Author's Note: This story is completely fictitious. Well, sort of. It's very (to the tenth power) loosely based on my freshman year in high school. Very loosely. I've changed names and stuff. Of course. So anyways. I've kind of edited this chapter recently, so that's why it's different from how it was when I originally published it, but nothing that's been changed is very major. So don't worry.
Each chapter is supposed to last about one week, and I'm making efforts to separate days with those long lines (rulers?) to enhance organization and readability. So, uh, now you can read it. The story. Yes. Go! Enjoy it, too (I hope).
October 7, 2005
My name is Kassidy Gertrude Jacobson and I am not going to write in this.
October 8, 2005
I won't. I refuse.
Later
I can't believe myself. Just because my mother gives me a little blank book (suspiciously, sounding like little black book…uh, ew) to "narrate my lifestory" in doesn't mean I have to write in it. But I am weak, like soggy curly fries, and I felt it calling to me from its place in the deep dark reaches of my sock drawer.
Now, sprawled across my bed, trying to figure out what to write, I feel a bit like going downstairs to get food instead of writing. I mean, it's not like I don't do enough of it at school. Whatever.
So, intros first.
My name, as I have already said, is Kassidy Gertrude Jacobson (don't ask about the Gertrude part). I am a freshman at Tom Wilcox Public High School in Lenongrand, Iowa. I have a dog named Gandhi and a cat named Pelted With Stones because of a rockslide incident when he was younger. I live in a regular suburban house in a regular suburban neighborhood in your average smalltime American town. So basically, I am a boring, average, American teenager.
LIES! I am a voracious liar, and that just there was a LIE! I am not average (also a LIE. It's more my family that is unaverage). My mother is a professional florist (she insists that there is such a thing) and my father lives in outer space (just joking—he and my mom are divorced). And I have a brother named Lars who is about a million years older than me who lives in Michigan and a cousin named Yolinda, whom I can't stand, who lives next door.
I play no musical instrument if you don't count the recorder back in the 6th grade, I make generally A's and B's, and my natural athletic talent moved to Spain when I turned 10. So, in essence, I am of no importance to anyone on this planet now or in the future. So shoot me.
My best friend's name is Kendall Gonzales and she's half-Latino, so I guess that makes her somewhat important to America's heritage or whatever. She doesn't look Latino though, with light brown hair and blue eyes and a slightly stupid look on her face all the time. Kendall isn't exactly stupid, though (a half-LIE). She's more…you know…slow. Not-thinking. Like, for example, last week she tried to fish a piece of toast out of the toaster with a fork. Of course, I, being the smart one, was able to pummel her into the ground before she could shock herself (LIE. In actuality I just punched her shoulder and told her she was being stupid.)
Anyway, Mom's calling me down for dinner. And this whole writing thing is hard. I give up (LIE). Good day.
October 9, 2005
In English today we were FORCED to make a list of the ten things we want to accomplish this school year. I think that it was a little late for this, since school's been in a month already. But I wrote my list down here, for posterity's sake:
1. Start understanding Kendall when she talks rapidly in Spanish to herself.
2. Get my allowance raised so I can expand my CD collection.
3. Earn my rite of passage by means of passing my driver's test (permit, not license).
4. End world hunger.
5. Prove to everyone how evil and scheming Yolinda really is.
6. Teach Gandhi how to stay.
7. Cut my toenails.
8. Shove Yolinda's head down a toilet.
9. Flush the toilet.
10. Convince Mom that Seventeen isn't the devil's magazine.
I think that my teacher, Ms. Hayberry, was thinking more along the lines of "getting all A's" as people's goals. That was what everybody else put. I got a 90 on it for questionable taste, whatever the heck that means. Ms. Hayberry said that we should try to accomplish our goals this year, and at they end of the year we're going to write an essay about whether we did or not. Bleargh, lady. Just bleargh.
October 10, 2005
I cut my toenails today. Actually, in PE when I was taking my socks off I accidentally pulled my big toenail back and had to borrow a pair of toenail cutters from my teacher. That's one down, nine to go (goals, not toenails). Go me.
October 11, 2005 Today is Friday, and I am currently in English trying to write in this without getting caught (feeling rebellious today, eh? Yes, actually, I am.). We're supposed to be reading an excerpt of the Odyssey and writing a poem about it. This is what I got:
Odysseus slept with women
Other than his wife.
He was unfaithful,
And therefore he was smite.
I'm not sure whether Ms. Hayberry will take it. From anyone else in my class, she would smile, pat them on the head, and give them a treat for being good little dogs. But she hates me. Ever since the first day of school when I made one little comment about the posters in her room (it was a slightly rude comment, and I said it very loudly), she's had this thing about getting me. It's terrible. I'm called on more and graded harder than anybody in class. Mom, of course, won't believe me when I tell her.
Wait—hold on. I think Kendall wants to know what this is. She's pointing and nodding erratically at me. Wait, no. She's pointing behind me. Sh-
Later
Ms. Hayberry caught me. I am so dead.
Even later
I'm grounded for two weekends and have detention for the next four Wednesdays at 7 AMin the auditorium. Mom is very disappointed in me. According to Kendall (of whom I called while Mom was at the grocery store), Yolinda is very disappointed in me too. Apparently, she had heard about what had happened and was telling everyone she knew about how she always knew I was trouble. My hands itch to shove her head into a toilet.
I mean, I hardly did anything. Ok, that was a LIE. I'll tell you what happened:
Ok, so I was just hanging around, writing in this book, finishing my poem. You know, the usual. Then, Ms. Hayberry sneaks up behind me while I'm absorbed in writing and surprises me (that was what Kendall was pointing at) by snatching the book out of my hands. The whole class's heads snap up. They're delighted that there is something to interrupt their poetry writing.
Ms. Hayberry (cackling like the witch that she is): Well, what do we have here?
Me:
Ms. Hayberry (reading out loud): Wait—hold on. I think Kendall wants to know what this is. She's pointing and nodding erratically at me. (Turning to the class) Now, class? Does this sound like a poem about the Odyssey to you? (Cue head shaking) I didn't think so.
Then, she did this really weird move that involved snapping hear head back towards me and making this really loud cracking noise that made the whole class twitch. It was like watching someone's neck get broken. By this time I was practically shaking with indignation and fear. You see, I'd never been in serious trouble with a teacher before. Especially one as vicious as Ms. Hayberry.
Ms. Hayberry: Did you write your poem, Kassidy?
Me: Yes.
Ms. Hayberry (looking disappointed): Would you please read it to me?
Me (shaking so hard my desk was rattling against the floor): It's in your hand.
Ms. Hayberry: Excuse me?
Me: It's in your hand.
Ms. Hayberry (shaking her head in a disappointed fashion, a motion I've been getting a lot lately): Oh, very well. (handing book over) Proceed.
Me (uncertain of word usage): What?
Ms. Hayberry (thinking I'm trying to be a smart ass): Read the poem, Kassidy.
Me (reading softly as not to let the classmates, who now were paying me their full attention, hear): Um.
Odysseus slept with women
Other than his wife.
He was unfaithful,
And therefore he was smite.
Ms. Hayberry (hyperventilating b/c I put smite in the wrong tense): THAT was not a poem, Miss Jacobson! That was a…a (frothing at mouth) an…excuse!!!! I am appalled! Now, get out of my classroom!
This is the part where I practically pass out. I have never, ever been told to leave the classroom. By now, the class is practically on the edge of their seats. Since we're all in advanced classes with well-behaved (LIE), civilized (Also a LIE) people, stuff like this hardly ever happens.
Me (now also hyperventilating): Excuse me?
Ms. Hayberry (face red): GET OUT! I have teaching to do.
This is also the part where the temper and stubbornness that Mom says I got from Dad and Dad says I got from Mom comes in.
Me: Fine. I'll leave your stupid classroom.
And that was that. She stood over me while I grabbed my books and pencils. Then, I did the unthinkable (according to Kendall). I snatched this book from the claws of Ms. Mayberry herself. I can't really remember what I was on today. Anyway, I then stomped out of the room and slammed the door shut so hard, kids papers flew of their desks. Supposedly. But Kendall tends to overdramatize. I didn't think I'd slammed it that hard, but Kendall says that Ms. Mayberry had such a look of extreme hate on her face that she thought that she would spontaneously combust.
Anyhow, after that, I didn't exactly know what to do, so I went to the girls bathroom that no one goes in because all the bad girls smoke in it. I sat there until the bell rang for the next class, which was only, like, ten minutes. Then, I proceeded to geometry. But when I got there, my teacher said she'd gotten a note that said I needed to go to the office immediately.
So, to sum it all up (my hand's getting tired), I'm getting to switch English classes (Ms. Mayberry says she can't take any more of my crap?), I've got a bunch of detention, and I still have to write a poem about the Odyssey. In other words, school really sucks. And I hate it.