Picking the Wallflower

I glanced around furtively as I made my way down the hallway. Clutching my laptop bag tightly, I hurried to the end of the hallway, hoping nobody would notice me. Being sidelined your whole life has its perks, since I made it all the way to the end without anybody taking so much as a courtesy look in my direction.

It’s easy to be a wallflower in my situation; when nobody cares what happens to you, you can get away with a lot more. Right at that moment, I was on the verge of being late for a history lesson. Those were the most boring, since I knew the material already. But Mr George insisted on teaching the same thing to us, repeatedly.

I think even the jocks understood the Revolutionary War. Hardly surprising, really, since we had learnt nothing but since the beginning of the semester. Mr George was obsessed, to the point of boredom for many of us.

I slipped into the room with the final stragglers, and headed for my seat in the back corner. I sat, and pulled out my workbook. The chatter around me was soft, but none of it was directed at me. Not that I cared. The girls to my left were two busybodies, always poking their noses into other peoples’ business. But they had not so much as looked once in my direction since I had entered.

I was effectively invisible. Picking up my pen, I doodled on the open page of my workbook while I waited for the lesson to start. Mr George eventually stood up. “Okay, class. Settle down.” I put my pen down as he picked up a stack of papers from his desk.

“I’ve graded your tests, and I must admit, I’m not impressed with most of you.”

A nervous titter travelled through the class, but I remained silent. I knew my answers were all correct. Some stupid curse of my memory meant I forgot none of the information given to me. None of it. I remembered every face of every person I had met since I was less than a year old. I also remembered every awful thing anybody had said about or to me. Not that I let on. There was no sense in drawing attention to myself, not when I would rather be invisible.

Mr George began to hand out the papers. Some people cheered. Most groaned. I was the last in the pile. Mr George looked down at me over his glasses. “Cassandra, you have once again amazed me with your insight into the subject.”

I glanced away, fighting my blush. A large portion of the class had turned to face me, surprised. Crap! I tried to slide down in my chair, but to no avail. Mr George handed my paper back to me, and walked away. The class was still staring; I could feel it. I slowly picked the paper up. On the top were a big red A++, and a Well Done scrawled in messy black handwriting.

Mr George began his lesson, and I shut my eyes. The class had turned to face the front, but the two girls next to me hadn’t. I could feel the eyes, but studiously ignored them. The cover of my notebook was infinitely more interesting that the blackboard, as I found out. The lesson was excruciatingly slow, as was the case with most lessons. But it was the last lesson of the day.

I wasn’t entirely sure how happy I was about that. Except then I could get to my blog without worrying about people seeing me. An insanely popular gossip blog, it was the most quoted thing at our school. It was the strangest thing for me. I was nobody to these people in person, but online, I was their hero.