Emma: Seventh Grade

Chapter 21: In Her Head

Emma's stomach churned nervously as she entered Mrs. Frazier's classroom. Today was the day she was supposed to give her presentation on Abraham Lincoln, and her anxiety was getting the best of her. Her hands were shaking and she felt like she was going to throw up. Since Kendra and Alyssa were forcing her to do the entire presentation by herself, the whole class would be focused on her. Emma had been dreading this day for weeks and it had finally come. She couldn't hardly sleep at all last night and the only thing she had eaten in the last twenty four hours was a granola bar for supper yesterday.

Since the class was supposed to dress up for their presentations, Emma was wearing a short, orange and white floral printed dress. It had spaghetti straps, a deep V-neck, and was completely open in the back all the way down to her waist, except for the criss-crossing straps. Over top of her dress, she wore a long sleeved white cardigan, in which the back was made of sheer lace. She couldn't wear a bra with this dress, for it would stick out like a sore thumb in the back, so Emma went without. No one seemed to notice and it was more comfortable anyway. In fact, the only thing she wore underneath her dress was her usual thong. Her blonde hair was pulled into a sidebraid which laid across her left shoulder.

Making sure her dress didn't lift up, Emma carefully sat down in her desk and placed her backpack on the floor beside her. She was actively trying not to have a panic attack right now, she was so scared. She clasped her hands tightly together to stop them from shaking and watched as Mrs. Frazier quieted the class by announcing that it was time to begin.

"Now who would like to go first?" Mrs. Frazier asked the class. When nobody answered, she added, "Alrighty, I guess I get to pick randomly, since no one is stepping up to the plate." 

Emma's heart raced; she stared intently at her desktop, praying that her group didn't get picked.

"Let's see....how about Abraham Lincoln, you guys are up."

Emma's stomach lurched. The worst case scenario had come true for her. She slowly stood up and walked to the front of the classroom, along with Kendra and Alyssa. They were wearing dresses too; Kendra's was teal green and strapless, while Alyssa's was a blue and white maxi dress.

Mrs. Frazier helped Kendra plug in the USB drive and pull the first slide up. Emma felt so helpless; she didn't have any notes to go by, and she had no idea what she was supposed to talk about. Should she just read the info on the slides? The classroom was quite noisy; would they respect her and listen as she talked? A million thoughts raced through her head at once. She pressed her bony knees together to keep them from shaking in front of everyone.

"Okay, fatso. You're up," Kendra said to Emma. She and Alyssa proceeded to stand nicely in front of the classroom with mischievous smirks on their faces.

Emma wanted to slap Kendra in the face. She knew Kendra called her fat only because it was Emma's pet peeve. Not only did it piss her off, but it actually made her feel fat, even though she was the exact opposite. It made her want to lose even more weight, in spite of being too thin already.

Emma's heart pounded as she glanced at the first slide. "This is the life of Abraham Lincoln," she started, her voice shaking with fear. Glancing around the classroom, she felt her classmates' judgmental eyes boring into her. A few of them were whispering amongst each other, and Emma was positive they were talking about her. "Young Abraham was born on February twelfth, 1809," Emma continued, reading off the slide. "He was born on a farm south of Hodgenville in Kentucky." As she spoke, Emma continuously shifted her weight and twisted the tip of her braid around her finger.

"Look at her thighs," a girl in the front whispered to her friend. "See, she does cut herself. They're healing, but you can still tell."

"And I heard she's anorexic," her friends whispered back. "See how skinny she is? It doesn't even look natural."