Vacation

Chapter One

"Allison, would you like to present first?" her teacher asked, pulling her name from a jar of popsicle sticks.

Not really, Allison thought. But she knew it was just a rhetorical question, so she gathered her materials and went up to the front of the classroom to present.

Allison sighed. She was probably the shyest person in her whole class--no, her whole school. She was terrified of presenting. She knew she was going to fail.

"Um," Allison said quietly. "So this is my presentation." She motioned to a poster she had brought. "It's, uh, about why the Roman Empire fell. The--"

"I can't hear her," a boy from the back of the classroom said.

"Allison, could you please speak a bit louder?" her teacher asked.

Allison nodded. "The Roman Empire fell--"

"I can't hear her either," a girl said. Allison ducked her head.

"I'm sorry," she muttered. "The Roman Empire fell because--"

"I still can't hear her," someone else said.

"Me either," said twenty-three other students. They all laughed.

Is this some kind of joke? Allison thought. Everybody in the class was looking at each other and giggling. It was like some kind of planned joke at Allison's expense. Allison felt like crying.

"Allison, please speak up," her teacher told her. He was practically rolling his eyes.

"Okay," Allison mumbled. She was determined to speak louder this time. She knew she had spoken the loud enough the last time--so she decided to yell this time. "The Roman Empire fell because of--"

The boy and girl that had said they couldn't hear Allison the first time looked at each other and smiled. In unison, they said, "I still can't hear her."

The entire class burst into laughter. Allison covered her face with her hands as she darted out of the classroom and ran into the bathroom.

She locked herself in a stall and cried. School was constant torture. Every day, the "cool" group of students would bully her for reasons she didn't understand. She had never done anything to provoke them. Nonetheless, they would always pick on her.

Then, other people would play along because they wanted to follow what the popular kids did. Soon enough, the whole school was laughing at a rumor someone started about her or pulling some sort of prank on her.

It hurt even more because she had no friends to help her. Everyone was bullying her, some more directly than others, but because of this, no one wanted to be friends with her. So it wasn't like she had someone to talk to when everyone else was being mean.

She only had herself.

Allison tried to make herself happy. She checked her phone. It was nine AM.

That means only five more hours of this, she thought to herself. And then you get to go home. And not come back to school for nine days.

Today after school, Allison was leaving on a family vacation for a week. She was going to Florida. Not only was she excited to leave rainy Washington, she was happy to get away from the bullies in her school.

Nine days, she thought. I just have to make it through today, and then I don't have to see any of these bullies for nine days.

Allison stood up from the floor of the bathroom. She unlocked the stall door and looked at herself in the bathroom mirror above the sink. She was a mess, with red eyes and streaked mascara.

Allison got a paper towel and wet it in the sink. She ran it over her cheeks to wash off the mascara that had run. She wondered to herself why she even wore makeup if she was going to cry it all off every day.

She took a deep breath and walked back to class, thinking to herself about how she didn't have to go through this again for nine days.

If only she never had to go through it ever again.