Thoughts and Random Things

The Laughing Girl

Back in the third grade, Gina Halford was known as the Laughing Girl. She was short and fat, round like a baseball and jolly like Santa Claus, always laughing at one thing or another. Teacher's shoelace was untied? Gina laughed. There was a dead rat in the toilet? Gina laughed. Someone brought ham in for lunch? Gina laughed and laughed. No one knew or understood why Gina laughed so damn much. No one asked.

Something else notable about Gina was that she never talked. Some theorized that she used laughter instead of words. Other, meaner kids said it was because Gina was retarded and didn't understand language.

I moved to the snug boro of Lenoxton in late May of Gina's third grade year. It also happened to be my third grade year as well. I was assigned a seat next to Gina, all the way at the back of the class. The corner Gina and I sat in was almost hidden from view by a large bookshelf stocked with Curious George books.

Gina rarely took notes. When she did, she would only write down one or two words, completely unrelated to the lesson. I remember some of my favorite ones she wrote down.

Ghost

Guidance

He hated

Poodle

Understand

Too much

One day, she simply wrote the letter B. That was the day she caught me looking onto her paper.

She cracked up, with cold, dead, angry eyes.

That was the day before the last day of school.

The final day of the school year was a Tuesday. It was too hot and the wind burned my face. I walked into the school, toddled to the back of the classroom on my small, third-grade legs, and sat next to Gina.

She laughed upon seeing me sitting next to her. For the first time, I felt annoyance toward her laughter. Why wouldn't she just communicate normally?

We sat through the day. Mr. Rover put on a movie and we all roamed throughout the classroom and chatted, and Gina did not get up from her seat. Not once, the whole day. I was tempted to go up to her and ask why, but I knew I would just be met with another cryptic laugh, so I chose not to go to her.

It was the end of the day. Snacks had been eaten, movies had been viewed. Five minutes remained of the school day. Five minutes remained of the third grade. Mr. Rover had us all sit down in our assigned seats while we went around the room, doing this cheesy ritual where each student named one thing they would miss about the school year.

Gina's turn came. She let out a half-hearted chuckle. It was brief and seemed forced. Mr. Rover simply nodded.

The school bell rang, and we all stood and rioted toward the door. As I went to rush out of the room, in that overexcited juvenile way, I felt a tap on my shouder.

I stopped. I turned around.

It was Gina.

I faced her, confusedly, and she silently stared back for a moment before grabbing my wrist and yanking it outward. She rotated my arm so that my palm faced the ceiling, and she placed a neatly-folded triangular note in my hand. Before I could protest, she dropped my wrist and left.

Mr. Rover and I were the only ones left in the classroom. He was cleaning off his desk. I stood, frozen, just paces away from the doorway, lost in thought. Do I open it? Do I wait? Do I throw it in the trash? Why did Gina give a note to me and no one else?

My thoughts were cut off by Mr. Rover's voice. "James," he commanded gently, "go home."

Wordlessly, I slid the note into my pocket and left. I thought about Gina, the overweight girl, the silent girl, the laughing girl. The girl who took no notes. The girl who scrawled random words down on the pages of her composition book.

I walked home. I planned to read the note once I got into the house, but temptation got the best of me at about the halfway mark of my distance home, and I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, and fished the note out from my pocket, and unfolded that little triangle of paper and began to read.

Dear James,

I laugh because of people like you, people who think I'm weird, mainstream people who think language is our best and only way to communicate. I laugh to confuse the people who get confused by my laughter. I laugh in the face of trends and fads that people like you have fallen slave to. I laugh at the concept of YOLO, because you live every day and night, and you live through every random word I've scribbled onto lined paper, and you live through every chuckle I emit, and I live through my own thoughts, and the words I refuse to say, and I live for the day people like you, James, understand what I live for.

Lots of laughter,
Gina

But I was only nine years old. That note seemed like nothing but boring mumbo-jumbo to me, at the time. I didn't understand. I didn't understand what Gina lived for. I didn't understand what Gina laughed for. All I understood was that Gina, the obese, laughing girl, was strange. Too strange for me to comprehend.

I went home that day and played fetch with my dog and ate candy with my brother. I went home and watched balding politicians argue on TV. I went home, and I forgot all about Gina Halford and her complicated note.

Fourth grade started, and Gina wasn't there. For the whole year, Gina wasn't there. I kept seeing her out of the corner of my eye, but when I turned to look at her, she'd be totally gone from view. It was the same way for fifth grade, and sixth, and seventh, and on and on; except, for each year, I would peripherally see her less and less. I wouldn't see her out of the corner of my eye. I wouldn't see dark flashes of her chubby silhouette. I wouldn't see her at all. Nobody remembered her. Nobody saw her. Nobody knew her. And I, too, became one of those nobodies. I forgot her completely.

It was senior year when the name Gina Halford began to circulate through the rumor mill again. The news spread, as did the stupid teenage remarks of "oh really?" and "who's that?"

Some popular jock kid linked to an article on Twitter. I clicked on the link. I read the article's headline.

Gina Halford, missing for 9 years, found dead at bottom of river

My heart sank, but I wasn't surprised in the slightest. People like Gina weren't meant to survive.