Becoming Somebody

Chapter 5 - The Hazing

After a couple weeks at Saint Peters, Charlie decided that rather than sit with the cool kids at lunch, who were extremely boring, she would sit wherever she wanted. She was still going to be a popular kid, but she wanted to do it her way, and forge her own path. Sitting at a table because it was already a "cool" table wasn't the way to make waves. Creating your own cool table was.

Taylor left the boring cool table and came with her. Charlie's table was mostly Sophomore guys, the class clowns. They all were on the older side for being Sophomores, like Charlie. Some were already sixteen, some were turning sixteen before the end of the year. They were funny and very entertaining. In a way, they reminded Charlie of what Cassius Green and his Senior friends seemed like, at least from an outside perspective. Taylor already developed a crush on one of them in particular, a tall blond guy named Tim. Charlie was being her wing woman until she felt more comfortable with him.

Things had been going just fine until this particular day. Lunch was coming to an end, and Charlie couldn't find her backpack anywhere. She started to freak out once the warning bell rang, signaling lunch was over.

"Guys, I think someone stole my backpack!" she said franticly.

Taylor dragged her attention away from Tim, noticing her best friend searching around. "Where's the last place you had it?"

"Literally right here on the bench!" Charlie yelled, fully freaking out now. Her phone and wallet were in there.

She stopped long enough to realize that three of the guys, Nick, John and Xander were cracking up as they watched her crazed search.

"What, what are you guys laughing at?!" she asked.

They all doubled over laughing at that point. Charlie could feel a hot blush creeping up her shirt as she started to feel embarrassed. She hadn't felt this feeling in a while, but it was all too familiar.

"You should keep better track of your stuff, Charlie," Nick, the ringleader of the three, said.

"Oh yeah? What kind of jerkoff steals a girl's things?" she retorted.

"Are you going to cry?" Xander laughed.

Apparently sitting with the class clowns was all fun and games until they decided to make you the butt of the joke.

To her horror she felt like she might actually start tearing up, so she just turned away and continued to look around the area for her bag. The boys had the audacity to leave without helping her find it. Tim and Taylor tried to help her, but Taylor had already been late to her 4th period class the day before, and couldn't be late again. Charlie understood, so she was left alone to search for her belongings.

Just as she was about to go to the office to report her bag stolen, she heard Nick.

"Hey," he said, from over by the statue of Saint Peter near the parking lot gate. "Look in here."

She ran over there and saw a small black bag in the fold of the statue and grabbed it.

"What is this?" she asked, not recognizing her backpack at first.

"We flipped it," he said, kind of sheepishly. He seemed to realize she was really upset.

Her backpack was literally flipped inside out, with all of her stuff inside. She unzipped it, dumped out her things and flipped it back the right way. She shot him a death glare as she put her things back.

"You're a jerk, you know that?"

"Hey I'm sorry, we were just having a little fun with you cause you're new. It's just like hazing," he shrugged.

"Well, I didn't realize I was joining a fraternity," she said, irritably. "I would have sat somewhere else had I known you guys were going to be idiots."

He shrugged again, waved and headed off to class. Charlie ran in the other direction, sure to be late to her fourth period. She was making quite the impression on her teachers. 

The whole incident shook her up, mostly because the feeling of embarrassment reminded her so much of being bullied before. She had a hard time seeing it as harmless fun and hazing, especially because she knew all too well how people could turn on you for what seemed like no reason. But this time, she had stood up for herself. And she would never let Nick bully her again.