension there – all Ron (he doesn’t like Ronnie anymore) could talk about was this girl Alyssa at school. It was so obvious that he was crushing Lizzie’s spirit every time he mentioned Alyssa’s tattoo, her new car, her pierced lip, nose and eyebrow…When he showed us a photo on his laptop, and Lizzie saw that she was blond, I knew it was time for us to go for a walk. She’d always expected they would end up dating… We had expected Lizzie and Ron to stay a while, but he left the day after Christmas, leaving us with a mopey Lizzie.
I saw all of my friends at one point or another during the week. Then Ruby invited us over to her house for New Year’s Eve. Parents (and guardians) too. Lizzie declined the invite – one of her friends came by to pick her up at six. Aunt Lina made some zabaglione for the party and at eight thirty we walked the few blocks over to Ruby’s. We kids were in the “rec room” in the basement, watching “Mama Mia.” It’s one of Ruby’s favorites – she loves Abba. Dor came alone – her parents had other plans, and her brother just wanted to stay home and play computer games. Ruby’s parents had invited some of their friends who had children, so there were kids from grade school and one high schooled…
The adults were all in the living room. There was a hot & cold buffet of homemade goodies, and then at eleven-thirty we had desserts. Cookies dunked in chilled zabaglione are sooo decadent. We pigged out, and sang along with the movie. Then we came up from the basement to ring in the new year with the adults. We went out on the porch and made lots of noise. Fireworks are illegal in New Jersey, but one of the neighbors didn’t seem to care, because they were lighting them off. And it wasn’t just the little ones – they put on a private light show for the whole block. They didn’t seem to care that Ruby’s mom is a cop…. We had intended to leave early, but Aunt Lina and I didn’t get home until after 3 AM! Lizzie didn’t come back until five-thirty….
The next day I slept late, and Lizzie used my computer. That’s when Aunt Lina punished me for the whole “Maddie” on Facebook thing. And then it was back-to-school on January 2nd.
For two months I’d been flying under the radar as “the new kid.” The popular kids weren’t threatened, and I’d chosen to associate with known geeks, so I’d sort of been considered insignificant. That had been fine with me. But that thing in Math class had made waves – it was as if I’d taken on Byron Knight. Suddenly the rumor was that I hadn’t been willing to work with him. All of his buddies who had been in the group (that was everyone except Carl and me) were saying that I had acted all snotty and refused to cooperate, and I’d brought their grades down by wasting their time, when I actually had done the work myself.
Now people who had been indifferent were either pointedly staring at me or purposely turning their back on me. The girls were the worst – either whispering and pointing or tossing their heads and flouncing away as if I had cooties. I found their behavior interesting yet incomprehensible, sort of the way Jane Goodall must feel when she observes chimpanzees. Except those primates were probably more civilized than the kids in my middle school.
I’ve been suffering through this for weeks, now. It stinks. Thank God for my core group of friends and for our after school group with Wren. Amelia’s mom drives us over to Frost Spring twice a week to meet with Wren and the other kids. Wren’s now talking about having our group do a play in the community as a fundraiser. This director she knows has a script that’s supposed to be addressing teen social issues, and she’s going to see if he’s interested in having our group as the actors. Wren promised that we’d all get speaking roles if we wanted the parts, and said she’d make sure we were considered for the main characters. It’s a musical, and we’d have to try out, but Wren said the first set of auditions would be our group only. It all sounds so good, and it’s made Dor happy because she won’t be involved with the Middle School play this year.
Get this – she can’t even try out for this year’s play. Why? Because last year the director, our homeroom teacher, Ms. Flemington, had several of her homeroom students in the production. A parent had accused her of favoritism, so this year, she’s gone all King Solomon & told our class flat out that no one from our homeroom should even bother to try out. How fair is that?
The only saving grace was that the play was one that Dor hated, because it was not even a real play, just a re-write of a Disney movie script. Yeah, you guessed it – “High School Musical”. Ugh! How pathetic can you get?
Apparently, you can get more pathetic than “High School Musical”. There’s a script out there that’s even worse, and naturally that’s the one that Wren’s friend Antonio came up with. It’s called “Cheers Not Tears – Just Smile!” and it’s a musical. This post is getting a little long, and it’s getting late. I’ll save the details for another time. But believe me; it’s gonna be one heck of a story explaining this!
Until my next post…
Randi
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