PB Teen

My Name is Amanda and I Am the Most Boring Person You've Ever Met

Amanda Thunderland, high school senior, classmate of the Infamous 4, and St. Xavier Secondary School's resident "misunderstood, writer chick," was no where other than the computer lab on the second floor of the main school building typing an early extra credit paper for AP Bio on that bright April afternoon before classes started again on Monday. She, unlike most of the other couple hundred students that attended that academy, was actually excited for school to begin again. Because to her, that meant she got to do what she did best: be smart and misunderstood.

Misunderstood, not as in that she was emo or perpetually silent, but meaning unpopular. Of course, Amanda had a few friends, but they weren't considered cool, preppy or sexy like many of the other girls there strived to be. They were the nerdly, school-loving kids that didn't get invited to the parties and were altogether not aknowledged by the majority of the students.

Another thing that separated Amanda from the rest of her peers, was the money issue. She was one of very few scholars that were on an academic scholarship to St. Xavier's, and that gave the rich students another reason to hate her. She never gave to much mind to it though, since it was a mutual dissactifcation.

Amanda hadn't asked to be sent to that particular school, but rather she was forced by her inner desire to get perfect grades so that she could fulfill her dreams of being a renowned writer. It would have been easier to go to Lake Worth High and be the smartest one there.

But at St. Xavier's, it was hard to fit in with all the other smart and privledged teens. At least she had competition, she often told herself when she wasn't having a particularly good day. Not that it really helped. Amanda hated it there and couldn't wait until a few months when she would be free of that hellhole for snooty bitches and asswipes and off to the college of her choice which she wasn't really about yet. A libral, artsy school, she was thinking. Like NYU or Columbia, considering of course if she could get in to those schools.

They, of course, could get in. They meaning the bitches and asswipes. Stupid legacies with their free rides to wherever they want. In Amanda's mind, they thought they were just so special that they didn't need to work hard to get in the schools they wanted to go to, but like she did, they did, but it was just a tad easier with all that donation money coming out of their asses. She hated them, and they hated her.

Their queen, Bree didn't even know she existed, and her bitchy friend, Kit avoided her at all costs. Ugh, Kit. They hated each other especially much. Kit just hated her for some unknown reason, and Amanda only returned the feeling. They were also academically at each others throats, both being at the top of their classes, and always trying to be better than the other. When Kit won the Geography Bee, Amanda was in second place. When Amanda won the Brainiac Challenge, Kit tried to sabatoge her by making her trip in front of the whole school by making it look like a mistakes. The things smart people do for success.

She wasn't that type of nerd who did other's homework for pay and always entered in the science fair, but she was rather independent and did not reley on the opinions of other's to help her make decision about her life. Unlike other insecure girls whose names start with S, G and even K.

She was from a family of four, having two younger sisters and a single mom. Amanda lived in a Key West-style bungalow in Lake Worth, a small town not far south of the famous 33480 zipcode. In comparison, Chance's, Kit's, and Bree's island mansions and even Howie's Midtown penthouse could fit about six of Amanda's house in one of their wings. Unlike her classmates, Amanda didn't play tennis on the weekend or have spa days with her girlfriends or even shop on Worth Avenue weekly. Gasp!

She was more proned to spending time in her room listening to Bon Iver softly on her iPod and flipping through plays by Jean-Paul Sartre and purusing the work of poets like Henry David Thoreu and e.e cummings. Amanda also spent a lot of her time watching after her younger siblings since her mom usually worked late at the beach club she where she was employed as a cocktail waitress.

Writing was her life though. Amanda's favorite pastime writing poetry. She could sit for hours in her little room with high ceiling rafters and looked out over the sandunes outside, with a pen and her small writing pad that she used to jot down spur of the moment verse and present ideas she may shape into literary art. Not that she had much in her life to write about. School, maybe? Well, at least that's what someone would think if they didn't really knew her.

Amanda didn't seem like the time of girl to be dangerous, but she was. And in truth, that's what she lived for. Well, that and writing. She had a whole different side of her hidden behind the façade of a quiet smart girl who just happened to specialize in straight A's. Everyone's read Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde, but Amanda perfered Russian period authors to British ones. Psh, tastes, tastes, tastes.

She loved to be mysterious and flirty and had had clandestine beaux and hookups that rivaled her near perfect test scores. She had even done some pot before but she wasn't a druggie, and she attended many a Lake Worth beach kegger without her mommy even knowing.

She didn't consider herself pretty everything she looked at herself in her old bedroom mirror which had a crack in one of the corners and the one that she wrote notes to self down in purple lipstick. But that wasn't exactly the right adjective to describe her looks. That was because Amanda was not wasn't classicly good-looking.

She had long brown hair that varied in tone and lightness from numerous hair dye experiments, and a sallow face that she complemented with her amber-brown eyes and small pink mouth which she often darkened with earthy looking lipstick. She stuck out in comparison to her blonde Bree-wannabe schoolmates, but she couldn't be more happy to.

Her style was something of its own as well. Since she didn't have her own personal bank account to fund shopping expeditions to stores like Valentino, Tory Burch or Emilio Pucci, she spent her clothes money in little boutiques she found in and around her hometown. Instead of wearing Polos and pleaded skirts, Amanda dressed in worn leather jackets and torn, thready tees that looked like the knockoffs in the vintage section at Urban Offiters. But her clothes were the real deal, and she wore them as proudly as Kit would wear a shiny Cartier with studded diamonds. Enough about Amanda though, back to what she was doing at that particular moment.

Amanda was just finishing up her paper when she heard footsteps outside the computer lab. She quickly named the document and wrote her heading before plopping her flash drive into the Dell Computer. She gathered all her papers and books together and flung them into her kidskin messenger bag that her aunt had bought her in New Zealand.

"Amanda? Amanda Thunderlend?" a woman's voice called from hallway outside the computer lab. It was her science teacher, Mrs. Loretto, who was apparently jangling her keys to get Amanda's attention. I'm coming, lady, she was going to say.

"I'll be out in a minute, Mrs. Loretto. I just have to save my work to the flash drive."

"Well hurry it up. I got to lock up here for the night," her teacher groaned, jangling her keys even louder now.

Why? Amanda thought, as she speedwalked out to her old beat up Volkswagon Bug to avoid spilling anything from her stuffed school bag. Why am I doing school work on a Saturday? I really am that boring, aren't I?

And for that moment, her dark side creeped its way out, and a devious smile spread a across her face. She had an idea of a way to spice up her night. Looks like Amanda uses her brain for more than just schoolwork.