Labeled a Loser

by Mandy-Love 6/2/2010, 11:53 pm

Labeled a Loser

Ch - 1
I lifted up my head and remembered where I was. Third period, Mr. Kins’ math class. Currently he was lecturing about the diameter of a circle or something I really didn’t care about. Most of the time when he would lecture I would silently make fun of his wannabe-Elvis haircut. That or I would daydream like just a second ago.

“Ms. Rains…” I heard the teacher call out to me. “Can you please tell the class and me what you multiply the diameter by in order to get the circumference of a circle?”

I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. “Tessa,” I mumbled to no one unparticular. Personally, I hated when people called me by my last name. Rains. It made me sound so sad and depressing. Tessa Josephine Rains was my full name. Sometimes I was referred to as “Tess”, “Tessa Jo”, or the most recent, “Loner”. Never did I really have anyone to just “hang” or “chill” with at school. So I had been labeled.

I felt Mr. Kins’ hands slam down on my dusty desk, and a poof of dust went into the air. “Pardon me but would you answer me please young lady? And without the sass?” I heard him bark. He could be the coolest teacher sometimes. But this was not one of those times.

Looking up at him, I quickly answered,”3.14. Or commonly known as pi.” After I said that, I hoped he wouldn’t think I was a know-it-all. Even more than that I didn’t want him to be thrilled that I actually paid any attention in his class, because I would be labeled “Nerd” for about a month.

Unfortunatly, I was right about Mr. Kins being thrilled. “Nice job Ms. Rains…” he smiled in satisfactory, and turned away from me and back to the class. “Alright class, give Ms. Rains a round of applause.”

As soon as he said that, I felt like and ice cream cone in a microwave. Only six out of thirty four kids clapped. Steve Lander, a totally nerd; Sierra Lander, Steve’s twin sister; Danny Villerone, who had no clue what was going on; May Kins, the teacher’s daughter; Vicky Samuels, a major teacher’s pet; and the closet thing I had to a friend, Taylor Marshall. Mr. Kins seemed content with the few kids that actually had listened to him, and I sunk down in my seat.

Just as I was about to flip my hood on and close my eyes to daydream, the bell went off. My next class was gym. Not my best class. Or my worst. Science was my worst class, but I had that in the morning. Let’s just say I’m not a morning person.

I felt a tap on my back and quickly turned around to see Raine Urban smiling at me. “Uh… chick, the bell rang,” he laughed, and his dark hair fell into his eyes. Immediately I stood up and grabbed my purple binder, shoving my auburn hair behind my ear. Raine seemed confused about my shy actions, so I darted towards the door not wanting to be late, or continue talking to Raine.

When I walked into the musty old gym, I was greeted by the familiar scent of wood, dirt, and rubber. Around me were a bunch of kids in old shirts and black gym shorts. The rule was we had to have black shorts and a grey T-shirt. A few girls, who were labeled popular, broke the rules a little by wearing black short-shorts, and glitter-covered, cut up, grey camisoles. I myself had a pair of plain black shorts that were a little tighter than gym shorts, and a plain gray T-shirt, as ordered. My personality was to bend the rules, not break them.

Taylor jogged up to me. “Oh my god. Guess what we’re doing today?” she mumbled to me quickly because the gym teacher was walking by us. I just shrugged and kept listening. “Volleyball!” she screeched, not caring how loud she was being. Obviously, Taylor loved volleyball. She’d played it her whole life, with her family. Even her parents played. They could all get pretty competitive in the Marshall family.

“Wonderful…” I breathed. My family on the other hand, or maybe just me in general, was not athletically skilled. I mean we weren’t a bunch of potatoes, but we didn’t do many sports.

Apparently Taylor didn’t get my sarcasm and went all high-pitched, squeaky, girly0girl voice and clapped her hands together. For once, Taylor’s nails were painted. Not that it looked good or anything. Every nail was a different color. There were neons, pastels, and a few other colors I really didn’t recognize. My basic colors were black, white, gray, and purple. But Taylor always went all out. At the first dance, the theme was colorful, and she showed up in a rainbow dress. But I don’t just mean the colors. I mean she actually had cotton-balls glued to the bottom hem like a cloud. In other words, she was a living, breathing, Pixie Stik. She made you feel really hyper, then sick when you had too much.

After about six minutes, I realized I was zoning out as usual, and was interrupted by a loud chirping noise. I turned to my right and saw the gym couch, Mrs. Akers, staring at me with her whistle to her cherry red lips. Seriously, somebody needed to show her the proper way to apply make-up.

“Rains. I believe I told everyone to sprint six laps around the gym. What are you doing over here? It sure looks like you’re ignoring me!” she screeched and blew her whistle again. I winced. Again with the last name. Mrs. Akers blew her whistle again, and I took off for the others.
When I caught up to Taylor she was giggling. “What’s so funny?” I asked, almost starting to laugh myself. But then I noticed this kid named Ralph had fallen over a trash can he had tried to jump. Next to him was his best friend Randy, who was dying of laughter just like everyone else.
Randy caught me looking at him and sprinted over to me. “Hey Babe!” he joked. I had known him since third grade, so he was close to me and my family. He was our neightbor.

“Babe?” I laughed, remembering the time I got dared to pretend-propose to him. I had walked up and was like, “Will you marry me?” and he had laughed and said yes. So it was a total inside joke and Taylor was clueless. She just stared at me funny in a do-you-know-something-I-don’t-know kind of way, which made me laughed even harder.

“So wait, Taylor I thought we were playing volleyball like you said. Not running.” I asked, puzzled. Taylor just shrugged, so I let it go.

When Randy walked off, Taylor seemed angry. “What?” I giggled, but that seemed to make her more mad.

“You know I like him…?” she smirked. I just made a funny face. “I mean I talk about him all the time, and whenever I go to your house I always want to go across the street to see him.” She mumbeled.
I rolled my eyes. “Tay, I talk about him too, so how am I suppost to know. I mean, I love Randy, but like a brother,” I admitted . I really didn’t need guy drama with the dance coming up on Friday.
“Okay Tessa. Okay.” Taylor whispered and ran off. But I didn’t care. Taylor was moody, and would be over this guy-drama thing by tomorrow. At least if I was lucky.

Randy walked back up to me and msiled when he noticed Taylor’s absencse. “Dude, that Taylor chick is a little bipolar. I watched her flip out on you just now, and… wow…” he joked and elbowed my arm.

I just smiled. “She’s totally into you ya’ know.”

Randy made a face like he was grossed out. “Nah. I’m into another hottie.” He laughed and turned towards me. He had liked me since we started middle school. I mean, he wasn’t half bad looking, with his curly, honey-blonde hair, and aqua eyes. But it would be weird to like him because I’d known him for too long. Plus if it ended weird, it could ruin the friendship. And I couldn’t risk that.
I felt my face turn a pink and shook my hair from my face to not make it advious. “I know… I know…” I calmly said.

Randy stopped completely and grabbed my arm, turning me so I was facing him. “Speaking of that, isn’t the dance coming up?” I just silently nodded, knowing exactly what he was about to say. “Do you want to go with me…” he shyly asked. Normally I would just walk away, or say something to change the subject, but Randy had captured me with his amazing eyes and I couldn’t dare not answer.

“Umm…” I coughed. “Can I think about it?” But his eyes were still staring right into mine and I felt like a piece of Jell-o that was still half liquid. And I didn’t even like Jell-o. Randy simply nodded and jogged off.

I looked around wondering where Taylor was. Unfortunately, she was like three or four steps behind me and must have heard the entire conversation between me and Randy. I could tell by the evil scowl on her face that she was not happy with me. So I shrugged it off, and jogged away so that I could be finished with P.E. and go into the locker room where I could text my only other real friend without getting caught.