Part 4: The Class Doormat

 The year is 2015 and I am going into the eighth grade. Over the summer, my family went to Halifax to visit Grandma and Grandpa who were still on their mission. Though my memories from this trip are few, I am forever grateful for the family time we got to spend together. 

We also go to Veranda Beach on Lake Osoyoos. We had been going there for six years at this point but it never disappoints. Our cottage is right on the lake, there's a 50's style diner behind the pool where you can order milkshakes to your pool chair, or even to your hand while you're in the hot tub! I had never felt more boujee in my life. On Wednesday's, they pull out a big projector screen to the grassy lawn and play a movie for everyone at the resort. We drag our lawn chairs, tubes, and even my uncle's inflatable party barge and we sit together and watch the Amazing Spider Man. My mom's sister Anita, her husband Mike and their four kids come to surprise us at Veranda Beach this year. Although, my cousin Jordan did tell me they were coming a few weeks ago so I had to pretend to be surprised. My cousins make everything more fun, so to have them there to participate in our summer activities was just about the best thing I could imagine. 

My teacher was mean. We will call her Ms. Mean. Everyone knew she was awful and she had been known to make everyone cry, even the really good, smart kids who never got in trouble. She definitely lived up to her reputation. The class was split in two. Ms. Mean was homeroom and taught English, French, History, Art, and the other teacher (Let's call him Mr. Unpredictable) taught math, science, HCE, and occasionally made us make poster for sea creature awareness, played us somber music about the war, taught us to wrestle during science class and actually once lent a female classmate of mine his shirt... At the start of the day, the whole class would line up in the hallway before splitting between the two teachers. Whoever had Ms. Mean first would have to tell the other group what they were in for for the day. Was it going to be a scary, horrible day? Or was she feeling calm today? I was basically on edge all the time. 

Bonnie and I are good friends now. She is in my homeroom class with Ms. Mean. I saved her from her toxic friend group, only to bring her into my toxic friend group. The group is still toxic even though it has been two years, but Bonnie and I never fight. There are an even mix of boys and girls in our group. Two different sets were dating. Ed was in the friend group too, but despite our moment at the dance last year, we were just friends. One time Mr Unpredictable yells at Bonnie, really close in her face because she was eating a ham sandwich and he thought that it was cruel to eat ham sandwiches. He asked her what her mom was thinking and tells her she should be ashamed of herself. She gets up and walks out of the room crying. Later, he apologizes profusely and says that he is just really passionate about animal cruelty. She doesn't respond to him or make eye contact, she just grabs her binder and walks out of the classroom. 

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My school is putting on a production of Seussical the musical this year. I land the female lead role of Gertrude Mcfuzz. My good friend Jordan is playing Horton so we get to play romantic opposites, which is really fun. The school comes to the show and the boy I like (John, for privacy sake) comes up to me after and tells me that I did a really good job in the role. I sang and acted and danced around the stage, singing about how I wanted a tail, I wanted Horton to notice me and all of the effort I put in for him to notice me. I might have been channeling my love for John a little bit. I was so proud.

Gertrude McFuzz (2015)

When I return from my two week hiatus from regular classes, Ms. Mean calls me in to see her while nobody else is around. You actually never know what you're going to get with her. She could be asking to see me to ask how the show went or to tell me that I'm expelled for just being ugly. When I go in to see her, I start off happy. "Hello! How are you?" She did not choose happiness that morning. She starts to chew me out about an assignment I had never turned in. Ah, history repeating itself. I had made a lot of progress with making sure my work was done, although a lot of it was copied off of Bonnie or some other smart person. In this case, I had just missed this assignment because I had been away from school for weeks to do my Seussical show. "How long did you think you could sneak around and get away with this?" Sneak around? Get away with this? I was not trying to hide anything, and was really defensive when I was accused of it because of my past with Mr. B and my dad. "I'm sorry, I don't know what this is. I can finish the assignment ASAP and get it done." She goes on to tell me about how she will not allow this type of disrespect in her classroom, that she is disappointed in me, etc. Luckily I don't value her opinion too much. But the whole experience has me really shaken up and I go find Bonnie to tell her what happened. I am crying hard and I am scared to go back into class with Ms. Mean. We all knew that Ms. Mean obviously had some other issues going on and she was just taking it out on us. 

There were two really mean girls in my friend group. One of them (fake name is Mary) was disguised as my good friend but she was really problematic and caused me a lot of stress. She had major conflict with another girl in our group (fake name is Jess) and they had really vicious fights a lot of the time. I got pulled into them sometimes for doing something, or not doing something, or looking at someone the wrong way, or not looking at someone the right way. It goes on and I couldn't keep up. Jess was really, really rude to me. I never understood what I did wrong but I kind of found out one day. It was a weekend off of school, Mary was blowing up my phone and I didn't know what could possibly be wrong, but my family was watching a movie and my parents didn't like it when I checked my phone when we watched movies. I did see that one of the texts from Mary said, "I'm sorry you had to find out this way." I deleted the messages because I didn't want my parents to check my phone and see what was going on. 

The next day at school, Mary and I discussed what she had texted me about. Since I deleted the messages so fast, I didn't actually see what was happening, but I figured it wasn't going to be good. Mary explained to me that she and Jess were having a conversation about why nobody liked me. Yeesh. Jess was very upset that I am a people pleaser and would basically agree with whatever anyone said to me, even if I didn't agree. This might be true, but her choice of words was hurtful. I remember reading the texts between Mary and Jess and saw Jess say that "Becca has no backbone. That's why we walk all over her, she will never stand up for herself." She says I'm the class doormat and everyone knows it. Later on, I confront Jess about her hurtful words. She gaslights me and says that she never said that and has no idea what I'm talking about, even though I literally saw the messages. I accept her response and Mary gets so mad at me for not standing up for myself yet again. Mary decides that I'm out of the group. 

Nobody in the friend group really likes Bonnie either. It's kind of her and I against everyone else at times. Her and I hang out which makes my mom really happy because I never really had friends from school that I hung out with. We go to her house, walk to Starbucks, jump on the trampoline and make funny videos. One day I show up to school and everyone is abuzz about who is going with who to the grade eight grad. Obviously, I really want to go with John (remember, the guy who saw Seussical that I had a big crush on) and I thought I maybe had a chance because he and I got along really well, he thought I was funny and we would hang out at lunch with all of our friends. Anyways, I come to school and everyone is asking me if Bonnie told me the news. No? What news did Bonnie have to tell me overnight? My mom and dad really limited my iPod use, so I rarely texted anyone or talked to anyone outside of school. Bonnie ends up coming to school late that day and everyone is crowding around her with excitement. Eventually, I hear from someone else that Bonnie is going to grade eight grad with John and that they're dating. I have to act like a supportive friend, even though she knew that I liked him a lot. My guess is that's probably why she didn't mention it to me. 

The grad dance rolls around. Bonnie and John dance together and hang out during the party. I was probably more sad than I remember being. My best friend stole the guy I liked. She was really pretty, really skinny, really athletic and John thought it was really cool that she could crack all her knuckles. Life goes on. Mary ended up going to a different high school so that was the last day I saw her, it was probably for the best because I think that she caused a lot of my anxiety that I still face to this day. 

Grade eight grad (2015)