Morning everyone. I hope you slept well. I had a strange dream where I had to repair a boat and the wood kept popping off the hull. It was strangely like an old Gilligan’s Island episode. No clue what brought it to mind. But there it was. And now, I am ready to clear it away and see what comes from the morning prompt. So timers set and off we go.
At least there wasn’t a boat.
Tuesday, August 26th: The intercom clicked on.
The intercom clicked on. All eyes looked up to the box expectantly.
“Good morning students this morning we have a few announcements.”
Interest faded as the announcement’s played. Dannielle listed with half an ear as she turned back to her notebook and began doodling. She had no interest in the fundraiser for the varsity football team. She could care less about an upcoming game and had even less interest in sending their cheerleading team to anywhere.
‘Unless they promised not to come back,’ she thought. As the cheer squad contained all of the worst of the school’s female bullies she would be very happy to contribute to sending them somewhere as long as they promised not to return. She knew they preferred the term mean girls as it had some cache and was somehow considered more acceptable, but they were bullies and she wouldn’t give them a nicer term.
Luckily this year she was more or less out of their crosshairs. As a freshman she had been a target not only for them but for he older bullies training them. With each year she moved up as they targeted younger girls. Now as a senior she was all but invisible.
As she listened the principal repeated the school’s no bullying stance. She tried not to smile. The stance only referred to the bullies who’s parents didn’t give money to the school. As the current cheer squad all had wealthy parents who paid handsomely for various things they believed the school needed, their kids were above reproach.
In truth her bullying wasn’t that bad. She learned early that once they started on her if she just stared at them, they got bored and went to find another target. She wasn’t that interesting as far as targets went. She was quiet but nothing about her stood out. She was average looking and generally quiet when in school. She did well in school and had good grades but didn’t seem to be as obviously geeky as some of the others.
‘Besides they don’t actually care about grades,’ she thought. They made good ones because the teachers were told to pass them regardless. She knew one of her teachers even signed a prewritten college recommendation letter because the principal ordered him to do so.
Because they didn’t care, her grades and good test scores were irrelevant. She didn’t have the look. She blended in the background and they wanted something obvious they could latch on to the make fun of. She didn’t wear glasses, had forgettable hair, wasn’t too thin or too fat. Her uniform matched the others but wasn’t too overly worn nor too crisply new.
The announcements ended and Danielle stopped cataloging the ways in which she wasn’t an obvious target. The homeroom teacher sat at her desk with her morning coffee grading papers. As long as they weren’t too loud then after attendance, they were allowed to do whatever they wanted.
Ten til Midnight 