September 28, 2005

• Middle School: A Tragedy

  
  

  Part 1

  
  

   

  
  

  Andrea lived in an attic.  She had the entire fourth level of her family’s house all to her self and you could tell by the way she decorated the place that she was proud of it. Enormous Backstreet Boys, Eminem, Britney Spears posters were plastered over every spare inch of wall, watching Andrea’s visitors with a keen interest and they inevitably tripped over some sparkly article of clothing that littered her possibly carpeted floor.  The television was always on, either making static noises or blasting the theme song to Lizzie McGuire.  On special occasions, a rotting apple core or two might have been found behind that television, accompanied by a graveyard of crushed soda cans.

  
  

   

  
  

  We spent hours in that room.

  
  

   

  
  

  To be honest, I couldn’t accurately tell you what it was we did every weekend in the fourth floor of that Hanselman household.  I remember episodes of Boy Meets World.  I remember using AOL instant messenger for the first time.  I recall failed attempts at resurrecting my deceased house pets from the dead.  A flash of the past here, a photograph or two there.  Nothing really all that vivid, though.  Out of all those days I spent in that room, only one memory stands prominent in my mind. 

  
  

   

  
  

  “Andrea,” I said as I plopped down next to her on her unmade bed, “I think we should make a pact.”

  
  

   

  
  

  “Okay…for what?” Whenever Andrea asked a question, not only would it show in her voice, but in her face as well.  Her thick, black eyebrows furrowed into an arch above her penetrating stare, her thin lips pressed together, waiting eagerly for an answer.  All she may have asked you was a mere “How was your day?” and you’d still get that same look of uncomfortable anticipation on her face.

  
  

   

  
  

  “I know this is going to sound cheesy and cliché and all that,” I said, half-smiling, half wishing I hadn’t brought it up in the first place, “But this year sucked.  It was THE worst year of my life.  I would rather eat a handful of live cockroaches then re-live the sixth grade.”

  
  

   

  
  

  Andrea rolled her eyes.  She had been hearing this rant since the first day of school.

  
  

   

  
  

  “But, you know, we have three months of the year left,” I continued, “And I am just so sick, so tired of being invisible among so many other people.  I mean, we have no classes together, you’re moving to North Carolina in June, and I can’t stand wasting my life like this,” I stood up on her bed for dramatic effect, “You’re leaving.  And when that happens, I’ll pretty much have nothing left here.  And I’m not here to impress anyone.  The only thing keeping me even the slightest bit sane here is you.  So I say we make these last three months the best we can make them.  And the pact?  All I’m asking is to make a pact that formally acknowledges that fact that, from here on out, we are going to do whatever the hell we want.”

  
  

   

  
  

  And with that, Ange smiled.  “Deal,” she gushed as we shook hands in a business-like fashion.

  
  

   

  
  

  Needless to say, it only took about one week for our entire grade to officially recognize Andrea and me as The Clairvoyant, Maniacal Hippie Duo. 

  
  

   

  
  

   

  
  

  

  
  

   

  
  

   

  
  

   

  
  

  Out of all the common interests Andrea and I shared, our most favorite topic of discussion was always the supernatural.  Following a little after the supernatural was our interest in mental illnesses, which was pretty much tied with our love for hippies and anything else that represented the late sixties and early seventies.  Therefore, while most children, when urged to do ‘whatever the hell they wanted’ played paintball and tied each other to the trunks of trees, Andrea and I lit mushroom shaped candles while listening to The Beatles and trying to communicate with her deceased grandfather.  It was our idea of having a genuinely good time.  And although we performed such acts prior to our pact, we did them even more so after it was made.  With a goal based entirely on enjoying what was left of our time together, Andrea and I took our hobbies to school. And successfully managed to scare the living shit out of every one of our peers. 

  
  

   

  
  

  Collectively, the two of us probably had enough brightly colored tie-dyed pants and tunics to cause a room full of epileptics to break out into a month’s worth of twitchy seizures.  We wore glittery platform shoes that let off an echo-y thud sound whenever we took a step.  We let our long hair hang in our faces, looking like a parted curtain whenever we put on our abnormally large, blue-tinted sunglasses.  Looking back, we were nothing short of pseudo-psychedelic trash.  At the time, however, we thought we looked edgy and creative.

  
  

   

  
  

  “Andrea and Daryl,” our classmates would say in awe as we thudded through the hallway, staring down anyone who dared invade our path, “They see dead people.”

  
  

   

  
  

  Everything we said began to have a deeper significance.  Because we were obviously clairvoyant, our peers believed that the only times Andrea and I ever spoke was when we were predicting an upcoming turmoil or sensed the presence of some intangible being. 

  
  

   

  
  

  “It’s cold in here.  That must mean John Lennon is in the room,” we would whisper to a few fascinated classmates, “Also, you’re all going to die.”

  
  

   

  
  

  After a month of palmistry, bell bottoms, and rooms permeated with the smell of incense, the sixth grade began to suspect that Andrea and I were, dare I say it, frauds. I’m not entirely sure how this happened.  Some say it was because our predictions were always exceedingly vague and obvious.  Others believe it was because we purchased our clothes from Limited Too, rather than the exclusive thrift store we claimed to visit. Then there was always that silly rumor that went around, stating that I told Lucy I had seen her dead uncle hanging from invisible gallows in the playground.

  
  

   

  
  

   “Oh, you mean Uncle Charlie?” she asked.

  
  

   

  
  

  “Yeah, that’s his name.  Old guy, but not so old that he had to die,” I said solemnly.

  
  

   

  
  

  “I guess that would make sense,” she said rather insincerely, “If it weren’t for the fact that my Uncle Charlie is fourteen years old and goes to our school.”

  
  

   

  
  

  By the middle of May, Andrea and I were almost entirely shunned from the rest of the grade.  No one talked to us at lunch.  No one invited us to their birthday parties.  “Predict this, tards!” the occasional asshole might say as he kicked at our platform shoes, causing us to collapse in the middle of the hallway.

  
  

   

  
  

  Confined to no one but each other, Andrea and I spent the second to last week of our time together in her room, contemplating the possibilities.  We could a) legally change our names to Harold and Stephanie and run away to New York, b) further emphasize our activist qualities and start a petition demanding the banning of plastic flamingos in the United States, or c) go back to school and try to make amends with our peers.  Naturally, the best choice was completely obvious.

  
  

   

  
  

  We got started on the petition the next day.

  
  

   

  
  

  I made up a logical explanation as to why plastic flamingos should cease from existing.  To make a long rant short, if a real flamingo were to see a plastic flamingo on one’s yard, the real flamingo would try talking to the stationary replica of his species.  When the plastic won’t respond, the real flamingo would feel rejected and proceed to committing a terrible and painful suicide.  Needless to say, by three o’ clock that afternoon, we had collected seventy-five signatures, mainly from old prunes that just wanted us off their lawn.  We sent the petition to the president a little while later.  And, you know, he still never called me back.

  
  

   

  
  

  After a day’s worth of tearful goodbyes, Andrea and her family moved out.  It was not until I arrived at school the next day that I realized I was just about completely alone in the world.  With not an acquaintance in sight, not a single ounce of support from a fellow classmate, I breathed through the rest of sixth grade the way any mildly psychotic introvert in tie dyed bell-bottoms would:  I wrote poetry. 

  
  

   

  
  

  “Screw this,” I said upon realizing I sucked at writing poetry and proceeded to apply to an all-girls’ school forty five minutes away. 

  
  

   

  
  

  I still can’t recall what type of drugs I was on when I first considered switching to Springside School for Girls.  I’m thinking crystal meth, however, it might have just been the longing for adventure my character possessed those three years ago.  However, it seems as you get older and physically grow up, that whole theory of inertia continues to come into play.  You mature, you get taller, you add on the years, and all of a sudden it’s ten times harder to just drop everything and heave that fat ass of yours off the ground and into a new environment.  When you’re younger, you just don’t have as much to lose, you don’t have as much to carry with you.  According to our good friend Sir Isaac Newton, an object at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside force.  And, um, hate to break it to you buddy, but I made the Springside decision all on my own, without peer pressure, without parental guidance, without the need to reference incredibly boring theories worshipped in Physics class in order to further emphasize my point. I might have defied the laws of science as we know it.  Either that or I’m secretly a Furby.

  
  

   

  
  

  (to be continued)

  • 7:08 pm
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