"Good morning, class, and welcome to your first day of ninth grade." The teacher was a younger-looking woman with long red hair and rosy cheeks. She was thin and beautiful, and when she smiled her pink grapefruit lips spread across her entire face. "I have such fond memories of my ninth-grade year," she continued while looking each of us directly in the eye. "And I hope you and I will do everything we can to make it just as wonderful for you."
She introduced herself as Miss Campbell and started taking roll. I held my breath when she got to the Ks. Please say my name. Please say my name.
"Michael Karen?"
"Here."
"Brian Jennings."
"Here."
"Samantha Mullen."
"Here."
Mullen? Mullen came after Mitchell alphabetically. My stomach sunk. This was the wrong class. Miss Campbell finished the roll and then asked if there was anyone she hadn't called. I opted not to raise my hand. The announcements and the lunch call came on shortly after. I raised my hand for pepperoni pizza. Miss Campbell then instructed us all to get into a big circle so that she could see everybody's faces better. She brought out a big red, yellow, and white beach ball-that she had already blown up-and threw it to one of the boys across the circle from her.
"Whoever is holding the beach ball is the only person who can talk," Miss Campbell explained. "When you are holding the beach ball, tell us your name and then tell us two things about yourself that are true and one thing that isn't true. As soon as you are done, you place the ball in the middle of the circle, and we silently vote on which was the untruth and which were the truths."
I could tell that Miss Campbell was transferred here from an elementary school. This activity resembled something we would have done in the fourth grade. But I think the whole class agreed that it was much better than the alternative-which was workso we all happily participated. When the ball finally came to me, I squeezed the ball nervously as I spoke.
"When I was seven, I was almost bitten by a rattle snake. Second, I had to get my tonsils out two days before Christmas. And third-"
"Oh, wait!" Miss Campbell interrupted me. As nice as she was, I thought it was rather rude of her to talk when she didn't have the beach ball. I looked at her as I paused midsentence. "You didn't tell us your name. I'm trying to learn everybody's name so I need to hear it as much as possible."
"I thought you weren't supposed to talk without the beach ball," I said in a matter-of-fact tone. The whole class snickered as Ms. Campbell's perfectly gentle face changed to an expression of shock and then irritation.
"I am the teacher; the rules don't apply to me." Her jaw was stiff, and her pursed lips turned a shade of white.
"That doesn't seem very fair," I kept going, not because I was a belligerent person, but because I hoped maybe if she got mad enough she would forget to look my name up on the attendance sheet.
It didn't work. "Give me your name, young lady." Her voice was low, and she spoke slowly.
I was about to reveal my secret when the most evil person in the whole world Jake Jonathan-spoke up before I had the chance.
"Her name is Gemmalynn Judith Mitchell." It was hard to believe that a person so distant, so horrible, so mocking could know something so personal about me as my full name. "And she has a crush on Trace Weston."
I couldn't believe my ears! The whole class erupted in laughter while I waited to wake up from this horrific dream. I stole a quick glance at Trace, who was looking down at his lap. I turned to Ms. Campbell for any retribution, but even she had a slight upward curve in her lips.
I looked back at Jake, who was hunched over laughing, and yelled the only line of defense I could come up with, "You're not supposed to talk! You don't have the ball!"
"Quiet, everyone." Ms. Campbell finally ordered-fifteen seconds too late. As the laughter died down, Ms. Campbell looked back at me. She must have felt some amount of pity toward me because she spoke in a softer, gentler tone.
"Was your name on the roll? I don't remember... " She picked up the folder that was sitting on her lap then skimmed her finger along a piece of paper that I assumed was the roll. All I could do was wait for Miss Campbell to realize that I wasn't really in her class. She kept rubbing her finger over the middle of the page-I assumed the M section-over and over until I was sure she had smudged the ink. "I don't see your name here Gemmalynn." I cringed at my full name and swallowed hard.
"I-I thought I was in this class, but I guess I'm not." Smooth, real smooth. It didn't matter, though; it couldn't get much worse than this.
"Why didn't you raise your hand when I asked if I missed anybody?"
"Uh. Well." I didn't have an answer for her. My lips continued to frantically move up and down.
"I see." Miss Campbell raised her eyebrows. She looked at me as though I was a homeless person trying to sneak into a wedding to steal food. Then another hint of pity swept across her face. "Maybe the roll is wrong. Let's take a look at your class schedule."
Ugh! Not the class schedule! I wanted to freeze time and beg Miss Campbell to just shut up, please! Couldn't we discuss this after class instead of right here in front of everyone?
"Could you go get it for me so I can look at it?" she urged. The rest of the class started getting antsy.
"Urn, it's in my locker," I lied. I justified that it was my one untruth that Miss Campbell had so rudely interrupted. "I'll look at it later. I probably just read it wrong." A few more kids laughed until Miss Campbell shushed them. She obviously didn't think it was funny anymore.
"You really should keep your schedule on you, but I guess you'll just have to look at it closer and let me know tomorrow." She cleared her throat again and asked a few more kids to please be considerate of others-which I found ironic. "Okay, let's get on with the game then. Gemma, if you'll pass the ball on to the next person." I looked at her in shock. She wasn't even going to let me finish my turn? I wanted to stand up and protest. I had every right to continue playing the game! But then I wasn't sure if that was true. I sheepishly handed the ball to my left without saying a word.
The bell rang ten minutes later, and I quietly gathered up my backpack. As I was leaving the class, I heard a familiar male voice snickering, "Hey, Gemma, here's an untruth-Gemma's not a loser!" Of course it was Jake. He and a few other boys hissed some bad words through their teeth, but I didn't turn around. I walked out of the classroom with their sneers stinging the backs of my ears. I walked through the halls toward my locker until I realized I was going to my old locker in the eighth grade hall. This year's locker number would be printed in bold, black ink at the bottom of my class schedule that was still sitting on my desk at home. I didn't know where to go. I couldn't bear to face the embarrassment of going to another wrong class. I walked aimlessly through the foreign ninth grade hall, looking for Clarissa and Nina, but I couldn't see them anywhere. Four minutes later the bell for second period rang, and I was left standing alone. The school had never seemed so huge and unfamiliar. I escaped out a side door before anyone noticed me and found myself on the side of the school where nobody ever goes, near the dumpster. I leaned against the red brick wall and slid my back down it until I was sitting on the gravel pavement. I hugged my knees and tried to think hard about how I was going to survive this day. I thought about running home to get my schedule, but my mom was sure to be there-I couldn't let her see me out of class. I thought about running to the high school to find Jess-he would know what to do-but my day had been humiliating enough without running through a hall full of high schoolers looking for Jess. I came to the conclusion that I had no choice but to sit against the brick wall by the smelly dumpster all day-or at least until lunch.
The sun was hot as it beat down on my scalp, and the tears that I had eventually cried left a sticky white film on my cheeks. I wiped at my eyes and squinted through the sunlight to look at my watch. It was almost eleven thirty a.m. I had sat against the wall for over two and a half hours. Lunch would be starting in five minutes. I hoisted mysel
f off the pavement. My muscles were sore from sitting in one position for so long. I swatted at my pants as small little pebbles that had stuck to them fell to the ground. I was starving and could practically taste the pepperoni pizza in my mouth. I walked to the door and grasped the handle. As soon as I tugged on the door, I realized to my detriment that it was locked. Of course it was. All of the doors-except for the front doors right by the principal's office-were always locked from the outside. I sighed and bent my head back to scowl at the sky. Could this day get any worse? I slithered back down into my seat against the brick wall. The pavement was still cool from me shading it from the sun all morning long. I squeezed my knees tight toward my chest and buried my head between them and my body and tried to imagine what it would feel like to be eating my pepperoni pizza.
I heard the final bell ring and hundreds of kids running toward their buses and carpools. When the sounds wound down, I felt safe to climb the fence behind the dumpster and walk slowly to the front of the school. I watched my surroundings carefully, making sure that no teachers or parents saw me coming around the back corner of the school. When I could see that it was clear, I walked casually in front of the school, down the main road leading from town, over the wooded path, across the old soccer field, through the hole in the fence, passed the cement walls, and down the street to my house. I was about fifty yards from my front door when I noticed Jess sitting on the front step. I felt the familiar salt building up behind my eyes, but I willed the tears away.
"Hey, Jess," I spoke as though I had expected him to be there.
He looked up suddenly from the textbook he was reading on his lap. "Hey! There's the new ninth grader! You look older," he teased. "How was the first day?"
When I reached my yard, I dropped my still practically empty backpack on the grass and melted onto the ground next to it. I laid out flat-as though I was going to do a snow angel on the lawn, closed my eyes, and moaned at the sky.
Jess grimaced. "That good, huh?"
Words came out of my mouth, but I was barely moving my lips. "You don't want to know."
"Okay." Jess shrugged. "You want to hear about my day?"
I nodded awkwardly as the back of my head dug deeper into the grass.
"I only have five classes now, instead of seven. They're longer, though. But I think I'll like my chemistry teacher."
I rolled over to my side so I could look at him while he was talking. I envied his attitude toward school. It wasn't a punishment to Jess. It was an opportunity.
"I have two elective classes and three that are required." He stopped and looked at me lying on the ground. "Man, something must really be wrong for you to let me go on this long. What happened today?"
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," I mumbled into the arm that I was supporting my head on.
Jess got up from the porch step and crawled over to where I was lying on the grass. "What happened?"
I rolled back on to my back and closed my eyes. "Think of the worst possible first day of school that you can think of."
Jess rubbed his face with one of his hands. "I could be here all day."
"Seriously, Jess, haven't you had one of those nightmares where you show up on your first day in just your underwear, and you don't know anyone, and you don't know where you're supposed to go, and everyone is laughing at you?"
"You went to school in your underwear?"
"Take out the underwear part and you have my first day of ninth grade."
Jess situated himself on the grass next to me. "From the beginning."
"I was late getting to school because I was trying to talk my mom into letting me stay home."
"I hate it when that happens." He was teasing me again. I could always tell by the sound of his voice.
"Then when I got there I realized that I had forgotten my schedule."
Jess groaned and covered his eyes with his hands. "That does stink."
"So I just went into one of the classrooms."
"You just guessed?"
I nodded and continued, "But the teacher didn't call my name on the roll."
"It was the wrong class." He stated it as though he had just figured out another clue to a puzzle.
I nodded again. "So the teacher has us get in a circle to play this game with a ball, and you could only talk if you had the ball."
"You just stayed in the class anyway?"
"Jess!" I snapped at him for interrupting me and gave him a glare that made him snap his lips together. I continued, "When it was my turn with the ball, the teacher asked my name."
"She shouldn't have been talking! She didn't have the ball!" Jess pointed his finger in the air like he was a lawyer in court.
I was so happy that Jess felt the same way I did. "That's what I said!"
"You said that?"
I bit my bottom lip and nodded my head slowly.
"Oh, no." Jess closed his eyes and waited for me to continue.
"So Jake Jonathan told her my name. And while he was at it, he told her and the rest of the class that I like Trace Weston."
"Of all the classes in the whole school, you picked the one with Jake Jonathan?"
"And Trace Weston!"
I thought Jess's eyes would bug out of his face. "Trace was in the class, too?"
I looked up at the sky. There was no need to respond.
Jess urged me on, "Then what happened?"
"The teacher figured out that I wasn't supposed to be in the class. She just kept going on and on about it in front of everyone. It was humiliating."
Jess groaned. He genuinely sounded like he was aching inside. "That is rough, Gem. I hope things looked up after that."
"Ha!" I blurted sarcastically. "Not exactly. My whole day's schedule was here in my bedroom!" I pointed at my house. "Even my locker number was on the stupid piece of paper! I couldn't do anything."
Jess narrowed his eyes. "So what did you do?"
"I sat outside by the dumpster until everyone had gone home."
Jess pitched his head forward. "All day?"
"Yes," I said matter-of-factly. "What else was I supposed to do?"
"Gemma, you could have just gone to the office. They have copies of everyone's schedules. They would have just printed you off a new one!"
Jess's obvious answer hurt my ears. I felt so stupid and embarrassed and mad. Tears welled up in my eyes with full force. There was no willing them away this time. "Well that's just great!" I blubbered as I hit the grass in front of me. Jess's expression immediately changed from surprised to apologetic. He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me into his chest.
"I'm sorry, Gemma. I shouldn't have said it like that. I probably wouldn't have known that either. The only reason I do is because my teacher in seventh grade spilled her coffee on my schedule and she told me to go to the office to get a new one. There's no reason you would have known that."
I wiped at my eyes and sat straight again. "So anyway," I sniffed and dabbed at my nose, "that was my first day of ninth grade." I was still trying to clean up my face when the front door of my house swung wide open.
"Gemmalynn Judith!" Mom spoke sternly. There was serious anger in her eyes. "Could you explain to me why your principal just called to inform me that you weren't at school today?" Mom was one of the most genuinely nice people I knew, but you did not want to get on her bad side. She had an aura about her that demanded respect.
Jess got up from the lawn and picked his book up off the porch step. "Uh, I better get home to do some homework." Jess knew as well as anybody-regardless of the fact that Mom liked him better than anybody-that it wasn't in his best interest to be around when she was angry. I begged him with my eyes to stay. I knew that the reprimand would be less severe if he was around. He glanced at me with apologetic eyes. "See you later, Gem." Then with his head turned away from Mom, he mouthed, "Good luck." And he took off across the street.
"Gemma!" Mom's razor-sharp voice sliced through the silence. "I'm waiting for an explanation." How a woman so
petite could be so terrifying is something I'm still trying to figure out.
I looked up at her, my face still stained with tears.
"And don't think that any amount of crying is going to get you out of trouble, young lady!"
I tried to speak, but my throat caught as more tears spilled out of my eyes. My mom's anger immediately turned into concern. "Are you all right, Gemma? Did something happen?" She double stepped the porch stairs and kneeled at my side.
Oh, no. Now she was worried that something really bad happened. She'd only be more upset when she found out that physically I was just fine (though I couldn't say the same about myself mentally or emotionally). I sniffed hard and shook my head. "No, I'm okay. I just had a really bad day, that's all."
She folded her arms and bent her head toward me,"I'm waiting, impatiently, to hear your side of the story."
I told her everything-starting with the moment I realized I didn't have my schedule and ending with me spending the day next to the dumpster.
Her first response was, "Why didn't you just go to the office?" But when I started to cry again, she backed off slightly. "You didn't know that you could get a copy there?"
I buried my head in my hands and shook my head. She rubbed the back of my head then pulled me close to her with her hand. "That does sound like a rough day." She even chuckled slightly as she let what I told her run through her brain.
Mom picked herself up off the grass. "Okay." She took my hand and hoisted me to my feet. "I'm not mad at you, Gem. But I'm disappointed that you decided to sit outside all day long rather than let me or another adult know you had a problem. So to help you remember that in the future, you're going to be weeding my garden every day after school for the rest of the week. Got it?"
"Ah! Weeding!" That was worse than sitting by the dumpster!
The next day my mom drove me to school again so she and I could explain to the principal what happened. I then went to all of my assigned classes, having to explain to each and every single teacher what had happened. The only thing worse that my first day of ninth grade was having to retell it eight times the next day. I barely saw Clarissa or Nina the whole day. Clarissa wasn't in any of my classes, but I saw her from a distance, standing at her locker. And even though I had World History with Nina, she sat on the other side of the room with a couple other girls she'd met over the summer at dance camp. I went from class to class sitting in the back rows-since the closer desks had all been claimed by students the day before-silently scribbling on the blank paper in my binder, and occasionally taking notes when the teacher specifi cally told us we should write something down. I went through the lunch line alone and sat at the end of one of the long lunch tables until I was instructed by a group of boys that I was sitting in their seats. I took the rest of my lunch to the library and ate at one of the tables in the back until the librarian told me I couldn't have food in the library. And worst of all, because my family was, yet again, in Cape Cod during regular registration, my locker was in the "late registration zone"-in the eighth grade hall! What was happening? I thought I was supposed to automatically be cool in ninth grade. I was part of the oldest grade in the school! I was a freshman! So why did I feel like a dorky seventh grader all over again? It occurred to me in my seventh-period geography class that I hadn't spoken to anyone all day-besides the principal and my teachers, to explain my absence the day before. I sat in my chair in the back, only partly listening to Mr. Haggard reciting a poem about the continents, when I had another realization. Clarissa, Nina, and Jess were the only friends I had. If they weren't around, I had no one else to talk to! Sure, I would have an occasional conversation here or there with a girl I had known since elementary. But the only real friends-the people who noticed when I was absent-were Clarissa, Nina, and Jess. And I doubt that the first two even noticed that I was gone yesterday. The strange thing was that I wasn't even distraught in the least about Clarissa and Nina. Their friendship had only made my life harder. But what shocked me was that I was this old and I had so few friends. I wasn't so unattractive that people couldn't bear to look at me. I was fun to be around and had a good sense of humor, at least Jess thought so. So, why was it so impossible for me to make another friend?
Second Kiss Page 5