It was Friday night, and for the popular kids, that would normally mean a night for fun: go to the movies, maybe a club or a party or just make out in a public park, but not for Allyson: for her, it only meant one thing: scrabble night.
A full challenge to her intelligence, but very often, she could not help wondering one simple question: how did she end up like this?
—How did we get here? - Allyson wondered, as he continued playing with her two friends, mixing some repressed anger with some self-pity.
Allyson was a shy girl, and she knew that someone of her status and social skills hardly would have the will to break with routine, and, according to her parents, she had a good dose of "craziness", but compared to her companions, Allyson was the poster child of mental health.
—Ready! "Orgasm"! — Sarah exclaimed, ignoring her friend's comment.
Sarah Greenberg: What can you say about that girl that the experts can't? She was the artistic one of the group; she likes to paint, the photography and to design her own clothes; Oh, she surely is a ever-flowing fountain of creativity, but sometimes, the price of originality is chaos, and even when from time to time, she could show a great sign of intelligence, most of the time she was just... Sarah.
—Well, my word is" Kwijibo — Jake said and ordered his chips on the board; he was the only male member of the group of friends of Allyson.
Jake Zabrocki was often seen as the thief, the criminal of his school, not just by his attitude, but because he literally had a huge criminal file: defraud children selling old Atari consoles inside Nintendo Wii boxes, stealing from the cars of teachers and organize a special strike to regain his weed, confiscated by the principal... yes, he was special.
How those guys did become friends in the first place? Well, spend every afternoon in detention often have that effect, and the options were narrow: it was talk to each other, just be there sitting in silence, or see who's the one that can drink more paint ...and they didn't have any, so…
— Wait, that's not a word! — Sarah exclaimed — that's a trick you saw on TV!
— OK, I saw Homer Simpson doing it! Or was it Bart? — Jake answered— but we had to take "Sombreklemgah" Sarah!
— "Sombreklemgah" is a real word —Sarah replied — it means ... well ... "shooting star" in Swedish!
— Wait a minute! - Allyson interrupted— I thought it meant "fools day" in Armenian?
—It means whatever Sarah wants ... — said Jake.
While this discussion continued, Allyson continued her drifting on her thoughts: she was not particularly unhappy, but sometimes, she thought how would it feel to be different, be more…" conventional."
— Allyson, lend me one of those ... —Sarah tried to remember the correct word— you know! One of those books with a lot of words inside...
— Dictionary? — Jake said, trying to bring back her friend to the reality
Allyson passed the official dictionary for their games to Sarah, in order to confirm her suppositions.
—See! - Sarah said — I told you! My word is right here….
— Let me see that! - Jake suddenly said, taking the dictionary and checking the definition—you know Sarah? If you're starting to change the dictionary in the most Orwellian way, at least you might want to stop writing down the words with lipstick…
The night continued with the typical fraud allegations, but nothing really to stand out or to remember, and Allyson really didn't care a lot about the game, wondering if she was wasting her best years, and then late at night, after Sarah and Jake left, she heard someone entering to her window: it was her older sister, Jessica.
— What happened? - Allyson asked, noticing something really weird about Jessica: she couldn't even walk in line
— Vodka night in the Elliott Parson's house! — Jessica answered
Jessica came through the bedroom window of her sister for fear of being seen in that way by her parents, but for now, it would not be too such a big surprised: Jessica, unlike Allyson, was a popular young, sociable girl and she often spent more time at home with her friends than her own.
And while Allyson saw Jessica stumbled into his room, she realized about something important: if that is how it must feel to be popular girl on a Friday night: dizzy, nauseated, and with the tremendous need to take a contraceptive pill, she was proud to be a geek with a serious lack of social skills, and ultimately, that's all that really matters…