The Flyer

MISUNDERSTOOD 01

"Nik!" the little girl shouted happily.

"Hey, kiddo!"

"I'm less than two years younger than you," she pouted.

"Yes, of course you are. Therefore, you're still a kid," the boy said kindly, ruffling up her hair. "Take Natasha and go home. I'll follow soon. Don't forget to cross the street carefully, okay?"

"Okay!"

The little girl grabbed her little sister's hand, ran out of the park, and went home. She didn't know that that scene she had just experienced would resemble the majority of her childhood-- no parent-figure except her older brother. It was a lonely life for her-- a life she's gotten used to.

A few years later, the same girl, now ten years old, entered fifth grade on her own. She was tall for her age and really thin. The teachers looked at her with pity while others looked at her with suspicion. A child as lonely as that must have terrible people as parents, they thought.

"Good morning, class," the young woman who was a new teacher for that year, greeted softly but firmly. "I'm Miss Baek, your homeroom teacher. I hope you take care of me!"

"Wow!"

"We will, teach!"

"Miss Baek, you're so pretty!"

"Where are you from?"

A commotion erupted. The kids were excited that their teacher seemed kind and capable, but at the corner was a girl with a frown on her face. The little girl didn't like the noise, so she couldn't help it and she didn't think much of it, but her classmates thought she was being mean to the teacher.

"Hey! What's your problem?"

The little girl looked curiously at the person questioning her. "What do you mean?"

"You look like you hate teacher."

"No, I don't!" She shook her head. "I just got bothered by the sudden commotion, that's all."

"Yeah, he's right. Why are you being mean to teacher? Aren't you the one who got one of the teachers fired last year?"

"Stop being a brat!"

"Just because your dad's rich doesn't mean you can bully other people and make teachers lose their jobs, you know?"

"Who knows? Maybe she's racist? Wasn't the teacher last year an immigrant or something?"

Huh? she thought. I just said...

"Children," the Miss Baek called out sternly. "Don't make assumptions like that. She already said it was because of the commotion."

The children fell silent and behaved in their seats, and the teacher looked worriedly at the girl. She was silent and staring out the window with a small smile on her face. Her smile was the same from when Miss Baek walked in the room, but her brown eyes were dimmer.

It's children like her Miss Baek entered the teaching world for. Children who get shut down and children who are lonely but hide it. Children who were looked upon with envy or other types of negativity because they seemed to have it better than the others in some way.

Soon enough, it was break time.

"Sweetie, come over here."

The girl put down her pocket book meticulously and went to the teacher with confident strides.

"Miss Baek?" She wasn't scared and looked her teacher in the eyes.

"Do you not have a close group of friends? Or were you a transferee not too long ago?"

The girl smiled brightly. "My friends are in the other class, so they asked me to wait for them every breaktime--"

True enough, a boy and a girl stopped at the doorway. The boy called out her name excited and the girl smiled at her.

"Well, then," Miss Baek smiled sweetly at the three. "You kids enjoy your break time, okay?"

"Yes, Miss Baek."

That was Alex and Kelly ready to walk around the campus with their best friend.

All throughout the rest of elementary, the stigma on the girl swirled, although not strongly, and she found consistent companionship with Alex Prince and Kelly MacNamara

Miss Baek became her after-class guardian. While she waited for her brother, Miss Baek would ask her to stay nearby and would keep a careful eye on her. Thankfully, by middle school, the little girl was someone else.

No longer would anyone truly speak ill of her because there wasn't anything worth saying that would truly make her look bad. She never did care anyway, but she no longer elt that awkward tension of not knowing if someone would turn her away or actually speak to her genuinely.

By high school, though, she seemed to be a completely different person.

And no one minded-- none at all.

Because finally, she wasn't as big of a threat as they thought she would be. A girl with a kindness like that and an attitude like that wouldn't do anything unreasonable. They saw her separate from her past, and she smiled wider than ever, despite a new slough of rumors about her growing and circulating.

Because finally, she felt like a member of society, and she wouldn't trade it for the world.

Her father's wealth finally had barely to no negative effect on the way she was perceived and that's how she wanted it to stay.

Because that's her opportunity to grow as herself.