Saturday School

I've always been one of the "good kids". I think it's a combination of being a first-born girl, my withdrawn personality, and being parented well. In elementary school I was only sent to the principal's office once, and that was only because I'd witnessed someone else's infraction (standing on the toilets in the girls' room so she could talk to her friend without the visual interruption the stall presented). I think my heart may have beaten faster during my walk of shame after my name was called over the school's loudspeaker than any of the regular offenders' would have.

Over the years I would have one or two friends that persuaded me to get into more trouble than I was used to, but nothing serious.

When I got to high school I experienced the wrong side of the Templeton High School law, and it was all my own doing. During the fall of my freshman year, a sophomore boy had taken notice of me. When my curly-haired, freckle-faced friend Sarah from the volleyball team, told me about his crush, I didn't even know who he was. But once I knew about him, I decided Jacob Rodrigues couldn't be such a bad guy. He obviously had impeccable taste.

Slowly but surely my own crush on Jacob developed. We'd call each other a few times a week, I'd sit on my bed with my green telephone, complete with a two foot long ringlet cord, as we talked about absolutely nothing. (Not in a cute awwww-they-don't-even-have-to-say-anything sort of way. A we're-tying-up-our-parents'-phone-lines-by-sitting-here-not-saying-ANYTHING sort of way.) We'd pass each other in the hallways at school, he'd smirk at me, oozing Older Boy appeal, I'd blush and giggle to whichever friend was unfortunate enough to be stuck with me at that moment.

Jacob played football, and he was #78. My friend Jasmine had a crush on a boy named Casey, who was #49. We'd attend the games like we would have anyway, but when you have someone to watch, it sure makes a sport in which I had zero interest as a 14-year-old girl a whole lot more engaging.

Jacob also worked at a classmate's family owned Pizza Place on Main Street in Templeton. I managed to talk my parents into going there for dinner on a night I knew he'd be working, becoming conscious too late of the fact that my dad would most definitely humiliate me. (Let's be real, being within the same fifty-foot radius as, having to acknowledge relation to, and most definitely allowing my newest flame to converse with my dad was horrifying. I was fourteen.)

Looking back, I can't remember if my dad actually said anything ridiculous, but simply sitting there with my family, having him serve us made all the blood in my head burn. What a stupid idea I'd had. We left the Pizza Place with my dearest dad having coined a new nickname for Jacob: Duck Man... due to the slight waddle in Jacob's pace.

Back to my brush with the THS disciplinary office.

Jacob had a last period guitar class. I had study hall the same period. Since the dawn of study-hall-period time, I would venture to say that if a high school student can get out of class, she will choose to. We had excuses ranging from needing to check out a book at the library to working on our newest ceramics project in the art room.

For the better part of my freshman year, I left every single 7th period class to listen to Jacob play his guitar. He probably wasn't very good yet, but I didn't care. I was spending "quality time" with my crush, and everyone knows a man who can play a musical instrument (or dance) is 5.2 million times more appealing to any woman.

We'd sit in the quad while he played Blind Melon and Wheezer songs, and I'd try not to drool. Our arrangement worked out pretty well until the day I decided to just not show up to study hall. How hard was it to wait for the required 20 minutes of silent reading to be over, then get a legitimate excuse, if not fibbed, written on a hall pass? Not hard. But apparently this particular day I just could not hold in my feelings. I needed to be sitting with Jacob for the entire hour and a half period or I would just die. 

That same day the school called my house to report my absence from 7th period. Since I didn't have a good excuse (I can't even remember if I tried to pass it off to my mom or if I just told her), I was issued a Saturday School.

Saturday School was one of the best punishments ever concocted for the typical never-does-schoolwork, sleeps-late-every-day, hates-setting-foot-on-campus teenage delinquent. It required you to wake up early, go to school, and sit in a cold classroom with a grumpy teacher for 2 or 4 hours, depending on your crime. I was just pissed off that I wasn't in my warm bed, and missing out on part of a Saturday that I could be socializing with my friends.

But as I sat there, in the portable classroom, actually doing homework (hey, I missed out on study hall, after all), and taking breaks to daydream about my rockstar Jacob, all I could think was...

It was totally worth it.

Elementary to Big Time

My parents wanted me to switch schools after fifth grade. Templeton had a middle school for the sixth, seventh, and eighth graders to attend. My dad taught in Atascadero, where sixth graders were still included in elementary school. In Atascadero, sixth graders were the big cheese: the sophisticated, oldest kids. In Templeton, sixth graders were puny eleven year olds walking around the same halls as fourteen year olds. That meant we were thrust into the same habitat as lanky, tall boys with funny voices and hulking girls with massive chests. I won the argument with my parents, despite their attempt to make me an elementary school baby for one more year. Who would I hang out with at Dad's school? Dad? No way! My real friends were in Templeton, and I needed to stay there.

Luckily most of my closest friends were in my core class. Even though we were in middle school, unlike the seventh and eighth graders our classes traveled together as we switched every period. I suppose this made the transition easier on the prepubescent small fries. My group at the time consisted of Lauren, Anita, and Tarah, as mentioned in previous posts (I seem to have plenty of memories from this year in school... maybe 7th and 8th grade were so horrific I had to block them out completely...?). Lauren and I had been pals since third grade, our parents had also become good friends, and we spent the bulk of our weekends at each others' homes; Anita was the tallest girl in sixth grade, with thick strawberry blond hair down to her butt, and though most people didn't know it due to her shyness, had a biting wit that far surpassed many full grown adults; Tarah was short and dark, polite, and earned the best grades (probably in the entire school). We were a tight group. We were also complete and total dorks, we just didn't know it.

We all decided we loved volleyball, and not only did we go out for the team that year, but I bought a really nice, official regulation size volleyball from K-Mart for about six dollars. (You have to be willing to spend some dough when you discover your calling.) We played with it every day at break, at least until one of the colossal eighth grade boys would invariably steal it from us and kick it across the blacktop. We'd simply take off and chase it, return it to the circle, and hope that if the predators realized it didn't phase us, they might actually throw it back to us the next time.

We had a homeroom teacher named Mrs. Hays. She was from Boston and said things like "di-ah-ree-er" in place of "diarrhea"; the boys made her say it at least seventeen times a day. Mrs. Hays had long blond hair, both on her head and on her upper lip. Whenever Mrs. Hays walked by our table, Anita pointed out the mustache, and Tarah responded with, "At least her mustache is blond and not black like mine." We had to agree.

Mrs. Hays was in tip top shape; she had even run the Boston Marathon a couple of times. She was always training for her next race, and she enjoyed taking off her shoes to let us see for ourselves how her big toe looked: like a juicy purple grape, ready to pop, right before the deteriorating nail fell off and made way for the new baby nail underneath. It was creation at its best.

Thank goodness I was allowed to attend middle school or I never would have added these experiences to my repertoire.

Freak to Friend to Foe

 Because who doesn't love remembering the awkwardness and friendship politics that define middle school?

One day we had a new girl come into our core class in the 6th grade. Her name was Shauna. Shauna had medium length blond hair that always looked like she had just taken it out of a braid, and bangs. She was built like a boy, walked like a football player, and had huge, muscle-bound thighs. (At this stage in life, I'd probably kill for thighs like that, but in 6th grade they were obscene.) Her perfectly straight, white teeth were overshadowed by the thick glasses that were supposed to allow her to see better and uncross her lazy eye. Unfortunately for Shauna, this didn't always happen.

Shauna annoyed everyone from the start. Not only did she disturb the equilibrium our class had developed into the school year, but she was distracting. She was funny looking, and everyone wanted to figure out what her lazy eye was looking at. I played this game once, watching the eye and guessing that it was zoomed in on the chair next to me... until Shauna fiercely whispered, "What!?" Apparently that time it was looking at me.

Shauna also thought she knew everything. At least as much as a freshman in high school. In history class, Mr. Lanes asked one day what we knew about plate tectonics. Shauna raised her hand and, with her nose in the air, replied, "Plate tectonics broke apart the original super continent, Pangaea."

Pan-what?

My friends and I looked at each other furiously as if to say, "who does One Eyed Willie think she is?"

When no one else was tolerant enough (or brave enough) to hang out with Shauna, my close-knit group from that particular year: Lauren, Anita, Tarah, and I found it in our hearts to let her into our squad. It actually worked out quite nicely for awhile. Shauna also liked volleyball, and had a pretty good sense of humor under those glasses. She also let me know when it was about time for me to start shopping for a training bra. That's real camaraderie. (Even if her tactic was whisper-screaming "OH MY GOD! YOU NEED TO BE WEARING A BRA!!" in front of half the class when I showed up to school one morning.) We had fun with Shauna and never treated her like the foreigner we had originally wanted to when she barged in on our class. She was our friend for a hefty chunk of the year, until she started to notice who the popular sixth graders were.

Little by little, we saw less of Shauna. She still played volleyball with us sometimes, and of course we saw her in class, but as the year went on our friendship with her fizzled out. Shauna, the cross eyed boy-girl with big legs, had been initiated into the cool crowd!

She got contacts and grew out her bangs. She started coming to school with brand names splayed across her blooming chest, and Airwalk shoes. She got to dance with the English Twins to Boyz II Men's "I'll Make Love to You" without getting ditched at the Valentine's Dance. My experience with them wasn't quite the same. (Chris told me he had to go to the bathroom and would be right back, never to return again... at least Pat danced with me for a whole song.)

We were amazed and slightly offended that after our extension of grace, Shauna would so easily pack up and leave us. Despite this, we went about our daily business, content with our original group.

The problems arose when Shauna decided she had suddenly been ordained with the authority to treat us like the dirt that the popular crew must have assumed we were. When we walked by, she'd make fun of us, and in class she'd shoot us death looks with one of her eyes. I couldn't believe it. Shauna had made the Transition and completely forgotten her dorky roots!

My first lesson in middle school politics was taught to me by this former friend. It was about getting to the top and looking good doing it... something Anita, Lauren, Tarah and I were just too naive to care about yet. I won't lie, the popularity game eventually became a priority to us as well. We all went through the phase, buying the "cool" clothes and weaseling our way into a conversation with one of the pretty girls or a good looking boy. Fortunately for us, we grew out if it in time for high school.