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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781466912205 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Trafford Publishing |
| Publication date: | 03/14/2012 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 648 |
| File size: | 683 KB |
Read an Excerpt
Essence
By Leanne Grime
TRAFFORD PUBLISHING
Copyright © 2012 Leanne GrimeAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4669-1218-2
Chapter One
This Is My Life
"Are you listening to me, Mackenzie Taylor?" asked my teacher, Mrs Lopez.
I glanced up from my note pad I had been doodling in and, I secretly and quickly extracted my earphones out of my ears as I stared at my teacher, innocently.
Mrs Lopez was a tall slim woman with bleached blond hair that was tightly fixed into a bun. Her pale long pointy nose rose upwards at the end and flared as she gazed at me. Her blue eyes glared and her bossy attitude increased as she crossed her bony arms against her flat chest. She also wore a grey suit that spoke authority. Sometimes I wondered how her husbands puts up with her, but heck, I can't be the judge of that.
She was one of the teachers who despised me with a passion. She hated me as soon as I stepped through the threshold of my tenth year at school. She was the most bossiest, deceitful and sly teacher on the planet. And I was one of the few unfortunate specimens that had entered her lawful classroom.
"Of course," I said sweetly, but inside I wanted to call her a whole bunch of names and tell her to leave me alone. However, I had sworn to myself and my very strict Father that I would behave, for once.
My Father was very strict on me behaving, as no matter what; I always inexplicably got into trouble a lot. My Father had persistently been ordering me to pay attention in class and listen to my teachers so I would learn something and stop getting myself in detention or excluded every other week. And get an education in the process.
Sometimes I could get into trouble within the first minute of class. I would just walk in, probably knock a chair or bump into a table in the process, and the teacher will suspiciously growl at me and send me out just because they believed I was doing it on purpose. Bah! Adults are so thick sometimes. They actually think they are always right. Well, I got news for you! Teachers, adults, parents, whatever, are totally not right. They only believed that because they have so-called authority over us.
They believed they could prove their authority over us by using the school method. Teachers equal awesome. Pupils equal slimy worms doing the teacher's work. Yeah, right! It was like a storm cloud was hovering over you 24/7 and you can't get away, especially when they stared down at you, trying to make you feel inferior about yourselves.
It wasn't only teachers I hated; it was high school in general.
School to me was like a prison sent from the government. And your parents send you there to get rid of you for a few hours. Not to get an education but be prisoners to the unfaithful curriculum the government had popped onto us.
It was awful and a waste of my bloody time. I just didn't see the point in it. My conscience always seemed to wander. I just couldn't listen to a word any teacher, parent or adult told me. It just goes through one ear and out the other, as my Father always puts it.
Not to mention that some students here are so mean and disrespectful towards other people's feelings. Bullies believed it was funny to hurt people's feelings or ruin a perfectly good designer top that cost a lot of money. And I was talking about what a girl, by the name of Stacey, did to me at break time when I was on my way to the girls' lavatory.
She had unexpectedly exited a cubicle in the girls' toilets and thought it would be funny to call me and my family a loser. The way she did it was like it was planned or she had been forewarned about my incoming. Then again I remembered her friend, Melissa, had been speaking into her phone the exact moment I had got up from my seat in the cafeteria.
Even though my family was annoying, not to mention my little twin sisters who by the way touch my stuff all the time without my permission and who seemed to be born for one reason: make my life a living hell and make me the bad guy in the family; I still hated how Stacey called them every name under the sun.
I didn't let it go so I called her a whole bunch of names that came from the top of my head. Really, I shouldn't have said anything. I should have just ignored her as everyone kept telling me too, but I just couldn't keep my loud mouth shut.
So of course it got worse.
She ranted and laughed at the thing that hurt me, my worst spot: the day when my grandparents (my Mother's parents as my Father's parents moved away before I was born, so I didn't get the chance to know them) died in a car crash when they were on their way to visit us on my fifteenth birthday. This happened only a few weeks ago and I had never really got over it.
I had to see a therapists for a few days a week to stop my depression. All I did was sit solemnly on their sofa or lie down, ignoring her and giving her the silent treatment. I even sneaked in my headphones before she caught me. She had snatched my phone out of my hands and placed it into her locked drawer before ordering me to pay attention and answer her questions. After a while I did speak up, but that was when my parents had given my therapist permission to have a social worker in the room with me.
Every month I had to see a councillor, outside school, for a few hours. Telling her all my troubles to her, every single time I visited. I was even constructed to do stupid activities as word association games, drawing and talking to a puppet. I was forced, literally, to do all these things, even though some of them were very embarrassing and childish. At least, in those sessions, she allowed me to step outside for fresh air and brought me on trips to the zoo, theme parks and even fast food restaurants.
Then I had to see an anger management professional, though I didn't understand why because I never was angry. I was just depressed and upset. My anger management teacher always told me it was because I kept lashing out at people who slightly irritated me. She was always asking me such annoying questions as "How are you today?", "Anything upsetting happen to you these past few days?" and the most annoying one, when I come in red faced and my eyes glazed over was; "What has angered you today?"
Those anger management sessions was the most annoying because I had to sit around with a group of people and hear their innermost thoughts and what angered them. I remembered having to stand up and discuss my own problems, after the professional ordered me about six million times non-stop to get up and discuss my anger because it would so-called help to relieve my negative feelings.
At first, I would have thought my Mother would have been worse then me, however, she took it more easily than I did. She had cried at first but she had realised to put the past behind her, after she had a few sessions with a councillor and diverted her focus on something else, such as going to the gym, cleaning up after my sister's mess—just anything to get her mind away from her parent's death. At a few times she went to the same sessions with me, but it stopped after she slowly got over it. She had told me, after I asked her why she wasn't in the sessions no more, that she had more matters to attend to; my sisters' and mine welfare. So of course I let it go.
After a while these sessions eventually worked, but I got slightly upset every time someone mentioned it or, as Stacey was doing now; patronising me about it.
I didn't know how she knew about the incident. I had only told a few trusting people, including my councillors. But who I discussed my true feelings to would never ever be told to someone as low as Stacey.
So when she said that my grandparent's death was my fault and that they would be happy to be gone anyway, I felt my heart crumble. My eyes stung as I tried to hide it and I tried preventing the tears from flowing down my cheeks. I felt such huge rushes of guilt cloud my judgement and heart. It even squeezed my lungs so tightly that I couldn't breathe.
Ever since the accident, I had accused myself that my grandparent's death was entirely my fault because they were coming over on my birthday. If it wasn't my birthday they wouldn't have died. Their life wouldn't have been extinguished from their grasp and left them as a soulless husk to be buried deep into the ground for the rest of eternity, where they would eventually disintegrate and decompose into nothingness.
Fortunately for me, to much of Stacey's pleasure, she just laughed, squirted the whole of her water bottle down my front and left when I didn't have a comeback for what she had just said to me because I stood frozen before her.
Soon as the door had closed behind her, I had quickly hid in one of the cubicles and cried my sorry eyes out until it was time for class to start. As a result, I had no choice but to get up, sort my make up out as my mascara had run down my cheeks, dry my grey sparkly blouse then I left the toilets and followed my classmates to our classroom.
My best friend, Cheryl, knew immediately that something was wrong with me because I didn't seem to be my cheerful outgoing self. She also noticed that I seemed to have smoked my cigarette a little too quickly at lunch time. But she knew enough not to ask why because I could be very distressed when I wasn't relaxed. Eventually, I discussed to her why I was upset and she gave me a hug and told me it would be alright. I believed my friend and trusted her with my life so I stopped thinking about it. I also ignored Stacey throughout the evening.
Cheryl, however, didn't.
She glowered at Stacey throughout the whole day. Stacey didn't like it. As soon as she spotted Cheryl with an evil face that spoke I'm-going-to-kill-you!" she ran away as quickly as her skinny tanned legs would carry her. If you haven't seen Cheryl give you a dirty look, thank yourself lucky. If looks could kill, that look would.
Cheryl wears glasses and has smooth, pale, dry skin so she frequently uses moisturisers to help her skin to be more nourished as she has asthma. She's pretty and has brown eyes. She uses dark foundation for her skin and uses a lot of eye shadow and mascara, where she repeatedly coats her eyelashes until they are thick and long. Lastly, she wears very nice clothes and lots of jewellery. Her closet is packed up with many varieties of shoes, boots and high heels. Today she was wearing a light pink top with a cream cardigan and a denim skirt. She was also wearing pink pumps.
Cheryl was sitting beside me in English and when I glanced at her I saw she was doodling in her pad of a woman getting her head cut off. I had to stifle a laugh because I figured the woman was our boring English teacher.
"Well?" Mrs Lopez repeated. "You gonna tell me what I just said a few moments ago?"
She eyed me cruelly.
"Er," I said. I didn't have a clue what she had just said because I just had loud music playing in my ears for the past half hour.
"I guess not," Mrs Lopez smirked resentfully. "Does anyone like to tell Mackenzie what I just said?" She glanced around the room, expectantly.
Of all people that raised their hand, it had to be Stacey. I bet she was only doing it to rub my face in it. She was such a teacher's pet!
"You were giving us homework to do before next lesson, miss." She says, looking at me with a not so friendly smile on her face. "You want us to read the play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare and write a book report on it for Friday."
Great, I thought. I have to read a boring book in five days!
"Thank you, Stacey. At least I know my best student was listening," said Mrs Lopez with admiration.
I gagged at that.
It was very disturbing to think a girl like Stacey could ever be the best in anything apart from horrible, cruel and obnoxious creeps. She's bossy and a complete control freak. She was also a bully. She just didn't bully your normal average young kid. She bullied her friends into doing what she wanted them to do. Everybody, in her mind, was below her. That was only because her parents were rich and she drove around in a pulsating pink limo, to and from school or any place that caught her dark cat-like eyes.
She always got what she wanted. Even her parents hand her anything she wants. Most of the time they were away on business so her babysitter or nanny came over to keep an eye on her until her parents came home. From what I know of, her parents left the house early and didn't return till God knows what time at night, so they hardly saw their daughter at all. But when they do; she got her own way.
I always thought, and still think now, that was why she was a total jerk to everyone. She may be spoilt, but she had one thing that everyone has but she, herself, hasn't got; parents that come home everyday and interact with them.
"And I would like a descent report from all of you," Mrs Lopez announced, "or else I would have to fail you or ..." she let the threat hang in the air for a moment "... I'll give you detention."
She eyed me ruefully. Just to show me how much she disliked me and that she couldn't wait to give me the first detention, as if she knew I would immediately fail her essay.
The bell sounded and everybody, even me, rushed to their feet, stuffed their books into their bags and rushed out of the door before Mrs Lopez assigned us to some other horrible essay on something we didn't want to do.
I reached my locker and pulled my black bag out and placed my black leather jacket on before Stacey pushed by my shoulder roughly to get to her locker. She turned around and smirked cruelly at me before opening her locker and extracting a lime coloured handbag out of her locker. Ew! Who even uses are lime green bag? It looked like snot!
"Just ignore her, Mackenzie," whispered Cheryl as Stacey was only a few lockers away from me. "She's not worth it."
"I know," I said. "It's just that she's asking for it, the stupid bitch!"
I glanced in the direction where Stacey was laughing with Melissa at some ridiculous joke. And I knew immediately she was talking about me, when Stacey glanced at me with her eyes narrowed before turning back to her clueless, brown haired and chubby friend, Melissa.
I closed my locker and passed Stacey on the way, hearing her demand from Melissa to do her book report or she would tell everyone her deadly little secret. Melissa, of course, accepted because she was Stacey's lap dog while Stacey, in her own eyes, believed she was the Alpha female in the pack.
I headed towards the bus stop with Cheryl and waited for the bus to arrive. When the bus finally did come, the doors slide open with a faint hiss and I stepped on board. I showed my bus pass and headed for the back of the bus, along with Cheryl. We cranked up some tunes and I ignored a few elderly people giving us some dirty looks.
I turned up the volume on a Hot 40 number one hit, making sure it was loud enough for me and Cheryl to sing along to. The driver didn't mind, but I could tell it was annoying one of the old women with dull red hair and dark grey streaks; who was surrounded by many shopping bags. She was also wearing a shaggy brown coat that looked like it came from the dumpster.
"Will you turn that off!" yelled the woman.
I ignored her and laughed.
"Excuse me!" she shrieked. "I told you to turn that rubbish off!"
Cheryl and I shared a joke and sniggered before I turned towards the old woman and stuck my middle finger up at her. No one got away with calling my music rubbish. And I wasn't in the mood to be assaulted by a terrible, patchy skinned and wrinkled old woman. Not today. Not ever.
"Got a problem?" I jeered. "Go and see the doctor."
She looked at me incredulously and got up from her seat. She left her bags on the seat, another old woman keeping watch over her bags, and headed towards the middle aged driver and complained about us, yelling.
The bus driver stopped at a red light and turned around to frown at us, begging with his eyes. I acknowledged his plight. He wanted me to switch it off so the old hag wouldn't moan all the way because he wouldn't be able to stand it. I untangled my earphones and plugged them in my phone. I listened intently to my music, hearing it blast through my eardrums and enjoying the moment.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Essence by Leanne Grime Copyright © 2012 by Leanne Grime. Excerpted by permission of TRAFFORD PUBLISHING. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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