February 2022

Kelly recalls a time when her greatest fear in the classroom was realized I sat up on the cold stool and rested my hands on the large black surface in front of me. I could feel the abnormally cold tabletop freezing into my arms through my thick hoodie. I gazed around the huge classroom. Everyone sat on navy-blue stools at their assigned tables. The room was completely silent aside from the third-grade science teacher’s voice. Tap. There were textbooks, printed-out articles, miniature models, and posters neatly stored and pinned across all four walls. Tap. There was also a massive Promethean board and projector set up at the front of the room. Tap. Glancing up at the clock and then the schedule pinned on the wall, I slightly groaned. There was still a good thirty minutes of class. Tap tap tap. Tap tap tap tap tap— Who is doing that? My World Turning to my right, I saw the culprit. Of course it would be him. Thomas, who sat next to me, was repeatedly tapping his pen on the table. Knowing him, he was counting down the seconds till the end of the class. He was extremely impatient, and from what I’ve heard from others, he didn’t get amazing grades last semester. I shouldn’t judge him, though. Plus, I didn’t blame him for being so jittery. He was the kind of kid who wanted to be outside playing soccer. Not stuck in a room with books lined up wall to wall. Looking up at the board, I saw Mr. Campbell going through one of his Google Slides presentations. For the past few days it’s felt like he’s been repeating the same words over and over. That was probably better for me since I was a bit slow in science, but it was still tiring to hear the same lesson told in a different way every day. I let out a small sigh and uncapped my pen. I didn’t really know what my plan was, but I started making small doodles in the back of my notebook. I didn’t get anything besides slight entertainment out of it, but it was better than nothing, I guess. I kept mindlessly dragging my pen around until I realized my entire page was covered in ink. It was an image of a figure trying to present something with dozens of eyes staring back at them. Funny, huh? Since I wasn’t exactly the most talented person out there, my only hobbies were drawing and playing video games. It really wasn’t that ideal. I wasn’t musically gifted in the slightest, and I didn’t like dancing, reading, writing, or anything that took more than five minutes and two re-reads to comprehend. That meant that the only way I had to express myself was art. Since I did nothing but draw all day, a good percentage of my art expressed my fears. I didn’t really— “Kelly! I would appreciate it if you turned your attention to the board here.” I jumped and looked up to see the teacher’s annoyed glare piercing through me. Oh. I didn’t exactly want to make the situation any worse, so I quickly nodded in response. Even though I tried to play it off as just a small incident, I felt like everyone was staring at me. I shot a quick glance around the room and a slight wave of relief hit me. No one really cared about what had just happened. It was just me. Then my eyes slightly widened. What if someone had realized that I was going to turn around, catch them staring at me, and question them so they’d looked away? That could always happen. Or what if— No. Stop it. I tried reassuring myself, telling myself that nothing like that was going to happen any time soon. I told myself that no one was going to make fun of me after class, but for some reason it still felt like every eye in the room was on me. Judging me. Laughing at me. That’s my problem. I always feel like there’s someone out there watching me, trying to make a stupid-looking image of me in their head. That’s my problem. I always feel like there’s someone out there watching me, trying to make a stupid-looking image of me in their head. More specifically, this one kid in the class. Hunter. He was the one kid who always raised his hand first, he was part of the student council, he always got everything right, handed in his tests first, he was organized . . . Anyone who didn’t know him would ask, “Why is that a bad thing?” Well, alongside his occupation with being the smartest kid in the class, he took on the part-time job of being a jerk. He was pretty intelligent, sure. Didn’t mean he wasn’t stuck up and snobby, though. This is one of the worst combinations, in my opinion. I remembered this one time last week. Just thinking about it makes me slightly cringe at the way he acted. *          *          * Everyone in the room was completely silent, but at the same time, the tension in the air while the teacher handed back our test scores was so loud. We had just taken a pre-assessment for the new math unit, and no one was actually supposed to know any of the content, but that didn’t stop us from trying to chase a good grade. Watching where the teacher was heading, I saw the girl sitting to the left of the one-and-only Hunter get her test back. Almost instantly I hear, “Wait, you got a 96%? How could you actually get something wrong?” Hunter whispered out. “It was so easy! I’m pretty sure that even someone like Thomas got it right . . .” There was no reply. The girl shuffled in her chair, scratching the blue-gray tiled floor as the uneven chair legs rotated to face the