FREAK!

All in all, throughout my educational life, I enrolled into new schools 13 times. Thirteen. Lucky thirteen. Thirteen times, I was a new face. Thirteen times I was able to re-define myself, if you will. Thirteen times I was exposed to new educational environment & a new social culture. Thirteen opportunities to make a whole new set of friends.

One transition, in particular, was kind of rough for me. I went from a casual seaside environment into the world of big city stuffiness. We were 'moving on up.'

The kids at my old school wore Ocean Pacific, Innerlight, SunBritches & Levis. The kids at my new school wore Polo & Aigner. Clothes are so important as a budding teen-ager...in a sense they help define you. I was blown away that girls at my new school wore panty hose & high heels to school, that they carried pocketbooks to match their shoes and doubled their blue pencil eye-liner up with liquid black eye-liner. In my world, they were s-t-u-f-f-y!

I entered this new school in February of my tenth grade. In my Innerlight surf shirt, skin tight Levi's and choker coral necklace, I guess I stood out in appearance a little. I entered my first class & could hear the whispers...'the new girl is a freak.'

Hmmm...now I had been called lots of things in my young life, but, uh, freak was not one of them. I didn't get it...did I have an extra head growing off my back or something? oh well, I dismissed the comments. That wouldn't last long.

The skinny little blonde that so many know as being full of peace & love was once, and sometimes still, is full of spit & fire.

Upon entering my second class, the same thing happened...even more so, as this teacher had less control on her students. As I left the teachers desk to grab a seat left vacant toward the back I locked eyes with someone just as they spat out the words "FREAK" at me. Barely breaking my stride, I leaned into this guys ear and whispered a throaty, heart-felt "Fuck You.' Later, we became friends but not before I discovered some unknown enemies.

Walking down the ever-so-congested hallway, I suddenly got shoved, shoved hard by someone. I heard someone say 'excuse me' and I thought it was an accident. As I knelt to pick up my scattered books, I heard the girls laughing & saw them look over their shoulders at me. I didn't exactly hear the words, but I saw the girl with the heavy blue eye-liner lips move...'Fuck You Freak' and then a smile curled up as she tossed her peroxide streaked & permed head around.

Skinny snaked her way through the people, passing 3-4 folks with each stride. I got right behind the pack of girls that had shoved me. One was tall, two were average & one was short. All of them were wider than me...but a telephone pole had been rumoured to be wider than me. They had forgotten all about me & were busy chatting it up on something else. I summed them up with my eyes.

As they went to turn the corner I slammed the biggest girl with all of might. She flew all the way across the angle of the hall. I said 'Excuse Me!' and kept on with my long stride.

Later on, a boy, a stranger came up to me and asked if i was Paige so&so. I asked him why. He said 'Your Ass is Grass.' Whatever. 'No, really Helen Bed & all of her friends are going to jump you after school. They say you shoved them.' Ummm...I don't even know them, I said. 'That's rough because they know you.'

Before you knew, the short chick with the blue eye-liner came up and asked me what bus# I rode. I asked her why & she told me that she & her friends were going to kick my butt as soon as I got off the bus. Nobody messed with them. Yeah, right Ok...well, then I guess you'll have to figure my bus # out yourselves.

Art class, 5th period, was two rooms. One entry, one exit with one emergency side door. the kids in 11th grade had to paddle through the tenth grade room to get to theirs. As I sat waiting for the class to begin I watched the people coming in & passing through & thought to myself...this is one screwed up room.

She passed through...the chick with the heavy blue eye-liner. She didn't see me as I sat there. The bell sounded and the door between the two rooms was closed. there was one small glass panel to the right on that door. I got up & moved to another seat, a seat where I could look through that window right onto Helen Bed. I was staring her down & she never noticed it, wrapped up in her personal doodlings. But some of my classmates DID notice it.

They were eager to tell me how she was the one who hated me. Apparently her boyfriend had just broken up with her & she saw me talking to him before school. They told me his name. They described him to me. So many new faces & names, I had no idea who he was. Didn't matter. According to her I was a slut & I stole her boyfriend. i was a freak and she & her gal-pals were going to beat me up. OK, fine.

The bell rang. I left my books on the desk & stood by the slat window door watching as all the 11th graders meandered out. Helen saw me. She froze. She waited, looking through her bag, her books etc. 6th period apparantly was teacher plan period because the teachers too soon exited into the office off of the 10th grade room. She was now alone in the 11th grade room. I stepped in & shut the door behind me. She started yelling... 'Fuck you, you little freak whore. I got your bus number. It's # 113! Me & my friends are so gonna kick your ass'

I didn't steal your boyfriend, I don't even know who he is. I don't want to fight you or your friends.

She was nearing hysteria & could care less what I had to say. Apparently she took my my initial words as a weakness & she continued on her verbal tyrade of how they were going to beat me so bad that I wouldn't ever want to come back to this school.

Before I even realized what was happeneing, I had this girl by the neck with her feet dangling 2-3" above the ground and her back to the wall. Nose to nose, with my teeth clinched shut peace & love turned to spit & fire. 'Fuck you bitch. I don't know you & I don't want to know you.You come today after school & you bring your friends, as many as you can and you all just kick my ass & kick it good, you hear me? It may be a day, a week or even a month, but it won't be long I can guarantee you that...I will come back to you. And I will kick your ass. I'll draw blood bitch & might even leave your fucking toothless!' Whew! Her blue eye-liner and heavy mascara was in streaks running down her cheek. I let go. She stood there shaking. I turned to leave & she stuttered 'You don't know my friends.'

'Yeah, well, you don't know me & you have no idea what you have just gotten yourself into.'

My brother saved me a seat on the school bus. He asked if I knew Helen Bed. She was in his 6th period class & was talking about the new girl Paige. She was saying that she thought I was crazy & that she was going to have all of her friends kick my butt. I was a slut & a freak.

My brother has dark skin, dark eyes, dark hair, a broad flat face looking very much like the Native American Indian that allowed my parents to adopt him. He correctly assumed she'd not immediately realize that we were siblings (In fact another new girl who became one of my best friends was assumed to be his sister because of the physical similarities)

Anyway, he asked her who she was talking about. She answered & he laughed. She asked him why he was laughing and he said 'All I can say is Good Luck. You don't know who you are dealing with. She may look small but she can lay a grown man out.' He said her eyes bugged out & she said 'what?!' He told me that he said 'I don't know...black belt, taekwondo, karate, I don't know but she's trained at something'

I got off the school bus & there was no-one there.

I never got shoved again & they quit calling me 'freak.'

In October, I turned 16 & signed myself out of that school.

Yep, we were moving on up indeed.

*I usually try to keep posts here positive & relatively clean...but felt compeled for whatever reasons to write about this. If your offended, I apologize.
If you are disappointed to see that I am not all peace & love, then welcome to the real world...sometime we have to fight for our peace.