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Chapter 11
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What do you do when a long time bully who tortures you, insults you, and sexually harass you from the time you met at seven years of age till your sixteenth year cries in front of you?
Answer.
Wait, wait, I got it!
And the answer is!
I have no idea!
Get it?! Get it?!
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The look of surprise was evident in her face when I spoke the very first word that I have ever spoken to her in my three and a half years of school life.
As I stared at her surprised face, we stood still as statues on the empty hallway. Only the few murmurs of the nearby classrooms broke the silence that we produced. I felt like we stood there for hours, but it was only for a few minutes.
She blinked a few times and her eyes focused on my face. She looked like she was about to say something to me until a familiar voice broke in.
“I thought you kids would’ve arrived at your classroom by now. Do you have your hallway passes or are you kids skipping your classes now?” Mr. Dean said as he approached us.
We didn’t give him time to give us another lecture and ran to our classroom.
“Hey, didn’t I tell you kid to not run in the ha…” Mr. Dean’s voice faded away as the distance between us increased.
We ran, not realizing that our hands were still locked in its tight hold.
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“Oh, Clairkins!”
I heard a voice call out to me, but before I could even recognize who the voice’s owner was, a heavy weight settled behind my back and clung.
“Good morning, Clair. Did you eat well? Are you still sleepy? I’m still sleepy. Why do you like to go to school this early? Can’t you go to school like everyone else does? I don’t like to wake up this early if it’s a weekend. What did you get for breakfast? I had a Coco Crunch cereal. It’s really good you know? Want me to get you one? Hey, can you carry me on your back like this? You have a really warm back. I just want to cling here all day. Well, if I’m too heavy you could just let me hug you from the back from time to time. Is that okay with you?” the person on my back, which was clearly Serenity, chattered on and on about things while still clinging to me like a koala.
How did she even turn up like this?
The last time I remembered, she was locking me up at a janitor’s closet for a two night bonding with a bucket filled with vomit. Now, however, she was having a chatting craze; like my mother, asking about every thing that would have gone through my day; like my mother, calling me embarrassing names; like my mother, criticizing all the things that is weird for normal people, but never does anything about it; like my mother, and clinging to me like some kind of protective mother; like my mother. At least my mother gets to blame it on being a mother, but Serenity? Did she turn into my mother? She must have bumped her head on something because the moment classes ended earlier this month and we got our first detention together, she changed.
She was too different, like the first Serenity I encountered never existed. Or maybe she has a twin and they switched places. That was what I always see in movies. She never grins like a crazy maniac out to get you anymore. Those were replaced with giddy smiles that could make her face crack from using it all day.
Did she get mentally unstable? I didn’t see anything bump into any of her body part that day. At least that’s what I had observed. In fact I should have been the one who got a mentality disorder because I bumped a lot of people that day when I ran. I even ran into a door, which hurt by the way, and fell on the floor, which also hurt. Maybe Serenity got hold of some happy pills? Maybe she even got brainwashed by aliens, which by the way, the stupidest thing I could think of.
I snorted and kept on walking. I walked to class with Serenity still clinging at my back chatting away while I pondered what happened to my worst nightmare.
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My heart raced as the school bell rang to indicate the end of class. We, Serenity and I, were to get our first day of detention today. I didn’t know what to think from all the weird stuff she did today. I just kept on thinking about the crazy grin she gave me today before we returned to class. That crazy grin always meant something and that something would be hell or torture; or both.
I tried not to glance at Serenity as our teacher Mr. Walker, who was first to exit our classroom without a second glance, and all of our classmates got out of the room. I didn’t want to know that I was submitted to another hour of being in the presence of Serenity Grace Rendle. God, why do you hate me so?
I scrunched up my face and slammed my face on my desk, which hurt by the way, and stayed there for about several minutes. I was too tired to even lift my head up my desk. I was already tired of life, even at just the age of ten. Sometimes I just wanted to sleep most of my life away until something could interest me so much as to make me want to live life. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to die, just sleep. Right now most of all. I didn’t want to do anything other than go home right now and not be in the janitor’s closet again or any of the closets here for that matter. I turned my head a little bit to the side to see what my fate would become from the face showing it.
I blinked and raised my head from my desk so suddenly that my chair tipped back.
Serenity looked like… What the fuck was with her?
She looked like… no way was she showing that look. No. Way.
I know she was expressing a lot of emotion lately, but this?
My God, she looked… she looked… she looked…
Happy…
What is going on in that little head of hers?
Was she so happy that she can torture my life for another hour in a day?
No.
It couldn’t be that, she already tortures me until after school without being present. What would be the difference if she were there? Maybe it made a big difference to her to make her that happy.
Heck, she was even glowing! Like some kind of firefly in the night. In fact she looked about ready to fly from her seat from all the happy energy.
Did something happen at class? Maybe she got some special award for being the smartest girl in class. Did she ace our exams again? I don’t really remember much since I don’t listen to the teacher anyway. Even if that was the case, she wouldn’t have been this happy. Once, when I heard a teacher praise her about her grades and performance at school, she’d always coolly reply a thank you and go on listening to class like it was only a simple little comment. She would even look like she expected all of these praises from our teachers, like she was supposed to be praised. She was arrogant if you asked me, too arrogant. Who wouldn’t be with all of her marks not lower than an ‘A+’. Serenity looked as if it wasn’t even an effort. Who even gets grades like that with teachers like Mr. Walker? I was still suspicious as to why she would go to a public school. If she were that smart, she would have advanced to another class, not here with a slacker of a teacher who likes to tell stories of his life with his mother-in-law.
“Hey! Clair! Aren’t we supposed to go to detention now? Hurry up and get all your stuff.” Serenity broke me out of my thoughts.
I looked around the classroom and saw that everyone has left already. Everyone sure liked to go home quite early today. Usually some students would still stick around after class. Well, there’s no delaying detention now, I thought. I picked up my bag and rose from my seat.
From what I could see Serenity was eager to get our detention. She was already half outside the classroom and looked quite jumpy. She really may have planned something for me to make her that eager. That didn’t make me any happier to go to detention, it just made me want to delay it even more. So I walked slowly to the front of our classroom, ignoring the too giddy girl at the door. When Serenity saw that I was moving too slow, she lost some amount of her high energy and began to scold me.
“Come on, Clair. Hurry up already. You’re going to make us late.” I pretended I didn’t hear her and continued to walk slowly towards the door.
When she saw that I was still walking too slow, she let out an irritated sigh and walked back inside the classroom. She grabbed my hand, and ran to the room where detentions were held. I didn’t put any effort in walking and Serenity had to drag me through the hallways like a limp rag doll. I didn’t want to go to detention now that I know Serenity would be there, even if there was a teacher watching us.
Slowly, Serenity’s happy moment began to change into annoyance as she kept on dragging me to detention. I didn’t really notice as I was still trying to think about what she would do later. I winced as Serenity started to tighten her grip on my limp hand. I tried to pull away from her hand, but she gripped it more tightly instead, making it hurt more.
We turned a corner and several doors down, we arrived at detention. Stares greeted us when we stopped outside the open door. Serenity pulled me through to the door to greet the teacher. He didn’t even look up from his paperwork as we passed him. We walked the near distance to the back row and stopped at two empty chairs. Most of the chairs were empty, but the seats at the back were where some of the students that got detention were either at the middle or at the front. There weren’t many students that had detention and all of them didn’t bother to talk with us so we were left alone. They were really scattered, trying not to be bothered by somebody else.
Serenity pulled out a chair from the nearest desk at the back and pushed me hard so I fell back at my seat with a loud scrape.
“Hey! You kids be quiet or I’ll double your detention.” The teacher in the front warned us.
All of the students glared at Serenity and I and I tried to shrink at my seat. Serenity didn’t look like she noticed and calmly seated herself at the desk to my right near the wall. When I looked at her sitting there, all of her cheerfulness seemed to never exist and back was her calm demeanor. I didn’t want to look at her like that. She looked so much better with all her giddy energy, although it was really weird. I stared at Serenity through most of detention. She didn’t move or even acknowledge my stares. I know that she knew that I was staring at her. What I didn’t know was why she didn’t tell me off. That’s alright for me because I didn’t want her to. I wanted to know what made her bully me; what made her have this calm and… almost sad exterior; and what made her so happy as to lose her façade enough to show her, sunny little girly, self? Maybe if I look more closely I would get more answers.
A bell rang from far away. It was the school bell from the second building. It must have been the end of the class for the students there.
“Alright, kids. Times up, detentions over. Get out of here and don’t get to anymore trouble.” The teacher in front told us with only a little glance at us from his paperwork. I guess that school bell meant detention is over for us too.
Serenity got up from her seat and stood in front of me. She waited until I got my bag and stood. I didn’t know what she was going to do, but it looked kind of grim from my point of view. What have I done to make that crazy grin on her face? Maybe I shouldn’t have made her irritated earlier by walking slowly then she could have been happy for a day and I wouldn’t suffer.
Serenity grabbed my hand and dragged me out of detention. I didn’t know where she was going to take me as I couldn’t get away from her firm grip on my hand, but after walking several doors down I knew I wasn’t going home again today.
I tugged at my hand as hard as I can from the last few steps, but Serenity just crushed it with her hands. I didn’t think that would work anyway and the pain just made me cringe in defeat. I didn’t want to cry and tried to push my tears away using my other hand. I kept quiet until we where a few feet away from the janitor’s closet, by then I was already gasping and sniffling.
“Do you think of me that bad?” Serenity asked when we stopped in front of the janitor’s closet; she didn’t face me though. “I am that bad aren’t I?”
I looked up with tear streaked eyes at her. Bad? Good god girl! You’re worst! I thought, but didn’t speak out. Serenity’s head turned enough to look at me and she laughed all of a sudden.
“You know, even if you don’t talk much, the expression on your face always makes up for it.” She grinned not her usually crazy grin, but a natural grin.
Now all of her was facing me and I was surprised that I was facing her too. Wasn’t I just facing the door to my room for the night?
I heard a sigh from the person in front of me and I paid more attention to Serenity. Even with the grin there was still that sad look upon her face; a sad, defeated look. Why was that?
“I know what you’re thinking and I never knew you could read me that well either.” Serenity sighed again, then continued on. “Because you look so curious as to why I look so sad I would surprise you by telling what’s on my mind. So, are you prepared to be burdened about my problem?”
I was a little reluctant. I already have ‘you’ as a problem so why would I want more problems than what I already have? I thought.
“Look, do you want to know or what?” Serenity started to look irritated again and that made me nod my head vigorously without thinking much further. “Good, now I’ll only tell you this once and you have to keep it a secret from everyone else, alright?” this time I was the one to sigh, but I complimented it with an eye roll too. I knew things like these would always be kept secret.
“Okay, so this is the thing.” Serenity cleared her throat and… “Umh… mhumheng…” she cleared her throat again. Was it just me or am I becoming deaf? I gave Serenity a ‘what?’ look and that made her shuffle her feet; she repeated what she said though. “I said, I… umh… moohmeng…” Now I just gave her the ‘stupid’ look complete with the eye flicking and gaping mouth. When Serenity saw that, she rolled her eyes at me and gave a frustrated sigh. It wasn’t my fault, she was talking another language at me!
“Alright already, sheesh. I said that I’m moving! Okay? You get it now? The truth is I knew it from the first grade I got here. You know what I decided afterwards? I didn’t want to have friends here, so I wouldn’t have to cry when I leave. I wouldn’t have to miss them. I wouldn’t have to say goodbye to anyone. I wouldn’t have to remember one of the people here and cry about leaving them and they wouldn’t remember me. I know it was lonely the whole time I was here, but you know what?” and with that she opened the janitor’s closet and pushed me inside. “At least I get to have fun putting you down over it.”
Was that why she kept on bullying me? Because she got it in her little head that she couldn’t make any friends when she was going to move in the future, then that made her lonely and then made me lonely in her place? Humph! Some reason. Couldn’t she think of a much more reasonable reason? I thought as I leaned my back at the door and slumped to the floor sitting. She could have made friends; her moving in the future shouldn’t be a reason to make yourself be lonely. And if Serenity does move and leaves her friends behind, she could still make some long distance communication while making new friends at where she would be moving.
I bumped the back of my head to the door behind me and sighed.
“I wish I could’ve been Serenity’s friend.” Then I wouldn’t have to suffer all the things Serenity gave me.
“Really?” I jumped and faced the door. I was surprised at the voice. I didn’t think that she would still be here. “Would you really be my friend even if I did all those things to you?”
I slowly reached my hand up to the door knob. Once I got a hold of the knob and turned, I found that it was not locked at all. I pulled open the door I saw Serenity sitting also with her back to the door; her head on her crossed arms above her knees.
I scrunched up my face, this might be the most important decision a fourth grader could come across and it needed thorough thinking.
“You think too long for a person who’d like to be my friend.” I sighed and murmured a soft ‘yes’ to her. She lifted her head from her arms and stared at me with my signature puppy dog eyes. “Really?” It went straight to my heart and all I could do was nod distractedly.
Serenity jumped at me for a hug and we tumbled to the floor with her on top of me. “Thanks.” Serenity said quickly. While I was adjusting my lungs to breathe from the sudden weight, Serenity took advantage and took even more air out of my lungs.
She kissed me.
Oh, not the serious one, we were only ten! Have some decency!
She kissed me.
On the cheek.
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“Clairie, hurry up. The bell already rang, I want to go home.” I sighed again as Serenity called me one of her names for me again. Well, I did wish to be her friend, I thought as I grabbed my bag and stood from my desk. Serenity was already waiting for me at the door; irritated. Why couldn’t she just go home like she always does? I thought as I came up to her.
“I want to go home with you. Isn’t that what friends do?” Serenity smiled and offered me her hand. It was soft when I grabbed it and my face got warm all of a sudden. I didn’t know why, but maybe being friends with Serenity wouldn’t be so bad after all.
“So Clair-bear, what time would you like me to come to pick you up tomorrow for school.” I couldn’t help but roll my eyes and sigh.