Elle sat in math class, half dozing while Mr. Johnson had a private conversation with the blackboard. By the sound of the whispering and giggling, Kat was also having a private conversation with her gang of subordinates. There was a squeal from their general direction, but Mr. Johnson was in his own world, oblivious to the noise. He droned on and on, determined to talk about algebra, even if it was just with himself.
Elle briefly opened an eyelid and glanced over at the trio. Kat wrote something on a piece of paper, crumpled it up and threw it at the back of New Kid’s head. He picked it up and unwrinkled it. His expression was hard to read as he screwed it up into a ball again, but Elle noticed that his knuckles were white.
To everyone’s relief, especially Mr. Johnson’s, the bell finally rang for the next class. The New Kid left before Elle could talk to him, but not before she saw him shove the rolled-up wad of paper into the trash can by Mr. Johnson’s desk.
Slowly glancing around to make sure no one saw her, Elle reached into the trashed and palmed the wad of paper. She made her way into the hallway and then threw her books unceremoniously into her locker with a thud. She glanced around again, unfolded the piece of paper and read:
"I know your secret.”
Elle tried to understand why Kat felt like she needed to torment The New Kid so much. It’s not like he was a bad guy—heck, he already had way more friends than Elle did, and he had only been here two days. He was a big hit at the Contagious Table. Even the Scary Janitor seemed to like him.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
As Elle navigated the winding hallways to “The Pit,” the euphemistic name for the middle school's subterranean gym, she wondered what the note meant. Maybe the New Kid was a spy? Part of the Mob? But she didn't spend too much time wondering; she had to hustle to get ready before Mr. Schmuck burst into the girl’s locker room tweeting his whistle.
A few short moments later, Elle emerged from the locker room and ran straight into Ken, who was doing a complicated looking stretch.
“So sorry…” Elle apologized, instantly blushing. He straightened up, glanced at her (actually at her left shoulder) and nodded. Then he started stretching again.
This was the longest, most in-depth conversation that Elle had ever had with Ken, and she decided to try to introduce herself. But before she could open her mouth, Mr. Shuck started blowing on his whistle near her ear.
“OK, whiners. Today you learn to be MEN! We’re playing FLAG FOOTBALL!” He barked. "Form teams!"
Elle wandered to one side of gym, looking for escape routes and wondering why gender reassignment was necessary for this game. Stifling a whimper, Elle resolved to repress all memories of gym starting right then and there.
An hour later, after multiple repressed memories, Elle limped out of the locker room with only minor life-threatening injuries. She decided go outside to enjoy the few sweet moments of her free period. She felt the warm sunshine on her face and heard the birds singing in the trees. A warm feeling spread over her, as though she had just been released from some god-forsaken prison.
She wandered toward a bench and ran her tongue around her mouth as she counted her teeth---yup, miraculously she still had them all. She looked down at her bruised half-body, half-corpse, happy to see that she was still a girl, despite all of Mr. Schmuck's hard work teaching them to be men for the "art" of flag football. For the hundredth time, she wondered how she was going to survive the rest of the year. Between lunches alone, Kat, Gym and her manic-depression, she would need some sort of miracle. Or support group. Ms. Dismel's "Positive Thinking" wasn't going to cut it. Just as she was in the middle of a silent plea of mercy to any god that would listen, Ms. Tracey, the school secretary came bustling up.
“Oh,Elle,good-justwhoIwantedtosee!” Ms. Tanner took a huge breath and continued on in one long run-on sentence. “I’mafraidthatyouwon’tbeabletohaveafreeperiodnow-Idon’tknowwhyyouaccidentallygotscheduledwithone-we’llhavetoscheduleyouforanelectiveclass-butmusicandartareallfullsoyou’llhavetobeinthenewastronomyclassduringthisperiodinstead. OK?” And with that, Ms. Tracy bustled off, leaving only the lingering smell of glue sticks, cheap perfume and bitter disappointment.