Practice Makes Perfect

Being a nobody isn't what hurt so bad. The lack of friends, the awkward silences, and the lonely Friday nights I could deal with. The way people people treated me was the real killer. The glares from girls when I bumped into them, the way boys wouldn't take a second look at me, how people would laugh when I tried to talk to them -- a person can only take so much.

I didn't mean to punch Amanda McConnel in the face, it just happened. I was just one more rude comment away from the edge, and she pushed me.

"Did you see that girl's hair?" a girl, who's face -- thanks to her globby make up -- resembled a cake, sneered loudly. "Who in their right mind would dye it such a bright red?"

"Maybe she isn't in her right mind," spat  Amanda, tossing her blonde hair as she stopped to look at me in the eye. "She's a freak!"

And my right fist just managed to find its way to her nose, the latest birthday present from her mom. And the rest is history.

*****

"And your room will be B9, on the second floor, darlin'," sqeaked a plump women with a heavy southern accent. "The students are still in classes, but you'll begin in the morning." I thanked the secretary and headed up to my dorm.

So punching a girl and breaking her nose, I'll admit it, is bad. Bad was it really bad enough to send me to Tulane Academy For Troubled Youth? My parents thought so. Once civil rights activists in the seventies, they had a strict no violence rule. And punching a girl in face seemed to break that.

I climbed the staircase and reached my room, jiggling the key to get in. When I opened the door, a musty odor fille my nose. I examined the dorm, a homely room that was nothing more than a large broom closet. A lone window and a flickering light gave barely enough light to see the shadows of three twin beds, all shoved into their respective corners with a small set of drawers tucked beside them.

"Home sweet home," I mumbled and set my luggage on the only empty bed. I had an hour before my roomates, two sophomore girls, would be back. That was just enough time to create a new me, a different me -- one that wasn't a total nobody.