Seth Rosso and his twin brother, Tom, and Greg Rice used to pull at my pigtails. No, this wasn't because they liked me, as little boys sometimes do to little girls they like, this was because they truly hated the sight of me and I them. Boy, did I tell on them.
My mother finally instructed me to just ignore everyone and though it was hard, I did it. I read, I drew, I spoke to the teacher about great restaurants in the Philadelphia area. I was not about to let those losers bother me.
One day, though, the kids staged an all-out attack. They must have prepared for it given the roughness of the situation.
But the day they hoped would be the worst day of my life turned out to be one of the best. (Finally! We're getting to the second best day in my essay. Who knew I had so much to tell?)
This was the day I met my best and truest friend.
It was October. I was in the fourth grade. It was around nine in the morning, in homeroom, when Penelope Goldstein entered my life. I always sat in the front row (as if you couldn't have guessed that). The principal, Mrs. Macknicki, peeked into the classroom just as our teacher, Mrs. Hoffman, was finishing roll call.
“Students,” Mrs. Macknicki announced, “we have a new student joining the fourth grade this morning, and we should all welcome her. Penelope Goldstein just moved here from New York City.”
That's when I looked up. I hadn't even noticed Mrs. Macknicki and Pen step in. I was too busy with the book I was reading,
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
âa classic.
I did look up at this point, though, not because it was going to do me any goodâI knew by now that no one was going to be my friendâbut because I had reached the end of my chapter and the class was suddenly silent, so it seemed like a good time to look. Then everyone started to laugh. It was a subtle giggle first, then a whispered guffaw, then full-on chuckling.
I wanted to laugh along with the other kids, but I didn't. Why was everyone laughing?
I'm going to be blunt about this, because if Pen was here she'd say the same thing. The kids were laughing because Penelope Goldstein was an extremely unattractive and odd-looking kid.
First of all, she was like five foot five. To be in the fourth grade and be five foot five was outrageous. No one was near Pen's height. I think she weighed like two hundred pounds, and if she didn't, she sure looked like she did. Pen had really greasy, curly, boring brown hair and round John Lennon glasses with gold frames. In her blue and white uniform, the Peter Pan collared blouse was tested by her rolls of stomach fat, and the pleated skirt looked more like a pencil skirt as it gave way to her thighs. Her dark blue kneesocks only made it halfway up her calf. Frankly, Pen looked like Frankenstein's child (that's her joke by the way, not mine).
And all the other kids laughed, except meânot because I took an instant liking to her or was a better person, but because I couldn't be bothered.
“Class!” Mrs. Hoffman shouted as she banged on her desk, causing the room to fall into complete silence. “Is this the way we welcome new students? Not in my class! I expect you all to greet Penelope in the gracious style we have taught our fourth-grade students.”
“Hello, Penelope,” the class, except me, said in unison.
“Hello, class,” she smiled back with her oversized gums peering out of her mouth. To be blunt, Pen was a gene malfunction. There was not an attractive thing about her. Thing was, though, she didn't even seem to be upset by the outburst. While this should have been my first tip that this was my kind of gal,
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
was getting really good and I was too into it to take note of anything else.
Mrs. Hoffman led Pen to the back of the room (no doubt because she would have towered over whoever was in back of her, leaving them unable to see the blackboard). I forgot about her. She was just another kid.
Then came lunch.
Now, as I said, I was a skinny kid. I was also the shortest, scrawniest kid, barely topping three foot nine. The elders were always worried that I wasn't eating enough (though no one had to worry once I hit puberty).
I was sitting in the lunchroom with my four-square lunch set on top of the table in front of me. I remember being really hungry that day and hoping that lunch would be a meat loaf sandwich. As I opened the box, I noticed first that my four baggies were bunched up. This was odd because whenever my mother or grandmother packed my lunch, the baggies were always nicely wrapped tightly around their contents.
As I looked into the box, there was no meat loaf sandwich at all. There was no honey crisp apple (this was late fall when, as I'm sure you know, honey crisp apples are at their peak). There was no side of pasta salad or corn or Snyder's pretzels, my fave. Someone had eaten my lunch!
I got up out of my seat and directed myself to where I thought the nearest supervisor would be sitting. Oddly, there was none to be seen. Where were the teachers? The lunch ladies? Where the heck was the grown-up world?
I looked around the room. No one was looking at me, though the room was very quiet. I noticed Seth Rosso, that ass, crack a smile at his twin brother, Tom. I noticed Kerry Collins and Olivia Wilson snickering at each other.
I walked out of the lunchroom and down the hallway to the teacher's lounge to find an adult to hear my grievance. A sign was on the door: “Teachers Meeting,” it said. “For emergencies, please see Vice Principal Berg.”
Oh, my parents were going to hear about this. Leaving the children without any supervision, even if it was for a few minutes, was not only irresponsible but also negligent and most likely cause for a lawsuit.
I walked back into the lunchroom, ready to face that evil-doing progeniture. I could handle this on my own. They didn't scare me.
As I entered the lunchroom, fists clenched and ready to blow, all the kids were ganged up in front of the door.
All of a sudden I was trapped in a ten-minute version of
Lord of the Flies
.
“Who ate my lunch?” I shouted out to the gang in front of me. I wasn't afraid of them. They weren't about to scare me.
“What's the matter?” Dana Stanbury asked. “No grown-ups here to fight your battle?”
The class started laughing.
“Who ate my lunch?” I repeated. To tell you the truth, I was beginning to feel a little intimidated. It was like fifteen kids against me.
“It was just a smelly meat loaf sandwich,” Greg Rice cracked as he patted his stomach. “I think I've got food poisoning from it. I should have known, you're such a bitch that your parents are trying to kill you, too, with week-old meat.”
On the contrary, the meat loaf was not a leftover; my mother made it specifically for my lunch. Remember, I was a miracle child. Miracle children do not eat leftovers.
“She's poison, just like the meat loaf,” Olivia Wilson added.
“She needs to be thrown in the garbage,” Kerry Collins laughed.
“Yeah, let's throw this trash in the garbage!” Tom Rosso shouted as the kids cheered.
That's when Tom Rosso and his twin brother, Seth, came at me. I started to scream, but Greg Rice put his hand over my mouth.
“THROW THAT TRASH IN THE TRASH AND DUMP HER DOWN THE INCINERATOR!” Dana Stanbury screamed out.
I have to break here and just ask: can you believe how mean little kids can be?
I was throwing my body in every direction I could as I saw Kerry Collins shutting the doors to the lunchroom to keep out the noise. I could see the delighted looks on Olivia Wilson's and Dana Stanbury's faces as Seth and Tom Rosso managed to hold on to my little squirming body with Greg Rice holding his hand to my mouth so tight it was getting harder to breathe. I was not about to let these assholes see me cry. Actually, I didn't have the time because the next thing I knew I was thrown head- first into a trash can.
I was trying with all my might to get out of there, but Seth Rosso was pushing down on my head and up against some old onion peels and pasta salad. I still remember the distinct smell of tuna fish.
That's when they closed the bag and proceeded to pull it and little scrawny me out of the can.
That's when I started to cry.
Where they were taking me, I'll never know. They might have been heading to the incinerator, though I'm not quite sure the Friends School had one. They might have been about to throw me in the oven or the dishwasher or maybe just outside. I'll never know.
Just at that moment I met the greatest friend. I met the one friend I would ever need in the world, and the reason I think Lee Iacocca's father was full of bunk. If I'd had a choice between five really good friends or just her, I would have picked the latter. You're about to hear why:
“YOU EITHER PUT HER DOWN OR I'M GOING TO COME AFTER EACH OF YOU ONE BY ONE!” I heard from inside the bag.
“Shut up, ugly!” I heard Tom Rosso scream out.
And that's when I heard the punch. I was inside a trash bag with macaroni in my ears, and I could still distinguish the punch. The bag and me went plop on the ground in a swift drop.
As I pushed my head out of the trash bag, she was like Wonder Woman and Superman all rolled into one. An overweight, four-eyed, bad-haired crime fighter in a way-too-tight blue and white Friends School uniform had taken up my cause, and she was going at it with such force, I didn't even get out of the bag for fear that I would be next.
She was popping every kid that got in her way, every kid that tried to fight back. Dana Stanbury and Greg Rice got bloody noses. Tom Rosso had a wallop of a black eye. Olivia Wilson was crying over the hair that had been ripped out of her head. I was still sitting in the bag in shock.
“You okay?” the mammoth nine-year-old asked as she helped me out of the bag.
“Yes,” I said, taking her hand.
Besides Olivia Wilson's whimpering, the room had gone silent.
Just then, Mrs. Hoffman, our teacher, entered the cafeteria. She saw the bloodbath before her and screamed out, “WHAT HAPPENED HERE?”
No one said a thing.
After lunch Mrs. Macknicki held us all in the lunchroom and asked again. “We're not leaving here until someone tells me what went on here.”
No one said a word.
“Alexandra?” Mrs. Macknicki singled me out. “You're always the one to tell. What went on here?”
“I was . . . ,” I started to say. “I was . . . just eating my lunch. I didn't see anything.”
“Why do you smell like garbage? Why is there macaroni salad in your hair?” she demanded.
“I was . . . ,” I began. “I was . . . I was given liverwurst for lunch. You know how that stinks,” I told her.
“Penelope,” Mrs. Macknicki asked. “You seem to be the only one here that looks undamaged. You want to tell me what happened?”
“I'm new,” she said confidently. “Do you really think that's the way I'd like to start off at a new school? Telling on the other kids? I don't think so. I plead the Fifth and that's my right as an American.”
Yes, she was smart. Pen's father was a lawyer and taking the Fifth was a big thing in her house. I had to ask her later what “the Fifth” was.
Now, normally, if any other kid had said this, they would have been given a severe talking-to with threats of expulsion or worse: in-school mornings and afternoon detention for three months. Pen, though, made a point with no room for discussion. How could anyone start off their first day at school by admitting that she beat the crap out of the entire fourth-grade class? Pen had balls . . . er, ovaries of steel, still does.
So Mrs. Macknicki excused her and went on to the next kid.
That afternoon, after a long hot shower, even though my parents kept asking why I smelled like compost, I never told.
“Something's going on at that school that I'm not liking,” my father said sternly from the phone when my mom told him I stunk. “Let's get her out of that school, Maxine.”
“Are the kids being mean to you?” my mom asked. “Would you like to go to a new school?”
I didn't even have to think about it.
“Nope,” I told them. “It's not so bad. I'll stay there.”
The next day at school I had someone to eat lunch with, and that afternoon I had my first playdate.
My parents thought Penelope was the weirdest-looking girl they'd ever seen.
“That girl needs a good brush to her hair and a good diet,” my dad laughed after he met her.
They didn't know her though. Pretty soon they came to see what I saw. She was the coolest girl anyone could ever know.
Penelope Goldstein is everything I never was. Even from that young age, Pen was never afraid to fight for anything if she felt it was worth fighting for. She wasn't the prettiest girl, she never had the prettiest face, but you would never have known it by the way she carried herself. Pen has the ability to make people believe that her ample thighs are the ones to envy. That's why I love her so much. That's why everyone loves Pen. A couple of years ago I asked her why she fought off the other kids for me. She said, “The kids really hated you. I figured they must have been jealous of you. If they were jealous, there must have been something really cool about you.” That's Pen. She's always had this insane gift for seeing the world in a way that no one else ever thinks to look at it.
I don't know if it was because of Pen, or that I had learned my lesson that telling was not the way to go through life, but eventually Dana Stanbury and Kerry Collins and Olivia Wilson also became lifelong friends. Every so often, as the years went by, either Olivia or Kerry or Dana would say to me, “I always felt really bad about that day and I want to apologize.” I told them it wasn't necessary to apologize after all these years, but I let them anyway. I wondered, though, had Penelope not beaten the crap out of them, how would my life have been different?