Brenn Says: Don't Date A Genie

Stampede

The ground is rumbling.

My toes curl with the vibrations of a thousand wild beasts running toward me. My stomach turns when I hear the voices of the boys screaming and laughing. I can already feel the spitwads hitting my face.

I hate crowds. I hate wild crowds, and the seven minutes between classes ALWAYS fill the hallways with extremely wild crowds.

I'm gonna die. I know it. Thirteen with so much still to accomplish. Trampled to death by her fellow students. Or worse. Killed by the poison of embarrassment! That's a real thing. I read about it in one of my doctor's lobby magazines. It said that an abnormally huge surge of adrenaline can enter your bloodstream and kill you. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna die like that. The way these idiots like to pick on me, it's only a matter of time.

Here they come. Running down the hallway. My heart is pounding.

This is it. The end.

I tighten my grip around my notebook, turn the other way, look down at my shoes, take a deep breath, and begin to powerwalk toward the library. If I don't look at THEM, maybe they won't see me either. Maybe they'll just leave me alone and all of this will be just fine.

"Look, everybody!" yells that baboon-faced Tommy Croon as his buddies run up behind him. Tommy's Jessica's boyrfriend and captain of the basketball team. "It's No-Fren Bren. Get her!!!"

The hunt is on and I'm the prey. Again. Like every day.

I dash around the corner for the girls' bathroom, and catch a glimpse of Jessica Summers laughing at me. I look back at the bathroom and find Jessica's little minions are already there, arms crossed, barring the way. My heart is ready to beat its way out of my chest.

I turn around and look the way I came. The boys are there looking like hungry lions ready to make a kill. I spin back around and see the girls slowly walking toward me.

"Hi Brenn," says Leticia, Jasssica's right-hand minion. "Why don't you join us? We were just talking about the Christmas dance. Everyone's going. Are you going?"

This is a setup. No matter what I say, it's going to backfire.

"Look," she says and nods at the boys. "There's plenty of boys there. Have any of them asked you to go with them?"

The girls behind her start to giggle. The boys begin making wretching sounds. I hug my notebook and back-up until my shoulders touch the lockers.

"I have to get to the library," I say. "Please let me go."

"The library?" says Leticia, then looks over at Jessica who's smiling from across the hall. "But the library's off-limits. Didn't you know? No one's allowed there after school."

"That's not true," I say. "I'm helping with the books-"

"I don't think you understand," she interrupts me as she walks up to me and slams a hand on the locker next to my head. "You won't be going to the library after-school. You'll be going home."

"Look at how scared she looks!" yells Tommy. "She's gonna pee herself."

Everyone starts laughing.

"Gross!" says Leticia, sniffing me. "OMG! I think she already did. She smells like pee!"

"Not true!" I yell, and my lips begin to quiver.

"No-Fren Brenn peed herself!" yells Tommy.

"No, I didn't!" I cry out, as tears fill my eyes, then push Leticia out of the way and run through the boys. One of them slaps my notebook out of my hands, and another kicks it into the hallway behind them. I run up to it and bend down to pick it up. That's when it happens.

"Target practice!'

Spitballs begin hitting me on the butt, the neck, and the cheek. I can feel the wet, sticky wads drip down my skin. It's disgusting.

I stumble forward and run toward the library, but a group of Jessica's friends are standing in the way.

"What's going on here?" says Coach Miller, walking up to us. She looks down at me and then at them, then back at me, shaking her head. She offers me her hand.

"Get outta here!" she yells at them and they scram. She looks down at me and her eyebrows are all curled like she's thinking hard. "Get up, Brenn. Don't let those kids see you cry."

"I hate them," I say, standing up. "All of them. They always do this."

"I know," she says. "There will always be people like them. That never changes."

"Then what's the point of anything?" I say, flicking a spitwad off my shirt. "y whole life's gonna be like this because I'm not pretty like the other girls."

"That's not true," says Coach Miller. "You're beautiful."

"To you. To my mom. To my gran, and she's blind. All of you have to say that cuz you're adults. You don't get it. Jessica Miller is the queen around here, and if she decides that I'm the enemy, then everyone else follows her lead. It's that simple. And I don't even know why she hates me so much."

"She's afraid of you," says Coach Miller. "She wants that scholarship too."

"But there's enough room for two of us on that trip! She knows that."

"It doesn't matter," says Coach. "Jessica's the kind of girl who always needs to be number one, and right now, you're the only one keeping her from that. She's just trying to get under your skin, sweetie."

I flick another three spitwads off me.

"One day, I'm gonna make her pay."

I wipe away my tears and storm away to the library. I'm not backing down from that girl. I'm going to win that scholarship. She might be prettier and more popular, but I'm smarter than her. I can figure this out. I'm going to make her pay. I'm going to make them all pay.