The Reinvention of Bessica Lefter (10 page)

hen my mom poked her head into my room and told me that it was time to get up, I couldn’t believe it was already morning. Partly because I felt like I hadn’t slept enough. And partly because it was still dark outside and I could hear Dad snoring like a lawn mower.

I stared at the ceiling and tried to remember how to get from one class to the next. Because maybe that was why I’d stayed in the bathroom during my dream. I knew where to go for PE, because the gym was in the center of the school. But things got a little fuzzy for me after that. There were so many things to remember and keep
straight.
Too many
. Psycho-bullies. Hallways. Teachers. Classrooms. Bathrooms. Dolan the Puker. My locker. Beef nuggets …

“It’s time to get up,” my mom said again. Then she flipped on my light and blinded me.

Sitting up in bed, covering my eyes, I suddenly felt two different ways about school. I really wanted to go to school. I really didn’t want to go to school.

But I got out of bed anyway. At first, nothing was different. I already had my outfit picked out. I put on a pink shirt and jeans and attached the pink tongues to my sneakers. Then, I got ready exactly the same way that I’d gotten ready for elementary school. But my stomach felt very queasy. Because after I left my house, I sort of had no idea what would happen next. I peeked out my curtain into my front yard. Outside, it was still pitch black. And this freaked me out a little. Because I didn’t know whether I could get up this early for a whole year.

When I sat down to eat breakfast, I saw a tiny box with a bow on it.

“It’s for good luck,” my mom said.

This worried me a little bit, because it was like my mom already knew that things were going to be rocky for me at North Teton Middle School and that I would need luck. I lifted the top off and stared down at a pink bracelet. It
was really spectacular. Too bad I couldn’t show it to Sylvie.

“Thanks,” I said. I slid the pink beads over my hand and settled the bracelet on my wrist. Then I looked at the clock to make sure I wouldn’t miss the bus.

“Don’t worry,” my mom said. “You’ve got plenty of time.”

I finished eating and put on my backpack. With all of my supplies in it, that thing was so heavy it made me tip a little. Then I realized that I should not have practiced wearing it empty in front of my mirror; I should have practiced wearing it stuffed with heavy items. Because from what I knew thus far in my life about teachers and homework, my backpack would only get heavier by the end of the day.

“You’re not taking your phone, right?” my mom asked.

“I am,” I said.

My mother frowned. “What if you drop it? You’re not even allowed to use it at school.”

I glanced at my phone. Why did my mom think I would drop it? That was a rude thing to think. Then, while I was looking at it, something cool happened. It started to ring.

“Who is it?” my mom asked. But the way she asked the question made it sound like she already knew.

I read the number. “It’s Grandma!”

“How exciting!” my mother said.

And it was exciting. I hadn’t talked to her since she’d fled my life to be with Willy.

Me:
Grandma! Where are you?

Grandma:
We made it through Nebraska. We should be in Minnesota tomorrow.

Me:
That’s a bummer.

Grandma:
It’s not a bummer. Willy and I are having a great time!

Me:
Oh. (pause) I miss you.

Grandma:
I miss you, too, doll. And I want you to have a great day at school. I bet you’ll make a thousand friends.

Me:
That’s unlikely, because my school doesn’t even have a thousand people in it.

Grandma:
I was speaking hyperbolically.

Me:
Hyper what?

Grandma:
Maybe you should look it up in your pocket dictionary.

Me:
Okay.

So I slipped off my backpack and unzipped it and pulled out my pink pocket dictionary.

Me:
My dictionary doesn’t have that word. How do you spell it?

Mom:
Is Grandma playing a spelling game with you? I don’t think you have time for that.

Me:
But I need to know what
hyperbolically
means or I’ll be distracted all day.

Grandma:
Look up
hyperbole
. H-Y-P-E-R-B-O-L-E.

Me:
A deliberate exaggeration used for effect
. Well, I knew you were exaggerating, I just didn’t know what
hyperbolically
meant.

Grandma:
Now you do.

Me:
When do you enter your first cave?

Mom:
You don’t have time for a conversation. This was supposed to be a pep talk.

Me:
Excuse me, Mom, but Grandma is still pepping me.

Grandma:
It sounds like you have to go, Bessica.

But I was having a pretty good conversation, and I wasn’t totally ready to leave my house and get on a school bus and go to middle school and face all those hazards. I probably would have felt differently if Sylvie was on my bus. But that wasn’t going to be my reality.

Then my mom took away the phone.

Mom:
She’s going to miss the bus. Can she call you after school?

Then my mother looked at me. “Put on your backpack. You might need to run.”

I put on my backpack, but I didn’t think I wanted to run. Because everybody on my bus would see me doing that. And I hadn’t practiced running in my backpack; I’d only practiced standing in front of my mirror. What if I looked stupid?

“Are you still talking to Grandma?” I asked, pointing to my phone.

My mom snapped my phone closed. “She’ll call you later.”

Instead of handing me my phone, she set it on the mail-sorting table by the front door. Then I felt my mom pushing on my shoulder. “The bus!”

“Don’t shove me,” I said. “I’m top-heavy. I’ll tip.”

“But you don’t want to miss it!” my mom said.

I didn’t know whether that was a true statement. My mom gave me another push and I guess her panic was contagious, because I hurried out the door and took off running like a crazy person. But I didn’t run very far. Because it was too late. The bus had already passed my house.

My mom walked outside and stood beneath our porch light and stared at me.

“I just missed the bus,” I said.

“Let me tell Dad that I’m driving you.”

So on the first day, my mom drove me to school. But as she cruised down the road, I became very worried about something. Would my mother driving me to school make me look like a baby? Or a wimp? Or a dweeb? Or some sort of baby-wimp-dweeb combo? I didn’t want that.

“Do you want me to drop you near the T?” she asked.

It was like my mom and I weren’t even on the same team anymore. Why would I want that? “No!” I yelled.

My mother glanced over at me with a very confused expression.

My stomach flipped over and over. I still felt two ways about school. I wanted to go to school worse than anything. And worse than anything, I didn’t want to go to school. I sort of wanted my mom to keep driving. Maybe all the way to Canada. Then it happened! I could
see the school. And I didn’t want to see the school. Then I could see the kids outside the school. Then I could see the T!

I began to breathe very fast as my mother passed a school bus. It looked crowded. I could see people laughing behind the rectangle windows. This was not good. I’d really blown it. Because the bus ride might have been an excellent friendship-building opportunity, whereas having your mother drop you off near the T could get you killed.

“You can let me out here,” I said.

But my mom was still driving thirty miles per hour.

“Don’t take me to the T,” I begged.

“Okay. I’ll pull into the drive,” she said.

But when I looked at the drive, it was lined with buses. And there was a Bus Only sign at the top of the drive.

“It’s Bus Only!” I said. “Don’t park here!” I didn’t want my mom parking in the wrong place so everybody would stare at me when I got out of the car.

But my mother stopped the car.

“I’m sure they don’t mind,” she said. “It’s your first day.”

I felt my mom leaning toward me. I looked at her and saw a pair of puckered lips closing in on me. “Mom!” I said. “You can’t kiss me in front of the whole school.” I pointed out my window at the school.

“Okay. Bye.” She pulled back and waved.

“Bye,” I said. Then I swallowed hard and hurried out of the car. I hustled across the lawn in the darkness; my backpack really slowed me down. For the next year, until the new school was built, day classes would start at six-thirty in the morning. I didn’t know how I was going to survive. Sylvie’s classes didn’t start until one o’clock in the afternoon. But she didn’t get out of school until it was almost night. I was halfway to the building when I heard something I didn’t want to hear.

“Look at that sixth grader run!” a boy yelled.

And I realized he might have been talking about me, so I slowed down. But he said something else.

“Now she doesn’t want to run anymore,” the boy said. “Too bad. She was funny to watch.”

And then I heard people laughing and it cut through me. I didn’t want people laughing at me. That was not why I’d come to middle school. And that was when it hit me! I was being teased. I had seen on a talk show once that if you didn’t stand up to the person who was teasing you right away, you would be teased until you moved away. And both my parents liked their jobs and we didn’t have any plans to move. So I needed to stand up for myself. I turned toward the teaser and acted like I wasn’t afraid. Even though I was.

“Sometimes I run. Sometimes I walk,” I said. “It’s a free country.”

And then he did this awful thing where he walked toward me and he said in a fake girl voice, “Sometimes I run and sometimes I walk. It’s a free country.” Then he made a growling noise for no reason at all.

I wanted him to stop. Because I hadn’t come to middle school to get growled at either. I’d come to middle school to take six classes and possibly become a cheerleader and chorus member and join other exciting groups and make a bunch of friends.

But the teaser kept growling at me. And then I realized I wasn’t standing where most of the other kids were standing. Somehow I’d drifted and I wasn’t anywhere near the front door of the school. I was off to the side. I’d been lured to the T! I looked around in horror. That was when I saw the red marks on the ground. They could have been paint, but to me they looked like dried puddles of blood. I felt very afraid. I breathed so quickly that I thought I was going to suck in too much air and make my lungs pop like balloons.

The boy walked closer to me.

And instead of walking away or saying something more to stand up for myself, I yelled, “It’s the T!”

Apparently, school staff were aware of the T’s reputation, because a teacher named Mrs. Hackett appeared out of nowhere. And she started yelling at the teaser and his two friends.

“Who’s causing problems?” Mrs. Hackett asked. Then she glared at them. And then she looked at me.

Then I figured that growling was basically the same thing as causing problems, so I pointed at the boy who’d done that.

She put her hand on my shoulder and it looked a lot like a man’s hand. It had hair on it and everything. And then I noticed that Mrs. Hackett had goggles dangling around her neck. Also, she smelled like diesel fuel. I looked up at her and then back at the jerk-boys. I kept pointing at the growler—a tall, thin blond kid who was wearing baggy jeans.

“We were just talking!” the boy said.