Part One
I couldn’t put my finger on the moment it all started to change for me. I was used to being one of the most popular girls at school. Everybody knew one another at Carnegie School for the Blind. It wasn’t like our school was a big one.
After the summer I had, I was hoping for a great school year. While it hadn’t been me the girls turned on this summer, I kept seeing the tears in Aubrey’s eyes as I hissed at her not to let my mom see them. What a little jerk I was, I often thought, but I hadn’t called to apologize to Aubrey. To be honest, I didn’t really start to think about Aubrey until things around CSFB started to change for me.
Even now, looking back, I can’t quite capture the moment in my mind when it all started to change. One day I was sitting with the popular girls, joking, laughing, and having a ball, and little by little I noticed that one of the less popular girls was welcomed to take my seat next to Leanna, my bestie from Tiger’s Run. While Leanna and I hung out a bit at camp, she hadn’t been in on the Aubrey bashing sessions I’d participated in. I wasn’t even sure Leanna knew about it other than the rumor that Ridge and Aubrey had slept together.
During the school year, Leanna, Jemma, and me were
rarely seen apart. If Jemma and Leanna weren’t with me it was because I was off with my other friend Ziarra, who wasn’t much of a fan of Leanna’s, though she and Jemma got along pretty good.
I remember the moment it dawned on me that things had changed. I was sitting with Lila and Desirae. I’d been ousted from my usual table for about a week.
“I don’t understand what I did.”
“Maybe you didn’t mind your own business,” Desirae said in a matter of fact tone.
Okay, she was still pissed. About a week ago, I’d seen Toliver shoving Desirae around, and I’d stopped him. As she and I walked away, she hissed at me under her breath, “it’s none of your business, Cass.”
“I swear if I ever see him hitting you again, I’ll tell, and I don’t care if you get pissed at me.”
“Keep your nose out of my business, Cassandra Accrete.”
“Gladly, as long as you don’t let him hit you like that anymore.”
Desirae sucked her teeth at me flicked her hair over her shoulder, huffed out a breath, and stormed away from me.
I shook my head. I’d just made two enemies. Toliver for breaking up his pushy, shovy, slappy, match and threatening to tell on him for hitting Desirae and now, Desirae hated me too. Oh well, better hatred than a black eye she wasn’t going to be able to easily explain. I huffed out my own breath and walked faster toward the dorm.
“Cassie!” one of the dorm parents had called my name that night during study hall.
I figured I’d left something out in the reck room when I was in there tutoring some of the other girls since I was already finished with my homework.
“Yes, ma’am?” I asked a little breathless after the run to the office from my room. This had better be good, I thought, my book was just starting to get good. I’d been laying on my tummy on the bed, my feet swinging in the air, as the words on the page kept me engrossed in a mystery.
“Phone for you in the living room,” Ms. Peters said not looking up from the papers on her desk.
I stared at her for a moment. We weren’t allowed to even call our parents during study hall, why was I being allowed to take a call? I shrugged the thought off and asked the burning question in my mind.
“Who is it?”
“Lizbeth.”
I couldn’t place the name as I walked towards the living room. It was vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it until a voice began to rage at me, as I lifted the phone to my ear and I said, “Hello?”
“You bitch,” Lizbeth screeched.
“And how are you this fine evening?” I deadpanned.
“Don’t play your little mind games with me. I heard you kissed my boyfriend.”
“What?” I was genuinely shocked by her words. Of course, I knew who she was talking about. Leo and I had always liked one another, but I would never have gone there with him. “Where the hell did you get that from?” my knees felt weak, and I started trembling.
“From him, you stupid bitch.”
I wanted to scream back, but there was a dorm parent down the hall that would hear me. “I didn’t, I swear.”
“Why would he lie.”
“Hell, if I know,” I whisper shouted. “He’s an idiot, I guess.”
She scoffed at me. “You stay the hell away from my boyfriend, you hear me.”
“Liz, it’s not like you can do anything about it if I didn’t,” I through out there for good measure. I didn’t like her tone or her insinuations. Leo and I were friends. Sure, we occasionally flirted, and God knew I wanted to get my hands on him he was so sexy, sweet, and I wanted him. I’d always wanted him from the first moment I saw him. Leo no longer went to school with us, and neither did Liz. She’d graduated, and still she thought she could handle things from freaking Sarasota, Florida. I was in St. Augustine during the week and Leo and I were in Jacksonville on the weekends. We’d spent birthdays, Thanksgivings, Christmases, and New Years with our families. We had feelings for one another, and we’d even talked about it together, but neither of us had crossed the line into a physical manifestation of those feelings. Besides, I had a boyfriend, Sampson that I would never have even tried to go outside of. I didn’t think Sampson and I would last because he was pushing for sex when I wasn’t ready for that, but I wouldn’t have started a physical relationship with anyone else while Sampson and I called one another boyfriend and girlfriend; it just wasn’t my way. Even in middle school I had better morals than that.
“Stay away from Leo!” Liz screamed.
“Whatever.”
Before she could scream any other orders at me, I hung up the phone.
I walked back to my room on shaky legs. I felt like I’d fall at any second, but I couldn’t fall apart just yet. When I got to my room, I didn’t pick up my book again. I would never have been able to focus on the words anyway. My eyes stung, but I wouldn’t release the tears. I just lie there and tried to figure the whole scenario out.
Thank you for beginning this part of the saga with me. Cassie has found herself in a situation that she’s not sure about. You’ll learn how the whole thing started in the next installment. Have you ever been accused of doing something you didn’t? Have you ever noticed how difficult it is to prove a negative? Tell me a bit about your situation and solutions.
Till then, stay well and keep creating!
CSA
Email me @: Nell@letsgetpublished.com
Follow me @: Facebook; Twitter
Join us @: Writers’ Mastermind Community
Nell Anthony 
4 replies on “~ The Reaping ~”
Hi Nell-
Boy, your posts sure bring me back to the past. I recall one time when in high school in California. One girl I was friends with, letâs call her Lisa, told another girl, named Crista, that I called Crista a slut. Lisa told me to be ready to fight her after we got off the bus. I was like, what, I donât even know this girl Crista — I got off the bus and the girl confronted me. I was bigger and older and she was this little thing. She got in my face and I told her I didnât want to fight, that I didnât say she was a slut. When I looked over at Lisa, her little smirk seemed to say she was going to enjoy our fight. This pissed me off and I said, you know who you should fight? I pointed to Lisa, who âs face look became a little panicked. I said it was Lisa who told me you were going to be here and I think itâs Lisa whoâs responsible for the rumor. Crista started crying and started yelling at Lisa, âI thought you were my best friendâ and âI should punch you out for saying it,â and so on. I said, âsheâs not worth it, â . Crista walked off crying and I left Lisa on the street corner and went home.
Ann M. Chiappetta, M.S.
Making Meaningful ConnectionsThrough Media
914.393.6605 USA
Anniecms64@gmail.com Anniecms64@gmail.com
All things Annie: http://www.annchiappetta.com http://www.annchiappetta.com
LikeLike
I’m tardy! Sorry. You really bring back the old D&B Feeling. Ew. That would be cool if one of your novels in the future takes place at a boarding school for the blind. I had to laugh at the part where the girl was sucking her teeth. I totally forgot about the teeth sucking thing! Do teenagers still do that? I remember that being more of a black girl thing.
Anyway, as for someone making up a lie about me, it happened one time in second grade. The weird thing was was that it was the teachers aid that made up the lie and not another kid.
Her name was Mrs. Hutchinson, but the kids called her Mrs. H. She was one of those teachers with the type of permanently stern, authoritative personalities that I didn’t like, and I Think she had a thing against little girls. She acted pissy and moody towards me and my friend Christie, but she turned sweet as pie with little boys. I should add that me and Christie and Michael Zingally were the three kids with vision problems in our normal main stream class, which Mrs. H was there to assist. Sorry for the bad grammar. I’m dictating this into my phone.
So anyhow, I don’t remember why, but my teacher was out for a day or so. I’m not even going to try to spell her name. While she was out, we kids had to take some sort of test. On the day she came back, everything was normal until the end of lunch time. As my class was leaving the cafeteria, all of a sudden I’m getting reprimanded. “I’m VERY disappointed in you!” She says. Meanwhile, I’m totally shocked about this, because I was good all week. She never used that angry tone with me before, and the last thing I wanted to do was disappoint her because she was my favorite teacher. I pleaded with her to tell me what I had done that made her mad at me. She told me that Mrs. H told her that I gave the substitute teacher a hard time when it was time for us to take the test. That I refused to do the work, and that Y kept yelling about how I couldn’t see the test.
This accusation shocked me even more than being reprimanded by my favorite teacher. I had completed the test and had no problem at all doing so. And I had no problem seeing the print. I most definitely did not yell at the substitute about this. I pleaded my innocence to the teacher and told the truth. I don’t know if
She just dropped the issue because she liked me, or if she could tell that I was being completely honest, but she believed me without further question. Mrs. H was right there, but she didn’t stand by her lying side of the argument. Perhaps she felt stupid. Neither the teacher, nor Mrs. H repeated the fabricated story to my parents or the principal, and both acted like the accusation never happened.
I know I wasn’t Mrs. H’s favorite, but it was kind of weird and creepy that she would try to get me in trouble like that. For the rest of second grade, and the last school year I was at that particular elementary school, she never tried pulling that shenanigan again. I’ll never know what that was about. Did she have PMS, or was she going through some issues in her personal life, and needed some helpless kid to take her resentment out on? Was she hoping that I was one of those kids who feared authority so much that Y would crack and admit to something I didn’t do and take the brunt?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you so much for sharing your story here with us! It’s so awesome to get such a great comment and such a story. It’s harder, I think, when an adult bullies a child in such away. I agreed that maybe she thought you wouldn’t contest what she said. Most children wouldn’t have. So often, as children, we were told not to book authority, and adults got away with a lot of things that they shouldn’t have because we weren’t allowed to talk back or speak up and say no I didn’t do that. I think it’s awesome that you stood up for yourself and that you were willing to say no, I didn’t do that. Don’t worry about grammar. Right now, I am doing the same thing, dictating, and I’m sure my grammar isn’t much better. In any case, I really appreciate your story and being able to learn more about you. Sometimes, it’s a little things that counts, and sometimes we need to talk about the big things too. Thanks so much for talking about one of your big things! Keep creating!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sounds like the start of some major drama. That’s definitely something I don’t miss about high school. Ready to see how things progress and how she grows from it. Nice start!
LikeLike