The Snake Pit: Jr. High Can Be Torture

This book is a work of fiction. Any
similarities to real people or events is
purely coincidental. Any reproduction of this work without the express consent of the author is strictly prohibited.

The Snake Pit: Jr. High Can Be Torture.
2009 Donna L. Dillon.
  All rights reserved.

For My Mother

Who Believed In Me
.

Life
In
The Pit

7
th
grade is hard.  Even if you are the most beautiful, the most athletic, or the most brilliant, the pressure is intense to become something that someone else decides you should be.  I'm not sure why I'm telling you all this....you're old and can't possibly understand.  You went to 7
th
grade in, what, the 70's??  Okay, I will try to explain this to you in words even you can understand.

What we're talking about here is bullying.  All this zero-tolerance, no child left behind crap is just that...crap.  Kids run the school and everyone in it.  Adults are too busy with their own problems to see
what's going on under their own noses.  And bullying is bullying whether it
’s done by a 200 pound
bruiser or the cute little cheerleader next door.  Kids are cruel.  They zero in on one small flaw and they pound away at you until you conform to their idea of perfection, or drop out of school and hide in a closet somewhere.

I'll admit
,
I've done my share of bullying.  I have laug
hed and poked fun at the
goths
.
I've pointed and giggled at the geeks
.
I've even taken a shot at the
cheerleaders
 
(
they can be
sooo
stupid.). Face it...some kids can handle it....and some kids wind up shooting up the school.  Don't look at me like that
,
it happens and you know it does.  The thing is, I figure the
goths
,
the geeks and the cheerleaders are different because
they CHOOSE to be different
and
,
therefore, fair game. And I knew the game was on the minute that
Cinda
walked into the snake pit.

The snake pit is what we lovingly call the school cafeteria.  The snake pit is the perfect place to pick on someone because, frankly, the teachers are tired of us and want nothing to do with us until the next period bell.  There are teacher aides milling about, but they are all too busy discussing what their plans are for the weekend then to worry about what we're all doing.  Unless there's blood, and a lot of it, they are oblivious.  Minimum wage is hardly worth the effort to pay attention apparently.

Me?  I have so far escaped the bully train.  My father owns
Carston
Plastics and employs most of the parents of the kids at my school.  I
have never once played that
card, nor have I had to...it's
understood that I am off limits.  I am neither popular, nor unpopular at
school
.
..
I
simply exist and observe. 
Now, back to
Cinda
.
I had heard rumors all day about a strange new girl at school.  I had yet to see her, but she made a grand entrance into the pit.  Not quite the entrance she intended, but a grand entrance all the same.

A hundred years ago, the cafeteria was once the old gym.  The floor is warped and uneven
and if you don't look where you’re
going, you can take a nasty fall.  I watched as this small, dark haired girl trudged slowly along, head down trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, carrying her lunch tray and definitely NOT looking where she was going.  It was a disaster waiting to happen.

             
Then it happened.  Her toe caught the uneven floor just right and down she went...
tator
tots and creamed peas flying everywhere.  The whole pit erupted in laughter and the next thing I know
food
was
being flung at this poor creature from left, right, and sideways.  I never did get a good look at her face.  Not that day anyway.

Did I throw food at her?  No.  I skipped breakfast that morning, I was still hungry.

Chapter Two

Monster

Well, I don't need to tell you that the fiasco that was
Cinda's
first day is the stuff legends are made of.  She must have gone home because no one saw her again until the next morning.  Personally, I was impressed that she came back to school at all.

I have noticed that the girls in my school tend to exaggerate a little.  By the time I got home that night I had countless text messages and e-mails
recounting the events of
Cinda
and the snake pit.  Some versions had her smashing her face into the floor and breaking teeth and others claimed she had a concussion and was whisked away to the hospital. I did notice that they all had one detail in common...everyone was talking about her face.

Do you want me to tell this story or not???  I understand, Detective, that you have a job to do, but this story is important and needs to be told.  Frankly, it should have been told long before this, it would've saved everyone a whole lot of heartache. 
Least of all,
Cinda
.

Anyway, where was I?  Oh, yes...
Cinda's
face.  Like I said, I had not seen her face at this point, but, according to the rumors around
school, something was definitely not quite right.  I heard rumors of a car accident, that she'd been kicked in the face by a horse, even that she had been mauled by a bear.  Someone even called her a monster.

Well, I am not one for rumors, people may even say I'm a bit on the nosy side, but I was going to get the truth one way or another.  It just so
happens
that
Cinda's
last name is Carter which puts her locker just two down from mine.  I took my opportunity the very next morning.

I waited at my locker, pretending that I couldn't remember my combination when she finally showed up.  If I hadn't been looking for her, I might have missed her, that's how quiet she was.  She
kinda
breezed in like a ghost and stood at her locker, head
down, her dark hair still hanging in her face.  I remember
thinking
,
“T
his girl is a real loser.”

I had to find a way to talk to this girl...but I figured if I just walked up to her and introduced myself, she would run like a rabbit.  So I bumped into her. 
Literally.
  She dropped her books and as I helped her pick them up...she looked at me.

I was a little shocked.  I couldn't help myself.  “Oh, my God...what happened to your face?”  I blurted out. She was far from a monster, but her nose was misshapen,
kinda
flat and the nostrils didn't match. She had these terrible scars under her nose and her lips didn't look quite right.  I felt like a creep for reacting that way, but apparently, it's a reaction that she was used to.

“I was born with a cleft palate/cleft lip.” she told me.  I had never heard of such a thing.  The scars were from multiple surgeries to correct it she told me, and I got the impression that she had many more to go. When I finally got my foot out of my mouth, I introduced myself.

“I'm Charlene
Carsten
,
”
I
told her.  “People call me Charlie.”  As I handed her
her
book, she smiled.  Her teeth were in no better shape.  I found out later that a cleft palate also affect gums and teeth.  But, as bad as her teeth were, and as odd as her face looked, she had the most beautiful big blue eyes I had ever seen.  And I told her so.

I meant it, and she knew I meant it.   She
blushed
bright red from the
compliment.    As we walked to class, she held her head a little higher and I knew
Cinda
and I would be friends.   I also knew that things were not going to be easy for
Cinda
and Hargrove Jr
.
High.  Not easy at all.

Chapter Three

Harelip

Harelip.
  That's what the other kids called her.  Every chance they got.  The very sound of the word makes me sick to this very day, but it never seemed to bother
Cinda
.   It's one of the cruelest things you can call someone...have you ever seen the lips of a
hare
???  Not the most attractive of things and certainly not one you want referring to your face.

I looked up cleft palate in the medical dictionary.  Basically a cleft palate is the incomplete fusion of the facial bones before birth.  Now, I ask you this...how on earth is making fun of someone with a cleft palate supposed to
help them?  It's not like they
can go home and make
themselves better.  But the more I tried to get the other kids to stop
;
the worse it got for her.

So, I
laid
off.  I really wish I hadn't.  But, I did, and I just tried to give
Cinda
what I thought was a safe place to fall.  We spent a lot of time to
gether during those first few
months, either at her house or mine.  My mom even said she thought we were joined
at
the hip.  My mom thinks she
’
s funny.

Then, toward the end of the winter break,
Cinda
got braces on her teeth.  Even with a mouth full of metal she looked a hundred percent better.  She started walking with her head a little higher, although getting her to keep her hair out of her face proved to be a much more difficult task.