MIDDLE SCHOOL

Two

But  thankfully she didn't slap me. She just threw my book on my chest.

Now when I come to think about it, that was just as embarrassing.

But as the months passed by, I practiced and was way better.

One day after our unit term exam, my classmates wanted our maths teacher to tell our marks.

She didn't have her mark register so she just said whether we had done good or bad. And when my turn  came, she said : "Preeti...  I think you have done really well."

I was shocked beyond belief. The next day it turned out I had scored 38/40, which was very impressive for me.

Slowly mam started trusting me and didn't hate me as much. But next time I wasn't as lucky.

It was my mid term exam and I had completely blacked out during my math paper. I knew I had done terrible, but I expected my marks to be near 60's.

While I was walking home from school that day, a few men standing about 30 feet away said hello. I wasn't sure they were speaking to me.

But I smiled in response. The smile came not as I wanted it to be. I don't know why, but I guess my expression was encouraging.

What the hell I thought. It was my second nature to smile. My mom says that I have a smiley face.

But I had just flirtiously smiled at some rowdy men who were looking at me quite hungrily.

The thought disgusted me. I was only 10 years old, for God's sake!  The weirder thing was that I looked 8!

But my childish behaviour didn't stop them from catcalling me.

I didn't stop. I kept walking, though they were standing some 20 feet ahead from me.

There's no need to be scared I thought. But a small voice in the back of head said there was. The road was empty.

But there are many houses here. And then I'm not so far from the school. If anything happens, the watch man will notice.

As I closed the distance between those stupid men and me, I noticed that were not men!

The boys were only a few years elder than me. I held my head high and walked past them.

As I left I heard one of them whisper "what the hell is wrong with you guys, she's a ten year old!"

Finally I made it home.

" your birthday is next week, don't you want a dress? " my mother asked me. I was pretty surprised but I said yes to shopping.

" day after tomorrow you have your last exam, English right?  That's your best subject, we could shop for a couple of hours today. " my mom said.
When she asked about my math exam, I grimaced but said it was fine.

             *                   *                   *

I was eating doughnuts at the mall. I had found my perfect dress, a knee length black hour glass shaped one.

Girls of my class teased me for wearing frocks . But I honestly prefer wearing dresses over tees and jeans during special occasions.

I actually wanted a bodycon dress but my figure is kind of like a straight line... So yeah.

While eating doughnut, I realized that one of my classmate Rishab was just a few rows ahead of me.

Rishab had been new to my school, so I didn't really know him. And I'm pretty sure I had never had a conversation with him.