Chapter One: The Very Beginning
"Hazy! Time to go!" Mom yells from the top of the stairs. I slowly roll over in my twin bed and look up at my basement room ceiling, painted with colorful designs and scenes. I take a deep breath and remember that today in school we have to submit our science fair projects. Fuck. It's okay, I like this project and that's all that matters, right? I spring out of bed and change into my favorite pair of baggy jeans. It's 1996 and I'm in my last quarter of 8th grade. The summer couldn't come soon enough but for now, I was actually a little bit excited about my science fair project. The question that drove my project was, "What is the Hottest Part of a Flame?". I hypothesized that the blue base of the flame would be the hottest. I sat patiently at my family's kitchen table with lots of scrap paper, matches, candles and my scientific journal notebook that I had to turn in with my project. I tested my hypothesis by basically burning a lot of paper at different levels of a candle flame. It was awesome. I glued my burned pieces of paper all over a cardboard tri-fold board which I decorated sparingly so that my scientific discovery could take center stage. After discovering that the space just above a flame is the hottest part, I was stoked to stump other people who would visit my project at the fair.
I wasn't ever a good student, per say. I was always talking to other students, getting distracted, and loosing focus mid-book report. Sometimes I lost my temper or couldn't seem to control my big emotions and I would get in trouble. As I got older, my frustration with school persisted and I started to think of myself as dumber than my friends, not as bright as the other students around me. So having a school project that I felt confident about was a new and good feeling to me.
The morning of the science fair I was blurry-eyed and anxious, like any other morning in junior high. But this morning when I carried my giant tri-fold board into the school MPR (multi-purpose room) I saw one other person also setting up their project. I wasn't sure if I was early or late but for some reason, it was just us two in the MPR. Or maybe that's how it felt so that's how I remember it.
After setting up my project, I took a step back to admire my work and to double check for any last-minute adjustments. Seeing nothing else to adjust, I decide to scope out the competition. I walk around the maze of folding tables holding dozens of other tri-fold boards with other 8th-grade projects. Can Potatoes Conduct Electricity?, boring. How Much Sugar Is In Soda?, over-done. Which Food Does My Cat Like The Most?, how do they let kids like this into school every day?
Finally, I come across the one other student setting up her project in the MPR. Her back is to me, blocking the view of what her project was about. Slowly, she slides to one side, revealing two hamsters in a small see-through carrying cage with a pink plastic lid. They look curious and cute, sniffing their fresh wood shavings a drinking beads of water from their attached water bottle. The student turns her head a little and I recognize her as a girl from one of my classes. She's shy and gets good grades, which is about all I know about her.
Today, she wears her long brown hair in a braid that trails down her back. She has on chocolate-brown corduroys and a teal long-sleeve fleece sweater with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. She suddenly spins her head around, whipping her braid around her body, startled by my encroaching presence. She makes eye-contact briefly before we both hear a small ruckus behind her. One of the little fluffs has started to open the lid of the cage. She turns back to her pets and starts to manage the situation.
"Oh, come on." I hear say softly to herself. She looks back and sees me still standing there, looking at her like I hope her fuzz balls are okay.
"I just forgot to snap the lid closed." She says as she turns back to her animals.
"Is he okay?" I ask with honest concern. She carefully encourages the little fur ball to scoot back into its cage while she simultaneously closes the lid back down.
"Yeah, he's fine." She snaps the lid shut, ensuring its secure closure. and turns back to face me.
"Oh good. I wouldn't want him to run away. That would be terrible! That happened to me one time, actually. One of my hamsters ran away and I couldn't find him for a long time until my mom smelled something gross in her bedroom and we never found him but we just assumed that he died in her room under one of the baseboard heaters." I stop myself and notice that she's giving me a blank look. It occurs to me that I've done that thing again where I alienate people because I can't shut up.
"What's your project about?" I ask, hoping to distract from my rambles.
"Oh, uh, it's about the capacity of memory in a hamster and whether or not exercise has an impact on remembering things." She says confidently, showing her expertise in the subject matter. I look at the tri-fold board behind her hamsters and see a nicely typed out project, organized cleanly and presented professionally. No decorations or glued on burned paper, like mine.
"What's yours about?" She asked looking around at the other projects as if she could pick it out from the crowd.
"It's about what the hottest part of the flame is. What do you think it is?" I ask excitedly.
"Um, probably the top because heat rises?" She guesses with an air of already knowing the answer.
"Oh. Yeah, actually, that's right. Ha ha. No one else guessed that so far, that's... crazy..." I trail off wanting to find anything else to talk about.
"It sounds really cool. I'll look for it and check it out. What's your name again?"
"Hazy." I say quickly. "I mean Hazel. I mean, you can call me Hazy. If you want. My friends do. My friends call me Hazy. And you're my... friend... I mean you can. I... um. Yeah, Hazy, Hi." I can't seem to stop words from coming out of my mouth, and suddenly I'm sticking out my hand for a shake and I'm wondering what the hell I'm doing. Why am I acting like this?
"I'm Katie." She said, grabbing my hand and shaking. I look down and see our hands clasped, holding onto each other, gripping, squeezing. I feel blood start to leave my head. I get hot. My cheeks feel warm. I look back up and see her looking at me with a small crinkle between her brows.
"Are you okay?" She asked gently pulling her hand back.
"Yeah. I'm just tired. I stayed up way too late last night listening to the Summer Top 40 List on 102.2, they just released it yesterday. I loved most of them but it got a lot better as they got closer to number one, of course." I was starting to do it again, rambling out of what, nerves? Insecurity? Am I sick? Maybe I have mono. Everyone was getting it.
"Oh cool." Katie said as she started to make small movements showing me she was ready to move on to the next part of her day. I stepped back and complimented her project and started back to my side of the MPR. On my way back to my project, other students started pouring in, bringing even more tri-folds in for display. Glad for the increase in numbers, making it easier for me to blend into the crowd, I looked back one more time for Katie and saw her already telling someone else about her hamsters and their athleticism. Her long braid was still slung over her shoulder from when she whipped around to look at me. As she explained her project to curious onlookers, she glanced over in my direction and saw me looking at her from across the MPR. She smiled a little, still keeping pace with her oral presentation, and went back to her admirers.
Walking back down the log hallway back to our lockers, I looked out the window and noticed the dry, brown grass blowing in the spring winds. It reminded me that summer is coming soon and after that: high school. And high school is sure to be better than junior high. I'm sure to grow up just a little more over the summer and then I'll have a fresh start in my freshman year. Yeah. It's going to be great.
I continue down the hall distracting myself from my disastrous performance in front of Katie. Of course, I wanted to make new friends since most of my friends transferred to the new junior high across town after it opened. But I didn't want to give people the impression that I was an airhead. I decided to lean into my newfound confidence in schooling and talk to Katie again the next time I saw her. But wait. Why? It was almost summer, was it worth going through all of the motions just to make a new friend who I probably wouldn't see all summer? I don't know, I just wanted to talk to her again.