Details: Omar’s mother Khadija (b. 1973) was from Somalia and worked as a grocery store manager. Omar’s father Chidi (b. 1968) was from Nigeria and worked as a chemistry instructor in a local community college. Both were parents with very high expectations for their son Omar. They give him the best education and a life that they never got to have as children, yet he still ended up being a little rascal.
Omar likes to mess with his friends and rap music. He doesn’t like going to school and the fact that Santa Claus is perceived as white.
Omar is an obnoxious prick. Sure, he’s friendly and jovial at times, but other times he’s annoying!
“Holy shit! Did you guys hear about that school shooting in Connecticut?” Melanie Wade asked during Ms. Henderson’s Pre-Algebra class, not doing any of her pre-bell work.
“Oh my God, so fucked up!” Uh-Oh answered.
“I know, right?” Melanie said.
While everyone else was talking about that school shooting in Connecticut that killed a bunch of little first-graders, Anima was too busy trying to see what the hell was on the whiteboard for that day’s pre-bell. “Hey, anyone know what the fuck it says on the board?” she asked in a hushed whisper.
“What problem?” Jeremy said, not really giving a shit about pre-algebra or the pre-bell.
Anima pointed at the whiteboard at the front of the classroom, which said-
“Damn, why you always gotta ask shit?” Jeremy asked rather irritably, turning his head towards his own pre-bell.
Anima was about to tell that son of a bitch exactly where he could shove his dumb ass statement, but then she figured that the people around her might defend Jeremy, so she sighed and looked back at the blank white paper she was working on. Looked like she was on her own for this one.
When Ms. Henderson gave back all the graded pre-bells several minutes later, she walked down to Anima’s desk and stared at the young girl. Anima gulped and squirmed in her seat; what the fuck was up with Ms. Henderson? She soon figured out as soon as she got her pre-bell back.
All throughout Pre-Algebra, Anima wondered and worried as Ms. Henderson was teaching the class a new concept- what it was, Anima wasn’t listening. When the class ended, she stayed back while everyone else went to their next classes.
“Ms. Henderson, did you hear about that school shooting in Connecticut?” Melanie asked while she was in the doorway.
“Yes, I did,” Ms. Henderson answered with no emotion in her voice as she was filing paper reports.
“Isn’t it awful though, Ms. Henderson?” Melanie asked again.
“Go to your class, Melanie,” Ms. Henderson commanded, still no emotion in her voice, “I’m very busy right now.”
Melanie huffed and stormed to her seventh-period class.
After the bell rang a couple of minutes later, Anima timidly walked up to Ms. Henderson’s desk and asked, “Did… Did you want me to see you for something?”
“Yeah, it’s about your pre-bell,” Ms. Henderson answered, grabbing the piece of paper Anima was holding in her hand, “I’m very concerned about you.”
Anima shifted her weight from one foot to another. Jesus, she hoped Ms. Henderson wasn’t going to get on her ass for not studying or some other dumb shit like that.
“You did all the problems correctly,” Ms. Henderson began.
Oh?
“Problem is, you copied the numbers down wrong,” she concluded.
Oh.
“Have you been having problems with seeing anything in your other classes or at home?”
Ohhhh. “I mean… I guess so. Why?”
Ms. Henderson said nothing as she stood up from her black swivel chair and walked to the front of the classroom to write down what looked like squiggles to Anima. “Anima, I want you to read these three sentences I’ve written up on the board.”
Wait, those were sentences? “From where I’m standing?” Anima asked.
“From where you’re standing,” Ms. Henderson answered with a slight nod.
Oh… well, okay then. Anima squinted as hard as she could, which usually gave her a slight headache, as she tried to read the three “sentences” on the board. “I have… eight tottles?” she guessed even though she was pretty sure she was wrong.
Ms. Henderson nodded. “Go on.”
The second sentence was easier, though it was still a bitch to read. “Pass the… the… the batter, please.”
“Alright, that’s good. One more sentence to go.”
Anima sighed and squinted more than she had ever squinted before. She was pretty sure that last sentence on the board was illegal to write. “I like… I like meth?”
Ms. Henderson nodded and said, “You did good. Now come to this front desk and read these sentences again.”
“Don’t I have a choice in refusing?” Anima asked.
“Do I look like I’m implying you have a choice?” Ms. Henderson answered with her hands on her hips.
Anima sighed and shuffled her feet towards the front desk where she read the three sentences again- the three correct sentences, that is.
“I have three turtles. Pass the butter, please. I like math,” Anima read with no emotion or motivation in her voice. She looked up at Ms. Henderson and asked if she was free to go.
“Yeah, just tell me your seventh-period teacher, and I’ll e-mail them a note telling them where you were,” Ms. Henderson answered.
Anima quickly told Ms. Henderson her seventh-period teacher’s name and rushed out towards the door of Mrs. Mol’s ICT2 class.
“Where were you?” Kishi whispered as soon as Anima sat down to do her Photoshop work, “I’ve been worrying about you this entire time.”
“I was in Ms. Henderson’s class doing something extra with her,” Anima answered, praying that Kishi wouldn’t ask anymore questions.
Thankfully, she didn’t. “Hey, did you hear about that school shooting in Connecticut?” Kishi asked instead.
Avery Watson, who was behind the two, turned her head and whispered, “It was really awful. I think it was a shame for the gunman to shoot himself in the head instead of facing the consequences for his actions.”
Suicide and murder? Hmm, this might be more interesting than Anima had ever thought. Even she was starting to think about looking up that school shooting. Hell, she was still researching the topic when there was a knock on the door.
“They need Anima Hatsune to see the nurse’s office,” a girl’s familiar voice, some office worker, told the teacher.
Mrs. Mol pushed a strand of wavy auburn hair out of her pale white face and looked over at the condemned with her dark abyss brown eyes and told her to go to the nurse’s office.
“What does nurse want to see you for?” Kishi asked in a hushed whisper.
“I have no idea!” Anima answered, internally panicking.
That was the trouble; Anima wasn’t sick. So why did the school nurse want to see her? She had to think over. She didn’t take her medication during school hours, and she wasn’t on her period. So, what was up? Unless… no, it couldn’t be. She followed the office worker to the nurse’s office, which was a small peach room right across from the front office.
“I hope you get to feeling better soon,” the familiar girl’s voice said to Anima, walking behind her from a notable distance in case Anima exploded or some shit like that.
Anima turned around and saw-
McKenna Suzuki! That bitch! Anima turned around and tried to see her again, but when she actually did, McKenna was gone. It was as if she had disappeared into thin air. Damn it. Anima sighed and turned to the nurse’s door, reluctantly knocking it.
“Just a minute,” an unfamiliar old woman’s voice cracked through the door. It took about five minutes for the door to open with an old white woman with curly, graying, light brown hair and ordinary green eyes. “Are you Anima Hatsune?”
Anima nodded. “You said you needed to see me for something?”
“Yes. Ms. Henderson said something about your eyesight being a little blurry.”
Oh, so that was it. Henderson ratted her out! That sneaky little snitch!
The nurse, whose name turned out to be named Nurse Hunter, gathered some basic information about Anima and her health and asked if she had any other symptoms other than the words on the boards being blurry. Anima shook her head, not remembering any other symptoms other than not being able to see for shit.
“Okay, Anima. I want you to stand at that little black x at the doorway, and I’ll point to the letters on the this eye chart. I want you to read the letters the best that you can, alright?” Nurse Hunter said.
Anima nodded and walked towards the open doorway. Nurse Hunter picked up a long black stick and pointed to the second row of letters.
“Alright, Anima. Can you tell me what those two letters say?” Nurse Hunter asked.
That was easy. “F, P.”
“That’s right!” Nurse Hunter slid the stick down to the next row. “And how about these letters?”
“T, O, Z.”
Nurse Hunter nodded and slid the stick down to the next row. That one took a little bit of time for Anima, but she eventually found her way. “L, P, E… D?”
Anima’s remaining confidence dwindled during the next few rows. “P… E… O… P… O? …E… O… P… O… Z… P? Eh… P… eh, E? L… D… P? Z… O?”
Nurse Hunter only nodded and said rather quietly, “You did just fine, Anima. Sit in that chair next to me while I call your guardians, alright?”
Anima sat in the tiny leather black chair next to the nurse’s desk as Nurse Hunter called her guardians, who only turned out to be Katja. But that didn’t mean that Anima had to be happy about the news she was receiving- that she needed glasses to wear to see shit. Anima could already see shit, especially when they were up close to her. It wasn’t like she was completely blind or some shit like that, was she? By the time Anima returned to class, school was almost over.
“What did the nurse want to see you for?” Kishi asked as she was saving her assignment in Photoshop.
“Apparently, I need glasses,” Anima mumbled almost too lowly to be understood or heard.
Almost, but not quite. “What did you say?” Kishi asked, leaning over in Anima’s view.
“The nurse said I need-” Oh, never mind!
…
“Oi, did anyone hear about that school shooting in Connecticut?” Ryan asked during Group Time.
Yes, everyone did, in fact, hear about that school shooting Connecticut. Anima was especially sick of hearing about it because she had bigger things to worry about.
“Yes, we’ve all heard about the school shooting,” Tessa answered, a little more irritably than usual because she had to study for finals, “And if this country isn’t going to implement stricter gun control laws after this, I don’t know what kind of shooting will.”
Well, damn. “That’s a little pessimistic, isn’t it?” Kishi asked.
Tessa shrugged. “Welcome to America,” she simply said.
“I don’t see why the fuck we’re talking about school shooting when we’ve got bigger shit to worry about!” Anima stated, “Like, what about a school nurse telling you that you need glasses when you can see things perfectly fine?!”
Everyone in the YouChannell Home gasped, from very quiet to very audible gasps.
“See, kids? This is the beginning steps to becoming a sociopath!” Ryan exclaimed loudly, almost shouting at the top of his lungs.
This time, there were more audible gasps.
“Ryan, sit down and don’t speak unless you have permission,” Greg said sternly.
“Yeah, this whole thing is getting to be quite ridiculous!” Tessa added.
But did Ryan keep his big fucking mouth shut? Hell no. “Right, my bad. What I meant to say is that this is the beginning steps to becoming a FUCKING, let me spell it out for you, F-U-C-K-I-N-G, sociopath!” he exclaimed, walking up to Anima’s chair, “And this is the beginning steps to becoming a school-”
And that was when Anima gave Ryan a swift kick in the balls- a hard, swift kick in the balls.
“Ow, fuck!” Ryan screamed in agony, holding his balls and falling onto his knees, bending over and trying not to cry out.
All the boys winced; Niklas even pulled his legs up to his chest to cover up his balls. Greg quickly grabbed a bag of ice to put on Ryan’s balls and guided the poor bastard to the couch while Katja promptly grabbed Anima’s hand and dragged her into the Vent Room.
“Anima, I did not appreciate the fact that you kicked Ryan in the groin,” Katja firmly stated.
Anima shrugged and rolled her eyes. “So? Fucker deserved it.”
“Ryan did not deserve to be kicked in the groin as hard as you kicked him,” Katja argued, “I don’t appreciate the fact that he called you a sociopath and a school shooter, but we have better ways of solving those issues.”
“Like what?! Putting on some black-framed hipster glasses and letting everyone else call me a school shooter and accuse me of listening to Marilyn Manson and playing violent video games and eating Doritos and drinking Mountain Dew like some fucking nerd or some shit?! Because that’s really all I need nowadays, right?! To be even more of a fucking Asian stereotype and-” Anima couldn’t think of anything else to say, so she fell down onto a red beanbag chair and stared into space.
Katja lowered herself to Anima’s level and asked gently, “Is this still about the school nurse telling you that you need glasses?”
Anima indignantly looked up at Katja. How would she know?
“Listen, Anima. Getting glasses isn’t such a big deal. At least, it shouldn’t be a big deal. Glasses are just a way for you to see things better, and if somebody bullies you for that, then that’s their problem, not yours. And if you don’t think you would like glasses, we can always try contact lenses.”
Contact lenses? Why hadn’t Anima thought about that?
“Of course, you’ll have to put them into your eyes and remember to take them out to take a shower and before you go to bed. Not to mention the fact that leaving them in for too long can make your eyesight even worse-”
Anima heaved a loud and gusty sigh. Katja made contacts sound like the world’s biggest pain in the ass, even worse than glasses. Anima sighed again.
“Are you ready to apologize to Ryan now?” Katja asked.
Anima sighed through her nose and rolled her eyes. She didn’t have a choice, did she? She took Katja’s hand and walked into the living where she saw Ryan still lying on the stuffy orange couch with a bag of ice on top of his balls and Greg sitting on the floor next to him.
“Anima has something to say to you,” Katja told Ryan. She looked over at Anima and asked what she “wanted” to say it.
Anima looked down at the floor for a few minutes and looked over at the now empty living room, assuming that Group Time had happened without her. Then she looked over at Ryan and mumbled, “I’m sorry for kicking you in the balls.”
Ryan barely nodded and adjusted the bag of ice on his balls.
“Ryan, do you have anything to say to Anima?” Greg asked him.
“What the fuck do I have to say to her? I didn’t even do anything-”
“I’m sure you have something to say,” Greg interrupted.
Ryan sighed loudly and glared at Anima. “I’m sorry for calling you a school shooter,” he mumbled irritably.
“Thank you two very much for apologizing. We’re very proud of you two,” Katja said.
“Why don’t you two help us cook dinner for tonight?” Greg suggested.
That sounded like a craptactular idea, but since Ryan was pretty much recovered and Anima was out of the Vent Room, they didn’t seem to have much of a say but to follow the two grown-ups into the kitchen to cook dinner.
Overall, twenty-eight people, including the gunman, died on the 14 of December 2012 in Newtown, Connecticut.
“So what are you guys planning to do this Halloween?” Kishi asked Lidiya at Lidiya’s house in Lidiya’s room after school. Her room had pink walls, a wooden brown floor, and loads of posters- mostly of Eurovision stars and events.
Lidiya shrugged. “Amanda and I were planning on trick-or-treating around the neighborhood,” she answered, “You guys can join if you want.”
“My mom’s making me a Kagamine Rin costume!” Amanda added happily.
Anima said, “I heard someone’s gonna dress up as Obama and Joe Biden.”
“Where’d you hear that from?” Lidiya asked doubtfully.
Anima shrugged and slowly looked at Kishi, who was sitting on the floor next to her.
“Oh, no. You didn’t hear that from me!” Kishi said, “And by the way, that is the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard in my entire life!”
“Oh come on, Kish!” Anima pleaded, “It’s perfect timing!”
“Nope. Nope. I’m not dressing up as the president!” Kishi insisted, “I’m going to dress up as a witch, and that’s final!”
“Aww!” Anima moaned. Now what the fuck was she supposed to dress up as? She had nothing. Fuck!
“So what are you dressing up as?” Kishi asked Lidiya.
“You heard about the Hunger Games series?” Lidiya answered.
“Yeah, that’s a movie, isn’t it?” Anima asked.
“Yeah, it was adapted from a book series,” Lidiya continued, “Anyways, I was thinking about dressing up as Katniss from that series.”
The rest of the amigos looked at Lidiya with confusion and apathy.
“You know… the main character. She’s that girl with the bow and arrows always on the movie posters.”
And then Kishi realized. “Oh, you mean that girl played by Jennifer Lawrence!”
“Yeah, her!”
Hey, maybe Anima could dress up as a famous movie character, too…
…
“So what the fuck are you two doing?” Anima asked Riley and Marilyn after dinner.
“Ain’t none of your damn business, little girl!” Riley answered rudely.
But Marilyn decided to blab out, “We fixin’ to watch Bring it On on DVD.” She held up the DVD cover, and Anima immediately figured out what she was going to be for Halloween.
“And what rating is Bring it On?” Katja asked suspiciously.
Before Riley and Marilyn could bullshit an answer, Ryan exclaimed, “It’s PG!”
Yeah… no it wasn’t. It was PG-13; Katja looked it up. “Uh-uh, you’re not watching that movie.”
“Oh, my God!” Riley groaned, “It’s got a few naughty jokes and swear words! It’s not that big of a deal!”
“Yeah, and it’s got a good message too!” Marilyn added, “It’s about how white people steal from people of color and claim it as their own thing!”
“That is a good message,” Katja said, “But I’m pretty sure there’s a more appropriate movie with the same message.” She pointed to the front door and concluded with, “Goodbye, Marilyn. We’ll see you soon.”
Marilyn looked at Riley and said, “Bye, girl. See ya soon.” She then quietly closed the door and started walking away.
Riley moaned and groaned. “Awww, shit! Now I’ll never get to see the ending of that movie!”
Ryan patted her on the back. “Don’t worry, Riley. Maybe someday.”
“Motherfucker, I was looking forward to that movie!”
“Alright, damn bitch! Shit!” Ryan backed away. “I was just trying to make you feel better!”
While Riley and Ryan were arguing (and mostly bitching at Katja), Anima was trying to stuff some socks into an old bra that used to belong to Kishi. The socks in the white cotton bra was squishing her chest, thus suffocating her. When she finally managed to find a position for the socks to not suffocate her, Anima sashayed into the kitchen like she was all that and a bag of chips. And everyone stared at her, completely silent. And then came the laughter.
“What the fuck?!” Riley screamed of laughter, “Are you trying to be the fucking main character from Bring it On?!”
“Torrance?!” Fern screeched, “Nigga, this bitch look like Sharpay Evans from High School Musical!”
“Oh, shit!” At that point, both Riley and Fern were on the floor gasping laughter.
Katja shook her head. “Uh-uh, no,” she said flatly, “You’re not going out looking like that.”
“Why not?” Anima questioned, “It’s not even a slutty costume!”
“Erhm, bitch. Do you not see the tits of those things?” Ryan questioned loudly.
Yeah, so?
Katja walked Anima into the downstairs bathroom and whispered harshly, “Take whatever it is out of your bra right now. You are going to hurt your chest if you keep in in there for long enough.”
Anima sighed heavily and reluctantly took the socks out of her bra. Then she balled them up and handed them to Katja, who then unballed the socks and threw them into the clothes bin.
“Hi, come in!” Kishi exclaimed from the living room when someone knocked on the front door, “We’re almost ready!”
Katja walked out of the bathroom and greeted whoever it was that Kishi answered; it turned out to be Amanda and Lidiya. Amanda had a surprisingly good Rin Kagamine costume that was almost stitched and sewn perfectly to the character design. Lidiya, on the other hand, had just thrown on a gray jacket, a darker gray T-shirt, and olive green pants with white tennis shoes for her Katniss Everdeen costume.
Anima looked at Kishi, who was adjusting a witch’s hat, and asked, “So that’s what you’re going to be for Halloween?”
Kishi nodded and tugged black Mary Janes onto bright orange, knee-high socks.
“Are you supposed to be Sharpay Evans from High School Musical?” Lidiya asked, staring straight at Anima’s red-and-white cheerleader outfit.
“No,” Anima answered flatly.
“Well then, who are you supposed to be?” Amanda asked.
Anima sighed through her nose and said, “I’ll tell you when we’re outside. It’ll be too long to explain.”
Lidiya only nodded and rolled her eyes.
“Alright, you girls!” Katja announced, holding up a silver digital camera, “Get close to each other so that I can take your picture!”
Kishi, Anima, Amanda, and Lidiya stood closely together and posed as they normally would.
“Okay, three, two, one!” Snap!
The girls surrounded Katja and carefully analyzed the picture that had been taken.
“Oh my God, I look downright demonic,” Kishi said quietly.
“I look a little bulky,” Amanda said.
“Yeah, my head looks a little small,” Lidiya added.
Anima didn’t see what they were complaining about. After all, it was just a stupid photo that Katja was gonna hang in her room. Then again, Anima didn’t look that bad…
“Okay, girls,” Katja said, “Be back by eight o’ clock!”
“Okay!” Kishi said, slamming the door shut.
When the girls walked out to the edge of the street, Kishi said, “Let’s just hope she never uploads that picture onto any website.”
“Yeah,” the rest of the girls agreed.
…
Riley, Ryan, Marilyn, Fern, Niklas, Marcus, Bridget, and Marianne were all in the furnace huddled around a tiny TV.
“So, what all are we watching?” Bridget asked Marilyn, who was setting up the television.
“We watching Bring It On because Riley never got to see the ending of it,” Marilyn answered, popping open the DVD case.
“Damn, bitch. You ain’t gotta announce it like that,” Riley grumbled, rolling her eyes. It was true- she did watch with her older half-sisters Amy and Shelby- but Marilyn didn’t have to say it like that, especially because Riley didn’t want to think about why she didn’t get to see the ending.
“Bring It On?” Bridget looked at Marilyn suspiciously, “That’s not a Halloween movie.”
“Well, bitch. What did you expect? Halloweentown? Charlie Brown?” Marilyn asked.
“Alright damn. You don’t have to be so shitty to my girl like that,” Ryan said.
Marilyn just simply giggled and popped the DVD into the DVD player.
“So, where’s the remote control?” Niklas asked.
Marilyn looked at Niklas with a confused expression.
“You know, just in case somebody catches us.”
“Oh.” Marilyn blinked back and forth. “We’ll… we’ll just figure that out when the time comes.”
Niklas just nodded and rolled his eyes as the trailers before the movie started playing.
“Hold on, bitch! Why you playing the trailers for?” Riley inquired.
“It’s all part of the plan,” Marilyn answered.
Riley groaned.
“Now listen here, hoe! Do you want to watch the ending of the movie before the feds get us or not?”
Well damn. Riley guessed Marilyn had a good point and all, but-
“Now shut up. The movie’s about to start.”
…
“My, what a cute little witch,” people commented on Kishi’s costume.
“Don’t you think it’s a little cold for that outfit?” people inquired about Amanda’s costume.
“Oh, are you supposed to be Sharpay from High School Musical?” people asked about Anima’s costume.
“Hey, you’re the Hunger Games girl!” people gushed about Lidiya’s costume, taking many photos with her.
“Hey, you’re the Hunger Games girl!” Amanda mocked those people as the gang was walking down a dark street.
Lidiya balked. “I can’t help that Hunger Games is popular right now!”
“No, but you planned to dress up as that Katniss girl just to get a bunch of people to take pictures with you,” Amanda retorted.
Anima and Kishi stared with their mouths gaping open. Oh… snap.
“Well, maybe if you had just dressed up as a more well-known character for Halloween, you would’ve gotten some pictures too!” Lidiya argued.
“As who?!”
Lidiya threw her hands up in the air and exclaimed, “I don’t know! Little Orphan Annie or something like that!”
Oh… shit!
“I can’t believe she just said that!” Kishi whispered to Anima.
“I can’t believe you just said that!” Amanda shouted at Lidiya, “I spent weeks on this costume! The least someone can do is acknowledge all the hard work I’ve done!” She huffed and turned around, as if she was about to walk home by herself.
“I mean… to be fair, Lidiya isn’t wrong,” Anima said.
“Shut up, Anima!” Lidiya shouted, “And keep out of it!”
“Yeah, shut up, Anima!” Amanda shouted back.
All four girls stood silently in the dark night until Kishi said rather quietly, “I like your costume, Amanda.”
“Thank you,” Amanda replied equally as quiet.
Lidiya barely nodded. “You did a really good job, Amanda. Sorry about what I’ve just said.”
“Thank you,” Amanda still replied just as quietly with a tiny smile.
After a minute of silently standing on the sidewalk, staring at each other, the gang decided to walk into the next neighborhood. They almost made it to the stop sign when they bumped into Sabina and Brianna dressed up as a cat and mouse respectively.
“How you livin’, Bebe’s Kidz?” Sabina shouted at the gang. She smirked and stared at Anima and asked, “You still gettin’ any shit from Henderson?”
Kishi looked at Anima and wondered what the fuck Sabina was going on about.
“She told me that Ms. Henderson was a lesbian,” Sabina told Kishi.
Kishi’s mouth dropped open. “Anima, you can’t just lie about teachers like that!”
“I didn’t say that!” Anima balked, “I only asked if she was gay because she was talking about her-” But with the looks on both Kishi’s and Sabina’s face, Anima knew explaining was moot.
“Wait a minute,” Brianna said, staring straight at Anima.
Oh, God. Not this bitch, too!
“Are you dressed up as Sharpay from High School Musical?” Brianna asked.
Oh, fuck! And it was for the completely different reason! “No, I’m not,” Anima answered irritably.
“Oh… I thought you were her,” Brianna said to herself.
Anima glared at Brianna and inquired, “And what the fuck are you supposed to be?!”
“A mouse,” Brianna answered with an eye roll, pointing at her light brown mouse ears, “Duh!”
“You sure as fuck don’t look like one to me,” Anima grumbled.
“Oh shit!” Sabina exclaimed all too loudly, pointing at Lidiya, “It’s motherfucking Katniss!” She took her phone out of her pocket and shouted, “Let’s take a selfie!”
“No, let’s not!” Lidiya grouched, trying to push that nasty bitch away, “I’m not about to deal with that crap again!” She kept on pushing Sabina away with all her strength, but Sabina was a strong motherfucker who wouldn’t back down for what.
Brianna gagged and laughed at the same time. “Sabina, she’s touching your titties!” she shouted.
Sure enough, Lidiya’s hands were on Sabina’s chest. “Ugh, gay!” Sabina shrieked.
“Alright, geez! I’m sorry!” Lidiya shouted, quickly snatching her hands off of Sabina, “You guys need to grow up!”
“And you need to stop being a faggot lover!” Sabina shouted back with a nasty smirk on her face.
Lidiya’s eyes widened, and her face grew red. She was about to grasp her hands around Sabina’s neck and scream about the incorrect usage of the word ‘faggot’ when someone behind said, “You guys are way too old for this shit. I mean, for God’s sake. Leave the trick-or-treating to the children.”
Everyone turned their heads and saw Leandra holding a little black boy’s hand. He was dressed up as Spider-Man.
“Awww, he’s so cute!” Kishi gushed at Leandra. She crouched down to the little boy’s level and cooed, “Hi there, sweet boy! You’re so cute! What’s your name?”
The little boy, who was a little freaked out, ran and hid behind Leandra’s legs.
“This is my son, Kingston,” Leandra answered nonchalantly, “He just turned two in September.”
Kishi stood back up and stared at Leandra for a solid minute. So did the rest of the girls- even Sabina and Brianna. Her son? Was that even possible?
“How the fuck is that even possible?!” Anima shouted.
Leandra placed her hands on her hips and inquired, “Why are you guys acting like someone broke into your house and kidnapped your dog?!”
“I’m sorry!” Anima exclaimed in a shriek, “I thought you couldn’t get pregnant until your were twenty-one!”
Leandra, Sabina, and Brianna started snickering, then laughed at the frankly stupid shit that Anima had said. Even Kishi, Amanda, and Lidiya stared at her like she was jacked out of her mind.
“My mama had me when she was sixteen!” Brianna stated after she calmed down.
“Yeah, this type of shit ain’t very rare, you know,” Leandra added, “I had King when I was fifteen.”
Anima turned around and was about to leave when she almost bumped into Jeremy Grey and Uh-Oh Ayodele dressed up as Rick Simon from Simon and Simon and Santa Claus respectively.
“Ay yo, what the fuck is going on?” Jeremy asked in a loud obnoxious voice.
Uh-Oh stared at Anima’s costume. “What the fuck are you supposed to be? Sharpay from High School Musical?” he asked.
“No!” Anima grumbled, scowling and clenching her fists. She turned to Jeremy and inquired scornfully, “What the fuck are you supposed to be?”
“I’m that nigga from Simon and Simon,” Jeremy boasted, smirking arrogantly at the girls.
“I thought you were a cowboy or something like that,” Amanda told Jeremy. She turned to Uh-Oh and reminded him that, “Santa Claus is white, you know.”
“Not in my house, he isn’t,” Uh-Oh argued.
“Yeah, well Santa Claus was based on Saint Nicholas, who is from Europe! So he’s WHITE!” Amanda shouted.
“I don’t care what the white man says! Santa Claus is BLACK!” Uh-Oh shouted back.
“Oh, for God’s sake! It’s Halloween! Can we keep the Christmas crap in December please?!” Lidiya exclaimed at the top of her lungs.
Everyone, especially Jeremy and Uh-Oh, stared at Lidiya for a long, long while. Then Jeremy and Uh-Oh turned around, walking away and loudly singing, “Colt 45, and two zigzags! Baby that’s all we need!”
Lidiya sighed heavily and said, “Come on, let’s go home.”
“Yeah, I’m getting a little bored,” Kishi added.
So the four girls turned around and was about to walk back home when they bumped into yet another group of friends, one who said to Anima-
Discovering that it was just Kyla Wong, Anima stared blankly. What the fuck was she talking about, and what the fuck did the color pink have to do with Halloween?
“It’s a Mean Girls reference,” Kyla explained rather condescendingly, “You know, like the movie.”
Still, Anima stared blankly.
“Oh, my God,” Kyla said in astonishment, “You mean you’ve never watched Mean Girls before?”
Anima shook her head because she still had no fucking clue what Kyla was going on about.
“Oh my God, Violet!” Kyla started gossiping to Violet Blume, “Anima’s never watched Mean Girls before!”
“You’re kidding me, right?” Violet gawked at Kyla.
“No, I’m being serious!”
“Oh, my God,” a small Asian girl whisper in awe.
“That is so unfetch!” a lanky white girl with wavy brown hair added.
Anima was about to walk up to them and inquire what the fuck they were going on about when Amanda pulled her back and whispered, “You see that small Asian girl with the pink jacket?”
Yeah, Anima saw her. She wanted to slap that bitch right across the face.
“That’s McKenna Suzuki,” Amanda said, “She’s in my math class, and I can’t stand her. She thinks she’s so much better than everyone else just because she thinks she’s smart.”
Well, fuck McKenna Suzuki. Anima glared at them gossiping bitches, all dressed in pink. One of them, the lanky white girl, walked up to her and introduced herself. “Hey, you must be Anima from Kyla’s art class,” she said, shaking the girl’s hand, “I’m Avery. I think I might be in your ICT2 class. It’s so nice meeting you.”
Anima shook Avery’s hand, not really sure of what the fuck was going on. Then she took a step back and looked at all four girls- Kyla, Violet, McKenna, and Avery.
McKenna stared at Amanda’s outfit and asked her, “So what are you dressed up as?”
“I’m a Vocaloid,” Amanda answered flatly.
McKenna turned to Violet and whispered in disgust, “What the hell is a Vocaloid?”
“I think it’s one those singing robot things,” Violet answered.
Amanda scowled to herself because that was not what a Vocaloid was, but then it would be too damn complicated and frustrating to explain what a Vocaloid actually was.
Avery stared at Anima’s outfit and asked her, “Are you supposed to be Sharpay from High School Musical?”
Oh, for fuck’s sake! “No,” Anima grumbled.
“Then what are you supposed to be?”
Shit! Come up with something quick, quick! Wait, what was that movie Riley and Marilyn were trying to watch, but Katja wouldn’t let them? The one with the blonde chick on the DVD box cover? Was it… was it… “I’m uh… I’m uh, the main chick from that movie… Bring it On!”
Violet turned away from McKenna and said, “Torrance?”
Yet another blank stare from Anima.
“Wait, so you’ve watched Bring it On, but not Mean Girls?” Kyla questioned Anima, “Or are you just bluffing and hadn’t even seen either movies before?”
“Oh my God, Kyla,” Avery said, “You can’t just ask people whether they’ve watched a certain movie or not.”
But Kyla had a different idea. She stared straight into Anima’s soul and commanded, “I dare you to say at least one cheer chant from that movie to prove that you’ve actually watched the movie.”
Aw, shit! Anima’s hands started to get clammy, her legs wobbly, and her mind blank. She was beginning to wish she had never tricked-or-treated at all. She tried to think of one, just one cheer chant that could fool this bitch, but alas nothing came to her. Wait… hold on… something did come to her, but Anima wasn’t sure if this came from the movie or not. She took and a deep breath and began to chant to the demise and shock of those around her.
…
“Oh, fuck me!” Niklas groaned to himself, “This is going to be one of those movies, isn’t it?” What Niklas was referencing were those shitty self-aware teen movies from the late 1990s and early 2000s that tried to make fun of the cliches and tropes of their counterparts but ended up doing the same thing as said movies (such as Not Another Teen Movie, The Comebacks, and High School High).
“Quiet during the movie,” Riley told him harshly.
“Yeah, Nik,” Fern echoed, “If you’re gonna be a fucking hater throughout the whole movie, you might as well just get the fuck out right now.”
Niklas stood up and left the furnace. Marianne soon followed.
“Hey,” Marianne said as the pair walked outside, “You mind if I join you?”
Niklas shrugged as he walked out into the woods near the playground.
“So uh… how have things been since you’ve been out?” Marianne asked.
When he made sure absolutely no one could hear him, Niklas sighed and answered, “I don’t know, to be honest. I thought that getting out of the hospital would make me a better person or something like that, but I think I just feel the same as I did before. You know… it feels kind of weird being out in the open now.”
Marianne nodded, like she understood. “So, do you think that if you stayed in the hospital longer, you would’ve, like, felt a lot better or something?”
Niklas glared at Marianne and asked, “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I’m trying to ask that if you had stayed in the hospital longer, would you feel the same way.”
Niklas threw his hands up in the air. “I don’t know! Probably! I’m trying my damnedest not to worry about this shit, God!”
“Okay, well I’m sorry for asking!” Marianne shouted, also throwing her hands up in the air.
“You know, sometimes I don’t like talking about this shit all of the time!”
“Well then, what do you want to talk about?!”
“I don’t know!” Niklas slumped into a portable toilet and buried his face into his hands. Marianne thought he was crying for a minute, but then he lifted his head from his hands and sighed, “I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry.”
Marianne slowly walked up to her boyfriend and asked if he needed anything from her.
“Can you stay with me for a minute?” Niklas asked, “I’m not sure if I can stand being alone right now.”
Marianne nodded, and the pair stood in front of the portable toilet in complete silence for a few minutes. Then Marianne began to rub her hand up Niklas’s arm, then his chest, and eventually, they started kissing.
…
“I can’t believe you did that cheer in front of McKenna Suzuki and her friends like that!” Amanda scolded Anima on their way home from trick-or-treating.
Anima could scarcely believe it herself. And for what?
“I’ll bet you ten dollars they recorded it on their cell phones, and they’re gonna upload it onto to YouTube or something like that,” Amanda continued.
Anima didn’t see why Amanda was being such a vindictive bitch, but damn she didn’t want that to happen. Suddenly, her stomach started churning.
“Jesus, Amanda. You don’t have to be this pessimistic about the whole situation,” Lidiya said, rolling her eyes.
“Yeah, it could’ve been worse,” Kishi added.
Amanda rolled her eyes and said, “Listen, you don’t know these girls. I do! So there!”
While the three girls were arguing, Anima cleared her throat and told her friends, “Hey, guys? I’m gonna go into the woods to get some fresh air. I’m feeling a little nauseated.”
Before they could ask why she needed to go into the woods for fresh air when they were outside, Anima was balls deep in there, feeling more and more nauseated. She felt like she was about to upchuck any minute when she opened the door to a portable toilet- oh, God!
“What the fuck?!” Niklas, who had been making out with Marianne, objected.
“You’re not supposed to make out in the toilets, dumb ass!” Anima shouted.
“Well, you’re supposed to knock on the doors when they’re closed!” Niklas shouted back. He slammed the door right into Anima’s face.
“Fuck you!” Anima yelled. She stormed away towards the area of the woods where there was a small lake. Closer and closer she got when she heard a singing voice- a beautiful, deep singing voice. Finally, when she was right in front of the tall grass separating the lake from the rest of the woods, she saw an amazing-looking chubby girl with long, chocolate brown hair and rich brown eyes.
Anima started to feel sick again; this girl looked so familiar. Could it be… no, it couldn’t be! Not Catherine from the special school!
No way it was Catherine! Catherine had a high-pitched voice and was a lot skinnier than this other girl. Still, they both looked eerily similar. Anima crept forward quietly just to make sure it wasn’t Catherine because… well, because. More quietly and more slowly, Anima tip-toed and tip-toed and tip-toed until- crack! Anima jumped in fear. So did the girl.
“Hello?” the girl asked in fear, “Is anyone here?”
Oh God, what the hell was Anima going to do?! Run, confront her, stay still?! Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck! Anima was panicking so badly that she didn’t even notice the girl staring at her.
“Hey,” the girl said, “Are you okay?”
Anima blushed and darted her eyes towards the ground. She tried to speak, but no words would come out because her mouth was too dry. Pretty soon, she fell down backwards onto the dirt.
“I’m Penelope,” the girl introduced herself as she helped Anima to her feet, “What’s your name?”
Anima darted her eyes back and forth between Penelope and the ground for a few moments before she finally had the energy to answer, “…Anima.”
“You look really pretty, Anima,” Penelope said.
Anima blushed from a light pink to a deep dark red. She was unable to breathe, her mouth was too dry for words once more, and her body started trembling in excitement yet fear. Oh God, what the hell was Anima going to do?! Run, confront her, stay still?! Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck! Anima was panicking so badly that she didn’t even notice that she was running for her life.
“Hey, Anima!” Penelope exclaimed, “Are you alright?”
Anima didn’t dare turn back and look, but she did, and this is what she saw.
Oh God…
…
“Hey Babe?” Bridget said to Ryan in the middle of Bring it On, “I’m bored.”
“Same.” Ryan looked around the dusty old furnace and discovered that he was the only male in the room. Niklas had left way earlier because he was being a fucking hater, and Marcus claimed that he had to use the toilet, but it was pretty likely that he was snitching on the lot of them. So, oh well- might as well start making out.
“You wanna go outside?” Ryan asked his girl.
Bridget looked around. “But the movie’s still on.”
“Bitch, you’ve been looking at Instagram and Twitter the entire time. Don’t fucking fool me.”
Bridget sighed and rolled her eyes. “Alright,” she relented, turning off her phone, “But only because you’re so damn sexy.”
The pair sneaked out of the furnace and tip-toed into the backyard. There, Ryan groped Bridget’s waist and proceeded to inch his hands up to her chest. Bridget felt up on Ryan’s ass and proceeded her way up to his chest, all the while french-kissing him. Each other’s tongue felt very familiar, but oh so blissful! The couple was about to fall down on the ground and maybe hump each other when another tongue, a foreign tongue, slipped into Bridget’s mouth. Ryan and Bridget opened their eyes; it was Marilyn.
“What the fuck?!” Bridget objected.
“Oi, get the fuck off my girl!” Ryan shouted, pushing Marilyn away.
Marilyn started laughing her ass off.
“Bitch, get the fuck off my girl!” Riley, who had followed the trio, shouted at Ryan.
“Well tell your girl to stop kissing my girl!” Ryan shouted back.
Bridget started to push Marilyn and shouted out, “What the fuck is wrong with you?! Are you fucking drunk or something?!”
“Shit, girl! I was just experimenting!” Marilyn chuckled.
“Well then go fucking experiment on someone else!” Bridget yelled.
“Yeah, go fucking experiment on someone else!” Ryan added.
Just then, Greg walked back home with Cereza and Axel. “What is going on in here?” he asked, motioning for Cereza and Axel to go inside.
“Marilyn was trying to kiss my girlfriend!” Ryan exclaimed.
“Snitch!” Riley yelled.
“Fuck you!” Ryan yelled back at Riley.
“Yeah, fuck you, you whore!” Bridget also yelled.
Greg looked at Marilyn and Bridget and asked what they were doing at the YouChannell Home in the first place.
“Oh, we were just watching Bring it On in the furnace,” Marilyn answered, still (allegedly) drunk as fuck.
“Snitch!” Ryan shouted.
Greg knew about Bring it On; mostly, he knew that the movie was PG-13. He also knew that only movies rated G and PG were allowed in the YouChannell Home. He also knew about Riley’s half-sister Amy sneaking into a movie theater along with her and another half-sister Shelby during the summer break of 2000 to watch Bring it On. They got caught five minutes into the movie. “You know what? Marilyn, Bridget, go home right now. Riley, Ryan, you’re coming up with me into the furnace right now.”
“Me?! I wasn’t even the one who thought up this idea!” Ryan whined.
“You thought it was a good idea to participate in the movie-watching,” Greg retorted. He turned back to Marilyn and commanded more harshly, “Marilyn, go home!”
Marilyn walked towards the front yard and said to Riley, “Girl, bye!”
“Bye yourself,” Riley said back flatly.
…
“What’s wrong, Anima?” Kishi asked Anima when she had run back onto the streets.
“I-I-I don’t know,” Anima stammered. And she truly didn’t know. She didn’t know how to say this, but in a way, she rather liked looking at Penelope. But still, she didn’t want to say or remember anything about that incident ever again, especially to her friends. “I… I feel kind of sick.”
Kishi nodded. “Yeah, it’s almost eight anyways,” she said. She handed her hand out to Anima and asked, “Do you want me to help you home?”
Anima nodded, her brain too exhausted to muster any words.
Kishi looked at Amanda and Lidiya and said, “I’ll see you guys soon, okay?”
Amanda and Lidiya nodded and walked another way towards their houses.
“See ya,” Lidiya said.
“Yeah, see ya,” Amanda added.
“Bye,” Kishi said. She held Anima up to her feet and walked home, not very satisfied about about how the night turned out. They didn’t get a whole bunch of candy, but that was really the least of their problems. Kishi didn’t really want to see Sabina, Brianna, Leandra, Jeremy, Uh-Oh, Kyla, Violet, Avery, McKenna, or anyone else for that matter. She just wanted to get home and go to bed. But even home would turn out to be fucking weird and whack.
“Boy, was that a good motherfucking movie!” Fern shouted at Ryan and Riley as the trio was raking leaves, “Too bad I didn’t get to see ending because some motherfucking HATER decided to snitch!”
Ryan and Riley both rolled their eyes and continued to rake leaves.
Kishi also rolled her eyes and muttered to Anima, “That’s it. I’m never trick-or-treating ever again. I’m too old for this crap anyways.”
Anima barely nodded. She wasn’t planning on trick-or-treating next year either, but a small part of her still wondered what Penelope was up to.
“So, you’re telling me Niklas is in a mental hospital, and this is the first time anyone’s ever told me this?” Marianne asked Ryan right after the last class of the day.
“‘Fraid so,” Ryan answered as nonchalantly as he could.
Marianne threw her backpack onto the ground. “Damn it, Ryan! How long have you known about this?!”
“Erhm… about… about a week or so. I swear it hasn’t been that long though.”
That didn’t make Marianne feel any better. “Well, shit! I wish you would’ve told me this sooner!”
Well, Ryan would’ve, but he didn’t know how to break the news to Marianne.
“If you ever visit him again, give him this,” Marianne said, giving Ryan a piece of paper.
Ryan quickly shoved the piece of paper into his pocket and looked at Bridget, who had been trying not to stare at him the whole time. “You got anything to say too?”
Bridget looked down at her lap and said quietly, “Damn… I’m sorry about what happened to your friend.”
The pair was completely silent during the rest of the ride. When Ryan returned home after dropping Bridget off at her house, he hastily shoved the piece of paper Marianne gave to him to Greg. “This is for Niklas.” Then he bumped into Anima.
“What the fuck, asshole?!” Anima exclaimed angrily, “Watch where you’re going!”
Ryan stared at Anima for a good while. She didn’t look too hot; her eyebrows were deeply furrowed into her forehead, and her eyes were baggy and darker than usual. “What the fuck happened to you?” he asked.
Anima sighed deeply and internally as she thought back all the way to her sixth-period class- Ms. Henderson’s Pre-Algebra class. Anima was sitting in the back with Uh-Oh and Jeremy near the teacher’s desk doing her pre-bell assignment.
“Psst,” Uh-Oh whispered to Anima and Jeremy, “Is that an eight or a zero on Number two?”
Anima squinted at the board, but all the problems were blurry as fuck.
“Shit if I know,” Anima whispered back.
Uh-Oh slid into his chair and scowled. “Motherfucker,” he mumbled to himself.
As if the motherfucker word wasn’t said enough in the classroom, Ms. Henderson’s phone started going off. “Oh, you sweet motherfucker,” Ms. Henderson groaned to herself.
Anima, Uh-Oh, and Jeremy inched out of their seats just a bit to eavesdrop some more.
“Sorry our blind date didn’t go as well as it did last night. Would you like to… what, no!”
“Ms. Henderson, what blind date was you talking about?” Jeremy asked.
That got the whole class’s attention; Ms. Henderson’s dark green eyes grew big, and her pale white face turned all sorts of red.
“You said something about a blind date,” Jeremy replied.
Ms. Henderson swiftly jumped out of her chair and announced as briskly as she could, “Everyone, pass your pre-bells up.”
As pre-bells were being passed up, more and more students became interested in Ms. Henderson’s blind date.
“Ms. Henderson, what was your blind date like?” Eli Cross asked.
“Is he cute? Is he rich?” Melanie Wade asked, “Come on, Ms. Henderson! Give us at least one hint!”
“Okay, here’s the deal,” Ms. Henderson relented, “I’ll grade your pre-bells, and if the class average is seventy percent or above, I’ll give you one little hint. Deal?”
The class cheered, forgetting about the fact that Ms. Henderson was a harsh grader. But that didn’t seem to matter because surprisingly, the class average was eighty-three percent.
“Shit,” Ms. Henderson whispered to herself. Writing the eighty-three percent on the board and hearing the class whoop even louder with joy, she took a deep breath and said, “Remember, this is the only hint you’ll get.” She took an ever bigger breath and announced, “It was a girl.”
At first, the whole class was silent. Then the whole room, as tiny and cramp as it was, started buzzing with a whole lot of gossip- most of which was quite negative, though quite subtle.
“Yo, is this normal?” Uh-Oh whispered to Jeremy.
“Shit if I know,” Jeremy whispered back.
Watching all her classmates whisper to each other about Ms. Henderson, Anima didn’t see why nobody would just admit the truth. “Ms. Henderson, are you gay?” she bluntly asked the teacher.
The entire class halted into a silent screech. Anima looked up at Ms. Henderson’s face, which was completely red and steamy. And then the only noise that came up was Uh-Oh snickering his black ass off. Next thing they knew, they were in ISS- in-school suspension.
“So what the hell you two in for?” Leandra Miller asked. She, Sabina Johannsson, and Sabina’s best friend Brianna Maxwell were also in ISS.
Anima looked at Leandra dead in the eye and answered, “Me and Uh-Oh asked Ms. Henderson if she was gay.”
“…What?” Anima asked after a minute of shock and awe.
“You realize what city we live in, right?” Leandra said to the girl.
Anima shrugged. “Yeah, Portland. Why?”
“Uh, Portland’s the gay capital of the fucking United States,” Sabina piped up.
“Yeah, bitch. You guys can’t just ask those types of questions right out in the open like that,” Leandra added, “Are you trying to get fucking expelled or what?”
“Bitch, I wasn’t the one asking questions!” Uh-Oh insisted.
“Yeah, well you were laughing your ass off when I asked the fucking question!” Anima told him off.
Brianna sat there silently until she eventually asked, “So, is she gay?”
Sabina practically spat out her drink that she never had in the first place. “BITCH!”
Seeing Uh-Oh and Sabina cackle with laughter, Leandra’s face in her hands, and Brianna biting her lips, Anima blushed. “Alright, well what the fuck are you guys in for?!”
“Dress code violation,” Brianna answered.
“Dress code violation,” Leandra answered.
“I tried beating the shit out of Christian Seger during P.E. this morning,” Sabina answered.
“Damn, what the fuck did he do to you?” Brianna asked.
“Fucker tried to ask me to touch his dick,” Sabina answered.
Anima blushed even harder and started randomly doodling because she didn’t want to hear SHIT about middle-school students touching ding-dongs or any of that other shit. Thank God for the pencil scratches on her piece of notebook paper on top of the hard gray desk. So, what was up with her life? Well, Niklas was still in the psychiatric hospital, and Tamie has been hallucinating a lot more lately. And the more she said anything about Ryan, the worse.
Anima hated to admit it, but she kind of missed Niklas. Speaking of Niklas, that drawing she drew looked eerily similar to him. Hey, maybe she could pawn this off to him as a gift of some sort.
Yeah, that sounded like a good idea.
“Here,” Anima said, handing Ryan the drawing, “This is for Nikki.”
Ryan hastily snatched the paper out of Anima’s hands and stalked to Greg’s room. “I got some fan-mail for Nikki,” he said, giving the old man a bunch of letters and Anima’s drawing of Niklas.
Greg grabbed the pieces of paper and said, “Thank you.”
Anima looked down at her schedule, not too sure what to do with herself for forty-five minutes.
NACH CUMA PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Hatsune, Anima Homeroom: Blume, Brooke Grade: 0801: Art 7/8- Blume, Brooke #12602: Science 8- Sare, Tyrone #7203: PE- Hightower, Neil Gym04: US History- Littleton, George #12505: English 8- Mitchell, Gwendolyn #7306: Pre-Algebra- Henderson, Taylor #9907: ICT 2- Mol, Ariel Lab 2
She heaved a gusty sigh and dragged her feet towards Ms. Blume’s art class where she saw this.
Ms. Blume turned around and saw Anima. “And you must be…?”
“Anima,” Anima answered quietly, all of a sudden feeling shy, “Anima Hatsune.”
“Oh, you’re Anima,” Ms. Blume said, “I thought your name was pronounced ‘Hat-soo-knee.'”
Anima just stared awkwardly at the young, thick teacher.
“You… do have your schedule with you, right?”
Anima showed the young thick teacher her schedule.
“Alrightie then. You can sit in that back table near the sink,” Ms. Blume said. She looked at a girl with curly blue-violet hair and said, “Violet, raise your hand for me please.”
Violet, the girl with curly blue-violet hair, raised her hand.
“Make sure you two get along, alright?” Ms. Blume said.
Anima nodded, then looked around the classroom to avoid looking at Violet’s eyes. Tap tap tap. Anima turned around and saw Violet- too late.
Anima nodded because she didn’t know whether or not Violet was telling the truth.
“Violet, stop,” another girl said.
Anima turned around and saw a short Chinese girl with glasses.
So, it was true. It was pretty much confirmed when Ms. Blume called on Violet and Violet stood up in her chair and announced that she was Ms. Blume’s cousin.
“Violet, enough of that!” Ms. Blume said firmly. She walked over to where the girls were sitting at and whispered more harshly, “Just because it’s true doesn’t mean you can brag about it.”
The Chinese girl turned back to Violet and stuck her tongue out when the teacher turned around. “Yeah, Violet. That’s what I said,” she said. She turned to Anima and added, “By the way, my name’s Kyla, and this is Violet. What’s your name?”
With her hands clammy and her cheeks red, Anima had never felt so shy in her life. Still, Kyla and Violet were expecting an answer, so she quietly and meekly answered, “Anima.”
“Nice to meet you, Anima,” Kyla said.
“Same,” Violet added, “So where’d you come from?”
Where’d she come from? Shit, she couldn’t answer that truthfully. What would they think if she told them she came from a group home?! Then she remembered what Ryan said a couple of months back when he was talking shit about one of his ex-girlfriends being from there. “I came from Medford.”
“Medford,” Kyla said, “I’ve never been there. What’s it like?”
Anima shrugged and answered as casually as possible, “It’s okay, I guess.”
Violet and Kyla nodded. Then they turned to each other and started whispering.
“Well at least she didn’t come from a group home,” Kyla said, “Poor thing! She’s so shy!”
“Gee, Kyla. That was kind of a dick thing to say,” Violet replied, “You think she’s special?”
“Poor thing,” Kyla said, casting a quick glance at Anima.
As the school bell rang, Anima rushed out of the art class with her eyebrows furrowed, her eyes blurred, and her cheeks hot and red. Yet another reason why she lied. Poor thing! More like dumb bitches! She stormed her way into her next class when she soon realized that she had no idea where her next class was. It took her two minutes for her to find someone who would tell her where Mr. Sare’s science class was. By the time she entered the small stuffy classroom, she discovered Kishi was sitting at a tall black table with another girl. There was one seat left.
“Where the hell were you?!” Anima inquired angrily when she sat down, “I’ve been looking for you this whole time!”
“Well I’m sorry, but I didn’t want to be late for class!” Kishi said a half-assed apology.
Anima wasn’t sure whether to accept that excuse or not. Either way, she was still mad about Violet and Kyla, and she picked up her Lucky Star manga and started reading when the teacher walked in and introduced himself.
“Good morning, class,” the teacher said, “My name is Mr. Tyrone Sare. I have been in the military for twenty years.” Then he looked straight at the table where Anima and Kishi were sitting at and shouted-
Mr. Sare grabbed the roll from his desk and said, “When I call your name, please raise your hand.” He read the first name, “Rosa Aguilar?”
“Here,” the girl sitting next to Kishi said.
“I said raise your hand!” Mr. Sare yelled at the poor girl. He quickly regained his poseur and repeated, “Rosa Aguilar?”
This time, Rosa raised her hand. Mr. Sare continued calling the roll with Ayodele, Omar “Uh-Oh” and Grey, Jeremy also being in the same class.
“Puberty must’ve hit this motherfucker early,” Anima whispered to Kishi, elbowing her bestie and pointing and Jeremy.
Kishi started giggling.
“Bruh, Jeremy’s been held back twice,” Rosa commented.
That made Anima and Kishi snicker their asses off until Mr. Sare turned back to their table and shouted, “Hatsune!”
Anima jumped and looked left and right.
“Is Hatsune here or not?”
Oh yeah, attendance. “He…Here!”
“What part of ‘Raise your hand when I call your name’ did you not get, Hatsune?”
This time, more timidly, Anima raised her hand. Then the teacher went back to calling roll while Kishi and Rosa started giggling until he called Kishi’s name. Kishi raised her hand, but she was still giggling.
“Now WHAT is so funny?” Mr. Sare shouted, “Either you tell the joke or you stop laughing!”
Kishi quickly zipped her lips.
When second period ended, Anima and Kishi had to run all the way to the gym just to make it to their third-period class on time. Luckily, there was a water fountain they could drink from, and boy did they, especially Anima. Then they changed into a white T-shirt and knee-high orange gym shorts.
“Oh, God! I’m so tired, and we haven’t even started class yet!” Kishi panted.
Anima merely nodded. She sat down on a bench and doubled over. She looked over and noticed an overweight black girl. She must’ve been new because she wasn’t talking to anybody.
“So uh… you new here too?” Anima shyly asked.
“Anima!” Kishi said in a hushed whisper, “That’s Leandra Miller! She’s been here for years!”
“Oh.” Anima turned back to Leandra and asked, “So what all do we do here?”
Leandra snorted. “Nothing really. Sometimes we play kickball every once in a while, but that’s pretty much it.”
Anima was in great awe. “You’re serious?”
Sure enough, Leandra was right as the gym teacher, a tall white man with balding brown hair, called rolled and started a short game of kickball. And that was pretty much it. The only notable thing about the whole ordeal was that Shibi Kuroi was in this class; as usual, she kicked the ball to the pitcher when it was her turn.
Anima tapped on Leandra’s shoulder. “Is this the only class the special needs kids are in?” she asked.
“Anima!” Kishi exclaimed, “You can’t say that in public! It’s mean!”
“Yeah, bitch!” Leandra added, “Are you trying to get your ass kicked here?! This is motherfucking Portland, Oregon we’re talking about!”
“What? I was just asking a question!” Anima said.
“Okay, but it was an offensive question,” Kishi argued.
“Like I said, you’re gonna get your ass kicked if you ask this in public,” Leandra said.
Well, damn. Thankfully, Anima didn’t have to deal with that shit for very long because the game ended around half and hour later. Then, as she was changing back into her school uniform, she noticed it. She noticed that most of the girls in her class looked very cute. Sure, things were a little blurry, but they were still cute either way. And then the bell rang to snap her out of it.
The next class, U.S. History, Anima and Kishi had wasn’t very far. In fact, they were the first to walk into the classroom. In fact in fact, it took quite a while for other students to come in, but it didn’t take very long for the teacher to arrive. He was a frail old man with curly white hair and glasses.
“Good morning, class,” the teacher said, “My name is Mr. Littleton. I’ve been teaching U.S. History here for over forty years, and isn’t it interesting how our country has changed so much in that little time?”
No, not really. Mostly because Anima didn’t even really consider America as her country.
“In this class, we’ll discussing the history of our country from the 1600s all the way to the Civil War,” Mr. Littleton continued as he handed out information sheets, “I would like to know more about you guys and what you guys like and need in this class.”
As Anima was filling out her information sheet, a sick hard feeling punched her in the bladder, and it was a hard hard punch. She was beginning to regret drinking so much water at that water fountain in PE. Anima jumped and began to tap her foot. Luckily, Kishi was sitting right in front of her so that she could tap her on her shoulder.
“Psst, Kish!” she whispered, “Where’re the bathrooms here?”
“What are you asking that for?” Kishi whispered back.
“I need to pee. Like, really badly.”
“They should be near the gym or something like that. Why don’t you ask the teacher?”
Hope that’ll work. Anima’s hand sprang up faster than the speed of light, but her lips were dry and her brain was empty. Thankfully, Mr. Littleton noticed immediately. “Is there anything you need?”
Gotta say something, gotta say something, gotta say something. “Can I go to the bathroom please?”
“My goodness, is this an emergency?” Mr. Littleton asked.
What the fuck wasn’t an emergency?!
“Alright, alright! Here’s the bathroom pass!” the old fuck said, handing Anima a small red bathroom pass.
Thank fuck Anima made it in time, or shit would’ve been gone down further than R. Kelly’s dignity and career. Flushing the toilet, Anima realized that while her day hadn’t been that great, it could’ve been a lot worse. A whole lot worse.
“Anima, it’s time to get up!” Greg called from the kitchen.
Anima rolled over in her bed. God, it was fucking early! Seriously, what the fuck?! Anima plopped the pillow over her head and closed her eyes.
“Anima, I’m not joking! Time to get up! It’s the first day of school!” Greg said again.
The first day of school?! Holy shit, it really was that day. That day Anima anticipated and dreaded in the first place. She got up, put on a black T-shirt and blue jeans, and walked down the hall to the kitchen where she saw Cereza eating breakfast and Axel Eriksson with his head on the brown wooden table.
Then Axel plopped his head back on the table and went to sleep, but that wasn’t gonna stop Anima because she said, “Yeah, well you look like a fourteen-year-old in the fifth grade too! How’d that happen?!”
“Anima, this really isn’t the time to pick on Axel,” Katja said.
“He picked on me first!” Anima argued.
Axel lifted his head again. “Huh?”
“I said that you picked on me first!” Anima repeated just in case.
“Oh,” Axel said.
“Axel, this isn’t the time to pick on Anima,” Katja said, “And get your trousers and shoes on. We need to get on the bus in time.”
Then Greg walked into the kitchen and looked at Anima. “Anima, where’s your uniform?”
“What uniform?” Anima asked.
Greg held up a white sailor shirt with an orange tie and an orange jean skirt. By orange, Anima noticed that it was prison orange.
“WHAT THE FUCK?!” Anima screamed at the top of her lungs.
Tessa stumbled tiredly into the kitchen to investigate whatever the hell was going on. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“These are the ugliest fucking things I have ever seen!” Anima complained at the top of her lungs, “I mean, really?! They couldn’t get, like, a good color like blue or black?! They had to use fucking orange of all the colors in the world?!”
Tessa was secretly thankful that she didn’t have to wear that ugly ass uniform.
“Listen, Anima,” Greg said, “You may think the uniform’s ugly and all, and I somewhat agree, but you really have no choice in the matter. An ugly uniform isn’t gonna kill you.”
“Besides,” Katja added, “You’re not the only one wearing that ugly thing.”
She sure wasn’t; Anima knew for sure when she stood next right behind Kishi talking to two girls.
“Anima!” Kishi said, waving her hands in the air, “You remember Lidiya and Amanda, right?”
Anima turned around and saw a girl with long light brown hair (Lidiya) and a girl with short red hair with black ends (Amanda).
Anima shrugged and answered, “Maybe.”
Kishi sighed through her nose. “Anyways, this is Anima. Anima, Lidiya and Amanda.”
“‘Sup,” Anima said.
“‘Sup,” Lidiya replied.
Awkward silence until-
“Aw, man!” Amanda whined, “Are you kidding me?! My iPod just died!”
“You mean your older sister’s iPod,” Lidiya muttered under her breath.
Amanda gave Lidiya a stern look and asked how she knew that was her older sister Madeline’s iPod.
“I mean, it’s pretty obvious you don’t have your own, and if you did, didn’t you say yours would be red and not blue like Maddie’s?” Lidiya said.
Amanda’s eyes went back and forth between Lidiya and the ground. “Well… yeah… but Maddie got a new iPod, and it’s red, so she said I could have her old one. So it’s technically mine now.”
“Oh, that makes sense now,” Kishi said.
“Yeah, it kind of does,” Lidiya added.
Anima just nodded, except not really. Was this how other kids lived? In the YouChannell Home, if Amanda had taken something that wasn’t hers, she would’ve gotten her ass beaten.
Finally, the time came- the school bus arrived. The doors swooshed open, and there was the bus driver sitting there- an obese white woman with pimples all over her face and short greasy brown hair. “Fresh meat,” she said with a wickedly evil smile plastered all over her face.
Anima gulped, and her stomach zipped down like an elevator dropping all the way down to the first floor.
“Don’t worry, Anima,” Kishi tried to reassure, “She’s not mean- well, not really.”
The bus driver’s deep abyss blue eyes stared at the young blonde Asian. Anima gulped again; Kishi’s statement wasn’t very reassuring. She looked over to Ryan, Riley, and Marilyn near Ryan’s shiny red mid 2000s car.
“How much money you got?” Ryan was asking the two girls.
“Can we ride to school with you?” Marilyn asked.
“You got gas money?” Ryan asked.
Marilyn checked her wallet. “I got $2.62.”
Anima also had no gas money.
“Fuck you, nigga!” Riley shouted at Ryan.
“Fuck you too, fat ass!” Ryan shouted back at Riley, speeding off.
Anima figured that it would be better to deal with the scary bus driver than it would to deal with a pissed-off Ryan. Besides, she at least had Kishi with her… or so she thought because as soon as she opened up her Lucky Star manga, Amanda decided to get in on the action.
“Hey, is that a Lucky Star manga?” Amanda asked.
Anima nodded.
“And in Japanese too!” Amanda was impressed. “Hey, have you heard of Sword Art Online? I heard it was a great show.”
Anima shook her head; Sword Art Online sounded pretty stupid if you asked her.
“So,” Amanda began, “You think we got any classes together?”
Anima looked at Amanda dead in the eyes. “What grade are you in?”
“Seventh.”
“Then no.”
“Hey, Anima,” Lidiya said, “You realize seventh and eighth graders can share some of the same classes together, right?”
“It’s mostly just electives though,” Kishi added.
Oh? Anima sighed and grabbed Amanda’s schedule.
NACH CUMA PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Rowan, Amanda Homeroom: Pratt, Margaret Grade: 0701: Pre-Algebra- Pratt, Margaret #8002: Art 7/8- Blume, Brooke #12603: Honors Science 7- Jiang, Zhou Ping #9104: ICT 1- Mol, Ariel Lab 205: Honors English 7- Brandes, Felicia #9306: Office Worker- Broom, Barbara Office #107: Honors World History- Banks, Lee #89
Oh, fuck no! This girl was in damn near every honors class! Jesus fucking Christ, Anima just felt like the world’s biggest dumb ass on God’s green earth!
“Aw, nuts!” Amanda exclaimed when she saw Anima’s schedule, “We don’t have any classes together!”
Nah, she’d think?!
“Amanda, I don’t think any of us have the same classes with you,” Lidiya said.
Amanda looked as if she was gonna cry. “Aw, nuts!” she exclaimed again.
“I ain’t getting on, you fat ugly bitch!” a boy’s voice shouted from outside of the bus.
“What did you say?!” the bus driver shrieked in sheer anger.
Anima looked out from the window and saw-
The bus driver just snorted and said, “Get on the bus, Jeremy.” When Jeremy got on the bus, she drove far, far, far away towards the school… well actually-
“Uh-oh, Uh-Oh!” Jeremy shouted out of the window, “You better run faster or else you’ll miss the bus!”
“Fuck you!” Uh-Oh shouted back.
Suddenly, the bus screeched to sudden stop. Uh-Oh finally managed to catch up with it, and the driver really had something to say.
“OMAR AYODELE, YOU DO THIS CRAP EVERY DAY, EVERY YEAR! I’VE JUST ABOUT HAD IT! GET ON THE BUS RIGHT NOW AND STAY THERE!”
Uh-Oh, aka Omar Ayodele, hopped on the bus and stayed there. And the bus kept on rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling. Kept rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling until finally they reached the “holiest” place of all- Nach Cuma Middle School; they were five minutes late for the first class.
“Well, see you in second period,” Kishi told Anima when they got off the bus.
Anima stopped in her tracks. “Wait, what do you mean second period?! I thought we had every class together!”
“Except for two, yeah.” Kishi handed in her schedule.
NACH CUMA PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Sayaka, Kishi Homeroom: Henderson, Taylor Grade: 08
01: Transitions to Algebra- Henderson, Taylor #99
02: Science 8- Sare, Tyrone #72
03: PE- Hightower, Neil Gym
04: US History- Littelton, George #125
05: English 8- Mitchell, Gwendolyn #73
06: Office Worker- Weinstein, Cindy Office #3
07: ICT2- Mol, Ariel Lab 2
But it was too late. Kishi was already gone for her first class.
Details: Omar’s mother Khadija was from Somalia and worked as a grocery store manager. Omar’s father Chidi was from Nigeria and worked as a chemistry instructor in a local community college. Both were parents with very high expectations for their son Omar. They give him the best education and a life that they never got to have as children, yet he still ended up being a little rascal.
Omar likes to mess with his friends and rap music. He doesn’t like going to school and the fact that Santa Claus is perceived as white.
Omar is an obnoxious prick. Sure, he’s friendly and jovial at times, but other times he’s annoying!
Please read my book: https://www.wattpad.com/522934908-youchannell-2012-2013-chapter-eighteen-cheering-up/page/2
ManictheMod 