All the Wrong Reasons

The Parable of the Boiled Frog

Chapter 5: The Parable of the Boiled Frog.

It is supposed to be very difficult to sense gradual change. I was once told a story about this, the parable of the boiled frog. It says that if you put a frog in a pan of cold water, and slowly heat the water up, the frog will just continue swimming around, slower and slower, until it is eventually boiled. However, if you try to drop another frog into a pan of already boiling water, it will immediately try to get out. This gruesome little tale is supposed to illustrate the fact that people will notice big changes right away, but not changes that come around bit by bit.

The events that happened in the week following The Accident are the reason I mention this little fact. Had the attention come all at once, I would have noticed right away. I’m a nobody. I don’t figure on the spectrum of popular kids that attend my school. I’m not cool or uncool enough to show up on the members of the popular clique. And therefore I’m invisible to these same people. And that’s fine with me. Sure, sometimes I wished I didn’t blend with the walls so much, especially around cute boys like Robin Hankle or Gary Turdle, but mostly I was fine with my Nobody status. I didn’t get noticed, but I didn’t get bullied, and that was definitely a plus. I didn’t care about being popular. I just wanted to get my A-levels and get the hell out of this place.  

I had somehow survived the week, and Friday had rolled around, bringing with it the promise of the weekend and blessed relief from the hell of school. I arrived on Friday morning feeling almost chirpy. Sure, Connor’s accident was still the most talked about piece of gossip, it’s not every day your classmate ends up in a coma, but I had heard no further mention of the mysterious girl who had been in the car with him.  

I strode into English class with a spring in my step, ready to tackle the day and anything life threw at me. It wasn’t until I had sat down and retrieved my things from my bag that I became aware of the stares I was receiving from a group of girls on the other side of the room. One of them was Charlotte Merring; she was sitting on her desk, surrounded by her group of friends. They were having an intense discussion about something, and, as they kept glancing in my direction, I had a horrible feeling I knew what it was about.

People are incapable of sensing gradual change, but once it’s brought to your attention, you wonder how come you didn’t notice before. So okay, maybe everyone wasn’t talking about me, but that’s what it felt like to me as I walked through the corridor on my way to French class. Everywhere I looked people seemed to be whispering and staring at me. I slipped into the loo, hoping to discover I’d suffered some hideous wardrobe malfunction, to find out I’d been walking around with my skirt tucked into my knickers.

The door opened and without thinking, I dove into the nearest cubicle and slammed the door. The clack of several pairs of high heels told me several girls had entered the bathroom. They were gossiping about Penny Gerner, who had apparently cheated on her boyfriend with his best friend or some other garbage like that. I breathed a sigh of relief for no reason.

 I was about to emerge from my hideout when one of them changed the subject.

“So what’s the latest about Connor?”

I froze.

“Still in a coma apparently.”

“Such a shame. He was so gorgeous,” one of the girls sighed. He’s not dead yet, I thought furiously.

“Though apparently Charlotte has found out who the girl in the car was.”

“Really! Who was it?”

“One of the girls in Charlotte’s class. She takes A-level English.”

“Which one? The irritating perky one with the brown hair?”