Cowabunga!

            by Lana Robinson-Sum

 

My young years of elementary school were filled with innocent games of hopscotch, tight flowered leggings, and heated feuds between the smart girls and the cootie-ridden boys. But then one day, that all ended. At King Middle School, nobody wore leggings. The girls read Seventeen instead of Animorphs, and the boys didn’t have cooties. What’s more, none of my old buds from Jefferson elementary were in my classes, leaving me all alone at the bottom rung of the social ladder. The ease and security with which I had glided through elementary school was shattered. By middle school standards, I was not cool. I was not anybody. In a moment, my whole world was turned upside down, as I spent more and more of my time staring self-consciously into the unforgiving mirror.

            It didn’t take me long to figure out that not all 12-year-olds are created equal. No matter how many books I read entitled “Your Changing Body” or “Everything You Want to Know about your Period but are Afraid to Ask,” that emphasized how everyone was normal and unique and beautiful, I still couldn’t help considering myself to be the one exception. While everybody else was blossoming into reproductive gods and goddesses, I was stuck waiting in granny panty land. Even my closest friends felt older and cooler than me that year. But nothing could prepare me for the notorious “Oxford Clique”. Maybe it was something in the water they drank, but the girls from that elementary school were just different. Manicured, glossed, gelled, and curled, every bit of them was picture perfect. They had been highly trained in the art of the preteen, and could have come straight out of a Limited Too catalogue. I was both repulsed and fascinated.

            The first time I became aware of my inadequate social and physical development was in the sixth grade, during the class I dreaded above all else: P.E. Dressed up in bull-red sweatpants and a shirt that hung to my knees, I was expected to run around a dusty track, catch balls, and do the splits all without sweating a drop and looking completely cool and nonchalant. I sure messed that one up. By the end of class, my dark brown hair was limp and oily, my face matched my lovely attire in color, and I had completed the tasks with about as much grace as a pregnant cow. Thoroughly dejected, I retreated into the girls’ dressing room only to face another set of trials.

            “Yasmine, can I use some of your antiperspirant?” Alex asked, smearing her pouty lips with sparkly gloss from Bath and Body Works. All the Oxford elementary girls shopped there; it was quite the rage.

            “Uh-huh. I just got a new one - it’s ‘raspberry rain!’ My old one fucking broke and got all over my pager. It was like actually nasty.”

            “Oh my god it smells sooo good,” Alex gushed, taking the light blue stick from her friend. Shrunk in the corner, I looked at my bright orange deodorant - Arm and Hammer Baking Soda, with a big muscular arm on the front. I tried my best to put it on inconspicuously so they wouldn’t think I was a man or anything. Not that they even knew I was there.

            “Hey, cute bra and panties!” Alex commented, admiring Yasmine’s white lacy undergarments. They were definitely not like my Hanes underwear, I thought. They almost looked like, well, lingerie!

            “Thanks,” Yasmine replied, her blue eyes sparkling. “It’s my first matching set, can you believe it? I got it at Vicky’s. Don’t look too closely though, I hella need to shave.”

            “Ew, stubble!!” Alex burst out in giggles. “Here, you can borrow my razor. I always carry it on me, you know, for emergencies.” They giggled again, and Alex took it out, along with a small bottle of vanilla scented lotion. “Don’t dry shave,” she said. “It’s soo bad for your skin.”

            “Oh, I know,” said Yasmine. “My legs get all dry and ashy. It’s disgusting.”

            As they continued to talk, throwing in the occasional slang or eyebrow-raising swear word, I dressed in silence. It was a complicated process: I took my arms out of the armholes of the shirt but kept my torso hidden inside (luckily the elephantine size of the shirt made this easy.) Then, with all the coordination I could muster, I put my loose blue t-shirt on underneath. Getting my head in took some particularly innovative maneuvers, but in the end it was all worth it. I changed without ever having to show my untanned stomach or reveal the painful fact that I still didn’t wear bras. If they had found out, I think I would have died of humiliation, or at least have had to transfer to another school.

            The next week I came more prepared. I had gotten up the courage to tell my mom I needed a bra, which was physically a lie, but socially a necessity. Skeptically, she had agreed to take me to Target. It was no Victoria’s Secret, but it had the essentials. I picked out a shapeless cotton 2-pack with little flower doodads in the center, (which of course I later removed,) and hid my face in a magazine as the cashier rang them up. I also acquired a pair of dark blue flared low-rise jeans that were quite a change from the pastel leggings of the old days. Even though my pencil legs and childish hips barely filled them out, I thought I looked almost normal. I even shaved for the first time that weekend, secretly using my mom’s old razor and soap. With some cherry chapstick for the finishing touch, I was ready to enter the preteen world. Or so I thought.

            I soon became aware that a prerequisite to being socially acceptable was wearing the same shoes, eating the same snacks, and sporting the same bracelets as every other girl. When Yasmine walked in the room and her platinum blond half bun bobbed playfully at the crown of her head, I shuddered at the thought of my own hair hanging to my shoulders. Every morning I struggled in front of the mirror, scraping my scalp with my brush to get my ponytail smooth and high. I didn’t want to put my hair “back,” I wanted to put it “up,” as Alex had tactlessly pointed out to me. I covered my head in crunchy, sticky gel, stopping only after my biceps burned and I was late for school. But when Alex smiled and said, “You look cute today,” I instantly forgot the pain.

            Somehow, my shock at their apparent maturity evolved into an aching desire to be their friend. The way they walked, arm in arm, heads high, made them glow with a confidence I sorely lacked. They were composed, mature, dynamic teenagers with a talent for turning heads. And I wasn’t the only one who noticed when Yasmine yawned from boredom or when Alex secretly passed her a note. I wasn’t the only one who cared what they thought almost to the point of obsession. No - our entire class, and perhaps the entire sixth grade, watched them through eyes green with envy. I did not realize that it was we, their admirers, who gave them this power. I didn’t understand that their confidence was just skin deep. All I knew was that if I could only share in their gossip and sit at their table, everyone would see how amazing I was. They would envy me.

            But how? How could I break into their intimidating world of mascara, tank tops and flirting? I felt years behind them. My lady lumps were mere speed bumps compared to Yasmine’s hills and Alex’s mountains. My legs were skinny, my eyebrows were unplucked, and my elbows were bony. Everything I had never noticed now seemed like neon signs shouting to the world “Ugly, ugly, ugly.” I was hopeless.

            Then one day, the answer to my problems hit me. We were swimming in P.E., and a bunch of the girls were treading water in the diving pool. I spotted Alex and Yasmine among the giggling group, and clumsily doggie paddled my way over to them.

Alex saw me coming and squealed, “Turtle!”

What? I thought. Me?

“Omigod you look like a little turtle! Yasmine, look at Lana! Come here, Lana!”

            I looked like a what? Personally, I thought I resembled a raccoon, due to the goggle circles around my eyes, or a clump of seaweed due to the multi-shade green of my fattening one-piece. But if Alex said I looked like a turtle, then it must have been true. In fact, I was a little flattered. I mean, they were talking about me! They were talking to me!

            “Oh, she’s so cute!” Yasmine laughed, as though I were a puppy in a window.

            “Um, I know!” Alex replied. “Lana, make a turtle sound.”

            If I couldn’t be sexy and suave, then gosh darn it I would be the cutest little tike that there ever was, and they would love me for it. So thinking fast, I curled my hands up like paws and made a soft, squeaky, cooing noise, cocking my head to the side. I really had no idea what a turtle sounded like, but I was eager to learn.

 

            From that day on, I was their turtle. I walked with them from class to class, sat with them during circle time, and on command, I performed a multitude of reptilian tricks, each one more adorable than the last. When Alex said, “Jump!” I jumped. When Alex said, “Bark!” I barked. When Alex said, “Give this note to Sam and tell him that he’s an asshole and a dork and I never want to talk to him again,” I did it with enthusiasm. I had made it. In the end, I thought, my charming personality had won a place in their clique. I never stopped to consider what that place was.

           

During the first few months of sixth grade, I learned many skills and lessons, very few of which were academic. I learned not only how to act like a lovable turtle, but also how to be something of a chameleon. Huddled under the gazebo with my old friends at lunch, I was Lana. I created secret handshakes, competed for the funniest face, and never tired of round after round of Friends trivia. My laughs were long and genuine, the silent kind that had me wheezing and clutching my stomach. But back in class, I donned my shell and became Turtle.

            Under that shell, I learned how to hide the childish flaws and immature quirks that made up who I was. I learned which guys were posers and which girls were losers. I learned how to laugh at jokes that weren’t funny, and I learned how to whisper about people just as insecure as me. My personality was so suppressed by my desire to be adored, that whatever opinion I had left, I stifled deep within me. Placid, pliable, and determined to please, I was the perfect pet.

             

            “Jesse is so weird,” Yasmine yawned, twirling her hair in her fingers.

            “The other day she was talking to me as if it was like normal,” Alex remarked, snapping her gum. “And I was like, who are you? Stop talking and turn the hell around.”

            “You actually said that?” I asked, eyes wide.

            “No, but I would’ve if Ms. Leslie hadn’t been breathing down my neck, that whore.”

            “Oh my god she is SUCH a whore,” Yasmine laughed. “Except no one would pay for that bony ass, well, maybe Richard, but that’s just because he’s soooo pathetic.”

            Alex laughed in agreement. I looked at my fingernails, wondering what made Richard pathetic.

            “Oh, wait,” Yasmine exclaimed, sitting upright with a twinkle in her eye. “You know who would make the perfect couple? Richard and Baily!” Something inside me lurched at that name. Baily had been one of my best friends since preschool. I used to go to her house every weekend to climb her apple tree, play dress up, and trade Sailor Moon cards. She had guts, strength, and a laugh as familiar to me as my mom’s hugging arms.

            “Yasmine!” Alex screeched. “You’re so horrible, but you’re a genius. Oh my god they deserve each other so much. Richard with his ratty old sweatpants, Baily with that smell!” That smell? My ears felt warm, but I kept my face as cool as a poker player’s.

            “Ewwww,” Yasmine said, scrunching up her nose. “Do you think she ever takes showers?”

            “Probably not. I hear her mom’s like a crazy hippy tribal freak who doesn’t believe in modern technology and shoes.”

            I wanted to stand up and shout at them that no, Baily’s mom was really cool and nice and Baily was my friend and how dare they say stuff like that about people they didn’t even know! I wanted to tell them about all the nights Baily and I had stayed awake until three o’clock telling stories and dreaming up futures and magical kingdoms, and how she was the best ice skater I knew, and how she wasn’t afraid of anything, not bees, heights, or even popular girls like them. The words lurched up into my throat, a lump that I swallowed in silence. Good turtles do not lash out at their owners.

            But I kept on thinking about Baily that day. Why hadn’t I stood up for her, I wondered, if she was such a good friend? What kind of a friend was I? My courage to defend her had been sucked out of me long ago by an obsession for popularity that had slowly taken over my every action. And what kind of friends were Alex and Yasmine to me, anyway?

            It had been nine long, giggly months since I had first worn my reptilian alias, and still my relationship to these girls could scarcely be called a friendship. We didn’t invite each other to our birthday parties, and I didn’t call them when I had a problem. On the last day of school, we signed each other’s yearbooks, Yasmine as “Yazzers, c/o 06”, and Alex as just plain Alex. I hugged them and we promised to see each other over the summer. We never did.

            Instead, that summer I found I did not have to be a chameleon. My old circle of friends did not expect me to gossip about posers and losers or make animal noises. I relaxed in the warm sun and often stayed up past three o’clock, clutching my stomach and laughing into my pillow. It was easy to let my hair down and allow the bottle of gel to gather dust.

Seventh grade brought new classes and new faces. I still cared about how I looked and what people thought of me, but I wasn’t so sure I was willing to sacrifice my personality for their approval. Without any of the Oxford Clique in my classes, I did not feel compelled to hide behind sticky face glitter and sugary compliments. And when Alex and Yasmine smiled to me in the halls, I no longer felt a floating sense of euphoria. I no longer felt anything. I had grown tired of being their lackey, their go-between, their pet. When once they had been my idols, now they were merely two thirteen-year-old girls struggling with insecurity just like me.

In the struggle of puberty, it was easy to forget myself among the haze of hormones, cliques, and gossip. My shell protected me from realities I didn’t want to face, from aspects of myself I deemed shameful. Like all turtles, I learned how to swim, and I learned how to survive. But it wasn’t until I crawled out of my shell that I learned how to live.