Call Me Tuesday by Byrne Leigh

Author:Byrne, Leigh [Byrne, Leigh]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2012-03-05T16:00:00+00:00

32

After school started, I didn’t see much of Natalie. She hung out with the popular crowd, a group of girls who didn’t know I existed. But whenever we passed in the halls, even when she was with her snobby friends, she always stopped to talk, if only briefly. She may have been nice to me out of pity, like Mama had said, but I didn’t care. I was willing to accept her as my friend under any circumstances; she was that special to me. She had already given me enough of herself the past summer, and I was happy to settle with whatever she had left to offer.

Things were looking up for me in the sixth grade. Daddy talked Mama in to letting me ride the bus to school, like my brothers. I was glad because it meant I wouldn’t be late for class anymore. The kindness Natalie had shown me inspired me to make some changes to better my life. Instead of passively enduring Mama’s humiliation tactics, I invented ways to counteract them. Like when she cut my bangs so short, they stuck straight out on my forehead, instead of facing the stares and snickers from my classmates, as soon as I got to school, I went into the restroom, wet my hair down with water, and smoothed back my bangs, pinning them in place with some bobby pins I’d found while cleaning the house.

Natalie’s friendship also sparked the confidence I needed to begin socializing with the other kids in my class. Some of them still made fun of me because I dressed funny, and—because Mama didn’t let me take regular baths—sometimes I smelled funny too. Every morning I used the soap in the school bathroom to wash up the best I could, but there wasn’t much I could do about my clothes. When the other kids made fun of me because of what I was wearing, instead of clamming up and sulking like I once had, I started laughing along with them. In doing this I discovered the teasing didn’t seem to be as much fun for them, and eventually they let up.

After a while, most everyone grew accustomed to my differences, and some of the kids even decided to accept me in spite of them. A few friends were all I needed to make me start to feel better about myself.

Soon I went from being an introvert and not talking at all, to talking nonstop. By then I had figured out my life at home was going to be bad, no matter what I did, so I thought I may as well have as much fun as I possibly could while I was in school. My deportment grades bottomed out, as I was always in trouble for talking too much. My scholastics fell below average too. I figured no one cared whether I made good grades or not, so what difference did it make? I liked art and creative writing, and when I felt inclined, I excelled in those areas.

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