At Thirteen

It's a slow news day at the Space Age household, so I've kicked the wayback machine into overdrive once more. I dedicate this one to Miriam Knight, "The Girl Most Likely To..."


At Thirteen

It was 1979, and I was thirteen. Thirteen is often a difficult age, even for the best of us. For me, it was near torture.

I desperately wanted to be like the other girls, seemingly so full of poise. I wanted to have their perfect Farrah Fawcett hair and their cute little figures poured into Calvin Klein jeans. I wanted to be like the girls who seemed to know instinctively how to put on makeup so that they looked the cover of Seventeen magazine, and who drew the admiring glances of the boys in class.

I was none of those things. I was the person for whom the phrase “awkward stage” was coined: I was skinny, and I had stubbornly blemish-prone skin. My clothes were wrong. I had no idea what to do with makeup, and I had no idea what to do with my hair beyond washing the oiliness out every day. I wore enormous glasses. I was too shy to look people in the eye. I was the proverbial ugly duckling.

Adolescent girls can smell weakness. They can smell fear. There’s a certain type of girl who looks for that scent, thrives on it, follows it to its source and torments the fearful. There’s a certain type of girl who needs to have a victim. Susan Richter was just such a girl.

Susan’s methods of torment were many. Her actions were innumerable. I could tell a hundred stories of what Susan did to me and still have stories left to tell. One incident in the fall of my eighth grade year remains crisp and distinct in my memory; looking back now, it is difficult to believe nearly twenty-five years have passed.

Susan was in my science class. Instead of desks, the students sat in groups of four at square, shiny black-topped tables. There was only one other student who would sit next to me, a shy girl named Andrea who hid behind a veil of long black hair and black glasses. No one else dared to sit by me for fear of incurring Susan’s scorn. Susan aimed her viciousness at anyone who tried to stand up for me. It didn’t take long before no one bothered.

Mr. Delaney, the science teacher, was often late to class by five minutes or more. On that particular day, he was very late. On that particular day, Andrea was absent. I sat alone at my shiny black table, the table in the center of the room, visible to everyone else. Mr. Delaney was not there to deter the actions of the malevolent.

The silence that hung in the air between the sound of the bell and the realization that Mr. Delaney would be later than usual was heavy with the bitter perfume of danger. I sensed rather than knew what was about to happen to me Fear permeated my pores. I wished to be home, outside, in Timbuktu, invisible – anything and anywhere but in that moment.

Susan caught my eye, her gaze narrowing as she whispered something in Anna Comstock’s ear. They both giggled, and Anna turned to look at me as well, a smirk forming on her smooth, round face. I wanted to run but was frozen, attached to my seat as surely as if I had been restrained. Susan jumped up from her orange plastic chair and advanced on my table. The class was silent, most of them watching Susan to see what she would do.

She carefully, deliberately climbed on top of my black table, standing over me and compelling me to look up at her. Then she laughed, pointing at me and looking around the room in glowing triumph at her captive audience.

“Look at her!” she cried. “She’s so ugly!” She looked back at me, pointing her finger straight at my nose. “Listen to me. Nobody likes you. Nobody. Are you scared? Are you scared now that Andrea’s not here to sit with you? She smells. Do you like sitting next to smelly?”

I remained quiet, my throat dry and closing. I felt sweat beads form on my forehead and above my lip. My heart pounded and roared in my ears as Susan continued her tirade.

“Nobody likes you! Do you hear me? I know…let’s sing. Let’s sing a song about Ugly Donna.” She raised her arms as if to conduct the class in a choir practice and began singing loudly, using the tune from a McDonald’s jingle:

“Nobody likes Donna, we all hate her so! Nobody likes Donna, we all hate her so!”

I don’t know how long she went on. It might have been thirty seconds, and it might have been two minutes. To me it seemed an eternity, and I fought uselessly to hold back my tears.

Someone coughed loudly. Someone else signaled Susan that Mr. Delaney was on his way. She hopped down from my table and quickly ran to her seat next to Anna, laughing behind her hand at my anguish. Mr. Delaney came into the room, glancing around curiously at his students all sitting in silence.

He hesitated, appearing to want to say something and then evidently changing his mind. He opened his mouth, closed it, and then opened it again, flipping through his teacher’s text.

“Page 42, everyone,” was all he said.

Susan Richter faded into just a memory as the years rolled past me, but the sound of her voice lived on inside my head. I heard that voice echoing in my brain long years after the final bell sounded at Kennedy Junior High.