Leslie's Journal - Allan Stratton [1]
Poor Ms. Graham. It’s not like she wants to be boring. That’s why I almost feel guilty when we torture her. Who we should torture—really, really torture, with hot coals and a pair of hedge clippers—is Nicky Wicks. He has short greasy hair, cystic acne and a squishy tongue he likes to stick in girls’ ears for a joke. He also has a dent in his forehead from where somebody hit him with a shovel when he was little. Too bad they didn’t hit harder.
Nicky is the grossest pig in the school, and in this school there’s a lot of competition. He only has one re-deeming feature. If you want to lose weight, think about making out with him. You won’t be able to eat for a week.
Anyway, Nicky “Pus-head” Wicks worked it so he sits one seat ahead of me in three separate classes. What’s worse, he apparently thinks it is majorly funny to stick a couple of pencils up his nose and pretend to be a walrus. The real reason he does this is to have an excuse to let his pencils fall on the floor so he can bend down to pick them up and look up my skirt while he’s at it.
Today I got my revenge. I waited till lunch, when I knew he’d be in the cafeteria with lots of people all around. Then I marched up to his table and said in a big loud voice, “Hey, Pus-head, you look up my skirt one more time and I’ll personally pop your zits with my nail file!”
There was this roar of laughter, hooting and foot-stomping. Nicky was so embarrassed, I thought his cysts would explode. As for me, I just snapped my fingers and diva-ed my way to the parking lot for a smoke.
That’s where I met the vice-principal, Mr. Manley, out on a little narc duty. “I want to see you in my office, young lady.”
Sorry, journal, according to Ms. Graham it’s time for you to go into the filing cabinet. Tomorrow, I’ll tell you what happened with the Nazi.
P.S. Dear Ms. Graham: You promised our journals were going to be private. So in case you’re secretly reading this to get some cheap thrills, you are nothing but a crazy perverted liar, and it’s not my fault if it sends you over the edge.
Two
Vice-principals are basically school cops. They like to act tough and eat donuts. So, all things considered, I guess Mr. Manley is in the right job. Mr. Manley. Right. As in: “He is so manly.” An elephant in a suit is more like it. They say that once upon a time he used to be a phys ed teacher. Now the only exercise he gets is yelling. His vocal cords are on steroids.
It’s pathetic. Mr. Manley walks around all tough and important, like he’s the FBI or something, when all he really is is some old guy who gets his kicks busting teenagers. I mean, he spends his whole life sneaking behind cars in the school parking lot to catch smokers, or smelling kids’ breath for alcohol or pot, or going around with a flashlight at school dances to make sure nobody’s having sex on the football field or under the stairwells. What kind of pervert gets off on that?
Last year, in grade nine, Mr. Manley was always hauling me down to his office. I practically lived there. I joked he kept wanting to see me because he had the hots for me, but really it was on account of me being late and skipping all the time. My parents had started this “trial separation” and I wasn’t taking it so well.
I’m still not. Especially since it stopped being a “trial,” and Mom went from Still-Married-Sort-Of to Officially-Designated-Single-Mother. Now when she sees politicians on TV going on about single moms she starts to cry. Then she yells at me. It’s like she’s afraid if she doesn’t crack down I’m going to turn into this demon seed from a broken home, end up on some talk show maybe. “You’re going to improve your behavior,” she yells. “Do you hear me, Leslie?”
“No. I’m deaf.”
“Cut the attitude!”
I give her the look. She goes ballistic. “Don’t give me that look.”
“Then stop yelling at me. I mean, no wonder Dad left.”
That’s when her face goes white and she runs to her room and makes these awful animal sounds. And I want to die. I don’t want to hurt her.