Vox Querentis: Wrong and THE WRONGEST

I have been done wrong. So Becky Gibson is this stuck-up, terrible girl with a whole group of cliquey friends that I’m not even about to try to talk to. They’re so mean and exclusive and they wouldn’t even let me join their Barbie Club EVEN THOUGH I served as loyal secretary to their Kittycat Tea Party Club for all of third grade. I spend most of my time talking to the assistant principal about how I think her and the Barbie Club are a downright poisonous element to the Adlai Stevenson Junior High community and in the meantime writing nasty letters about her to all my friends (and I know my loyal readers are used to seeing my anti-Becky opinions published in the weekly Fightin’ Amish newspaper, but today is reserved for the Jonas Brothers issue and I just don’t know where else I could publish an unsolicited and self-indulgent editorial on such short notice).

Long story short, everyone should be familiar by now with my plight and the plight of many others who have been forced to doubt themselves or have come to internalize the “brunette inferiority” ideology that this Barbie Club implicitly condones. Maybe you like her, that’s fine, but that doesn’t change the fact that she is a criminal. That’s right, I personally witnessed Becky Gibson walking her dog on a bike path, and the school totally overlooks it when she wears that jean skirt with VISIBLE belt loops and doesn’t wear a belt, in clear violation of our sacred dress code. Last time I told on her, and it’s like she’s had a bone to pick with me ever since. Typical. Becky always has been a no-good bully.

Last week it went too far. Thursday, I had just finished posting flyers of her face all around school with the word “Criminal” underneath, when I heard that her Mom was inviting the whole seventh grade class over to her house that afternoon for a Veterans’ Day barbecue. Well, there’s nothing I love more than the roasted flesh of animals or the sanctioned recognition of old people who know how to kill, so I put a little body glitter on my eyelids in the girls’ bathroom after sixth period and rode my bike right on over there. I showed up, expecting to be greeted with high fives and spare ribs galore, and maybe an apology or two from Becky for being such an awful person all the time. The last thing I expected was the assault and battery that ensued.

First off, Becky walks right up to me. It was like she expected me to speak to her directly instead of sharing my opinions in a public and impersonal manner. I hoped she might give me a hug or tell me that she now finally understood how stupid Barbie was like I did, but instead she started picking on me! She asked me why I thought I could hang out with her when I was always talking bad about her. What?!?! Doesn’t she understand that America is a free country, AKA democracy, AKA freedom isn’t free? I tried to explain to her that what she was doing was effectively silencing dissent, and did she think we live under a tyrannical dictatorship or something? But it was like she couldn’t even hear me, as she and one other person threateningly surrounded me (I’m small), while my life flashed before my eyes. They acted like they wanted to kill me, saying things like “You’re not welcome here,” and “What’s your name again?” I am beyond certain that had I not left when I did, Becky would have set my hair on fire using lighter fluid—I could tell she was thinking about it! What kind of person thinks it’s okay to light someone’s hair on fire just because I showed up at her party? A psychopathic, violent, brutal, oppressive bully, that’s who! I was right all along about her. What did I tell you? Everyone owes me a pat on the back. I’ll go first.