Gretchen. Gretchen, that’s her name. She hates it, hates that awful name. Gretchen. Something in the way it sounds, the way it clicks harshly at the eardrums. Other girls had names like Sophie or Vanessa that were gossamery and warm, well-suited to the social stigmata of insouciant womanhood, but she would forever be beneath them, a verisimilitude of a person – ‘that weird girl with the gawky name’. Would be that witches were real; for this is how they’re made.
A choir of shuffling snaps her back to reality, caused by the collective page-turn of the class as a faraway geography lesson progressed into the ever-exciting topic of soil creep. A fitting topic for these dullards, Gretchen thought to herself, delivered by a tutor whose features have also been “slowly deformed as a result of prolonged pressure and stress.”
She’d found a strange delight in these little private belittlements of hers, they helped her get through the day; which, for any normal twelve-and-a-half-year-old, would involve a trip to the school counsellor; however, Gretchen knew she was far too clever for that and the feeling of power it gave her was worth a little mental disturbance.
Looking around the room, her contempt fell on a few in particular. Heather still counted with her fingers and must sound out the words while she’s reading. Amy’s writing is impossible to read and she’s always putting in extra letters that aren’t needed in her schoolwork. Tara thinks in colour and wears odd socks – stripes and polka dots today, plain and speckled tomorrow – and is surely colour-blind. Emma eats with her hands and chews loudly with her mouth open – this is unforgivable behaviour, absolutely unforgivable. She squirmed in her seat to the image of saliva-slathered food trappings being torn and chewed within the mouth and quickly searched for a new line of thought.
She didn’t bother learning any more names from the class, it would be much too loathsome a task. She hears them whispering when she walks by and can feel their scrutinizing stares when she is asked to read aloud in class. They’re just jealous, she reasoned, jealous she’s not a slobbering imbecile like the rest of them, jealous she doesn’t stutter when reading or make a complete mess of herself when eating. Humility is not a word that is unfamiliar to her, but she would not, no, she could not be humiliated by these idiots, not in a million years she thought to herself as the bell rang, signalling the start of the midday lunch break.
Gretchen sat at her desk watching this veritable zoo of insufferable naivety as a wicked thought came over her, all those girls had one thing in common, they would all surely grow up to have such boring little lives, marry off to boring little husbands and have their litter of boring little, icky child-spawn and the cycle will continue. Child-speak, her mother’s stern voice echoed in her mind, she bowed her head and furtively glanced around, suddenly feeling as if everyone could tell what she was thinking. The moment passed as she realised the others were too preoccupied with their lunch break chatting and meandering to notice; for all intents and purposes, she was alone with her wicked thoughts. She resumed to her scrutinizing gaze around the classroom. Ms. Dunne, her tutor, was a heavy-set woman with that middle-aged shuffle working away at her joints, osteoarthritis-bound. She’d never been married and at this stage, she never will. She’s scolding one of the other girls now. Emma is pulling another girl’s hair and screaming gibberish at her, Dunne is playing the part of constable in this nonsense.
Gretchen tightly closes her eyes and briefly pinches the bridge of her nose, letting forth a deep, soothing sigh. Quietly she hums to herself, imitating gloomy violins from memory, and imagines she has grown to galactic proportions. Before long, she is now in the deep black vastness of space, the stars and planets are but little specks of dust and inconsequential to her. She feels strangely comforted by the silent absence of matter, the far-out nebulae and space dust now forming a dazzling kaleidoscope of colour, the beauty of imperfect symmetry, order masquerading as chaos. She smiles to herself as the violins reach their fragile crescendo, disturbed by a growing ambience of the classroom, sweeping her along in the current, she is soaring, whisking past stars and galaxies alike. Gracefully floating down the abyss, she cusps the stars in her palm against the brightly hued backdrop of the cosmos, embracing them they do not burn or sting. In this moment she feels whole, she wishes it would last an eternity, now and forever.
With a creeping clamour the visage starts to break. Some commotion has erupted in the classroom, but she forces it out, desperately clinging to her make-believe world of colour. The colour fades, washes out, is rinsed into the abyss as the stars die out one by one and are replaced with the murmuring voices of her classmates. Nothing but a black sky is left for her as she cradles the final ounce of dim stardust in her hand. She crushes the life out of it as a horrible choking sound forces her back to reality.
Gretchen’s eyes pry apart unwillingly. Heather has been eating the crayons… again, and is now receiving the Heimlich manoeuvre from Ms. Dunne in an attempt to dislodge the lump of pigmented wax from her windpipe. Pity she wouldn’t just choke thought wicked Gretchen, at least then there would be some crayons left for next week’s class, maybe she would create something fauvist-inspired, something with Royal Purple and Sea Green in it, that is, if fate would be so kind as to remove that stupid girl, Heather, from the land of the living…
She especially hates Heather. Heather and her half-witted congregation of sheepish lackeys. Oh, how they fawn over her! Gretchen moaned, an acrid taste building on her tongue. Queen Bee Heather and her loyal drones who hang on every word she says. Oh, how they grovel to her! Gretchen’s eyes rolled in contempt, with their prattling, “Heather your hair looks really nice today,” and “Heather those are really nice shoes.” She felt like vomiting. Heather had crashed into her in the hallway by ‘accident’ once and laughed it off with the rest of her cronies who were watching. And it was Heather who, through her minions, got to pick the sport and teams for P.E. and the films for movie day – once usurping her own pick of Matilda for some animated, sing-song drivel called Frozen. The next time the farcical choice of movie day arises, Gretchen would suggest The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, if only to give Queen Bee nightmares for weeks. What do they see in her? she wondered. Is she prettier than the rest of the class with her rosy cheeks and adorning freckles? No that couldn’t be true, if you looked up repulsive in the dictionary there would be a picture of Heather, smiled Gretchen to herself. Is she intelligent or inspiring? Well, she’s currently drooling coloured wax, grunting hog-like as she chokes on a crayon she decided to eat, so no that’s not it. She is just an idiot-goofball who has gained the following of other idiot-goofballs, so she isn’t even unique in that regard, Gretchen concluded, now realising that Heather has been choking for quite some time, Ms. Dunne unable to dislodge the crayon from her throat. She crossed her fingers and silently hoped this would be the end of that stupid, stupid girl.
Too bad, Heather puked out half a mucous-covered, jumbo crayon mottled with bite marks. It was the Royal Purple; the last one the class had left too. Gretchen stared helplessly at the dissolving puddle of lumpy purple, choking back the anger and tears welling behind her eyes, repeating to herself not in front of them, improper and base. Ms. Dunne wiped a fat clump of sweat from her drenched forehead, she had a sly smile on her face, no doubt she’ll be re-enacting her act of heroism in the staff room as the rest of the failed doctors and entrepreneurs watch the display in a jealous awe, each coveting the exciting brush with death and the title of saviour.
Dunne proudly grabbed a tissue and took up the poor, useless remains of the Royal Purple. Gretchen longingly followed its shameful path of disposal with her eyes, indignant and overwhelmed with a feeling of waste as it found its grave in a dustbin.
A sour hatred built up inside her, she turned and glared at Heather, who was kneeling on the floor, sobbing in-between bouts of stuttered breathing. She looked at Heather as if she were a worm, writhing in the dirt, with an utter disgust as to its primitiveness and lower position in the food chain. This stupid girl is beneath me, this stupid, sobbing mess of a girl is the reason my drawing next week won’t be pretty and perfect. She gritted her teeth together as Heather looked up with an expression that screamed: pity me. Gretchen tried desperately to convey a façade of indifference to the whole situation, but the veneer crumbled when Heather, rubbing at her tears, annoyingly bleated, “What?”
Gretchen straightened her posture and turned her head to the side in dismissal, “Next time, try swallowing more than one at a time you swine. Maybe then you’ll choke and die like the worthless dog that you are!”
Peculiar stares flashed in her direction; Ms. Dunne’s expression was positively aghast; the entire class fell silent except for the swine’s miserable sobbing.
The embarrassment of the instant notoriety caused something to break inside Gretchen, something deep-rooted and unshakeable. She half-heartedly mouthed an apology in Heather’s direction, all the while thinking to herself, it’s not fair, it’s simply not fair!
Copyright © 2024 Giuseppe Gillespie
Giuseppe Gillespie Writing 
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