Miyu's Wish (3 page)

“I’m in the eighth grade,” I said quietly, almost apologetically.

They looked at each other with amusement.

“No wonder she was stuffing,” the first one remarked, giving me another skeptical look. “She’s just tiny,
period
.”

My bottom lip trembled as I gaped at her in surprise, my mouth then scrunching into a little pout. “I wasn’t stuffing, not like you think,” I said indignantly.

“Never mind her,” the other said with a sigh. She bent over slightly so that our faces met, making me feel like a small child. “I’m Marlene, and that’s Tamara. She’s always grumpy in the morning.”

Tamara snorted.

“Anyway, we’re also in the eighth grade. What’s your first class?”

I opened my mouth to answer, but only a little squeak came out. My face burned red as I stared into her eyes.

Marlene smiled good-naturedly. “You really are like a little, lost puppy, aren’t you?”

My lips quivered as I tried frantically to think of something to say.

Giggling, she walked past me and began rummaging through my backpack. Before I could protest, she pulled out what she was looking for—my class schedule.

“Hmm,” she said, glancing it over. “We have a few classes together, including the first one. Guess we’ll be seeing a lot of each other this year.”

Tamara scowled. She was attractive like her friend, but they contrasted greatly in appearance, with Tamara wearing a pair of frayed, tight-fitting jeans and a black, pleated top. Her hair was short and dark, and a small ring studded her nose. “We’re going to be late,” she said impatiently.

Marlene frowned and put the schedule back in my bag. “Yeah, guess you’re right.”

They both started for the door.

“Wait,” I managed to say, chirping after them like a little bird.

They both peered at me.

“Um, um, my name is Miyu.”

Tamara just shook her head and left, but Marlene, after appearing to think for a moment, gestured me to follow. “Come on,
Miyu
, Literature is this way.”

Beaming, I grabbed my bag and hustled after them.

I entered Literature warily, daintily squeezing through the already-seated students. I smiled at the few who glanced up at me, and then took a seat in front of Marlene in the middle of the classroom. Tamara sat to our right.

“Don’t worry about this period,” Marlene whispered as the bell rang. “I had Mr. Prop for English last year, and he’s great.”

She was right. Within minutes our zany teacher was impersonating some of the most famous characters in literary history. We all laughed and giggled, and I was finally able to relax.

We then received our textbooks and got into groups, tasked with drawing pictures of our favorite fictional heroes. I sat with Marlene and Tamara as we discussed the most worthy characters. Tamara decided on Ellen Ripley, the alien-blasting heroine from those icky movies. Marlene scribbled a rough sketch of Supergirl, a beautiful superhero of great power. I chose to draw Snow White and her prince from the famous fairy tale. They both just stared at me, and I blushed.

The bell rang soon afterward, scattering us in different directions.

“I’ll meet up with you again for Gym, OK?” Marlene called as she walked away. Tamara gave a half-hearted wave.

I smiled contentedly as I watched them disappear into the throngs of students, and then hurried to inspect myself in the restroom. Everything was still discreetly in place, and I winked at myself before hightailing it to Math, a painfully dull affair compared to the lively class I had just left behind. Mrs. Glummel was almost hypnotically boring as she droned on about expectations, grading systems, and the like. Only one person, a girl named Mary Beth, seemed alive at all, her arm almost always in the air. This soon made her the target of some unflattering comments, but I couldn’t help but admire her enthusiasm.

As the class came to a close, my name was paged over the school intercom; my aunt had left something for me at the front desk. I excused myself and hurried to the office where I retrieved a paper bag with a pink bra folded inside. I gave a sigh of relief as I reentered the hallway.

Second period had just ended, and a flood of rampaging students caught me like a tidal wave. They didn’t even seem to know I was there. I began hopping up and down, their faces bobbing and pushing around me as my eyes scanned for a bathroom. Then something shoved me, and I was no longer hopping,
but capsizing
, the floor rising to meet my face. I cried out, my droning voice slow and laborious as the cool tile smacked into my chest. The floor slid beneath me, my breasts feeling like beaten dough, and I yelped in pain.

My head swam, and stars danced everywhere as I tried to reorient myself; someone was taking my arm and turning me
around. I swept away a curtain of hair as my vision slowly cleared, finding myself peering up into the face of some guy. His eyes were wide, and he seemed to groan at me.

My bosoms stung, and I gazed down at my blouse, eyeing a tuft of white tissue jutting out over the neckline. The terrible sound of laughter resounded around me as I suddenly grasped what had happened.

“Hey, are you OK?” the boy said, now bending down in front of me. “I’m sorry about that.”

“Man, Thad, you really took her out,” another voice roared from somewhere.

My mind froze—the laughter was mortifying and, for just a flash, I had a strange sense of déjà vu.

It was all too much, like a nightmare made real. I felt like running away. I felt like slapping and clawing and berating the stupid jerk in front of me. With tears in my eyes, I got up. Holding my bag to my chest, I walked away with as much dignity as I could muster. I didn’t give anyone, even “Thad,” a second glance.

“Ha, she snubbed you cold, bro,” someone said. But I didn’t care.

I hurried to the gym, found the locker room, and began to cry and cry.

Chapter Five

“S
o now everyone is going to think I’m ‘that kind of girl,’” I sniffled, blotting my eyes with my hair.

Tamara held my pink, frilly bra before her face as if it were a dangerous animal. “So that’s why you were stuffing your chest? Because you forgot to put on your bra? How does anyone forget to put on her bra?”

Marlene stroked my back and gave me a tissue. “It won’t be as bad as you think,” she comforted, giving me a sort of hug. “It’ll be forgotten soon enough, and we’ll help you set the record straight anyway.” She glared at a bunch of girls watching from the other end of the locker room. They quickly scattered.

At Marlene’s behest, I followed her and Tamara outside to the gym floor. The coach seemed to be waiting patiently for our arrival; once we were all lined up, he began roll call. I peeked at the other girls in line and wondered what they thought of me.

After roll, those who had brought their gym clothes were allowed to play volleyball or basketball. The rest of us were given a day reprieve and allowed to watch from the bleachers. As we watched Tamara send a volleyball soaring over the net, Marlene and I chatted about various things, from our interests and hobbies to our hopes for the future. Two other girls, Candace and Janet, eventually joined us, and we had a nice time getting to know each other.

“I just can’t wait until high school, when life
really
starts,” Marlene said enthusiastically.

“I’ll be happy just to survive this year,” I said with a sigh.

As I spoke, a stray basketball bounced up to me. I handed it back to the hapless guy running after it, who grinned with just a hint of shyness before running off again.

Marlene giggled. “See, things aren’t so bad.”

And we all laughed.

Gym finally ended, and I joined the others around a large table in the cafeteria. It felt like we were dining out on the town as we talked about boys and classes, and I was chatting and laughing as much as anyone.

“That’s Kimberly’s clique,” Tamara said coolly, nodding subtly to a nearby table.

I turned to view a shapely blonde girl gesturing about something of apparent importance to her friends. She looked like a cheerleader, and everything about her bounced and bobbed as she pantomimed excitedly.

“We don’t get along with them,” Marlene explained, munching on a stick of celery. “They’re the very definition of self-absorbed.”

I simply nodded, my eyes fixated on the girl as she ran her hands through her golden locks with a sublime laugh, her smile like a beautiful flower just begging to be plucked. I wrenched my attention away and stared dizzily at my tray of food; I was no longer hungry.

The bell rang, and I was on my own again. History was next, but I first found my locker to drop off some books. After several rounds of fruitless twisting, tugging, and yanking on the lock, I gave up and retreated wearily to class.

As expected, it was an uninteresting affair. Our teacher, Miss Spinnaker, did her best to keep us engaged, but by the end of class most of us were nearly asleep or wishing we were. I actually felt a little sorry for her.

Finally the bell rang, and I returned to my locker, eyeing the combination lock with newfound determination.

“Twenty-five…ten…forty-three,” I repeated to myself, twisting the lock around and around. I then pulled the lever down. Nothing. “Twenty-five…ten…forty-three,” I chanted again, blowing a strand of hair away from my mouth. Nothing. I whined and stomped my foot.

“I can help you with that,” a familiar voice offered. “It’s not hard once you know the trick.”

My eyes looked sideways, spotting Thad—the jerk who had clobbered me earlier—watching tentatively from behind.

“No, thank you,” I said stiffly, turning back around. I lifted my backpack clumsily onto my shoulders—it was starting to feel really heavy—and marched off to class like a soldier on a mission. I thought I heard him heave a dreary sigh, but again, I didn’t care.

I entered the art room, eyeing a huge mound of wax fruit, bronze candlesticks, broken Christmas ornaments, and other junk sitting atop an old, creaky table. About twenty desks encircled the eyesore. With no idea of where to sit, I chose a place near the far side of the room. I then watched the class fill with students; Kimberly, the blonde bombshell from lunch, had taken a seat at the opposite side of class. She was gabbing with another girl, but like magnets drawn together, our eyes quickly synced. I felt my pulse race as we regarded each other curiously, our shared gaze intensifying until everything else was but light and shadow. Only we remained, our eyes glowing like revolving moons. But the link was instantly severed as two girls finally took the open seats around me. Mary Beth, the math whiz from second period, was on my left, while a girl I didn’t recognize sat to my right. I blinked my eyes, and Kimberly jerked her face away.

I turned to my new neighbors. “Hi, I’m Miyu,” I said politely.

The girl on my right completely ignored me, her face already deep in a book about dragons or lizards or something. She was
both squat and short, with huge pigtails that stuck upward like bent wire.

Mary, however, peered at me closely, to the point where our noses almost touched. Her huge, thick glasses and mottled complexion reminded me of a giant bug, and I couldn’t help but lean back in my chair as she pressed forward.

“You’re that girl who got knocked on her face earlier,” she said with increasing volume. “School is a terrible place, take it from someone who knows. But I’m here for you if you need it. Don’t you forget.”

“OK, um, thanks,” I replied uncomfortably. News of my earlier disaster had apparently spread far and wide.

“You have my support, too,” said the other girl, inexplicably looking up from her novel. She glanced at me, seemed satisfied, and then returned to her reading. I still didn’t know her name.

Frowning, I stole an unwilling glance at Kimberly who, peering back at me, closed her eyes and turned her nose upward into the air. I looked at her, then at my two new companions, and groaned.

After class, I hurried out and peered down the hall at my locker. Sure enough, that Thad guy was rummaging through his own locker only a few spaces down from mine. I groaned again. The weight of my bag was searing into my back, but grunting stubbornly, I spun around and trudged off to Biology, feeling like a turtle with the weight of the world on its shoulders.