Annie's Baby by Beatrice Sparks

Author:Beatrice Sparks
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2010-12-15T05:00:00+00:00

April 13, Saturday

12:01 a.m.

I’ve been thinking about it and a school for just unwed mothers sounds scary and disgusting. A place for tramps and “hos” so they won’t rub off on the nice kids at the regular schools. Yeah, the nice kids like Tina and Danny and his gang of budding perverts!

April 17, Wednesday

4:29 p.m.

Tomorrow at 8:15 I start the school for “Social Rejects.”

Just between you and me, I wonder if for the last three months I’ve been mainly rejecting people, or if they’ve been rejecting me: knowingly, overtly, and sadistically, like I’ve thought they have. I really did think they were doing it because they were self-righteous and LOOKING DOWN ON ME, but today Jenny came and sat by me on the grass, where I always take my brown-paper sack lunch, and at first I didn’t speak to her, and she didn’t speak to me; then she started crying like her heart was breaking, and she said, “Oh, Annie, I’ve missed you so much. It’s like you’ve cut me out of your life completely, and I don’t know what I’ve done.” She asked me why I wouldn’t ever return her smiles or her “Hi’s,” and I guess I didn’t even see them because I was busy looking at the floor, so people wouldn’t see the SCARLET A like a neon sign on my shirt.

I told her I was sorry, and I just hadn’t been feeling well.

She asked me if it was because I’d broken up with Danny, and I disintegrated into a flood of tears. I wanted to confide in her every detail of…of…every single thing, but the bell rang, and we both had to blow our noses and wipe our eyes and run back to class.

Jenny was going one way and I the other, but as she turned the corner by the statue, she turned and yelled, “Hope I see ya at soccer soon.”

That really startled me because I’d thought my fat belly was totally the topic of everyone at school: students, teachers, principal, and janitorial staff. How self-centered could I have been? They had other things in their lives! I wasn’t the focal point of the universe as I thought I’d been for almost four months! But even if they weren’t laughing and joking about my predicament, I was tearing myself down enough for all of us!

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