(LONG version) Tenth Grade Enriched English

was a class I had to fight to get into to. I started staking out the Language Department at school, waiting for teachers I thought might have the authority to let me be in the smart kid class.
I wanted it. I wanted it badly. I was a new student, who had suffered through regular freshman English with kids who had vocabularies far inferior to my own. I had suffered through certain boys smacking me on the back and saying things like “ah, Becky Brains, always so smart,” and Wilkes pulling me aside to ask how I had correctly answered the question on the test about Scout trying to pee with the boys. I had suffered through three Romeo and Juliet movies in class instead of doing something important, like reading Shakespeare, for example. I would suffer no longer.
Finally, I was told that despite the fact that I wasn’t in the “Gifted Program” I had passed the smart kid test with flying colours and there was just enough room in the class for me to join.
Mr. Robinson taught Enriched English Ten. Mr. Robinson, who let us out early on Chicken Patty Day. Mr. Robinson, who pulled me aside to tell me that the Gifted Program doesn’t decide who is gifted, and anyone can see that I am gifted. Mr. Robinson, who used to wear tie-dyed t-shirts to class and play his guitar for the students. Hey, Mr. Robinson, Jesus loves you more than you will know.
I sat next to Nick Job. We were not yet friends. I didn’t know how creepy he was, or how often we would end up hanging out together after school. All my joy those first few weeks, and maybe months, was derived from pronouncing his name wrong on purpose.
That class was filled with a joyous array of students that I would come to love and adore. Girls with too much eye make up, or no make up at all. Boys who were too lanky to have girl friends, or too greasy haired. Kids in high-top Converse. Most of them were in band, and often Marching or Jazz, or even Drumline. They were in Knowledge Bowl, the weird cousin of Quiz Bowl. Many of them had beards to make lumberjacks insanely jealous. Some could not grow any facial hair at all. They were not in sports. Well, neither was I.
Enriched English Ten had B-Lunch. That means that after one-third of class we were excused for lunch. A large group of us tromped down the stairs together and split immediately into two groups. The group of strange A+ 4.0 students who were also, perhaps with the use of magic, the beautiful sophomore’s who were asked to prom by seniors, and drank on the weekends, and owned pontoons. They ate very little for lunch, including juice, lettuce, and sometimes soup.
I thought about this. I was attractive and looking for friends, they were the kind of friends that have movies made about them, or star in movies themselves.
The other group had already pushed and pulled themselves awkwardly around a too-small round table. They were throwing food. They were laughing loudly. They were using their beards as built in napkins, and glory of glories, they were talking. Using real words and talking about real things. Their three favourite topics, I would come to learn, were sex, politics, and religion. The things that are off-limits to high-schoolers. Their table was gross, uncomfortable, and a little taboo. But I do love me some food, and they seemed to be eating everything in sight.
I squeezed in around the table, and found myself in the midst of those who would become the best friends I would ever have.
They listened to obscure music and could do intense math in a few seconds. They didn’t wear girl clothes, but they did wear suits, often mismatched and plaid, on the Friday after the first prime Tuesday of the each month. They bought those plaid suits at thrift stores. They ate pie at 1:59 on March 14th. They forgot to wish me happy birthday the day I turned eighteen because Kurt Vonnegut had died. They never seemed to realize that I was fully clothed at the end of strip-poker because I can cheat at a game I do not even understand.
I miss them. I miss them so much more than anything else about home, high school, or Minnesota.
I never realized how good they were to me, and now –especially as that I talk to my roommates about the people they hung out with in high school—I wish that I was as good to them as they were to me.

The last day of tenth grade, we went swimming at Brad’s house, after we burned all of our homework. After we watched the Pokemon movie. After we played pool and strip poker. Logan and I were the only girls, joined by at least a dozen guys. I changed into my swimsuit, a modest one-piece with long shorts and a tank top, and as I was heading out the door Magee pulled me aside.
“You sure you want to do this?” he asked.
“Do what?” I was utterly bewildered.
“Wear a swimsuit, in front of us all?” he asked, and I could see that he was actually concerned.
“Mormons are allowed to go swimming, and wear swimsuits,” I assured him. He smiled, but was clearly still worried.
I thought it was funny. I thought it was funny all through high school. They would call me to tell me I shouldn’t come to the party, as there would be drinking. They would ask which movies I felt comfortable watching and turn shows off at my slightest whim. They would go out of their way to avoid swearing in my presence, and ask people around me not to swear, while I would listen to them cuss without even noticing. By my senior year, the strongest influences for good in my life were the boys I was in tenth grade English with, because I knew how disappointed they would be to hear me swear, or drink, or even wear a sleeveless dress. They ate breakfast at Perkins every Friday morning before school, and would cheer if I showed up, but there was always the question of why I wasn’t at early-morning seminary instead. I loved it, I thrived on being different in the same way that each of them did, but I didn’t realize that they were the reason that I could be the way that I was.
Near the beginning of tenth grade, before I had been fully sucked into the nerd closet (as I later learned the rest of the school loved to call the Gifted Ed room, where the boys watched the news, played and created games, and argued) I wanted to be friends with Molly. I have a shallow tendency to only be friends with girls who are attractive. This is a problem, since I also dislike girls who are also shallow, vain, unhungry, and can’t read. Molly is beautiful but that was the only reason we could have ever been friends, I have always thought her one of the prettiest of the pretty girls. We had hung out a few times, as I was attractive and funny, and people liked to have me around for those reasons. Homecoming night I was at Molly’s before the game, she insisted on doing my hair and make up, and we were looking as fine as any of the sixteen year olds at the game could look. Sitting on her bed, waiting to leave for the game, Molly said these words, “Remember last year when you used to be like, super weird? and you used to wear those bright blue wind pants all the time?”
Well, haha, I laughed along, and spent the rest of the night subtly reminding Molly that I was cooler, funnier, and richer than her. Because I was pissed. That was the last night I hung out with her, I loved those glorious wind pants. How dare she bring them down? The most stinging and glorious part of the night was when my mother called to shout with joy that my father had won 75,000 dollars in a fishing competition. I announced it loudly to the group of kids I was with and they all moaned over how rich and wonderful I am. Then, I made the best decision I could have, and left. As Molly’s attractive, hockey-playing, and totally drunk friends yelled obscene things about me being rich and hot, I found myself some people that I care about. People who didn’t care that I was attractive, or that my dad was holding a big fish and a giant check. They cared that I was Mormon, because they love that they are so accepting, and accept me they did.
It was weird, because they were everything that people claim their friends ought to be, but don’t really want in friends. They were honest; I was rude to them, and once as I berated Burns about who-remembers-what he turned and said, “Becky, you are being very condescending.” So I stopped. I tried to be better. They trusted me; Eli taught me to drive stick in his car, and long before I had perfected that art he let me take it for a spin around the block, while he waited in my driveway. He’s lucky that car made it through. They let me be exactly who I wanted, and when I pretended to be smarter (or especially dumber) than I actually was, they would call me on it. They would tell me that they knew I didn’t read the newspaper, or know what was going on with politics, and if I started looking for pity they would tell me to buck up and figure things out. They were exactly who they were; Eli burned incense and tried to bend spoons with his mind power and when I teased him he promised that disbelievers only make his mind stronger, and he kept inviting me to his weird parties.
I’ve been thinking a lot about them this week. Since I a boy on campus smelled just like Eli, and I saw several hundred plastic spoons stuck into Helaman Fields. I know which candidate they all voted for, yes, our new president, and I know that they are celebrating now. Tomorrow is Guy Fawkes Day, a British Holiday that I’m sure they will celebrate, probably by doing just what I am going to do, watch an R-rated movie and eat pizza. Today I cried because I miss them. I miss them all the time. So, here’s to you Mr. Robinson, your class brought me all of my friends.