The Turnaround


If there were windows in Mrs. Prices Home Ec classroom, you can bet her students would look longingly at the outside world. People who passed by her classroom always wondered why the students looked so forlorn and confused, youd think theyd be excited to get to eat in class. But it wasnt the food that irked them, it was who they had to prepare the food with. When putting students into kitchen groups, Mrs. Price stepped over social boundary lines and casually grouped preps with nerds and jocks with pagans like there was nothing wrong about it. People never knew what went on in Home Ec because the students were never willing to volunteer details. If word got around that theyd been associating outside their social ranks, the whole system would go ballistic.

The situation was no different for Ryne Detweiler, the school quarterback. He'd chosen Home Ec because it was a simple class, but now as he looked around the circular orange table at his group mates-a satanic, a nerd, and a retard-he realized that this wasnt going to be simple at all. Mrs. Price had just finished writing the recipe for brownies on the chalkboard, and she signaled for the class to get started. After more than a moments hesitation, the students reluctantly got up and trudged to their kitchens like prisoners marching to death row. Ryne glanced at the recipe, then at his dysfunctional group. He needed a decent grade in this class to stay on the football team, and these losers were not going to ruin it for him.

"Alright, he demanded in his game voice, I need one of you to get the ingredients, one of you to mix them, and one of you to do the dishes. Ill put them in the oven when theyre ready."

Rynes group members looked at each other, not sure what the others wanted to do and too proud to ask. Ryne shifted his weight and cleared his throat; he knew the effects of him taking charge would be negative, but getting no feedback at all was something he wasnt prepared for.

"Let me rephrase that. Nerd, go measure the stuff; Retard, you mix the stuff Nerd gives you in a large bowl; and Satan, assume your position at the sink."

This approach, as degrading as it was, worked well. After all the brownies were in the oven, there was nothing for the groups to do but sit there and stare at each other. Some stared with envy, some with curiosity, and some with cold hatred. Ryne fell under the cold hatred category. In his group were the kinds of people who booed the pep assemblies, slept during the games, and looked at his jersey as if it was a hideous growth. His thoughts were disturbed by the oven timer going off, and he took out the brownies and cut them. They turned out fine, even though there wasnt much care put into them. He tossed the cutting knife into the sink and called Mrs. Price over to have a look at them. When she gave his group an A for the day, he all but wet himself. He spun around to announce the good news, but was hushed by the contrast of red blood on white soap suds. The satanic had grabbed the wrong end of the knife when she was washing it. It wasnt the cut itself that bedazzled Ryne, it was the blood that trickled from the girls palm. It was crimson and thin, like his own. He daubed a little on his finger and found nothing different about it. With a smile to the satanic and a farewell nod to the rest of his group, Ryne took his brownies and started off for his next class the smartest football player alive.

Odd Man Out


During the early 80's, my hometown had a baby boom like no other. There was a total of 72 births in those years, and not one child came out with a defect, disease, or imperfection of any kind. You'd think they'd check the drinking water for some kind of chemical, but this was a phenomenon, and everyone was too excited to do any rational thinking. This generation was going to rule the world someday, and it didnt look like anything was going to stop them from being strong, smart, and able. Then, the dawning of a new year came. I was the first baby to be born in that new year, with 1 disorder, 3 diseases, and an inexplicable phobia of clowns. My mom said that after I was born people quietly went back to their old ways, but I imagine they were ready to stone me and hang me from the nearest tree. So it seemed only natural for me to develop the curse of being the odd man out.

Even now, as I stand in the middle of an over-crowded football arena, I am very much alone. The people around me can sense that I'm different from the way I look at and observe them. Not a clumsy move do they make with their filled to the brim cups of concession stand hot chocolate, whereas you can clearly see the stains on my shirt. They don't laugh, being the upstanding young citizens they are, but my eyes see right through their fake smiles of politeness. So what am I doing here when it's apparent I'll stand out? The truth is, I was invited. A feeble attempt by three of my socially elite peers to make me feel like less of an outcast. I say feeble because there's cruel logic behind it. They invited me to the last game of the season so they wouldnt have to worry about inviting me to any more. I might've given them foreign feelings of rejection if I had said no, so here I am. How viciously clever they are, it's obvious they're destined to rule the world. I'm prepared to do their deeds alongside the rest of the mortal population. But as smart as they are, they all overlook one very important fact. My presence causes them to become slightly tense, alert, and unfocused. They have a fear of me, and fear itself is an imperfection.

Kodak Moments

Through the gray curtain of an early morning mist, you see a familiar boy on the concrete, nervous thumbing through some pictures. He has that innocence in his aqua blue eyes that only a child can possess, and its obvious he made little or no effort to comb his hair this morning. His clothes are unusually clean for a childs, which leads you to wonder why hes curled up on the corner when theres so many attractive mud puddles surrounding him.

You turn to walk away and go on with your own mysterious life, but something about the boy wont let you move forward. From the way hes sitting, a position not physically possible under normal circumstances, you can tell something is amiss. Your heart fills with more curiousity than concern, and you advance slowly towards him. He becomes suddenly wary of your presence and remains speechless and motionless until you make the first move. Since kids were never really your specialty, you simply nod and point at the pictures hes holding. With temporary hesitation, he surrenders his secret.

The first two photographs depict a young mother with the same defiant hairdo as the boy. Shes looking adoringly at a strong, tan male with aqua blue eyes, who is grinning proudly at the bouncing baby boy on his knee. Clearly a model family. But as the baby in the pictures moves into toddlerhood with overalls, velcro, and a forever dirty face, the father just seems to disappear altogether. You look down at the boy, whos studying you for a reaction. Having lost your father yourself, you can relate to his shell of pain.

You reach down to pat his shoulder, when the expression on his young face strikes you. Those deeply focused eyes, lightly freckled nose, strong cheekbones, at that moment the boy looked exactly like the father in the pictures. Strange flashbacks of being punished by those same aqua blue eyes and nuzzling that same freckled nose come to you.

Setting the pictures gingerly on the boys lap, you turn and force yourself to leave him. Why tell him? Its clear hes been hurt enough already. Hed probably be too young to understand, anyway.

No wonder he looked familiar.

One Summer

She was always a free spirit. Her classmates were convinced she was a hippie, but they couldn't decide on what exactly she was trying to prove. She had a lack of something in her smile, even though her eyes always knew which direction she should be heading, but nobody ever looked into her eyes, because nobody thought she ever saw anything. And yet, they couldn't help follow her movements as she walked past them. They knew she wasnt afraid, and they wanted to know why, but the need to ask just faded with daily conformity. Nobody was ever sure of her, because it seemed as though she was hiding something. When you hide something, that means you're different. It's bad to be different. They considered themselves above her, because she had secrets. Bad secrets, probably. They themselves had no secrets, really, they didn't...seriously.

One summer, everything changed. She silenced her way through another school year, then faded somewhere into the summer haze, and failed to return in September. Her classmates didn't know where she was. It made them nervous when they couldn't pinpoint her. They wanted to forget her, because she wasn't important. She wasn't important at all. But deep down they knew she left for a reason. They all knew. They had yet to find out what this reason was, and they tried not to be curious. She had occupied the same atmosphere as them for so long, and now something was wrong with it. Something they would very well find out eventually...or too late? It made her leave in a hurry. And with a sense of impending doom they'd never felt before, they wondered if she'd known all along.

The Child and the Socket
(Written for my sophomore english class)

"Can't catch me!" I shrieked as I galloped away from my brother, who was already at my heels. We had been playing one of those games that you make up as you go along, and my brother had decided that now was the time for him to chase me relentlessly around my parent's bedroom. Being the small child I was, I had not quite grasped the fact that he was faster than I was, and before I knew it he had me by the arm. I giggled in defeat, thinking our game was over, but my devilish sibling had other plans.

With an iron grip on my little pink appendage, my brother began to swing me around and around, almost flinging me into my parent's closet. He was trying to mimic the way my father often swung me, but he had forgotten one small detailmy father usually had me by both arms. A sickening "pop" alerted him to his miscalculation before I could, and the next thing I knew I was lying on my parent's bed. Im still not sure whether my brother tossed me there or if I somehow got there myself, but the first thing I saw was my brother crouching in the corner the same way he does when he has done something wrong. I was a little shocked, and a little dizzy, but I felt fine--until I tried to get up. My left arm was trying with all its might to help me up, but my right was not contributing any effort. It felt as though I only had one arm, and when I looked down at it to make sure it was still intact, it didnt look like an arm at all. The skin had become so pale it was almost transparent, and from the way it hung I could tell that it was now longer than the other arm. I could not comprehend why that was so, I just knew that it was as limp as a dead fish, and that was not normal. So, I did what every other child in my situation would do--I cried.

We had just caught Dr. Lehmann on his way out the door, and his son, Andy, gawked at my arm with a curiousity that only a doctors son can have. He was whimpering "Poor girl, poor poor girl," which didnt make me feel better at all. The injury itself had not hurt, it was the fixing of it that made me throb for days. Dr. Lehmann gripped me by the arm in the same fit of strength my brother had shown, and he began twisting it like a corkscrew and jerking it up, trying to find the empty socket. Hoo boy, did I scream like a banshee. After about 10 minutes of searching, my arm was twisted and popped back into place. But although this happened a long time ago, my right arm has not fully recovered yet. When I stretch it or rotate it, it makes that same sickening "pop", threatening to dislocate once more.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Success
(Written for American Lit)

While growing up, almost all of us were taught by example. Our parents made it clear to us that their lives were made successful by extra effort and overtime, and that slacking off fell into the same category as drugs and alcohol. For a while we dedicated ourselves to becoming everything our parents praised and set goals we couldn't possibly comprehend. Then, as sense of self became more evident, the goals were shifted. The ones predicted to become president were soon predicted to stay in juvenile hall until age 21, and the greasy kids with the green mohawks began spitting up common sense from out of nowhere. As we got older, we realized that the people we thought we knew had other intentions, and it made us wonder if who we were then was who we were really meant to be.

I was one of those children taught by example, but my sense of self decided to take the scenic route and arrive later. I have Student of the Month certificates from all four years of middle school and received straight A's during my first two years of high school to prove to my mother that she'd made no mistakes with me. Having an older brother who is the quintessence of lazy, I assumed that it was my responsibility to keep a smile on my mother's sweet face, and I did so by becoming all the perfects--perfect daughter, perfect student, perfect citizen.

Having good grades and a respectable reputation have had their rewards, of course, but lately the disadvantages have been multiplying like geniuses. All of the studying I do has cut my sleep down to four or five hours a night, which has resulted in my dozing in class. I know this is a daily activity for most of my generation, but in this case I choose to defy conformity. When I'm not coaxing my eyes to stay open, I'm warding off the countless numbers of people who come to me with homework like I have all the answers. All the answers. If I really had all the answers, I would have never fallen into this cycle in the first place. My tired mind is screaming for mercy, and my soul trembles like an egg, as if something new is hatching. I'm intent on nurturing whatever is inside of me trying to get out, and in the meantime I will not be perfect. I will just be.