Stereotype (16 page)

Back into the blue monstrosity on Monday morning. I look at my reflection with disgust. What were they thinking when they designed this uniform? Were they actually trying to make us look as hideous as possible?

I think of my school and realise that the answer is probably yes. I can picture the scene. There’s a group of teachers sitting around a conference table –or perhaps a cauldron – cackling evilly, plotting fiendishly to come up with an utterly revolting school uniform.

I walk into my classroom and leave my bag beside my chair. The usual group is over at one side of the room chatting. I get out my books as I debate whether or not to go over there. I listen to what they’re talking about, and – oh, I don’t believe this.

“You know Emily Keating in Fifth Year? She was at this party and kissed some girl. In front of everyone, like!” Gosh, you don’t say . . .

“Seriously? God. I’m not homophobic or anything, but – she doesn’t need to shove it in everyone’s faces, you know?” Of course not. She should be hiding in a closet somewhere, afraid to show her face, right?

“Yeah, I’d be freaked out by that,” Karen says.

I feel like I’m in some kind of parody. I simply can’t believe they’re for real. It’s too much to even get me annoyed or offended or anything like that. I just can’t take any of them seriously anymore. They don’t matter.

The bell goes to signal the start of the first class and they start moving, getting their books. I’m glad. I don’t think I could take another two minutes of their inane rambling.

I go up to the Fifth Years at break-time. Sarah and Fiona aren’t in their classroom. I peek into Emily’s and see them in there.

Sarah, Emily, Roisín and Fiona are sitting together. “Hey,” they greet me, almost simultaneously.

“Hey,” I say. I look at Emily and feign shock. “I heard you were with some
girl
at this party over Easter.”

She rolls her eyes. “Oh, I don’t believe this. They’re gossiping about me in Fourth Year too?”

“The people in this school are pretty pathetic,” Sarah reminds her.

“No kidding,” she says. She doesn’t seem that bothered by it all, though. I figured she wasn’t the type to care what other people think, but it’s still a relief to know that she isn’t upset that everybody’s talking about her.

If everyone was talking about me – which they are in a way, I guess, only they don’t know it’s me – would I be that at ease? I find myself wondering. I tell myself I wouldn’t care, that I don’t care what those idiots think of me, but I’m not sure. It’s hard to be whispered about and not to let it affect you.

Roisín opens up a bag of crisps and offers them around. Fiona refuses one. “No thanks, I’ve been told I’m kind of fat,” she kids.

“Hey, I said I was sorry,” Roisín says, putting on a sad face. “Forgive me? Please?”

Fiona grins. “Of course. But I still don’t want one.”

“Well, on behalf of Mr Tayto, I feel very rejected.”

“Don’t tell me you’re actually on a diet,” Sarah says.

“Do I
look
crazy?” Fiona responds. “God, that’d be almost as bad as . . .”

“Exercising,” I suggest.

“Exactly! Insane!”

We’re still continuing with this when the bell goes for the end of break. I don’t want to leave. “See you at lunch-time,” Sarah says. I find myself bemoaning the fact that classes are getting in the way of my socialising as I return to my own class. Hmmm . . . something’s wrong with
this
picture . . .

“Abi, are you going out for lunch?” Karen asks.

“Yeah, probably,” I respond, wondering why she’s asking. Hannah and Leanne must be busy.

“Going to the shop?”

“Probably.”

“Can I walk down with you?”

“Sure, Karen,” I say sweetly. “You can walk down with me, and Sarah, and Fiona, and Emily, and while you’re at it you can tell her that you’re freaked out by her.”

“You’re friends with her?”

“Yes, I’m friends with her.”

“Sorry . . . I didn’t know.”

“So that makes it OK?”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t. I saw your face this morning when Tina told you about Emily kissing a girl. You were completely disgusted.”

“Look, it just makes me uncomfortable, OK?”

“Why? Sounds like externalised self-hatred, if you ask me.”

She stares at me blankly for a moment before her mind comprehends. “I’m not a lesbian,” she says with obvious distaste.

“It’s not an insult, Karen. It’s not even a big deal.”

“Oh, and I suppose you were there,
completely
comfortable with it.”

“With what?” I feign ignorance.

“With Emily kissing another girl!” she says in exasperation.

“That didn’t happen,” I tell her. “She didn’t kiss the girl. The girl kissed her.”

“How would you know?”

I look at her for a moment. “How do you think, Karen?”

Her jaw drops. The look on her face is absolutely priceless.

“So you don’t want to walk down to the shop with us at lunch-time, then?” I ask innocently.

Shane and Barry are waiting outside the school at lunch-time. When we walk out, some blonde girl (with obvious dark roots) is throwing herself at Shane.

“Hi, Wendy,” Sarah says pointedly.

Ah. So this is Wendy. Why am I not surprised?

Shane puts his arm around Sarah. “Will we go?” He nods to Wendy. “Nice talking to you,” he says politely, then whispers something to Sarah. She giggles.

“What are you guys doing here?” Emily asks as we start walking.

“Half-day,” Barry explains. “Thought we’d come down here and rub it in your faces.”

“How kind,” Emily says.

We go down to the shop and hang around there. Sarah and Shane are being their usual couple-ish selves. We pretend they don’t exist and leave them to their own devices. I decide I want to buy a drink, after all, and go into the shop. Emily follows me in.

“You OK?” she asks.

“Yeah, I’m OK.” I smile.

“Not too upset about seeing the two of them together?”

“Not really,” I say honestly. “I mean, it’s not one of my favourite things to see, but it’s not that I’m jealous anymore. They’re just so wrapped up in one another.”

“I know. Sickening, isn’t it?”

I smile. “Yeah. Hey, I have to ask you something. You remember when we were getting the taxi back to your house, and you said something about Shane being with Sarah to make me jealous?”

“Yeah.”

“Was that entirely made up to make me feel better?” I grin.

“Maybe a little,” she admits. “I don’t know . . . if you hadn’t been with Graham that night and if you’d seemed interested in Shane, I think something might have happened. But I don’t think he was settling for second best with Sarah either, you know? He really likes her.”

I nod. “Yeah.” I pay for my drink and we hover at the entrance of the shop rather than return to the others.

“You know Declan?” I ask.

She nods. “Yeah?”

“You called him an attention-seeker . . .” I trail off. I’m not sure how to ask her whether she really meant it or not.

“Yeah, I know. He got pissed with me about that. But honestly. The guy walks around wearing short-sleeved shirts half the time. The only reason he burns himself is so that people will ask him about it and feel sorry for him.”

“Maybe he does it because it helps him deal with . . . I don’t know, whatever he’s going through. You can’t just judge him like that.”

“Oh, believe me, I can and I will. I’ve known the guy for years. He can be nice at times, which is why I’m still friends with him, but he spends most of his time moaning to anyone who’ll listen. Kind of like Graham, I suppose.”

“Maybe he has a reason to moan,” I suggest.

“Abi!” she says in exasperation. “Just trust me on this. Even if he has his reasons, that’s no excuse. He’s completely self-absorbed. You can’t talk to him about your own life because he’ll start complaining about his own. Or he starts oh-so-casually rolling up his sleeve so you’ll ask him how he got those scars. Don’t feel sorry for him.”

“I can just understand how he feels,” I say.

“You’re nothing like him,” she says quietly.

“How do you know?”

“Because you keep
your
scars hidden. You don’t want people to worry about you. You see people like Declan and Graham and they sicken you, and you don’t want to be like that. You just want to feel better.”

I stare at her. “How did –”

“I noticed them at the party.”

“I wasn’t going to ask that. I mean, how do you know all that?”

She shrugs. “I can be perceptive from time to time.”

“No kidding.” Maybe she’s right and maybe she isn’t. Either way, I like her interpretation better than mine.

We return to the group. “We came up with a name for the band,” Shane announces.

“About time!” Emily says.

“Insert Title Here,” he says.

“That’s . . . a total cop-out.” She laughs. “But cool. I like it.”

“What d’you think, Abi?” he asks me. His eyes meet mine for a moment. Nothing. I’m over him.

“It’s cool,” I nod in agreement.

We walk back to the school. I’m quiet. Thinking. Thinking about what Emily said, mostly. I still feel like I am one of those people, one of the self-absorbed brats like Graham and Declan. I want to shock people. Isn’t that why I kissed Emily? Isn’t that why I told Karen about it? I want to be outrageous. Nothing more outrageous than
that
in an all-girls school.

But it’s not who I am. I shouldn’t have done it. I know I shouldn’t have, I knew two minutes later that I shouldn’t have.

And then there’s another part of me that did it to feel wanted. That’s what happened with Graham, too. I think of him and it makes me feel almost physically sick. I imagine kissing him – oh,
oh.
What was I
thinking?
The guy
repulses
me.

I need to stop doing that, need to stop using people to make myself feel better. That’s not who I am, who I want to be. And cutter Abi isn’t me, either. I don’t want to be one of “them”. I never have.

I don’t really know who I am anymore. I used to be an anti-social misfit. Now I’m – well, hardly the queen of the school, but I feel like I fit in somewhere. What people in my class think of me really doesn’t bother me. I have my friends. They’re the important ones. I feel – not normal, but happy. Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration. Content, then.

I contemplate whether becoming a happy teenager means fitting into another stereotype. No longer the moody whiny adolescent, but the mature, well-adjusted young adult.

That’s before I realise that I really don’t think anyone in their right mind would describe me as “well-adjusted”. Unless someone was holding a gun to their head and forcing them to say that, but since I can’t foresee any circumstances in which someone would want to do that . . .

I still don’t want to fit into any box, be easily defined as any one thing. Maybe it’s not a matter of working at being different. Maybe you just have to just be yourself, and everything falls into place after that. I don’t know. I guess the only way to find out is to try. Maybe make mistakes along the way, but in the end, you get to where you want to be. I hope . . .