Sappy
My first day of high school was not a pleasant one. I was now eleven which meant I had to start a new school, new faces, new rooms, new everything. I didn’t know anyone, not even Becca because she stayed with her mom so it was just me and Rob now. We stayed in little old Ipswich while Clarice moved as far away as she could. Rob said he didn’t care how far she went, but I could tell he was hurt, the woman that he once loved so dearly had taken his ugly daughter away. But he had me now. Although today I positively hated him. He dropped me at the school gates and gave me a friendly nudge on the elbow.
“Go on, think of all the friends you will make! I will be back at half past three to pick you up, try not to be late out ok?” And with that I was hoisted out of the car but what seemed a mystic wind, which was in fact just my body moving without me telling it to. He drove away. And there I stood, im my overly huge red raincoat and brown lunchbox. It wasn’t until I was taken to meet my form that I felt like a complete and utter idiot. Lunchboxes were a thing of the past…apparently. And as for my red raincoat, well that got a me a few sniggers from the boys at the back of the class that I took to be the ‘cool’ ones. The teacher was a middle ages man who had grotesque eyebrows. They were white and bushy and looked like toothbrush heads. His cheeks were a violent shade of red and he had white hair at the sides of his ear that was swept over his basically bald head. He was the biggest man I had ever seen, and as he pounded over to me, a fake smile plastered across his face, I wanted to scream and run away in case he tripped and fell onto me. I was only small. This time my body didn’t move even when I was telling it to. Before I knew it he was standing next to me, his tubby hand leaning on my shoulder. All I was thinking was “Please God don’t let him lean on me anymore my knees will not handle this.” then it hit me. The smell that wafted from his arm pits made me gag, he stank.
“Everyone, this is Jamiy he is new, please be nice to him.” his voice was surprisingly high. The other kids all turned and stared at me, I felt like a new fish in their brand new tank. Still, they all greeted me with a smile which I could not return because I was concentrating so hard on holding my breath that a smile would let the smell creep up my nose again. I gingerly took a seat next to a blonde girl who‘s hair looked deliciously well brushed.
“Hi.” She said as the bustle of voices in the room started up again. I smiled at her and shook her hand that she had stretched in front of me. “I’m Saffron, but you can call me Saffy yeah?” I assumed she had said Sappy so I decided that was what I was going to call her.
“Sure.” I smiled. She handed me a pencil.
“You know, we were supposed to start last week why didn’t you come in?” She was fumbling through her pencil case, she retrieved a pencil sharpener and took the pencil back from me.
“Rob thought I started this week, so did I…”
“Rob he’s your brother or what?” She smiled at me and pinched my arm. I looked back at her, then at my arm then back at her. She was pretty, grey eyes with blue flecks, short eyelashes but she had lots of them. She was thin like Becca, but her clothes moulded her shape nicely, not like Becca’s that looked like they wanted to run away from her. Sappy’s hair was short and in a bob, it was gorgeous hair, I wanted to stroke it. But we were not on stroking terms yet.
“No, he just looks after me that’s all.”
After our first meeting me and Sappy became best friends, although sometimes she told me that she hated me, yet craved my attention. I liked Sappy, but she hated me. It was the perfect friendship. Rob never made me lunch so she shared her perfectly cut cucumber sandwiches with me, Rob never gave me money to buy books so Sappy’s mum sent me the money. I loved Sappy to pieces, she was my first friend and I didn’t know how I could ever cope without her, and she felt the same about me. We even made a promise that we could both come into school even if we were so ill that we were dying so that the other would not be left alone. P.E was the only time that we were split up, and that was only in the changing rooms, but for that fifteen minutes I needed her more than ever. I never got on with the other boys in my class, I was the weird one and they were the cool ones, so automatically I was pushed into the minority group with Saffron, and a few others that were not even good enough for me and Sappy to talk to. But still, they used to make me change in the shower department because they didn’t want me looking at them because I was ‘gay’. And so what if I was? I knew that I would never go for any of them, what with their gelled hair with spikes that protruded all over the place. They all had lanky bodies to top it off, I wouldn’t give them a second look and neither would Sappy. That was the satisfaction we had. We were too good for them. Not a week later Rob suggested that I invited my ‘girlfriend round for tea’. It wasn’t angry that he called her my girlfriend, I just told him that she was my best friend not girl friend. I was angry at the fact that he wanted someone else to share dinner with us. Rob didn’t understand that I wanted him all to myself; I was protective over him, like Becca used to be. I didn’t like the thought of him talking to another kid, I didn’t like the thought of him cooking them dinner, and I defiantly didn’t like the thought of them seeing that smile of his. Of course I couldn’t tell him that, he would think I was a freak and give me away to some other pleasant family who would also get divorced a couple of months into me living with them.
