Walk Away and Don’t Look Back
“Grab everything in your locker and come out. We only have 10 minutes, throw away anything that you don’t need. Hurry!” My mom beckoned out of the car, and I opened the car door and stepped out into the bright sunlight. I walked briskly through the front door, up the stairs, ignoring a person passing me snickering, “Weirdo,” under her breath and down the hall way into my row of lockers.
I looked at my locker, at the faded blue gray paint, peeling at the edges; the writing scribbled all over the place, “Sam loves Julie,” “You’re a dork,” the usual. I slowly dialed the lock combination, 24, 31, and 10 for the last time. The numbers that I had dialed for so long, while hearing Kate under me yelling at me to move, people snickering behind me, the daily gossip and the latest name they had invented for me. When I was living through it I said to myself that I wanted nothing more that to disappear from this hell hole that I lived in everyday, but now that it was really going to happen I was hesitant. I never thought I could miss this place, so why was it so difficult to leave? I looked at the locker under mine, and I could still hear Kate, muttering about having to be under a dork. She had been the one to start the tormenting; she had been the demonic angel to name me as the dork of the grade, a title I couldn’t get rid of. I looked at her locker, covered in colorful wrapping paper from her birthday, a month ago. I looked back at my bare locker, and gave a little cheerless chuckle, even when she wasn’t here she seemed to be able to burn a hole right through your heart. What a talent. I sighed with relief that the whole population of 5th graders were on a field trip. Of course I was going to miss it because I had to move, but nothing else seemed more important at the time.
I opened my locker and stared at the books, the papers, all clumped together. I took out a handful of papers and threw them in the trash, repeating until the trash can was filled to the brim with my junk, the same way I had been filled with junk everyday, by the kids in the school. Every time I walked down the hall I saw someone look at me as if I had 3 eyes, a person shove me into a row of lockers, or scream in my face, at that time I had merely accepted that this was the way public school was. I decided that public schools stunk, and that was the end of it. Everyday at home my mom would ask me about school, and my answer was happy and joyful. I would never tell her the reality, she didn’t need to know. Plus, even if she did, what would that change? Sure she would try to help me but she wouldn’t succeed, whose parents ever do? Of course the teachers were deaf to the insults hurled at me by the other students. What else was different?
I looked at the notebooks and the folders, trying to decide what to do with them. It didn’t take long for me to make up my mind; I took my folder and dumped the contents in the trash. I chucked my notebooks in the trash with my papers. I looked at my now empty locker, the little pipe cleaner decorations that someone had put there, someone who could maybe be considered a friend; unfortunately I couldn’t even remember her name, I grabbed the decorations and held them over the trash, trying to convince my fingers to let go, I gave up and shoved the pipe cleaners in my pocket. I closed my locker and locked it. I looked at the school, the ramp, the stairs, the computer lab, my classes, the place where I wanted to escape, or I thought. What did I want, did I want to forget this place, in exchange have this place forget me? I looked at the white tiles on the ceiling, the scuff marks on the floor, the dark empty math room to my right, and the unlit science room to my left. Would I miss this place? The math door, I had been shoved in and tripped and my books had flown across the room, the ramp, I had almost been trampled by a herd of 5th graders so many times I only used the stairs. So many bad memories, but……
The Social Skills room, I had gotten the best grade, the cafeteria, I had almost beaten the whole population of boys at pool. I stared at the rooms, the hallways. I knew I would never forget the school, but would the school forget me? I walked briskly into the math room and took a piece of paper from the stack on the teacher’s desk. I quickly scribbled “Thank You” on it and taped it to my locker door. I didn’t even know what I was thankful for at the time, only later did I realize how this hellish experience had changed me as a person. I was no longer afraid to tell people like Kate to back off. It changed my school life forever. I looked one last time at my locker, and took everything in, the graffiti, the paint and the memories. I turned around and walked out of that chapter of my life, and then by next week I started another chapter. Take two; I walked into Mackay Elementary School with hope.