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Chapter One

“First Day”

My name is Hilda, but people call me Hildy. Hilda is a German name. My mother was German, and French a little. My father is American. I mean real American, from before Columbus. He's part Cherokee, and a whole lot of other stuff. I guess that makes me a mutt.

I used to go to Vanderville Junior High School on Long Island, in Nassau County. That was last year. Before that I went to schools in California, Michigan, Texas, and a couple of other places I can't even remember. I'm fifteen, almost, and already I've lived in more places than anybody I know. We travel a lot, Daddy and me.

My mother is dead. I guess my story really starts with her. She was a dancer. Not the ballroom type. She danced classical ballet. She committed suicide, I think, when I was just a little baby, so I don't remember her. We don't talk about it much, so I'm really not sure. Besides Daddy, my only other family is Grandma Olga and Grandpa Louis, my mother's parents. I lived with them for a few years when I was a baby, so we're pretty close. They used to have a big house in Connecticut, but now they're retired to Florida, so I don't see them too often.

Sometimes when Daddy looks at me, I know he's seeing my mother. He has a picture of her that he keeps in a silver frame. She was beautiful. Daddy says I look exactly like her. I don't really think so, but that's what he says. Maybe I do, in a way.

My father thinks I'm beautiful, but I've never regarded myself as even pretty. He calls me his "precious gem." He's a romantic and I guess I'm a realist.

Everything about me is average. My height, my weight. My brown hair is kind

of mousy and I keep it cut short like a boy's. Less trouble that way. I wear glasses that leave little red dents on the sides of my nose when I read. And there are braces on my teeth. Two thousand dollars worth of orthodontia work that Daddy is still paying off in installments to Dr. Gresham in Van Nuys, California. Like I said, I'm really a realist.

My parents met while my mother was dancing with a small touring ballet

company. Daddy said he fell in love the moment he saw her. Love at first sight, just like in the movies. And he followed her around the country until she agreed to marry him. It was all very romantic. It was a terrible shock for him when she died. That was soon after I was born. I'm still not exactly clear about what happened, and maybe I won't ever know for sure. But I guess it's like Daddy says, sometimes, bad things happen to good people.

After it happened Daddy started drinking and he lost his job. He left me with Grandma Olga for a while and took off somewhere, until he could "sort things out," he said. It took him a while, because I was four when he came back. There was a terrible fight with my grandparents when he announced that he was taking me with him.

For a while we just drifted from place to place, getting by a day at a time, but we had fun. I guess Daddy was still trying to forget, but he couldn't. That's the way it is, you know, you can't forget and you shouldn’t forget the people you love. And that's only right.

I love the dance too. It's something I probably inherited from my mother. I used to dream about becoming a prima ballerina. Sometimes still, I just stand in front of the mirror studying myself in the various dance positions. Well, maybe not so much anymore. And I used to have this fantasy about dancing a command performance for the President of the United States or the Queen of England or somebody, to a standing audience.

I know it's silly and it's only a fantasy, and I'll never really do it. You see, I was born with a congenital hip defect and I had to wear a leg brace for a long time. I still walk with a limp.

I hate the word handicapped. My father says they handicap horses. And golfers have a handicap too. So anytime somebody says that I'm handicapped, I picture myself with a silly bunch of golfers dragging around a bunch of horses while we're trying to hit little white golf balls all over the place. It's good for a laugh.

I have to admit for a while I felt kind of responsible for my mother's death. After all, I was the imperfect product of two perfect people.

Once I tried to talk about it to Mrs. Pierce, the school psychologist in one of the schools I went to, but Daddy packed us up before I really got a chance, and we moved to another job in another part of the country. It's not that I feel guilty exactly, and Daddy doesn't blame me, I know. He still feels responsible himself. It's just that I can't help thinking how different things could have been in life if I was born normal, and if my mother was still alive.

Well, that's just some of the old stuff that I think about sometimes. And there's more, like everything that happened this past year in Vanderville. It's all still a jumble in my mind, and I haven't quite sorted things out. But I wonder why God, if there is a God, why He just sits around and allows some things to happen.

If I sound kind of like a philosopher, I guess it's because I am in a way. In all the hours that I've spent alone, I've had lots of time to think, and to read. More than most kids, I guess. And because of the way I was born, my life, so far, has certainly been different. I guess I am different from other girls my age, and not just because of my hip, I mean. It's not that I don't think about boys and nice clothes and makeup and stuff. It's just that the way things have turned out, those things aren't that important to me.

Anyway, it was the first day of school, my first day, I mean. The school year was pretty much well into the first semester when I got there. We had just moved to Long Island from Houston, Texas, and Daddy rented a little house for us in Nassau County. He had a new job with an electronics company that made parts for the Space Shuttle or something. Daddy's real smart, and he's had lots of jobs, so he can do almost anything. A jack-of-all-trades. Grandma Olga calls him "scattered." She says he doesn't apply himself, so he won't ever amount to much. But I don't think that's true, and I think she says it because she's still angry at him about the way things turned out.

I was sitting outside the Guidance Office of Vanderville Junior High School, holding the books that my father had picked up when he registered me for school the day before. I didn't particularly like the idea of being the "forever-new-girl" in school, but from all that moving around at least I had lots of experience and a lot of practice, so I wasn't nervous. Well, maybe just a little.

           From what I had seen of Vanderville, it wasn't much different from the other

places I'd been. It looked like a school. The sounds that I heard from my seat sounded like a school. It even smelled like a school. You know, a mixture of old tuna fish sandwiches, chalk dust and gym socks. The principal, a Mr. Fagan, was a nervous looking man, who seemed very busy when he rushed through the office. He didn't say anything to me, but he kind of smiled a little and ran out again.

I was waiting for Mr. Gentile, my new guidance counselor, who was out to lunch. When he arrived, I was doing dance exercises in my mind, in time with the music of the secretaries clicking out their work on computer keyboards. He was thin, thirty-five about, kind of cute and out of breath. He had nice eyes. It's the eyes that I usually notice first about people. Mr. Gentile had gentle eyes. But his fingers were stained yellow from smoking a lot, and I could smell tobacco on his clothes.

"I'm sorry I'm late," he said with a rush. "Er... Miss Crocket?" He looked at the index card he was holding. "Hilda. Why don't we go into my office? I have your schedule program made out, and a New Entrant slip for all your teachers to sign. Then I'll take you on a tour around the building. It's pretty big, but you'll get used to it. It won't be hard once you know where you're going."

I stood up and took a step towards him. Because of my hip problem my right foot points in and I move kind of on tiptoes. Someone once described the way I walk as a string puppet with a twisted string. I liked to think of it as a special way of dancing. But poor Mr. Gentile wasn't ready for it. I guess no one had warned him. The smile on his face vanished and the expression in his eyes changed to embarrassment and pity, just for a fraction of a second, until he recovered. I felt kind of sorry for him. He didn't know if he should help me, take my books, or just ignore it. So I just smiled.

We were out in the halls making the rounds of my classrooms. Mr. Gentile was right, it was a big building, but Vanderville wouldn't be too hard to negotiate. I had classes on every floor, and there were four of them. And I was scheduled for gym too. He apologized for that, and said he'd set up an alternate activities program so I could get course credit.

"Of course I'll find you an elevator key, and an early dismissal pass so you'll have plenty of time to get from class to class. I'll call Transportation at the Administration Building to make arrangements for the special bus. And maybe I can juggle some room changes so you won't have to-"

"It's no bother, Mr. Gentile," I explained. "I actually prefer using the stairs. I'm really able to manage."

Then the bell rang and a stampede of kids shook the building. I pressed myself against the lockers and allowed the stream to rush past, but poor Mr. Gentile was caught in the flood. He tried to battle his way back to me like a fish fighting the current. That was when I saw them walking in front of me, three boys, who had to be Ninth Graders, in identical club jackets with WHEELS lettered on the back. They were strolling casually with their arms locked, holding up the crowd behind them. It made for a gigantic traffic jam. But nobody dared to push through, or even tried to get around them. The three WHEELS were laughing and horsing around and having a great time. Then they spotted somebody coming from the other direction.

He was a tall kid, but skinny and frail looking, with like zero muscle tone. And he was wearing tortoise rim glasses that made him look a bit doofie. You know the type that goes through life with a "Kick Me Hard" sign taped on his back and the word "Victim" written all over his face.

The WHEELS changed direction, attaching themselves to him, and they headed back down the hall in my direction.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't Jakove the Jack-Off!" one of them said loud enough for everybody to hear.

"Oh, Harrison," another one mocked with a falsetto voice, "How are things in Fairyland, Jack-Off?"

They circled him like sharks, but he didn't answer. He tried to ignore them, but I could see it in his eyes, a mixture of fear, contempt and resignation.

"Don't you like us, gayboy? You never have anything to say to us."

Harrison Jakove held his books tighter in his hands and against his body, bracing for what he knew was about to come. "I would stop and engage you in conversation guys, but I'll be late for my next class. And besides, I'd have to explain the meaning of too many words to you."

His remark made me laugh, as the four of them stopped right in front of me.

“You know," the biggest WHEEL said, "I get the feeling that the our pal Jack-Off doesn't like all the attention we show him."

He laid his fat and sweaty hand on Jakove's shoulder and spun him around. Jakove tried to break away, but it was too late. He was caught and the other WHEELS began turning him around and around in a circle, faster and faster, until he was too dizzy to stand up. There was a crowd around them laughing and cheering. I felt really sorry for the kid.

"Just leave me alone, will you?" he protested as he staggered around. But that wasn't to be. Somebody put out a foot and somebody else slapped at his books, and Jakove was down on the floor in one direction, and his notebooks, loose-leaf and biology book in the other. I was standing right there practically pinned to the lockers.

"Break it up!" Mr. Gentile yelled from across the hall. He was trying to push his way into the middle of things. "Are you all right, Harrison?" He helped him to his feet.

"I think so, Mr. Gentile." His glasses were crooked on his face. "But my books? My homework?" They were scattered all over the hall.

Mr. Gentile glared at the WHEELS. "Galante," he said to the biggest one. He was trying hard to control his voice, but the veins in his forehead were sticking out.

"What are you looking at me for? I didn't do it. Ask anybody." He turned to the kids around him. They were all shaking their heads.

"Pick up those books, Galante. You and your friends pick up every one of those papers."

"What for? We didn't do it. This kid is a spaz. He can't even walk straight."

Everybody laughed.

"I said pick them up!"

Then the second bell rang.

"That's the warning bell, Mr. Gentile. We wouldn't want to be late for class. Will you write us all late passes?" Galante asked with unmistakable sarcasm.

"Just get out of here, Galante. Everybody, go to class!" Mr. Gentile was practically yelling and the crowd broke up. He picked up some of the papers and handed them to Harrison Jakove.

When everything got back to normal, Mr. Gentile showed me to the rest of my classes. He apologized for what had happened and he hoped it wouldn't affect my opinion of Vanderville.

“Vanderville is really a good school,” he said when we ended up back in his office, “ with a very few exceptions.”

I started school the next day.

                                                        © 2000 Joseph E. Scalia from FREAKs

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