To Be Wild and Precious

“Bethany! Come on!” a voice shouted from the kitchen. “Get up! You’re going to be late for your first day of school.”

Beth groaned as she shifted around in her bed. She did not want to get up. Not in the least bit. However, she must. There would be no way to get into a really good college any other way. The top notch schools don’t exactly look too highly on the high school drop outs.

She kicked her sheets around, trying to release the pent up anger of having to actually get up that morning, and then she gave in to the pressures of modern day society. She got up only because today’s day and age said that she really couldn’t get that far in life if she did not have a decent job, and she couldn’t get a fairly decent job without having education, unless of course you counted working at the local McDonald’s as a decent job, but Beth sure didn’t.

She picked out an outfit of blue jeans and an okay-looking red tank top. She made sure that she stuffed her clothes for work later into her bookbag and then piled some notebooks into the back of it.

Beth looked in the mirror. Her hair was unmanageable as always even though she tried, her eyes were a dull brown, her nose was that strange in-between of too wide and too narrow, her lips were almost non-existent, and her face was some unidentifiable shape. She looked at the rest of herself: her clothes were okay, her pants a little too tight around her curvy bottom and her boobs not really filling up the chest area of the tank top. She didn’t see what Liam must have seen in her, but there must have been something if he had seen it in the first place. It’s possible he was just trying to get in her too-tight pants, she thought. But maybe that was her just being too cynical. Maybe he really did see something that she couldn’t.

Regardless, she finished the whole ensemble with her signature converse, picked up her bag, and walked out of her bedroom door. Her mother told her that she’d give her a ride to school, so Beth went along with her after finishing breakfast.

Beth was trying to hide her hands that were shaking from her mother as the two of them were sitting in the car on the way to school. Her mom caught sight of the tremors despite the attempts. “Nervous?” she asked. “Nah, not really.” Beth lied.

When they arrived at the bustling school grounds, Beth didn’t want to exit the car, but she knew that she had to; she had to be brave and face the music. This was it. “Bye, mom.” She opened the door and stepped out into the world of the unknown.

She faintly heard an “I love you, Beth.” Coming from behind her, but she was too frightened to turn back around. She was sure that if she looked back at the car, she would jump in and beg her mother to take her home. So she couldn’t return the sentiments to her mother, despite the burning desire to do so. She just wanted to run back into her mom’s arms and tell her that she loved her and that she didn’t want to go to school all by herself.

Truth was Beth felt like she was at her first day of kindergarten again. She didn’t know anyone, not even a neighbor to introduce her to people. So she was a nomad, wandering the halls all by herself. She’d probably even have to eat lunch by herself. It would be a pitiful sight for her senior year, but it was her life. And unfortunately it was the truth.

Beth walked in through the front doors clutching her empty binder to her chest as a security blanket. She tried to make her way to the main office, but she didn’t really know where it would be. Usually those things were at the very front of the building, she had thought, but for some reason, the first few things were only classrooms, lots and lots of classrooms.

She glanced at a clock at the end of the hallway. She still had fifteen minutes until the bell rang but she still hadn’t really registered for any classes yet. She kept walking around in search of the office. Maybe if she was lucky she would just happen upon it, but there were so many staircases and so many hallways. She was lost after just three minutes.

Two minutes after that, Beth saw a figure standing at the end of the hallway she just turned down. She rushed a little closer. “Hey. You! Hey, could you help me?” Beth waved.

As she got closer, Beth realized that the figure was in fact a girl who had been staring at a poster that she had most likely just tacked up on the bulletin board because she immediately asked, “Do you think this looks straight?” She took a step back and tilted her head to one side.

“Um,” Beth took a look at what it was the girl was referring to. It was a sign-up sheet for the school’s Drama Club; it read: “Born to be a star? Come try out for Drama Club to let your talent shine! Auditions will be held on…” Beth tried to figure out if it was level or not. “It looks straight to me.” She replied.

“Hmm. Okay, then.” The girl turned her attention away from the sign-up sheet and looked at Beth. “You said you needed my help with something?” She smiled.

Beth suddenly remembered that there was somewhere else that she needed to be instead of standing in a hallway with a thus far seemingly pleasant girl, so she responded, “Yes. I – um…Do you know how to get to the main office from here?”

The girl scrunched up her face as if she just took a whiff of something nasty. “Oh, I’m sorry to say that you’re in the complete other side of where you’re supposed to be. The main office is on the opposite side of this wing.” Beth knew that she had taken one too many turns. “But don’t worry.” The girl smiled cheerfully. “I’ll show you the way.”

“Thanks, that’s awfully nice of you.”

“It’s the least I could do.” She waved Beth off. The girl started to walk in one direction so Beth began to follow.

“So,” The girl continued, with her low hanging blonde pigtails swaying side to side as she stepped. “You must be new this year, huh? I’m Cori. Just Cori. It’s not really short for anything. My parents just liked the ring it had. Cori.” She listened to the sound it made on her tongue for a moment, trying to hear what her parents had heard. “Eh, I don’t get it. They should have named me something normal like Brittany or Ashley instead of trying to be original. It’d make life just a bit easier.”

“I like the name Cori. It does have a nice sound to it.”

“Really?” The corners of her lips began to turn up into a smile. “Thanks. So what’s your name? Is it odd, too, or pretty normal?”

“Um…pretty normal, I guess. It’s Bethany. Beth for short.” She tried to smile – she was making a friend, wasn’t she? That’s what you were supposed to do when you were making friends – but she couldn’t. She just wasn’t feeling the whole introduction thing. But she certainly did think Cori was nice, maybe even best friend material potentially.

“I like that. Beth. That has such a nicer ring to it than stupid Cori. Ugh. Whatever. We’re almost there, by the way. This is the entry way to the gymnasium,” she pointed out. “And over that way is the auditorium. That’s where we put on our productions. Have you ever thought of auditioning? Or at least going for stage crew? We could always use more help and you seem really nice. We could use more nice people.” She lowered her voice. “Some people can get really cranky in the show business.”

“Thanks, Cori. I’m flattered, but I can’t really act and –“

“Have you ever tried to?” Cori interrupted.

“What?”

“Have you ever tried to act?” she repeated.

Beth considered the question. She never really had tried to act. Well, if you didn’t count reading dramatically in her head the dialogues for the different characters of novels, and Beth certainly doesn’t, then, no, she hasn’t actually tried. So Beth honestly and simply stated, “No.”

Cori looked at her earnestly. “Then maybe you should. Maybe you’re amazing and you’ve never let that inner talent burst through. Then again maybe you’re terrible and you should never, ever set foot on the stage again. But how are you to know either way if you never even give it the chance?” Cori sighed and then smiled slightly, as if just tempting her to try.

Beth thought about it. Maybe she should try out for this drama thing. Maybe it’d be the time of her life, the pivotal event of her high school existence here in New Jersey. She was about to say yes, that she’d agree to audition, but then she realized that there may be a very big conflicting matter.

“I have work from four to eight every day.” She announced. “Would that be an issue if by some strange miracle I happen to get in or agree to do stage crew?”

Cori scrunched up her nose, thinking about it. “Um…no.” she finally answered. “It wouldn’t conflict with practice because we would try to have practice only for an hour after school for two days a week and then hold Saturday rehearsals for three hours at a time. Would that work for you?”

“Yeah. I think so.” Beth didn’t think she’d really have any issues with that. Besides her hours on Saturday she could just ask Mr. Little to push back for a later time; they hadn’t discussed it yet anyway. “So sign me up for those auditions.” She said happily.

“With pleasure.” Cori replied just as equally excited. Beth couldn’t believe that she was actually going to do it; she was going to try out for a play, something she swore up and down that she would never do because that would require the one thing that she absolutely is terrified of: speaking in front of huge crowds. Beth wasn’t scared of crowds or public speaking either, really. It was more the combination of the two. It makes her feel claustrophobic, like the room is closing around her and, yet, she still remains in front of so many expectant faces who are just waiting for her to speak. She couldn’t deal with that pressure.

After a minute more of walking, Cori stopped and announced, “This is your stop. I fare thee well.” She saluted and went on to homeroom as the bell rang overhead. The noise was deafening as the bell was directly above Beth’s head. She had to cover her ears until it was over and resurfaced to the world to discover life, people beginning to roam the halls. Where had they been ten minutes ago when she had needed them?

But she was here now in front of the Main Office door, so she knocked twice. She got to okay to enter and was met with a nice looking lady who greeted her and did not get fussy when Beth said she was a transfer student and needed her class schedule and locker number. Her parents had registered her ahead of time, so there was no trouble there. She just had to get the schedule and find her way to homeroom, Room 306. Where the heck was that, she thought.

She somehow managed to get to her homeroom, albeit fifteen minutes late, but she got there. And the teacher, Ms. Alvarenga, told her to take a seat in the back. There was really nothing for Beth to do. The school announcements were already over and everyone else was just talking amongst themselves about how great their summers were, how awesome this year was going to be, and Beth just was there, all alone. She even so much as unconsciously folded her hands above her desks, but, once she became aware of this, she let go of them and put her hands on her knees so that she looked less like a loser.

Beth chose to spend the remaining thirteen minutes of this seemingly endless period by reviewing her schedule. She had homeroom, Writing for College, Physics, AP English, AP Psychology, Lunch, AP Calculus, AP United States History, and then finally Introduction to Business. She didn’t understand why she was taking Intro to Business because she really didn’t want to go into any business-oriented field for her career, but she thought that maybe this would be a very light class, the type that she could probably sleep in and still get a 4.0 in.

She stared at the schedule over and over, trying to memorize the room numbers that each class was in. The bell finally rang and she bolted for who knows where.

Beth made her way to Writing for College, which she assumed was on the second floor because it was in room 213. She found it, after pushing her way through some crowded hallways, and was forced by her teacher to make one of those awkward new-student introductions at the front of the class. Then she was able to take her seat and the class dragged on, so she began to fall asleep with her eyes open. It was all things about writing essays which she already knew how to do.

Physics, the same thing happened, except she had no idea what was going on. All this talk about motion and force and the push and pull of an object and vectors and scalars that her brain began to hurt. This was nothing like the science classes that she knew and loved from the previous years. What happened to Chemistry II Honors, she thought? What happened to the electron configurations and the binary compounds? This physics stuff was all math and she couldn’t do math. Speaking of which, she was dreading 7th period Calculus. She had no idea why she had opted for advanced placement. The only reason that came to mind was that the AP teacher back at Kenton was the sweetest little Pilipino man that she had ever met, and, because of him, she was able to pass geometry with flying colors. She had trusted him with her future in math entirely, but she wasn’t so sure about whoever taught it at this school.

Finally AP English strolled along, the class that Beth had been waiting all day for so far. She walked into room 102 and sat in the middle of the room, she didn’t want to seem uninterested, but, at the same time, she didn’t want to seem all that eager either. She settled into her seat and placed her book bag under her chair.

After a couple of minutes, the teacher walked into the room. She had a scarf tossed around her neck and a long skirt on that fell to about mid-calf. Beth would have thought that this lady considered herself a drama queen or at least important enough that she should get everyone’s attention because, honestly, anyone who covered up that much skin while summer weather was still in play must seriously crave interest.

The woman sauntered into class, her large tote bag in tow. She strolled all the way up to the front of the class and then called for everyone to be silent.

“Literature,” She announced with a very flamboyant flourish of the hand. “Is the window to the soul. It encases all of our thoughts and our souls, our needs and our desires. It knows what we want and feeds it to us on a golden platter.” Someone snickered in the back of the class. She continued anyway. “Throughout the course of this year, you will experience literature like you never have before. You will be forced to dissect it and observe what exactly makes the masterpieces tick. We will cover poetry and fiction, novels from The Sun Also Rises all the way to Their Eyes Were Watching God. You have chosen to take AP, the more difficult, rigorous selection of the two provided to you. And, for those of you who are here just to possibly get some college credit, you have another thing coming to you. You have to work hard for it, write like there is no tomorrow, breathe the very words of the works. That is the only way that you will pass this class and get a three on the AP exam. And if you want a five, you have got another thing coming to you.”

Everyone was silent. They were shocked by the harshness in her tone, the certainty that all of them were going to fail. She announced, “There’s still time for any of you to drop this class if you are not up to the challenge.” They all sat in their seats frightened. Beth thought she even heard someone get up and leave the room. After a few moments, the teacher continued, “Okay, then. Let’s take attendance.” She started to dig in that bottomless tote bag and said, “For those of you who do not know or simply choose to forget, my name is Mrs. Shepherd.” She pulled out the attendance sheet. “Ok, let’s see who’s here.”

She began to call out names and a chorus of “Here’s “ and “Present’s” started to sound from different corners of the room. Then Mrs. Shepherd got to the M’s, and made an “Oh” face. She announced, “Class, it appears we have a new student. Miss McAllister, would you please stand so the class could see who you are.”

Bethany felt her cheeks reddening. She stood up and awkward put a hand up in a sort of half wave and sheepishly said, “Hi, I’m Beth.”

“Thank you, Beth. You could take a seat now.”

She heard a couple people laughing in the back of the room and Beth just wanted to bury her head in a hole. She gathered her binder into her arms for some consolation. The day is almost half-way over. The day is almost half-way over, she repeated to herself.

And then she felt a small tap on her right forearm, which was highly unexpected. She turned to find the source of the poke and saw a girl with a slightly smaller frame and definitely more tamable brown hair than her own. The girl bent close to the edge of her desk and whispered to Bethany, “Don’t worry. She does that to all the new kids. She likes to torture the new blood, make an example of them because most of them don’t fight back.” Beth furrowed her eyebrows in confusion of how to take that comment. “Oh, don’t take me the wrong way,” she still kept her voice low. “It’s just that when you’re new you don’t know how hard to push, you know what I mean? It’s difficult to tell what buttons to press on some people on the first day. You don’t want to go messing things up that quickly. Trust me.”

Beth nodded, a little confused by this piece of sage advice. “Thanks,” she whispered back.

The girl shrugged and went back to watching Mrs. Shepherd’s back as she was writing something on the board. Beth focused her attention to the front of the room as well. It seemed that Mrs. Shepherd had written a quote on the board. It read: “Prose: words in their best order; poetry: the best words in the best order.” Bethany almost immediately was able to recognize the speaker of that quote.

She raised her hand right when Mrs. Shepherd was about to give up and just tell them who had said it, and Beth proudly said, “Samuel Taylor Coleridge.”

Mrs. Shepherd looked taken aback. “Why, yes. It is Samuel Taylor Coleridge. How’d you know that?”

Bethany felt fifteen pairs of eyes boring into her back all at once, all of which were not sending happy feelings her way. She shrugged and answered honestly, “I read a lot. About anything I can get my hands on. On day I came across one book that had that quote in it and I like it. It really spoke to me.”

“And why is that?” Mrs. Shepherd asked as she settled into her seat and tucked herself into her desk, propping her elbows onto the armrests of her rolling chair. “Do you write poetry, perhaps?”

“Um…” her cheeks were flaming. She did not feel comfortable having to answer that question in front of her classmates. “I don’t really write poetry, like I’ve tried, but I prefer prose. It just comes easier to me. I like though how Coleridge had said that prose is words in their best order because it makes me feel like, even if what I write is a complete mess, it’s still words in their best order. Because, according to Coleridge, that’s what prose is, and that’s what I attempt to do. So why not think that it’s special?”

Mrs. Shepherd nodded slowly, “Interesting take on it, Miss McAllister. I appreciate your input.”

She then turned around to continue the lesson with something else, erasing the board to write another quote or poem title perhaps.

Beth then felt another poke on her arm. The same girl was at the giving side of that exchange, but this time she whispered, “Beth, right? My name is Avery. That was really cool.” She gave Beth a crooked smile. “See what I had meant before.”

Beth tried to return the facial expression, but couldn’t seem to feel the same way about the situation. She just felt naked, like she had just exposed a part of herself to all of these strangers around her. “What do you have next?” Avery asked in a hushed tone.

“AP Psych.” Beth replied at an equal volume.

“Me too.” She sounded excited. “I’ll show you the way after this.”

AP English finished about twenty minutes later, and then Avery led her off to AP Psych. She was all excited about having someone to be with in her AP classes. They discovered that the two of them were also in AP US History together, but Avery took AP Spanish where Beth took AP Calc. Avery sat next to her in Psychology and told her at the beginning of class, “Don’t worry about this class. I heard for seniors last year that it’s honestly a joke.” Sure enough, she wasn’t wrong. The teacher was pretty good, but the material seemed really easy. She wasn’t exactly worried about that class.

And then lunch arrived. Finally.

Avery took Beth and showed her where the beloved cafeteria was. There was so much food. So many choices and so little time to eat it all. Beth took a tray and started piling things onto her plate. She didn’t care how much it cost, really, because her mom had her on some meal plan with the school, so pretty much everything was all paid for; she just had to show the cashier a little card that proved this.

Beth took the tray packed with food and followed Avery to her table. Sitting there already was a tiny blonde girl whose tips were dyed pink. Bethany had always wanted to dye her hair blue but she was always so fearful of the way it’d turn out or even if she’d actually like it once she actually had it done, so she always pushed it off. But this little, skinny girl rocked the pink hair. Beth would kill for such courage.

Avery took a seat across from the pink rebel on the table and casually said, “Hey.”
“Hey, Ave.” She replied while having her fork suspended above her plate of mac and cheese. “Who’s the newbie?” she pointed the fork at Beth.

“Oh, this is Beth.” She announced cheerfully.

The pink-haired girl nodded as she tried to swallow down a biteful of pasta. “My name is Skaro.” She said when it was all down.

Beth took a seat beside Avery, and replied, “That’s a strange name.”

“Yeah. I know. My mom was a really big Whovian back in the day, actually she still is. She wanted to transgress that love of DW onto me by naming me after the Dalek planet. It worked, but my parents were so mean in the name they chose once I understood what it meant. Like, why couldn’t they name me Galifrey or Cardiff instead if they wanted to go by that theme so badly? I would have even settled for Tardis as a first name. I wouldn’t have minded. At least it would have been better than being named after the Dalek home land. Damn Daleks.”

Avery laughed. “Galifreya. Imagine.”

“Oh my gosh.” She began to crack up, too. “True! That is so much worse than Skaro.”
Beth felt entirely out of the loop in this conversation. She was completely confused by what DW meant and who Daleks were and who all these names belonged to. “I’m sorry,” she interrupted the jubilee. “But, um, what are we talking about?”

The laughter ceased in an instant. Avery answered, “Doctor Who,” as if Beth should know exactly what that was.

They stared at her like that was an adequate enough explanation; however, it certainly wasn’t. Now Beth was confused by who this doctor was they spoke of.

“Oh my gosh.” Skaro interjected. “I don’t think that Newbie’s ever seen Doctor Who before.”

Avery added, “I don’t think she’s ever even heard of Doctor Who before. Have you, Bethany?”

Beth didn’t want to seem like an idiot in front of these people. They were potential friends and this whatever-it-was clearly meant a great deal to them; so she racked her brain for whatever she could think about that included the approximate juxtaposition of those two words used properly. The only situation that popped up was when the new history teacher with a doctorate degree came in to teach all the AP classes and everyone kept asking “Doctor who??” But I doubt they were that enthused by something so trivial, so this must be a show or rock band or something. So she thought again, and this time she came up with a little tiny something, but she wasn’t sure it was right; so she just took a stab in the dark with it, trying to sound like she knew it all along while crossing her fingers that she doesn’t make a fool of herself.

“Oh, I have heard of it. The name comes up on the TV guide for the syfy channel every once in a while.” She vaguely remembered seeing that come up once. She also recalled a commercial that the syfy channel once had for it, so she took one more gutsy move. “It’s some British show, right?”

Skaro gasped and clutched a hand to her chest. “Some British show?” Beth realized that those were the wrong words to use. “More like the greatest television series of all time. Avery, we must initiate Newbie into the Whovian community. We must make her watch every single episode.”

Avery replied, “Uh, that’s a lot of episodes, Skaro.”

She looked at Avery with indignation on her face.“Fine. At least the reboot; I’ll settle for the reboot. She’s got to watch all of those episodes.”

“Um…the reboot?” Beth asked.

“Don’t worry, Beth.” Avery assured her. “You’ll understand soon enough.”