Stereotype

by Claire Hennessy

  Break time is actually OK. I talk to Hannah for most of it. We used to be such good friends. I guess she feels sorry for me or something. I used to completely idolise her. She always seemed so individualistic.

  “Seemed” being the key word, of course. I was young and naïve and didn’t realise that it was, for the most part, an act.

  In fairness to her, though, she’s an interesting and thoughtful person. If it wasn’t for the fact that she’s so close to the others, we might still be friends.

  And, you know, if I wasn’t such a total freak. But I digress.

  During Religion class we discuss the sanctity of life and why abortions are evil.

  “Don’t you think women should have the option of having an abortion?” I have to ask.

  Narrowed eyes. “I think women should take responsibility for their actions. When you become sexually active” (cue a snort of laughter from the back of the class) “you have to realise that you have to accept the consequences.”

  I refuse to let it go. “So you think that one mistake should determine the rest of someone’s life? Shouldn’t women be able to choose whether they want to bring a child into the world or not?”

  “If they’re pregnant, then they’ve already made that decision,” she responds, sounding like she wants this debate to end and go back to reading out what’s on the handouts.

  “So you think that sex serves no other purpose apart from procreation?” I demand.

  More laughs. A couple of smirks from semi-relevant people like Hannah. The teacher decides to change the subject. I hate her.

  The thing is that I’m only pro-choice because I’d prefer to be liberal than super-conservative, sanctimoniously preaching about how life is a gift from God. If I got pregnant accidentally – although the chances of that happening are slim to none, since I hear that sex is necessary for that to happen – I wouldn’t even consider abortion. Or adoption. I’d want to have the baby. I just like the idea of people being able to choose what they want to do.

  Then, of course, people will complain about others having the right to do what they want, because they disagree with it, and there’s a fine line between the right to choose and completely anarchy. Which is why I could never go into politics. It just seems too complicated and confusing and frustrating, and I’d just want to hand out cups of tea and tell people to calm down and stop getting so worked up over being right.

  But isn’t that what I want? To be right all the time? To think that I’m the one who knows best?

  Chapter Forty

  I run into Sarah and Fiona on my way to their classroom. “Heya,” Fiona says. “We’re going to the shop, you coming?”

  “Sure.” I shrug.

  “Yeah, come to the shop with the girl who has delusions of grandeur,” mutters Sarah.

  “What did I miss?” I ask.

  “Wendy, being full of herself,” Sarah responds.

  “She decided to come over and have a friendly chat with Sarah today,” Fiona explains. “She was all, ‘oooh, you’re in a band, that’s so cute’. Completely condescending, you know? She went on like that for about five minutes, being so fake, and when Sarah finally told her to get lost, she turned into a bitch. She was looking for an excuse to pick a fight.”

  I don’t even know who Wendy is, but I have a feeling I know the type. There’s about twenty of them in my year. At least.

  “Why would she bother?” I wonder.

  “Because she’s a desperately sad person who needs to make other people feel bad so she can feel better about herself,” Fiona responds.

  “And she likes Shane,” Sarah speaks up.

  “That too,” Fiona says smoothly.

  I grin.

  “It just kills her that someone who isn’t popular and cool is spending time with her new obsession,” Sarah says. “She doesn’t even know him, you know? She just found out that he’s a guitar player and thinks that it’d cool to go out with him. She’s so completely fake, it’s unbelievable.”

  “Does he know her?” I ask.

  “No, but Hugh does. She lives near him and she’s always trying to get him to introduce her to Shane. He thinks she’s a bitch, too, by the way.”

  “Good judge of character,” Fiona comments.

  “So, she thinks you’re going to end up going out with Shane?” I ask Sarah.

  “Yeah, I know, it’s ridiculous,” she says.

  “That’s not what I meant,” I say.

  “I know,” she grins. “Listen – apparently Shane fancies someone in our school.”

  “How’d you find that out?” I ask. “How many people know him, anyway?”

  She shrugs. “Not that many, it’s not like he’s a – I don’t know, rugby player or something.”

  Fiona and I smile. Sarah has nothing but contempt for rugby players.

  “But Wendy’s crowd know who he is because she’s madly in love with him, so when they heard that –”

  “They assumed that he fancied her?” I guess.

  “Well, of course, yes,” Fiona says. “Because she’s so his type, you know?”

  “But it gets better,” Sarah says gleefully. Funny how gossiping about someone who’s been obnoxious to you cheers you up, I think. “Apparently – and I think it’s all a load of crap in the first place, by the way – but apparently this is someone who was at the party on Saturday. Because he was talking to her then.”

  It could be me, it could be me. Maybe it’s just a silly rumour but oh, oh, it could be me.

  “And she thinks it’s you?” I ask.

  “Yep. Because she knows someone who was there, who said he saw Shane talking to me. And being the complete idiot that she is, she assumes that I must be the only girl that he was talking to. Which is why she’s decided to be completely obnoxious towards me.” She sighs, back in depressed mode. “Wait, there was something good about this story. What was it?”

  “Abi,” Fiona says.

  “What?” I say, just as Sarah goes, “Oh, of course.”

  “Of course what?” I ask.

  “Well, if it’s true . . . I mean, you spent the entire night talking to Shane.”

  “Not – the entire night,” I say.

  She laughs. “Come on, Abi. I know you like him.”

  “I don’t!” I protest.

  Fiona rolls her eyes. “Where have I heard this before?”

  “You do,” Sarah says.

  “What about you?” I ask.

  “What about me?” she says innocently.

  “You like him.”

  She shrugs it off. “Maybe, maybe not. It doesn’t matter. I’m not the one he likes.”

  “You might be,” I point out.

  “Look, we don’t even know if what Wendy thinks is true or not,” Fiona points out. “Knowing her, it’s complete crap. So how about we just forget about Shane and have a nice, peaceful lunch-time?”

  And it starts to rain.

  Chapter Forty-One

  After purchasing a considerable quantity of chocolate, we go back to school, somewhat reluctantly. There’s nowhere to go when it rains, apart from someone’s house, and we’re all too lazy to make that much effort.

  “Want to go and talk to Caroline?” Sarah asks when we get back, obviously not wanting to return to her own classroom.

  “Sure, OK,” I shrug.

  We actually run into Caroline as she’s coming out the door, and end up sitting out in the corridor, legs stretched out while First Years trotting towards the tuck-shop step tentatively over them.

  Sarah fills in her in the Wendy situation before asking, “Shane didn’t happen to mention to you whether he likes anyone, did he?” She tries to be casual about it but it comes off as very, very obvious that she really wants to know.

  Caroline shakes her head. “I haven’t been talking to him since the party. But I get the impression he likes you.”

  “Oh,” Sarah says. Tries not to smile. Fails.

  “You like him,” Caroline declares with a gr
in.

  “Maybe a little,” she admits.

  I bite my nails.

  Of course it couldn’t have been me.

  It shouldn’t matter. I barely know him.

  I should be happy for Sarah.

  I shouldn’t feel like this. I have no right to feel this bad.

  I should be used to it by now. Knowing that it’s impossible for anyone to actually be interested in me. It’s never going to happen. While my friends participate into the teenage-romance experience, I’m sitting on the sidelines. Ugly. Unwanted. Alone.

  And it’s not fair. It’s not fair that I have to be like this, that I can’t be pretty and thin and interesting and talented and confident and lovable. It’s not fair that Sarah gets to be all of those things.

  And why don’t I bring razorblades into school?

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Careers again. I think: future. I think: escape.

  I think about being a crazy reclusive writer, á la Emily Dickinson. Spend the rest of my days hiding from the world, living behind a legacy of beautiful poems. Preferably not as morbid as her, though. Less funerals in brains; more fluffy bunnies and odes to chocolate.

  With maybe a couple of angst-ridden, depressing rants thrown in for good measure, because we all know that I’m not exactly Little Miss Sunshine.

  Ciara is asking about law, veterinary medicine, physiotherapy. All those courses that are designed for over-achievers, requiring so many points that it makes your head hurt just thinking about how many As you’d need.

  Already you can see the different attitudes towards the Leaving developing. There are the over-achievers, who are determined to put in the work and get the points for what they want. There are the under-achievers, who have decided that they’re not going to do that well, and that’s that, they can’t do the course they want. There are the indifferents, who figure that it doesn’t mean anything anyway. There are the unrealistics, the ones who want to do the same courses as the overachievers and think that somehow the points will miraculously appear. There are the in-denials, who are refusing to think about their future.

  I’m semi-ambitious. I want an A in English. Just because. And then I want enough points to get into Arts. That’s it.

  Two years, three months, and it’ll be over. I can leave. I can get away from everyone.

  And find people exactly like that at college.

  Depressing thought. Going through life and having it all be just a repeat of your schooldays.

  It gets better, right?

  The bell goes. “Abi, are you walking?” Karen asks.

  “Yeah,” I say, unable to help adding, “like I usually do.”

  “Wait for me, will you?”

  “Sure,” I shrug.

  Karen usually gets a lift. And when she doesn’t, she and Hannah hang around and smoke before going home. She only walks home with us when we have something planned for the evening.

  It’s probably an attempt at making sure she doesn’t fall out of the me/Sarah/Fiona group, just in case Leanne decides to stop being friends with her. After refusing to come to Sarah’s party because she was going into town with them, I mean.

  You were wondering why she wasn’t there, huh? Too busy with her real friends, I suppose. Sarah was all, “Oh, sure, that’s fine” since her party was an impromptu thing anyway. I happen to know that they’d only arranged to go into town that day, and that she could have easily gotten out of it. Most of them weren’t sure whether they could go or not. But I guess she made her choice.

  I’m not really bitter about it or anything. I just don’t like being the second choice, the runner-up, the back-up friend.

  But I guess maybe I’ve been treating her like that as well sometimes. Staying friends with her so that I won’t be such a total outcast in our class.

  It’s primary school all over again.

  “Heya,” Sarah greets us both when we leave the classroom.

  “Hey,” Karen says. “How was the party?”

  “It was . . . good.” She shrugs. Smiles.

  “How’s what’s-his-face? The one you’re pretending not to fancy?”

  “Shane?” She laughs. “He’s fine.” Another laugh. “He’s really fine.”

  Karen grins. “I see. Anything happen between the two of you?”

  “Not yet,” she says, “but – give it time!”

  She’s gone from denying it, to half-admitting she likes him, to completely infatuated and delighted at the thought that he likes her. Meanwhile I’ve gone from not sure that I like him, to insane jealousy at the thought of him liking Sarah, to planning out my life as a reclusive poetry-writing spinster. Which one of us got the better deal here?

  Chapter Forty-Three

  I am not going to hurt myself. I am not going to hurt myself. I am – oh, why do I care? I want to, OK? So I’m going to do it.

  There. Did it.

  And I’m screwed-up girl again. Start taking me seriously, stop thinking it’s just part of growing up, listen to me! I hurt and I hurt and I don’t know why because there is no why, there’s just me with all these emotions that I don’t understand, me being angry and upset and silent, me wanting attention but not being able to trust anyone enough to let them see the real me, me sitting on my bed with a clump of tissues pressed against my bleeding arm and feeling like I need to cry but not being able to.

  And instead of telling someone about this, I’m just going to sit here and be miserable and feel sorry for myself, because that’s what I do so well.

  I want to scream.

  But I can’t do that. The neighbours might complain. People would think I’m crazy. What’s crazy is that more people don’t go around screaming every so often. It’d solve a lot of problems. Scream and you feel better afterwards. But that wouldn’t be normal, now would it? So instead people find some other way to deal with a surge of emotion, and they punch a pillow or squeeze an ice-cube, or more likely they smash windows or yell at someone or start a fight or pour themselves a drink or light up a joint or pull out their hair.

  And if it’s public enough, or if you’re found out, they do something with you, they send you to jail or therapy or rehab. Then, if you’re lucky, you can emerge with a clean slate. You get a second chance, and it seems like you’ve recovered.

  But you’re not the problem. You’re not the one who couldn’t scream because people might think you were crazy.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  It’s so funny to listen to Jess talk to her friends. None of them have a remotely intelligent thought in their heads, the accents are as rough as they come, the amount of curse words per sentence shoots up drastically. All of them trying to be experts on the music industry, as dismissive as possible of everything they consider pop, all trying to impress each other.

  I guess that’s what it’s like being thirteen, always trying to prove that you’re cool enough for the group that you want to hang out with. Conformity in the extreme.

  I was never that bad, was I? I mean, I know I was pretty bad. Desperately wanting to be cool, acting differently around certain friends, avoiding the undesirable unpopular people even if I wanted to be friends with them and felt bad about shunning them. But I was always a little individualistic. Or weird. Whichever word you’d prefer to use.

  She’s worse than I was, right? Or maybe it’s just that she’s succeeded in conforming, whereas I never could.

  But they all think that they’re being different. They’re rebelling against society, blah blah blah. They seem to be under the impression that teenagers being rebellious and unwilling to respect authority is a new idea.

  How sweet.

  Yes, I’m being condescending. What’s the point of being so fixed in your views that you automatically think that anything the older generation says is worthless? You have to pick your fights instead of arguing just for the sake of it.

  Generally speaking, of course.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Wednesday afternoon. Cooking. Caroline and I
are making some kind of spicy stir-fry thing. She keeps sneaking in extra ingredients, usually for the purpose of making the dish even spicier than it is. I think we should bring it to the staff-room and offer it round to the teachers. Might be interesting to watch them spontaneously combust. Evacuate the (rare) nice teachers beforehand, though. The ones who treat you like actual human beings. I think we have about three in the entire school, which is probably above the national average. We should feel so privileged.

  And in fairness, very few of the staff are actively evil.

  My right sleeve is pushed up past my elbow; my left sleeve is only pushed up a little. Must hide those nasty marks, after all.

  If she saw them – what would she say? Would I make an excuse, or would I smile enigmatically and say “What do you think happened?” in a semi-regretful tone. You know, a we-all-have-problems-this-is-my-way-of-dealing-what-can-you-do? sort of voice. Act like it’s not a big deal, while she worries and realises that you are in fact a Troubled Adolescent.

  Maybe she’d even go to a teacher and tell them. Or the guidance counsellor. That’d be interesting, actually. Then there’d be a big confrontation scene. Well, not big. But dramatic. Quietly dramatic.

  “Abigail, I want to talk to you.” Serious face.

  I smile. “Sure, what is it?” Helpful-student face.

  Teacher finds it hard to believe that this lovely girl could have hurt herself.

  “I’ve been talking to another student, who was concerned about you. She thinks you’re cutting yourself.”

  I say nothing. This is my admission.

  Or maybe I say something. I am, after all, in helpful-student mode, acting as positive and upbeat as Rebecca The Annoying Optimist.

  Yes, I think I’ll speak.

  “What? Who told you that?” I ask, looking innocent and confused.

  “Abigail, I’m going to have to ask you to show me your arms.”

  “Excuse me? This is ridiculous! I’m not –”