Boring Girls(13)

Others like me hear my call.

We orchestrate it when you fall.

First I tear out your blue, blind eyes.

Such a sexy voice, such tortured cries.

And blood will fill this hollow hall,

Cause I’m the wickedest witch of all.

It was one of the best things I had ever written.

In fact, I submitted it as a poem in my English class. The teacher, Ms. Voree, returned it with a good mark, but with some comments in red ink. Disturbing. Have you been watching horror movies? With a smiley-face beside it. She also mentioned that the word “suck” was a bit too much slang for the assignment. I didn’t care. I knew I was a good writer. And I was extremely proud of what I had written. It might not have been the perfect fit for my stupid school, but f*ck it, neither was I.

xXx

Whenever I saw the Guy in the halls or in the cafeteria, I ignored him. Seeing him made me feel a bit stupid, but then I would just repeat to myself I’m the wickedest witch of all, and I’d feel better. Picturing myself pulling out the eyes of that faker made me feel great too.

Of course I told Josephine what had happened, and after wincing over my moronic use of the word “grapevine,” she tried to help me rally.

“Fuck him. He doesn’t do laundry anyway, you can tell. I bet his hair reeks too. He probably doesn’t shower. Fucking loser.” But her insults, while appreciated, were insignificant to the reassurance I got from just knowing I was better than him. And the good feelings I got thinking about pushing him down the stairs and watching his teeth shatter against the tile floor. Josephine didn’t understand that. I showed her my poem and explained to her that it was about him, and she laughed, but she didn’t get it.

Josephine and I were good friends by that winter, and I liked her very much. School was pretty tolerable. I was surprised. Things had gotten better with the *s. They’d still jeer and make fun of me from time to time, but it didn’t seem as often as the year before. Maybe it was because I was with Josephine a lot, and they didn’t see me as such an easy target. Maybe they had just finally gotten sick of picking on someone who didn’t respond, unlike some of their other targets. And Brandi had a boyfriend. That couple was truly a stain on the school, but at least she was distracted with her new project and left me pretty much alone.

Writing became very good therapy for me, but I still had to deal with *s. Ms. Voree, for example, developed a problem with the work I submitted as part of our “creative writing” assignments. I’d submit really f*cking good poems, and she’d hand them back, scrawled on with red marker.

Rachel, this is well written,

but I’d like to see some lighter subject matter.

Rachel, you’re a happy girl!

I’d like to see some of that in your writing!

Rachel, you are very talented.

Please explore different subjects as your talent grows.

Well, it wasn’t my fault that she didn’t like my stuff. She couldn’t argue that it wasn’t good writing, though, so she had to give me good marks, but I didn’t appreciate that she was critical of what made me passionate.

So I submitted a poem that I wrote with Ms. Voree in mind.

Lady in your proper dress,

Telling me my brain’s a mess.

Listen now and I’ll grade you

For judging me on speaking truths.

You fail at smarts,

You fail just fine.

You’ll fail at living

When I snap your spine.

I didn’t think Ms. Voree would take it so personally. In retrospect, I can see that she would obviously apply it to herself, but at the time, I was pretty wound up and I was writing some good stuff and I figured I was clever enough to get away with ironically giving her a poem about herself. When she returned the poem to me, the red marker ordered See me after school.

And when I went to her classroom at the end of that school day, not only was she sitting there, but the principal of the school, Ms. Coates, was there too. I had never had a run-in with Ms. Coates before, and Ms. Voree looked pretty upset. I knew I was in for it.

“Rachel, please sit down,” Ms. Coates said, gesturing to a desk. As I did, my mind raced with ways to get myself out of trouble. “Ms. Voree, please explain the problem once again, now that Rachel has joined us.”

Ms. Voree wouldn’t look at me. “Rachel is a talented writer, and she has been very consistent this year, handing in great poems for our creative writing unit. But I have become dismayed by her choice of subject matter.” She gestured to a short pile of papers on the desk beside Ms. Coates, presumably my poems. “As you can see, the subject matter worsened throughout the semester, leaning more and more towards violent imagery.”