me out even when I didnât want her to. It was like she was psychic. Maybe she was some kind of a seer, like those women we read about in all the dragon books we used to obsess about. Maybe I should have asked her to see into my future and let me know if I was actually going to survive this whole growing up thing at all.
April 1
April Foolsâ Day. My parents are coming to see me today. Kind of fits, doesnât it? We all feel like fools when we sit there politely with nothing to say. I donât want to talk to them. They took my friends away from me and told me it was for myown good. Ha. They put me in here and they wonât take me back out. I donât have anything to say to them. But if I refuse to see them, itâll get everyone all excited and Iâll have to go the psycho doctor for an extra counseling session. She drives me crazy, sitting there trying to look all understanding when she never says anything that shows she understands a single thing about me. Maybe she does it to keep up business for herself. She would probably be just thrilled if I refused to go see Mommy and Daddy and they could decide I have some sort of parent-hating disorder on top of everything else theyâve diagnosed me with. Maybe theyâll decide that Iâm a sociopath with violent tendencies who hates her parents.
Do I hate my parents? Iâm POâd for sure. They will not listen to me at all. They want me to admit to my âproblemâ and start eating crap and then I would be able to come home and live happily, and fattily, ever after.
Sometimes, though, I kind of wish I could do it for them. They seem so sad when they come. I hate that theyâre sad. I mean, they deserve to feel guilty for putting me in here but I never wanted anyone to be sad.
I donât hate them. I hate the doctors who persuaded them that I have some big disease.
I didnât make them sad. The doctors made them sad. Maybe the doctors can visit with my parents instead of me.
I wish I were a sociopath. Then I could make the doctors pay for their sins.
chapter 5
We did manage to start high school and even survived grade nine. I discovered that some of the stuff I had been scared about wasnât so scary after all. I also discovered that some of the stuff was scarier than I had imagined it was going to be. The teachers werenât as bad as I expected. The work wasnât terrible but it wasnât easy either. I worked pretty hard and I had lots of homework. Maybe not ten hours a night, but I still kept pretty busy.
The kids were definitely the scariest part. I couldnât totally figure out who was who at first. Annie and I came from a really small public school and we didnât know all that many kids who went to the high school downtown, which was enormous and had kids in it from all over the city. Oh, in case I am coming off too pathetic here, let me state for the record that Annie was not my only friend. She was just my best friend. I wasnât exactly a social butterfly either but I did have a few people around who seemed to enjoy my company. They werenât what you would call cool. As shocking as it might sound, I was never fullyaccepted into the cool crowd. This caused me the occasional moment of angst. Annie was somewhat uncool too, but she was also unconcerned. I, however, wondered at times, many times, what it would be like to be popular.
I have made something of a study of this whole popularity thing, and even now I donât really understand what it is that makes someone cool, other than being accepted by the cool crowd, that is. I mean, who decides what cool is in the first place? Someone has to be the first cool person, the one who sets the standards for other cool people. But where does that person come from and how does he or she become cool? Is it a chicken and egg thing â which came first, the person or the cool? Do they just wake up one morning and hear a voice from somewhere in
April 1
April Foolsâ Day. My parents are coming to see me today. Kind of fits, doesnât it? We all feel like fools when we sit there politely with nothing to say. I donât want to talk to them. They took my friends away from me and told me it was for myown good. Ha. They put me in here and they wonât take me back out. I donât have anything to say to them. But if I refuse to see them, itâll get everyone all excited and Iâll have to go the psycho doctor for an extra counseling session. She drives me crazy, sitting there trying to look all understanding when she never says anything that shows she understands a single thing about me. Maybe she does it to keep up business for herself. She would probably be just thrilled if I refused to go see Mommy and Daddy and they could decide I have some sort of parent-hating disorder on top of everything else theyâve diagnosed me with. Maybe theyâll decide that Iâm a sociopath with violent tendencies who hates her parents.
Do I hate my parents? Iâm POâd for sure. They will not listen to me at all. They want me to admit to my âproblemâ and start eating crap and then I would be able to come home and live happily, and fattily, ever after.
Sometimes, though, I kind of wish I could do it for them. They seem so sad when they come. I hate that theyâre sad. I mean, they deserve to feel guilty for putting me in here but I never wanted anyone to be sad.
I donât hate them. I hate the doctors who persuaded them that I have some big disease.
I didnât make them sad. The doctors made them sad. Maybe the doctors can visit with my parents instead of me.
I wish I were a sociopath. Then I could make the doctors pay for their sins.
chapter 5
We did manage to start high school and even survived grade nine. I discovered that some of the stuff I had been scared about wasnât so scary after all. I also discovered that some of the stuff was scarier than I had imagined it was going to be. The teachers werenât as bad as I expected. The work wasnât terrible but it wasnât easy either. I worked pretty hard and I had lots of homework. Maybe not ten hours a night, but I still kept pretty busy.
The kids were definitely the scariest part. I couldnât totally figure out who was who at first. Annie and I came from a really small public school and we didnât know all that many kids who went to the high school downtown, which was enormous and had kids in it from all over the city. Oh, in case I am coming off too pathetic here, let me state for the record that Annie was not my only friend. She was just my best friend. I wasnât exactly a social butterfly either but I did have a few people around who seemed to enjoy my company. They werenât what you would call cool. As shocking as it might sound, I was never fullyaccepted into the cool crowd. This caused me the occasional moment of angst. Annie was somewhat uncool too, but she was also unconcerned. I, however, wondered at times, many times, what it would be like to be popular.
I have made something of a study of this whole popularity thing, and even now I donât really understand what it is that makes someone cool, other than being accepted by the cool crowd, that is. I mean, who decides what cool is in the first place? Someone has to be the first cool person, the one who sets the standards for other cool people. But where does that person come from and how does he or she become cool? Is it a chicken and egg thing â which came first, the person or the cool? Do they just wake up one morning and hear a voice from somewhere in
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