ADDIE

IN ALL MY years of taking gym in high school and middle school, I’ve worked up a sweat maybe five times.

The only time I get sweaty is when they make us do laps. But anytime we’re playing some sort of sport, I manage to avoid any type of major physical exertion. It’s my greatest skill. What can I say? I’m not much of an athlete.

Today we were playing volleyball, which is a great sport if you just want to sit around and not do much. Like, I’m sure if I were making any attempt whatsoever to connect with the ball, I’d get sweaty. But it’s pretty easy to stand in the corner and pretend you’re trying to hit the ball when you’re really not.

Unfortunately, our gym teacher, Mrs. Cavanaugh, makes us have a shower after gym, whether we got sweaty or not. And that, by far, is my least favorite part of gym.

If I looked like Kenzie Montgomery, who incidentally is in my gym class, I might not mind public showering. But unfortunately, I look like me, so my goal for post-gym showering is to get in and out as quickly as possible. If I could get in and out of the shower without having to get wet, that would be ideal.

Unfortunately, the second I strip off my gym clothes by the lockers, a burst of giggles comes from behind me. I quickly grab my towel and wrap it around myself, but the giggles continue. I whip my head around to find Kenzie and one of her buddies staring at me.

It’s been about two weeks since school started. Unfortunately, my social life has not improved one bit. Everybody is still avoiding me like the plague, except apparently to laugh at me while I am in the locker room.

Kenzie and her friend won’t stop giggling as they stare at me. I don’t know what is so hilarious. I mean, yes, my towel is being held up by practically nonexistent boobs. But I’m not sure that’s laugh out loud funny.

“Addie,” Kenzie says. “You know, there are these things called

razors…”

Well, at least now I know what she’s laughing at. I look down at my legs sticking out from under the towel, and admittedly, they are pretty hairy. As soon as September hit, the temperature dropped precipitously in western Massachusetts, and because I haven’t had the opportunity to wear shorts (I wore leggings today in gym), I haven’t bothered to shave. I may not shave the entire winter. Why should I? It’s not like I have a boyfriend who is going to be looking at my legs.

But apparently, I need to shave for Kenzie.

I try to ignore her as I stomp off in the direction of the showers. As usual, I barely even get wet before I jump back out and wrap my towel back around my body and my hairy legs. The only thing keeping me going these days is my English class with Mr. Bennett. And the fact that it’s the last period of the day makes me look forward to it all the more.

I think Mr. Bennett likes me too. In trig class, Mrs. Bennett seems perpetually disappointed in me (which is fair enough since I don’t understand a lot of what’s going on in the class), but Mr. Bennett responds to all my answers with enthusiastic nods. Even Mr. Tuttle wasn’t as encouraging as he is.

And anyway, this is a completely different situation. I’m not going to think about Mr. Tuttle anymore.

When I get to English class, Mr. Bennett is sitting at his desk like he always is. He’s wearing a light blue shirt, paired with a darker blue tie. Not all my teachers wear ties, but I like it that Mr. Bennett wears one. It suits him. As the students start filtering into the room, he looks up and flashes a smile. He is the sort of teacher who genuinely enjoys what he does. Sometimes my teachers act like they wish they were anywhere but school.

Not that I can’t relate to that feeling. But somehow knowing that he wants to be here makes me want to be here.

Once the students are seated, Mr. Bennett comes around the side of his desk and sits on it, like he always does. And he places his hands on his knees, like he always does. He has large knuckles. I’ve noticed that about him.

“I graded the poems you wrote,” he tells us. “I’ll return them after class, but I want to say, in general, it was a good effort. And I want to reiterate the fact that poems do not necessarily need to rhyme. But…” His eyes rest on Austin Vargas in the third row. “For the record, ‘barf’ does not rhyme with ‘fart,’ okay?”

There is a smattering of laughter. I’m not surprised that Austin would make a poem involving potty humor. Frankly, I would expect it from a lot of my classmates. It annoys me that there are people not taking this class seriously. I don’t intend to be one of them.

At the end of the lesson, Mr. Bennett walks down the aisles and hands out our poems with comments at the top. My stomach is filled with butterflies, waiting to see what he thought of what I wrote. It was a very personal poem, and I spent hours on it, even though it’s only a page long. I hope he can see how much effort I put into it.

Except when Mr. Bennett reaches my desk, he finds the paper on which I wrote my poem, places it in front of me face down, and taps his index finger against it.

I stare down at the page, confused. He’s been handing out all the poems face up, and mine alone was placed face down. Was that a mistake?

Slowly, I pick up the paper and turn it over. Right away, I recognize his handwriting at the top of the page in red ink. See me after class.

That’s not good.

Why does he want to see me after class? Does he think that I copied the poem? I didn’t copy it. I would never. I extracted it from my very soul.

But for whatever reason, he found my poem troubling. He wants to talk to me “after class.” And I’m not sure I want to hear what he has to say.