Tweenache in the Time of Hashtags

by Judy Balan

  ‘That’s just what people say. What if it doesn’t work out?’

  ‘If people have been saying it for so many generations, there must be some truth to it, no?’ I said.

  She sighed. ‘Maybe.’

  Well, ‘maybe’ was good enough for now. I needed sleep. I had my own drama to deal with. Also, why couldn’t Ashwin Uncle take Mom to the wedding? And why was Mom hell-bent on going to the wedding if it upset her so much? I’m sure she just wants to prove to Ozzy that she’s happy without him – which, by the way, she is. It just would be a lot more convincing if she didn’t try to prove it. Also, I don’t understand what having or not having a boyfriend or husband has to do with her happiness. Mom says that the reason she compulsively associates happiness with true love is because she grew up on fairy tales. Going by that logic, I will grow up to be an adult who associates happiness with eating human flesh because I’m growing up on zombie fiction.

  18

  Meanwhile in Nerd Wars

  Posted by Nina on 17 October 2014 at 7.33 p.m.

  My mom says ‘nerd’ was a derogatory word in the nineties. ‘The uncool, bespectacled kids in class who never lifted their noses out of books long enough to get invited to a party were the nerds,’ she explained. I couldn’t see anything uncool about that and, err, I’ve faked headaches and blurry vision TWICE already in the hope of getting glasses, so yes, I suppose I am, by every definition, a nerd. I’m not into parties either. Unless it has my favourite people, water pistols, board games, slime and a box of really cool pranks. But ‘party’, in the Wallace Garden Road sense of the word, usually bores me to tears. So now that I’ve established I’m a nerd, you should know that nothing upsets a nerd more than another equally nerdy nerd. See, unlike the Mean Girls, It Boys and Drama Queens, we nerds do not travel in packs. We are finicky about the company we keep, so most of us have just one or two friends in our lives. My person was Akaash. Unfortunately, Nerd Girl II also decided to gravitate towards him.

  It’s weird. Akaash is not a nerd, really. He’s the kind of kid who can get along with everyone. But he’s a #NerdMagnet. Nerds end up forming deep attachments to him and vice versa. Which is why we were having so much drama of late. You see why there’s only room for ONE nerd in a social circle? That’s not all. I used to be the classroom’s know-it-all. With Anna in the picture, my title has been altered to the other know-it-all. It’s humiliating. So, yes. There’s only room for one nerd per classroom as well. But now, with Akaash declaring that we weren’t fighting and that there was enough room in his life for two best friends, I had no choice but to swallow my pride and try and test his theory. See, I had no faith in it to begin with, for all the above-mentioned reasons, but I hate discarding theories before testing them. So when I walked into school on Monday, I made it a point to wear my many-megawatt smile all the way into the classroom till I plonked myself on the seat right next to Akaash. Well, the seat on the other side – the one not occupied by Anna, that is.

  ‘Hey!’ Akaash said. I thought he sounded surprised to see me join them.

  ‘Hey you!’ I said, grin intact. Anna turned to me, smiling tentatively. ‘Hey Anna!’ I said, all chirpy, when every fibre of my being wanted to stick together, form a large fist and punch her smug Dora face. But I was determined to beat my jealous side (clearly a side effect of puberty), stay rational and beat Anna at her own game. In other words, I was all prepped and ready for my bear attack! I could tell from the quizzical look on Anna’s face that the plan was already working. She looked unnerved by my icy poise.

  ‘Morning, class!’ Omen made her usual, hasty entrance, starting to speak even before fully entering the class.

  ‘Good morning, Ma’am!’ We all stood up just in time for her to gesture for us to ‘settle down’. Omen always acted like she was about to disable a bomb and couldn’t care to waste time on niceties. This is probably why she didn’t quite appreciate my enthusiasm when school began, you know? When I had memorized all the biological names much before she could get there? I mean, it probably made her feel like she was lagging behind, and she was the kind of person who always wanted to get ahead. Anyway. Today was going to be different.

  ‘So, where were we?’ Omen said more to herself than anyone else as she flipped the pages, but Anna being Anna blurted out, ‘Cross-pollination!’

  Omen looked up, a little surprised that it wasn’t me, and continued flipping the pages, quite unimpressed. I smiled to myself. Oh, the joy of resisting the urge to be the first to answer – so worth it. #NerdProblems.

  ‘All right,’ she said, turning to write on the blackboard. ‘The other word for cross-pollination is …’

  ‘Allogamy!’ Anna’s head sprang up again with the answer and this time, Akaash shushed her.

  ‘Thank you, Anna, I don’t know how I got by all these years teaching biology without your assistance,’ Omen said, her back still to the class.

  Anna winced and turned to give me a look, craning her neck to look over Akaash’s head. The look said, ‘I don’t know what you’re up to yet, but I’m going to figure it out and I’m going to KILL YOU.’

  I reciprocated with a decidedly sarcastic look that said, ‘Give peace a chance.’ Again, over Akaash’s head.

  ‘What are you guys doing?’ Akaash whispered.

  ‘Nothing,’ we both said in unison.

  ‘I can feel it. There’s some weird energy here!’ he said.

  ‘Nope,’ Anna said.

  ‘You’ve a vivid imagination,’ I said.

  ‘Okay, whatever, I don’t want any drama with you girls.’ He said that a little loudly.

  ‘Akaash, you’re clearly very popular with the girls – what, with blowing up pools and all – but if you’re going to get through this year without getting expelled, you’re going to have to do better than sitting in my class whispering sweet nothings to your girlfriends!’ Omen was angry in a very out-of-character fashion. I suppose it confused her too, my sitting next to Akaash and Anna. She probably thought the nerds were conspiring against her. If only she knew! I felt bad for Akaash, though. For once, he was actually behaving and trying to get us to behave as well.

  ‘Sorry, Ma’am,’ he said, got up, picked up his books and made himself comfortable in an empty chair on the other side of the classroom.

  ‘Good decision,’ Omen said and she sounded sincere.

  Great. We had successfully driven away the only kid who was willing to be friends with us. #NerdLife. Now it was just Anna and me exchanging encrypted messages via intense eye contact over an empty chair.

  19

  Another Epic Group Project

  Posted by Nina on 19 October 2014 at 10.10 p.m.

  The old team was back again – this time, to put together the mother of all presentations. See, this was a wildcard at best. If this presentation worked, it would be BECAUSE they didn’t see it coming and it did not meet the set parameters.

  ‘That’s why you have to forget the presentation and make this a speech from your heart because all those other kids are going to be going gung-ho with fancy presentations,’ Ashwin Uncle said. ‘The only way you can get them to listen to you is by telling them the truth about how important this is to you.’

  ‘Is it really important to you or did you just make it up out of desperation?’ Nikki asked like a true-blue cynic.

  ‘Yeah, thank you. If all else fails, I know I can always count on the faith you have in me,’ I said.

  Ashwin Uncle chuckled. ‘But she has a point, you know? You can’t convince them unless you feel strongly about it.’

  ‘Are you guys kidding?’ I said, dramatically standing up from the floor where we were all plonked. ‘I abso-total-lutely want this!’

  ‘Why?’ Ashwin Uncle said. ‘Why would you want a counselling programme and art therapy? I can think of way cooler things for twelve-year-olds to be doing.’

  ‘BECAUSE,’ I said and struggled to find the right words to express the emotion that was at the verge of bursting forth. ‘
There are kids in this school who have NO ONE to talk to! There are kids dealing with serious problems like parental pressure, depression, parents getting divorced, moms dating stupid rappers …’ I was expecting them to laugh, but they didn’t.

  ‘Go on,’ Nikki said.

  ‘I mean, even I didn’t have anyone to talk to last year. Neither did you, Nikki. And who knows? If this counselling programme was available last year, I may not have blown up the pool with Akaash, and Nikki may have not got that hideous NINJA tattoo!’ I paused to look at them. They were listening intently. ‘I’m just saying, last year, it was the pool. What if someone else does something much worse? And even if they don’t, having someone to talk to should be a basic human right. But since most of us don’t have perfect families or the most reliable friends, we should at least have someone paid to listen to us and help us!’ I had burst out like a tap, so I took a few breaths.

  ‘And why do you need art?’ Ashwin Uncle finally said. ‘What’s up with that?’

  ‘Okay, so art therapy is a thing,’ I explained. ‘I need to do more research, but it’s legit. The way I see it, it’s such a wonderful way to cope with your problems.’

  ‘Elaborate,’ Nikki said.

  ‘Okay, so, last year, remember Mom got me that mini studio? I used to come back home from school during those days when I wanted to yell at Mom or put that Dhiraj’s pesky little son in a washing machine or, you know, just CRY, and I closed the door and just painted and painted till I couldn’t feel those things any more. I can’t explain it but there’s something to it. Art is like … it’s a PAINKILLER! It can just make you forget that everything hurts.’ I don’t know what happened but I had tears in my eyes when I was done talking, and Ashwin Uncle and Nikki burst into applause.

  ‘And THAT is what you’re going to tell your school!’ Ashwin Uncle said with a proud parental smile.

  ‘That was SNEAKY!’ I said. I had no idea what they were both up to. I was getting seriously riled up about the fact that they were sounding skeptical about my idea all of a sudden.

  ‘Go get ‘em, psycho!’ Nikki said.

  I looked at her fondly. It was now up to me to go fix her Dhruv problem. She’ll kill me if she finds out that I plan on talking to Dhruv, but what are sisters for?

  The Speech

  Posted by Nina on 28 October 2014 at 4.06 p.m.

  The actual speech happened three days later and you should’ve seen me! I was a #BigBadBear! I had to make the speech before the entire middle school: teaching staff, the headmistress (who already had a soft corner for me, thank BLG) and the students. Needless to say, I was very nervous. Like, my knees were literally knocking under the table as I waited for them to call my name. Anna’s turn was before mine and if she was nervous, it was hard to spot.

  ‘BLG?’ I said.

  ‘Yes?’ He whispered.

  ‘How is it that you give her such a sense of calm and poise and keep me THIS jittery? I’m not chickening out. I’m going to make the speech anyway. All I’m asking is for you to just rid me of these nerves!’

  ‘She needs it more than you,’ came the reply.

  ‘HUH? What’s THAT supposed to mean? And besides, what kind of logic is this? Do you only have one ounce of calmness to distribute for the day or something?’ #AlmightyFail Part 2.

  ‘Please welcome Anna Cherian,’ Omen announced. For some reason, my eyes turned to the crowd by default and searched for Akaash. Was he listening intently? Was he rooting for her? I had to know. As Anna began her well-rehearsed, pitch-perfect speech on how she’d like to represent the school and, later, the state and the country in squash championships, my eyes were still busy darting across the room. People seemed impressed. Many beamed with pride that such an accomplished girl was a part of their school. The fancy accent was, of course, the cherry on this many-tiered cake. I noticed that most of the time (except in the case of generally grumpy teachers like Omen who weren’t impressed with anything), Anna could get away with saying the most ordinary things, and people still acted like she had made a very insightful observation simply because of the fancy accent.

  ‘We have such fantastic teachers here,’ I heard her say as I tuned in to the speech. What a suck-up. And she went on to say two lines about every teacher!

  ‘Oh god!’ I thought to myself.

  ‘Yes?’ BLG said.

  ‘I didn’t CALL you!’ I said.

  ‘No, I think you did.’

  ‘That’s just an expression!’

  ‘Well, I’m here now, so …’

  ‘My speech does not include ANY sucking up! Now I’m going to lose teacher points ALL. OVER. AGAIN.’

  ‘Nina, Nina!’ BLG said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Breathe. Just do it. Breathe.’ I breathed. ‘Why are you doing this? To win, or because you want to make a difference?’

  I sighed. ‘I want to make a difference.’

  ‘Then forget the exchange programme. This is not a competition. And this is NOT about Anna. Let her win. You do what you came here to do. Make them see your point,’ BLG said.

  My eyes finally fell on Akaash, seated at the far end of our little auditorium. I thought he seemed tense. But it was probably just me reading into everything. And suddenly, the whole auditorium burst into applause and I realized Anna’s speech was over. It was my turn now.

  I took another deep breath, told myself that it was OKAY if I made an idiot of myself, and got up as they announced my name.

  ‘I don’t have a grand speech prepared,’ I started. ‘What I have is a story – a true story. It’s my story and the story of many of the kids in this school.’ The room was dead silent and I didn’t know what to make of it. ‘And I know that what I’m about to say doesn’t fall under the prescribed categories of speeches, but I’m not here to win the exchange programme.’ There was a soft collective gasp and I caught Akaash’s eye for a second. He looked both curious and anxious. As I looked around the room, I noticed that pretty much everyone – from Anna to the teachers and the headmistress – had the same look on their faces. ‘I’m here to talk about something our school is in urgent need of, and I figured, if I’m going to be giving a speech, I might as well talk about that.’ By this time, I knew I had everyone’s attention and I noticed I wasn’t afraid any more. The nerves had subsided and I was in what they call ‘the flow’. The words just poured out as I experienced, for the first time, what it was like to ‘speak from the heart’. It was liberating. And suddenly, all I wanted was for them to see what I saw. Before I knew it, I had spoken for fifteen whole minutes, five minutes longer than the allotted time, and no one asked me to stop.

  ‘And I know I could lose the exchange programme and everything I’ve wanted so badly because of this,’ I concluded, ‘but if I can only make you see what is so glaringly obvious to me, and if that actually brings about a real change in the school, then I don’t think I can call that losing at all.’ When I finished, there was pin-drop silence and everyone was still staring at me. I knew I had either done something totally right or totally wrong. ‘Thank you,’ I said, to indicate that the speech was now officially over. Silence.

  I started to turn around and make my way to my chair when I noticed Anna had tears streaming down her cheek. ‘Thank you,’ she mouthed from where she was, and my own eyes teared up in response.

  Within seconds, the whole room was up on its feet and thundering with applause. And while that was an incredible feeling, which I think everyone should experience at least once in their lives, the part I’ll never forget is when I saw Anna crying. Suddenly, she didn’t feel like the enemy any more.

  o

  ‘Dhruv! Dhruv!’ I ran, screaming after the tallest boy on campus with the broodiest face. I thought he appeared extra broody after the whole Nikki-Adam drama. Anyway, I was going to make it all go away now. #NinaMagic.

  ‘Hey, Nina,’ he called back. ‘I’m off to the library.’

  ‘No, no, wait up!’ I called out. I knew he wanted to run because,
though he was fond of me and Mom and even Ashwin Uncle, he had to avoid all of us because of Nikki. It was a weird cardinal rule of friendship. Apparently. Well, I was going to see if I could negotiate my way around it.

  ‘What’s up?’ He smiled when I finally stood before him, panting like a German Shepherd on a hot day. ‘Here, drink some water.’ He handed me his bottle of water.

  ‘So,’ I said and quickly tried to come up with a convincing argument for him to talk to Nikki. This is the problem with me. I never prepare for speeches. And maybe it was the confidence-boost from the morning speech that deluded me into thinking I could nail this, but I was so wrong. ‘I miss you, Dhruv,’ I said.

  He smiled and ruffled my hair. ‘Aww,’ he said, and it was half-serious, half-sarcastic. ‘I miss you too, Nina,’ he finally said, ‘but …’

  ‘No BUT!’ I interrupted. ‘Listen to me. My sister behaved like a total bitch and she KNOWS it.’ He kept silent. ‘But she really isn’t one, Dhruv. You have to believe me. A year ago, I thought she was one too and it took a lot for us to get close to each other. And I’m telling you, she’s never been happier and more confident than when you were around. I mean, you really GET her. You UN-GOTHED her! You have no idea how cool that is! It means she felt safe enough around you to not pretend.’ I was getting the feeling I was blurting out too many truths all at once. Nikki would have put my head in a blender and made a #BrainSmoothie for her voodoo camp had she known what I was up to.

  ‘Nina,’ Dhruv finally said. ‘I don’t make friends easily.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘That’s why …’

  ‘Wait, let me finish. I know Nikki’s not a bitch. She had one bitchy, irrational phase. And yes, I get her, and better still, SHE gets me. And for your information, it’s not like she’s been coming after me every day, making amends.’

  ‘Yes, but that’s Nikki. She’s been through a LOT. My dad left us before I was even born. She was attached to him and he left. She’s afraid of getting attached to people and she knows she’s already attached to you and it’s just really complicated!’ I tried to explain Nikki’s emotional dilemma in a paragraph and realized I was doing her a gross injustice.