“Nerd!” A boy shoved Rachelle, scattering all her supplies onto the ground. Rachelle gritted her teeth as she scrambled around, gathering her books.
“Leave me alone, you rat,” Rachelle muttered under her breath as she stood up, only to be pushed on to the ground again.
She thought about lunging at the bully, giving him a taste of his own medicine, but decided was pointless. The teachers somehow never see kids bullying Rachelle; just when Rachelle defended herself. She sighed, wondering what she had done to the world to make everything turn against her.
Poor me, Rachelle thought, just as the bell rang. The boy turned around to go, only after kicking Rachelle’s books as far as he could. Rachelle sighed as she picked herself up and dusted her skirt off. Poor, poor me.
Later in the afternoon, Rachelle trudged toward her small two-story house while the sun beat mercilessly on her sweaty back. She tied her long black hair up into a ponytail to allow the back of her neck to be exposed to some air, but the unyielding heat greeted it instead. “I’m home”, Rachelle called out apathetically, closing the door behind her.
“Good. Did you get back your math test?” Rachelle’s mother appeared next to the doorway. “Yes,” Rachelle said uneasily. She hesitantly reached into her backpack and pulled out a slightly bent paper, and handed it to her mother. Her mother took it, and as she scanned the paper, her mouth pressed tightly to a straight line and her eyes narrowed.
“Rachelle, please explain to me why you got an 82%. Didn’t I tell you to study? I will have to discuss this with your father.”
“B-but, I did study! For two whole hours!” Rachelle exclaimed.
“Well, two hours is clearly not enough time for you,” Her mother replied coldly.
“That’s not fair though! I tried my best! Isn't that supposed to be good enough?” Rachelle’s eyes were on the verge of tears as thoughts swarmed around her head. This wasn't fair at all. I did try my best, and I did do a lot of preparing, Rachelle crossly thought.
Rachelle’s mother wearily ran her fingers through her hair, and let out an exasperated sigh. “Rachelle, I think you can do better than that. Check over your answers next time, and then you’ll do better.”
Rachelle clenched her teeth and suppressed a nasty comment. She also had checked her answers. What if she just wasn't as good as her parents wanted her to be? She worked super hard these years, calculating math problems and memorizing the encyclopedia every spare second she had in order to meet her parent’s expectations. But they would still shake their heads and tell her to improve. Couldn’t they even give one compliment to Rachelle?
“Now look over your test, and I want every problem you got wrong done again before dinner.” Rachelle’s mother handed the test back to Rachelle, who stiffly accepted it and stared at her mother with a blank expression.
My mom is the most annoying, demanding, and mean mom I could ever imagine, Rachelle thought. She couldn’t stand like this any longer.
“I’m going to run away,” Rachelle murmured firmly to herself. Rachelle clambered up to her room with her backpack slung over her shoulder and sat down in front of her desk. “I should leave tomorrow morning, so I might as well redo these stupid problems,” Rachelle muttered, annoyed.
One hour later, Rachelle clomped down the stairs with her test in her hand, and shoved it towards her mother.
“Here,” Rachelle said sharply, thrusting the test into her mother’s hands.
