Chapter 3

As the days grew shorter and November turned into December, Carrie did leave.  She didn’t say goodbye to anyone, there was no warning, she was just there one day and then she was gone. People whispered about why she’d left, mostly grand unrealistic theories.  The seventh grade class was suddenly one person smaller. Tanya realized her position was growing unsteady as the days went on. Alexa assumed the role of the leader easily, and after everyone had eaten, she’d lead walks around the campus for the rest of lunch. Tanya could have participated, but she hated the idea of following Alexa around like a puppy. She refused to give her the satisfaction. Nothing had happened yet, but Tanya could feel the tension between her and Alexa boiling underneath the surface. She honestly just wanted to be left alone.

One cold Wednesday morning, Tanya’s class, still wearing their movement clothes in preparation for their yoga class later, filed into the Humanities Room. The room was painted a fire engine red, with flags lining the walls. The tables, a matching red, had been pushed against the walls to clear a space in the center of the room. The students sat down in a circle on the scratchy gray carpet and stared off in different directions. Thus began their most awkward class of the week: Self-Science. The class itself wasn’t a bad concept�"just poorly executed and received. The art teacher, Hilary, pulled out her composition notebook and sat down next to Milton, their official Self-Science teacher. Hilary was just there to take notes on everything that was said every week. Milton crossed his Birkenstock-clad feet and stretched his long legs out in front of him. He tied up his dreads with a strip of leather and then clapped his hands.

“Alright!” He exclaimed. “Who wants to start us off?”

When no one raised their hands, he pointed at Kathy and nodded. “Go.”

This was how they always started. They would say something good that had happened or will happen to them that week, and then something bad. Then after each person had gone, people would raise their hands if they wanted to ask someone a question about their “status of the week”. Then Hilary would ask if there were any issues people wanted to address, and they’d spend the rest of the time discussing those issues.

Kathy shrugged. She smiled animatedly. “This week we got a new cat! And I forgot my homework yesterday.”

Then Mandy went, and so on down the line. Each person would say variations of the same thing, except for Dawn. When it was Dawn’s turn, Dawn stared off into space angrily and rigidly set his elbow on her knee. He bent his head and rested his forehead on his closed fist. “This week, there is nothing good. My parents said we’re going to move.” He choked out.

Immediately Hilary and Milton’s eyes widened in shock and horror.

“Nothing good!” Hilary exclaimed. “Surely that can’t be true! There must be something! Think Dawn, anything can be good. A piece of candy, your favorite TV show, something!” Hilary insisted, her long black hair coming out of its bun each time she nodded her head.

Dawn shook his head violently. “There. Is. Nothing.” He spat.

Dawn was perhaps the only other student who was just as angry as Tanya was, but his anger was more violent and unsettling. Dawn was transgender, had been born a boy trapped in the body of a girl. The other students tried to be as supportive as possible, but it was difficult when Dawn was constantly so enraged. The smallest things set him off, whether it was Alexa accidentally using the wrong pronoun, or a teacher touching his shoulder. The school wasn’t unsympathetic, but it was more bewildered by the volatile student, not knowing what to make of him.

Hilary opened her mouth to say something, but wisely closed it and let the matter drop.

Then it was Tanya’s turn. “Umm…” She mumbled. “I got to see a movie yesterday and I got a Blue Slip on Monday.”

Then came the questions. Most of them were innocuous, like “What’s your cat’s name?” or “What movie?” but Sally, best known for being a younger version of Mother Teresa, had to ask Dawn what was wrong.

Dawn didn’t raise his head once, except when Milton got his pronouns wrong. Then Dawn simply shot daggers at him with his eyes. Tanya was bored. Self-Science bored her, so she usually tuned it out until the Issues were brought up.

Hilary looked around finally. “So, are there any issues today?”

A few hands were raised hesitantly. Mateo, Wally, and Alexa. Tanya was surprised. What on earth would they have issues about?

Mateo went first. Mateo was a twitchy, small boy with thick bottle lensed glasses. He worshipped the ground Sally walked on.

“I uh, I need, uh, help with my Blue Slips.” He stuttered nervously, picking at the blue rubber coming off his slippers.

Tanya shook her head. Boring. As usual. While her classmates offered him redundant advice about organization and assignments, she amused herself by stabbing at the carpet threads with a bent paperclip lying on the floor.

She was jolted out of her daydreams when it was Wally’s turn. Wally was leaning against the wall, sprawled lazily out on the carpet. Wally was the tallest boy in the class, gangly and skinny. His dark brown curls framed his wide face, and while he wasn’t cute by conventional terms, he was the most normal looking guy in their class, making him the biggest jerk. Tanya loathed him more than anyone else. The feeling was mutual.

“I’ve been getting weird emails lately,” His small green eyes flicked around. “from this anonymous account, called advice4u. It’s a gmail account.”

Hilary was scribbling furiously now, trying to get down everything he was saying.

“It’s weird, they’re saying they know things about me, and stuff that I’ve been doing. Which makes me think that it’s someone at this school.”

Hilary looked up. “Actually, that’s quite interesting, a couple of 8^th graders mentioned getting similar emails from that account. What exactly has this person been writing to you about?”

Wally shrugged. “Gossip I guess. Nothing bad, it’s just creepy.”

Alexa chimed in. “I’ve been getting emails too. It’s really weird.”

Milton looked around. “Has anyone else been getting emails like this?” He asked. Everyone looked around. No one else came forward.

After class was over, everyone was still talking about the mysterious emails.

“I wonder who it is?” Alexa stated loudly as she walked down the steps to the Movement Room, followed by Tanya and Rachael.

Tanya hadn’t received any emails from this person whoever they were. Tanya just assumed she wasn’t interesting or popular enough to be targeted, so she shrugged it off. But she could tell Alexa loved the attention from Kathy and Mandy, who had been asking her questions nonstop about it.

“Did they threaten you?” Kathy asked. “Are they mean?”

“What did they say exactly?” Mandy asked. “How many emails did you get?”

Alexa smiled mysteriously, reveling in her sudden fame. “I’ll tell you guys all about it during lunch.”

There was a mad dash once everyone was inside the Movement Room for the wicker basket in the corner. It barely held all the yoga mats stuffed inside it. No one wanted to get stuck with the thin as paper mats that would leave them bruised and achey after their hour long class.

Sam brandished his rolled up mat like a sword and swung it at Kathy, yelling “En Garde!” as he chased her around the room. Sam was monkey-faced with round glasses that rested on the tip of his nose. He served Wally as a glorified lackey, and according to Kathy, has been madly in love with her since he announced it in the middle of their 2^nd grade class in elementary school. He continued chasing her while Wally proceeded to do the same with his mat, but instead of chasing, he hit people with it. He bopped Mateo on the head and then wacked Tanya’s shoulder. He grinned at her smugly, daring her to challenge him. She slapped a bored expression onto her face and turned away. She wouldn’t sink to his level. Instead of leaving her alone, he hit her again, harder this time, on her butt. The blood rushed to her ears and she clenched her fists.

She turned around. “Why did you do that?” She growled.

“I’m just having some fun.” Wally smirked, and drew his mat back behind his head as he prepared to hit her again.

Before he could, she grabbed her blue mat and swung at him, catching him in the face.

“Ow.” He scowled. “Why are you so angry all the time, geez.” He walked away.

Tanya huffed in disdain. She hated it when guys did that: doing things with such brevity that it left her feeling uncertain and confused about what had actually happened. He had started it, right? She wasn’t so sure. Had he really been mad? Or was he just joking? She caught herself wondering, again, why he seemed to hate her so much.

She caught her reflection in the mirrored wall across from her. The Movement Room was made to look like a dance studio, which was useful during their weekly dance classes. Tanya pouted at her reflection. She was short, with an awkwardly chubby body that had changed from skinny to flabby in a matter of months. She was angry that it had changed so drastically, out of her control. She knew it had something to do with her tendency to eat her feelings, but that hadn’t been a problem in the past. The only feature she liked about herself now was her hair, which was wildly wavy and a riot of different autumn shaded colors.

Tanya was much happier last year, in sixth grade. She was naïve, but happy. She’d thought Wally was really cute, and really funny. She had never legitimately liked a boy before, so she hadn’t been sure how to proceed. It was Alexa, whom Tanya had actually been friends with, who encouraged her to ask him out.  What a mistake that had been.

 

Her attention shifted away from her thoughts to her yoga instructor, Rocky, who had just arrived, and was telling everyone to set up somewhere around the room.

Tanya rolled her mat out by the window, as far away from the mirror as possible.

She started following Rocky along with everyone else, focusing on the different poses, and trying to forget about her humiliation last year. Which was easier said than done. Her face turned red again, which much to her dismay, meant that she was about to start crying. She tried to push her feelings down like she always did before anyone noticed.

Too late, Kathy had seen her. “Are you okay?” She whispered, as she transitioned between Downward Facing Dog to Salutations to the Sun.

Tanya breathed slowly, calmly. “I’m fine.” She stated simply.

 

Tanya had asked Wally out in an email, towards the end of sixth grade. She’d sent it off, barely containing her excitement. Then she’d been terrified. What if he said no? What if he never even got it in the first place? She methodically hit the refresh button on her inbox every 5 seconds for the next two hours. She was in the library with Carrie at the time, studying for their upcoming Japanese final exam. But instead of concentrating on memorizing a list of kanji, she’d kept her eyes glued on her inbox. She grew more and more neurotic as the minutes passed, agonizingly slowly. Finally, he responded. It was simple, but sweet. She leapt out of her chair for joy, causing a racket and getting her and Carrie kicked out by the librarian. But she hadn’t cared. He’d said “yes.”

 

Tanya walked out of Movement Class, ready to change out of the horribly ugly school-issued movement clothes they were all forced to wear. She grabbed her bag from her hook and hit the Girls’ bathroom.  It was only about a quarter of the size of one of their classrooms, with only 2 stalls. The girls were so used to changing in front of each other by now, none of them really cared enough to take one of the stalls. There was only one mirror in the whole place, a cheap $10 mirror hung from hooks on one of the stall doors. Tanya looked at that mirror sometimes and felt superficially proud. Before she had fought Stanley to get it there, there didn’t used to be a mirror in the Girls’ bathroom. One Olympus’s philosophies focused on inner beauty instead the exterior. That was fine and well said, but Tanya felt that keeping mirrors out of their bathrooms was just ridiculous. They were girls. Girls need mirrors. Tanya was one of the few girls to sometimes wear makeup, much to her teachers chagrin. When she complained to Stanley, he told her to make a petition, which she did. When she presented him with one signed by all the girls in the school and even a few boys, he then made her jump through several more hoops before he finally relented and bought them a mirror. It was a small victory, but a victory nonetheless.

Tanya reapplied her smudged eyeliner after finishing getting dressed. She ruffled her hair, and sighed, deciding there was just nothing more she could do, and walked out. The instant she did, she was attacked by a cloud of strong, sweet smelling spray. It filled her nostrils and mouth with its pungent odor and she coughed, trying to breathe in oxygen instead of these noxious fumes. She heard Rachael walk up behind her and have the same reaction. Tanya clutched her throat and turned to the Boy’s bathroom across from her. Wally and Sam were standing there, holding bottles of Axe spray deodorant over their heads, spraying them with it. They cackled as soon as they saw Tanya’s expression.

“A******s.” She choked out before fleeing from the smell.

She walked out onto the back patio and breathed in the fresh air gratefully.

She walked over to her hook and placed her bag there gently. She loitered outside, knowing she needed to go back in for their next class, but she just didn’t have the will to move. And it was so peaceful out here, with everyone else gone. Even though it was cold, the sky was a brilliant blue, and the hill behind her was sprinkled with a soft layer of new green grass, growing after the several rain-storms they’d had recently. She liked being alone with her thoughts sometimes. It happened so rarely nowadays. She sat down on the hill and closed her eyes and smiled. The sliding glass doors slammed and Rachael walked outside, interrupting her peaceful reverie.

“Blehhh.” Rachael spat. “Ughh I can still taste that Axe.” She gagged, and waddled over to where Tanya was sitting. She knotted the scarf she had wrapped around her head and hung her backpack on her hook. She turned to look at Tanya.

“Wally is such a jerk sometimes.” She put her pudgy fists on her hips. “I can’t believe you ever liked him.”

“Yeah.” Tanya sighed. “Me neither.”

 

Wally had said yes! Tanya was so excited after reading his response that she gushed the news to Alexa the next morning. Alexa had celebrated with her, and when they were supposed to sit down for their morning meditation, Alexa told Tanya to sit next to him. Tanya blushed and waved Alexa off. She had to be cool, she reminded herself. She’d spent that morning happy, but not knowing what to say to Wally. This had never happened to her before! During Humanities class, Wally had passed her a note:

“Meet me by the water fountain in 5 minutes.” Was all it said.

She was nervous, but she went and met him there.

“What’s up?” She asked, smiling.

“Um, look,” He paused, turning the water fountain knob on and off. “I don’t think we should go out anymore.”

“Oh.” Her face fell. “Can I ask why?”

“Because.” Was all he said. He turned away and left.

Her lips quivered. She had woken up so happy that morning, and now she just wanted to crawl in a hole and die. She took a couple deep breaths and then went back to class.

She ignored the grin on Wally’s face as he laughed with Sam, as if she’d just walked in on their private joke. Wally scribbled something on a scrap of paper and threw it at her. She picked it up, hopefully. Maybe he was sorry, maybe he’d changed his mind. She unfolded it, and felt tears well up in the corners of her eyes, threatening to spill over at any moment. The note said: “Because. Because you’re so fat you make Free Willy look like a tic tac!” Tanya dropped the paper. While her teacher droned on about the American Revolution, she put her head on her desk and cried silently.