Beyond the Stars

Change of Plans

JADE

My name is Jade Ray, and my life was just miserable.

There are several reasons why I say this, most of which will be clear to you in a while.

If you asked someone to describe me in a word, they'd probably use any of these – nerd, dweeb, or geek. Maybe backed by some unprintable insult.

But that's not who I really am. I was just an ordinary thirteen year old who thought too much. And skipped two grades.

Many people thought something was seriously wrong with me. I had a tough time just getting around. So it didn't help one bit when my parents were killed in a car crash and I had to live with my grandmother who was, without overstating or sentimentalising, eccentric.

Yeah, it might sound a little harsh the way I say it, but my parents were scientists, and never had much time for me anyway. But their death hurt me a lot more than I had anticipated. That reality was relieving, and troubling at the same time, somehow. As for living with my grandmother instead, that was harder. She ignored me for most of the while, but she was fussy at the wrong time.

It was funny I shouldn't like Gran. She was the basic sweet-old granny, and my mother even used to say I looked like her, when she was younger. Huh. As if that made sense. We were as far apart as I thought possible.

Well, maybe it had some amount of truth – I was pretty small, like her. And we had the same blue eyes. Other than that, no. It always occurred to me that I looked a little outlandish, with caramel skin, blue eyes, dead-straight dark hair and angled eyebrows. Elfish.

Ha ha. The geeky elf.

Things approximately started going wrong the day I thought things were going to be normal again.

That morning, Stacey Mahoney, the girl who had tried to talk to me a week before, sat two rows across my seat.

Don't get me wrong, this was normal. I am so not the kind of person who frets and sobs and sends embarrassing mail to goofy slicks for finding a cure for unpopularity. Being unpopular is second nature for me.

At lunch, I was alone at a table. The other kids stared at me like I had a neon sign flashing above my head, screaming UNCOOL! Normal.

I thought the last period was going to be the same story too.

Every word uttered by the teacher sounded empty and parted around me like mist. That didn't bother me much. I knew what the teacher was supposed to be saying already.

I decided to switch to doodling on my notebook.

Okay, think of something funny. Think of how much Mr. Anson resembles an overgrown house fly with his stupid round glasses.

I diverted my frustration to the drawing. I knew very well that Mr. Anson would be mad. Well, how bad could it get? The fly was so distorted it didn't even resemble him anymore.

I analysed my artwork. I made the antennas longer and gave my fly extra long eyelashes. I was pleased with the entire grotesqueness of it. It was good enough to gross out some of the giggly girls in my class.

'What exactly are you doing Ms. Ray?' a sharp voice woke me up. I was suddenly facing Mr. Anson.

I smiled dreamily, turning the page surreptitiously so the mutated housefly won't fall under the teacher's radar gaze.