Weirdo

Has anyone ever called you a weirdo? I mean to your face? I know I’ve always been a little “different” from most people but I never thought of myself as a “weirdo”. That’s one of those words used to describe the really strange and deranged, right? Well that’s what I thought until yesterday.

I was leaving third period English headed to my next class, in my customary rush to my locker before the bell; when I heard a supposed friend say “and then there’s this weirdo”. I stopped and turned to see Lacy Kavendish standing with two other girls on the chess team. They were all looking at me. My heart sank, how could she say that.

I thought I’d die, confused and feeling ultra-awkward, I turned and continued on to my locker. Once there, I hurriedly switched out books, grabbed my change of clothes for PE, then took off to my next class.

All the way there I tried to figure out what made me a weirdo and why she would say that. Lacy knew how sensitive I was, I mean I was different from a lot of kids, but, not so unique that I should be called out. There were plenty like me and more popping up every month. I obsessed about it all through class, so much so that I missed the teacher asking me about quantum physics, my favorite subject. I could tell from the look she gave me that she was disappointed even though they keep telling me that robots can’t have “disappointed faces”.

With science class out of the way, I headed down to the locker room to change for PE. The halls down here were crowded as usual with students that had waivers to skip. Most were clad in jeans or tights, some even had shorts on but, whatevs. They would line up when the bell rang to file in and sit on the bleachers while the rest of us did our thing. I got the usual looks as I navigated the crowded hall towards the girl’s lockers but no one said anything. Once inside, I ran into Margarete, she was my only other friend in this god-forsaken wasteland called Towns-End High.

“Hey…are you OK?” she asked, “Yeah, I’m fine, why?” “Well…for one, you’ve got that homicidal look in your eye again, who is it now?” she asked “David… Marcus… or the Jerk Master himself Josh?” I chuckled, “none of the above” I said, “I saw Lacy and her pimples right before science class, and she called me a weirdo.” Margarete laughed, “Well you are!” she said. “I am not!” I cried, “Why would she say that? I mean, what could she mean by it?” Margarete took a step back, with her hand on her chin she looked me up and down and said, “Well, for one, you’re tall, slightly athletic, and I emphasized the slightly part, and here’s the big one, you’re smart.” I looked at her like she had just grown another head. “That’s just dumb, it’s not like she’s not all those things, except tall maybe. Is it the way I dress, oh wait that’s right, I have to wear a uniform like she does. Or is it because I’m in the chess club, Oh wait, no, so is she and her human appendages. Maybe it’s because my hair is brown and hers is…oh yeah it’s brown too! WTF!?”

Margarete just laughed but she didn’t have anything else. Changing the subject I said, “did you go to lunch today?” “Mm-hm,” she said. “Well, what did you have?” I insisted, “I missed lunch again, I had to catch up with Mr. Stucki on my extra credit project.” She turned to look at me. “A catch up project? You? Since when do you have to catch up or do extra credit?” “Since I started failing geography” I said, “I told him I needed new maps and he said I had to make my own? I don’t know what that means. Since when do students make their own maps?” Margarete stared at me for a moment in silence then said, “Since last year, didn’t you hear them say that during orientation?” I looked over at her, this time she was looking at me like I had just grown another head. “No and orientation was more than three months ago, who remembers what they talked about in orientation?” I said, “You have to pay better attention” she said, then turned back to her locker. I was confused again, what’s with her all of a sudden? We finished getting dressed and went out the door to the gym.

The bleachers were full to capacity, it seemed that more and more kids were joining the growing number of those who couldn’t handle doing PE or was it that more were being sent to our school because it was better than the one across town? The teacher was addressing the students in the bleachers, telling them they had to pay attention to the game; there would be a quiz after. I wondered “when did they started doing that?” Margarete was right; I do need to pay better attention. Looking around for where I should stand, I saw the teacher’s aide coming over with the ball, pointing and waving her hand for each of us to line up on either side of the net. Volleyball was my favorite; I could play this all day.

The game was pretty evenly matched until our team scored a point when I spiked the ball across the net. The teacher blew her whistle and we started again. We scored three more points, each time, because I did something unexpected, I was a superstar today. Maybe the buildup of all that anxiety was paying off. I was in the Zone!

After the fourth point however, the teacher told us to hit the showers, but she wanted to see me afterwards. Now what did I do, I thought, can this day get any crappier! Walking to her office I went over each of my plays, they were all legal, nothing outside the rules. Maybe, Margarete had said something to her about Lacy, no, that didn’t make sense, besides, she couldn’t have, no time. Knocking on the office door, I was told to come in. The office was bare, with the exception of the desk, chairs and a motivational poster on the wall. The top of the poster read; “One man practicing sportsmanship is far better than 50 preaching It.” and at the bottom it said “Champions keep playing until they get it right.”

The teacher sat behind her desk, her hands folded on top, beady little eyes following my every movement. “Please have a seat,” she said, waving to one of the straight-backed chairs in front of her desk. I sat down. “I wanted to talk to you about your plays today during volleyball, where did you learn them and why did you decide to use them today?” That was odd; I didn’t know where to start. “Um, I watched a few games on television over the weekend, like you suggested and then after that I read up on the game. You told us to learn the rules so I did.”

She just stared at me as she processed the information. “So, you never practiced those plays before today?” she asked. I stared back at her “Well, no, where would I practice?” her eyebrow went up at my tone. There was a long pause, I knew she was updating a file somewhere or communicating with the central computer. Then she said, “you must continue to learn in moderation” then closed her eyes. This made no sense to me whatsoever, every once in a while you got a creepy robot teacher…it seems they did something over the weekend to make this one even creepier.

Opening her eyes, she said, the nurse is on her way here to check your vitals, you seem…flushed.” I sighed, not this again. Every time a student appeared to be anything they called the nurse. Well, nothing to it but to wait. A short time later, the door opened and two school administrators came in with the school nurse; they walked in and without ceremony pinned my hands to the desk while the nurse walked up and stuck something sharp into the side of my neck, the room got blurry and all went black…

“I’m not sure what went wrong, she was doing so well.” 
“I think it was the new chip we installed over the weekend.”
Why would you say that?”
“Well, for some reason she believed she watched a volleyball game and learned how to play from that…and reading the rules.”
“That’s odd, did she tell you anything else.”
“No, but SN44852 says she was ‘upset’ over being called a name before class”
“A name?”
“Yes, apparently SN28661 called her…a weirdo”

~Marisa
LLL ♥