SEVEN
Tangerine
An early memory.
I’m wearing a hot pink skirt with tiny white flowers. I’ve paired a blue plaid shirt with it, and the two don’t match at all. But I’m stubborn; a while ago I swore to never not wear blue, although my mother is annoyed because it means I have to wear shirts twice in a row sometimes. She’s also annoyed that I never take off my Hello Kitty rubber band bracelets, but I’m not sure why. All I know is that my mom is annoyed with me a lot.
It doesn’t matter, because I’m seven and carefree. At least...I wish I could be carefree. I’ve never said it out loud--everything is hard to express when you’re so young--but I long to break free. Break free, that’s the only way I can describe it. From this shell I’m trapped in.
We are learning about the ocean in school, and my teacher has filled the room with real shells from her vacation to Hawaii. She taught us about the tiny creatures that used to live in these shells. So now I know how to describe how sometimes I feel like a little conch, trapped in my shell, banging my fists--if conchs had fists--against the walls of my prison.
I can’t think about being a conch today, though. I should be happy. Lisa is bringing in her fish, and she says it’s a beautiful tangerine orange, and I can’t wait to watch him drift around his bowl. I love fish. Some kids ask for a dog, or a cat, or at least a guinea pig, but those pets have never appealed to me. I’m weird like that. Fish are beautiful and shiny. I could stare at them for hours because they never seem to get tired, and I never get tired of watching them. It’s like they transport me to a different world, where mermaids and Nessie are real.
I skip into the school on shoes with buckles shaped like fish. Mom had to order these shoes specially off the Internet. The way they squeak against concrete makes me laugh sometimes, when no one can hear me.
...I was so young, so carefree, so innocent...but this was the day...yes...
My Hello Kitty backpack beats my back in rhythm with my skipping feet. I’m light as a fairy, I think, a phrase I read in a book, a real live chapter book, and adore.
...So many things I loved...fish, Hello Kitty, fairies...what happened?...Whatever changed, changed that day...I know that much...
The classroom with paper jellyfish on the door is mine. I open the door and bat away the green streamers hanging from the ceiling. They’re supposed to be seaweed, and there’s a big clump by the door. I think they’re quite fabulous, even if they do get in the way sometimes.
Lisa has her fish! I slice through the crowd around her. The fish is lazing around a large glass bowl on her desk. The way its mouth gapes makes me smile. I gently splay my fingers against the glass.
“Hi, fish,” I whisper.
“His name is Tangerine,” Lisa says proudly. Her hair is as orange as Tangerine himself.
“Hi, Tangy,” I tell Tangerine. He swims curiously up to my hand.
“Alanna can talk to fish!” someone says loudly.
Another person elbows me out of the way. “Lemme try!”
Someone steps on my foot. “Hi, Tangy, hi, Tangy. C’mon, Tangy!”
I frown and wrap my arms around my ribs. It’s strange, the way people were so quick to assume I was magic or something.
Or weird.
Maybe not that, because now they’re trying to talk to the fish too, and no one wants to be weird. Still, weird because, well, it’s me. Alanna. The odd one out.
...Oh, honey, you’re not normal...we’re not normal...
“Can I see?” I say quietly. “I want to see the fish--” I try to work my way to the front of the crowd. In front of the tallest boy in the class, of course. I don’t want to obstruct anyone else’s view.
The girl next to me, Evelyn, elbows me out of the way. “Hey, stop pushing...ugly,” she says.
My heart stops.
...A Freudian slip, but life-changing...
Evelyn looks kinda surprised she said that, but also a little proud of herself. She starts to laugh. It makes my ears hot. “Let me see, ugly,” she says, louder now.
Every little girl wants to be pretty. Every little girl wants to look like a princess. I’ve always worried I’m not pretty, which probably every girl exposed to Disney worries, but no one’s ever outright said I’m not.
I feel a little faint. “That’s not nice,” I manage to say.
“Ugly!” Evelyn says, a bit too loud, smiling in a mean way. But Evelyn is nice, isn’t she? She gave me one of her rubber band bracelets once. She never minds if I borrow her scissors.
Someone hears Evelyn. “Who’s ugly? Alanna? Alanna’s not that ugly.”
“Alanna? I guess Alanna isn’t very pretty.”
“Ugly Alanna!”
My head pounds. No one is admiring Lisa’s fish any more. They’re all staring at me. The thing I hate most is everyone’s eyes on me, because I’m a conch who secrets herself away in her shell.
“I’m not ugly,” I whisper. “My mom says I look like Snow White.”
Evelyn shakes her head insistently. “Nope. Your mom is wrong.”
...It all happened so fast...and from then on, Evelyn was my enemy...and I was never the same...in just the blink of the eye, from Evelyn’s tiny slip of the tongue, it all went downhill...
Tears prick my eyes. I can barely croak, “Why would you say that?”
“Alanna is beautiful!” Lisa says, clutching her fishbowl. “Stop being mean, you guys.”
“I’m not ugly,” I try to say. But I can’t make the words.
I have the strangest feeling that everything has changed.
YOU ARE READING
Spectrum
Teen Fiction>>>>TRIGGER WARNING<<<< Alanna Moore has been the ugly, fat girl for as long as she can remember. Evelyn Pry is slim, trim, and beautiful. Who better to ask for advice? Evelyn tells her to eat less. And Alanna realizes that starving herself isn't so...
