Social Suicide

New Life

Mum and I had been living in a cosy apartment on the countryside for about three weeks now. She finally decided to send me off to the place I dreaded most... School

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"Everyone, please make our new student welcome. His name is Robert Young. Please Robert, tell us about yourself." My new English teacher almost demanded me to tell the class about myself.

"Um, you can call me Rob. There isn't really many interesting things about me. I'm 17 and I live with my mum." I said this with my head down, wishing I could shrink into a seat.

"What a loser." I heard someone say.

Let me go, I thought.

The English teacher-- Mrs Delaphere-- looked at me through her round glasses. Her soft brown eyes and short brown hair made her seem like a nice person. She was wearing an ankle length brown skirt with a cream cardigan. She wore brown clogs.

"Take a seat, Mr Young. Anywhere you like." This was also another daunting part to my introduction. I had to find a place to sit. There were two unoccupied seats: one all alone at the back and another next to one of the football players.

I took my seat at the back and realised the football player was wearing a jersey with the number '1'. Fullback. Best runner in the team.

"Make sure you all make Rob feel welcome." She smiled at me and continued with the lesson.

"Moving on. We all know that in Judith Wright's poem 'Woman to Man', she is expressing how she feels about pregnancy and the bond she shares with her husband. I want you to further analyse the poem through an essay, and remember to include any poetry techniques. I want you to be extremely critical when writing this, so feel free to use personal examples or opinions. The essay is due the Monday after next and must be 1500-2000 words. No more than 2000 and no less than 1500. This will be worth 30% of your final grade. Continue on with yesterday's work, if you have finished, start your essay. Silent work please."

During lunch, the cafeteria was full. I didn't have enough money to buy anything, so I sat at an empty table and took out my brown paper bag. In the last three periods, I had learnt most of the school's cliques. There were the nerds, the footballers, the goths, the cheerleaders, the musicians, the actors, the invisible's and me.

I introduced myself to some people I thought I could hang out with. Unfortunately, everyone ignored me or just told me to get lost. Even the goths had rejected me. Ouch.

I thought about introducing myself to the musicians-- they were the only group who's members I hadn't met. I played guitar but these guys looked like they played instruments from the orchestra. Not exactly my cup of tea.

I plugged my earphones in and enjoyed my lunch... Alone. I really hoped I would make friends at this school.

It was seventh period when I realised how things worked around here. The nerds kept to themselves, the jocks and cheerleaders dated each other, the goths skipped most classes to get high, the musicians didn't have any classes other than english, math and music AND to top it all off, I was plastered with a description: loner boy.

It wasn't like I'm not used to being called a loner or a loser, it was the fact that I wasn't even given a chance to stuff things up before I earned my title. When I walked down the hallway, I'd hear things like 'he's the new guy with no friends. Haha, what a loser', or something like 'I heard he lives with his mum. He's probably gay because he didn't choose his dad at the court rooms'. There were even the whole 'I heard he moved into Will's old house. Only cursed people can live there.'

I wanted leave already.

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By the seventh week of school, I was already in a routine. I'd get to school, hide in the back of the class and learn nothing, get teased for sitting alone during breaks then walk home and hope no one would beat me up on the way.

I didn't talk to people often. I sometimes envied the footballers for having the entire school in their hands. I learnt that the fullback in my English class was named Derek and his best-friend, Tyler, was the captain. Most of the boys on the team dated their cheerleaders, who wore their school uniform skirts really short and their shirts buttoned to show cleavage.

The captain of the cheer squad, Candy, seemed to be the rudest and hottest of them all. She'd push everyone around and she also happened to be dating Tyler.

There was this one girl who intrigued me though. She was on the cheer squad and also in my chemistry class. She contributed to class answers the most and she was always very happy and sweet. She was the only one not dating a footballer and she didn't wear her school uniform as tight and modest like the others.

All the guys flirted with her, but she wouldn't ever flirt back. She seemed to do cheer-leading because she actually liked it, not because she wanted popularity.

It was when I was starring at her that the teacher decided to do a class activity... In pairs.

I looked around the class, waiting for the teacher to have to pair me off with someone who's best friend was away. I was drawing in my book when someone stood in front in my desk.

"Hi Rob. Would you like to be my partner?" I looked up and saw none other than April Lee, the girl I had been starting at just moments before.

I gawked at her, my mouth making the shape of an 'o'.