zithead

Miss Rose was the prettiest teacher I had ever seen. She jingled when she walked, with a golden charm bracelet around her wrist and a sparkly anklet resting above her strappy heels. She smelled like a garden and had a laugh like Christmas bells.

The girls wanted to brush her wavy hair. The boys tiptoed close to her lap, waiting to be petted on the heads like puppies.

Miss Rose had let us into her life as no other adult had. When she bought a shiny new sports car, she took turns driving us all around town. On Monday mornings, we had what she called "Me Time". One by one, with the class lights down low, we would whisper what had been the most memorable part of our weekend. Miss Rose could barely contain her glee as each of us detailed trips to the mall or a baseball game. I felt pressure to elicit her electric laughter. I concocted stories of deep-sea adventures and foiled kidnappings to keep her attention. While the other students rolled their eyes at me, Miss Rose's bow lips formed a deep O of excitement.

After our fourth-grade highlights had been chronicled, Miss Rose crept closer to the class. In a conspiratorial whisper, she recounted candlelight dinners with her boyfriend, Beau, and hiking trips high up in the mountains. There was never any gray in her days.

"Children. Close your books and take out a piece of loose leaf and a pen. We're going to have a contest!" Miss Rose giggled and clapped her ringed fingers. She was always doing this - wiping away the cobwebs of classwork and injecting magic into our days. She kept a drawerful of sweet treats that went to whomever could recite the Pledge of Allegiance the fastest, or create the most colorful drawing of our classroom. I had once won a Sugar Daddy for the most original essay entitled, "What I Would Do If I Were A Shoe".

"Now, this contest is only for the girls today." The boys looked downtrodden as the girls sat further up in their seats.

"But, the boys still get to participate." Their spirits perked up somewhat.

"The prize today is very, very special." We inched over our desks as Miss Rose undid the clasp of her coveted charm bracelet. "The winner gets to wear my bracelet all day long!" We gasped and wiggled our arms, already feeling the weight of the charms on our wrists.

Miss Rose then explained the rules of what was to be the "Prettiest Girl in the Class" contest. We were to write the numbers one through ten on our loose leaf, and then list the girls in the order in which we perceived them to be - prettiest girl first, and on down the list. She would then calculate the lucky and lovely winner.

I puzzled over the list with the pen cap in my mouth. This was an almost impossible task. Should I be honest and objective, which would put Tiffany at the top of the list? She was everyone's pet, with curly blonde hair and crystal blue eyes. Or, should I favor my best friend Laura? With the sad, inward turn of her left eye, she was sure to be at the bottom of most lists. And even more troubling, where to put myself in the lineup? I wanted to wear those musical charms more than anything, but I didn't want to seem conceited. Better to play it safe, I thought. List Laura first, myself second, and Tiffany third. That, I reasoned, was as fair as I could be.

Not surprisingly, Tiffany came in first. Miss Rose wrote the names on the board according to their average placement on everyone's lists. With horror, I realized that I had placed seventh. Only three girls were not as pretty as me. Daphne, who weighed 220 pounds and was often so hungry she ate her own hair; Tara, who suffered from scoliosis and wore a robotic metal brace from her hips to her neck; and Mush, who was so named because it looked as though someone had pushed her features into her face and they had permanently remained there. Even Miss Rose stuttered when trying to remember Mush's real name, which was Martha.

Tiffany claimed her prize triumphantly and jiggled her hand all day. The charms danced against each other and sounded like a giggle. I shushed her during a spelling test, too distracted to sound out the word "straighten". She smirked at me with victory.

I trudged home in a cloud of confusion. When had I become one of the least cute girls in the class? Just four short years before, I had been crowned "Little Miss Recreation" in front of the whole town. I had strutted in front of the judges in my red, white and blue swimsuit, swishing my behind and shaking my head because I was so proud of my pigtails. I had done especially well in the interview component. When asked who I wanted to say hello to in the audience, I pointed and blew a kiss to my five-year-old sweetheart, Peter, who I planned to marry as soon as I got off the stage. The crowd ohhed and awwed over me. The judges chuckled and winked. I had been a shoe-in.

I slumped into the apartment and dumped my school bag onto the floor. Marching into the living room, I surveyed the virtual museum of our family photos. I scoured the snapshots, finding myself to be cute in each and every one. There I was in the second grade play, a blank spot where my front teeth should have been, shining like the morning sun. And just last year, on my eighth birthday, splayed out on my Wonder Woman sleeping bag wearing Super Girl Underoos. None of this evidence pointed to a number seven placement on a pretty list.

I sulked into the bathroom and snapped on the overhead light, searching for some sign of my unprettiness. Shockingly, I found it. Angry red bumps had erupted on my forehead, chin and cheeks. This had not been the first time I had noticed them. They had settled across my skin some weeks before, but I hadn't paid them any attention. I had been too busy with baseball and bike riding to see what had been happening. Lately, my mother had been looking at me strangely. She would hold my chin in her hand and give me the look she had previously reserved for the children on the Jerry Lewis Telethon. "Go wash up," she would instruct. And I would spend an eternity trying to scour the caked dirt off of my knees and elbows and neck. She never looked satisfied no matter how hard I scrubbed.

During art the week before, I had been partnered up with Tony Fontanella for a project.

"I don't want to be her partner!" he protested. "She has the pox." He scrunched up his face and made the sign of the cross in front of me.

"Yeah, you smell like butt cheese!" I countered, punching him in the arm.

"She does not have pox, Anthony." Miss Rose defended. "It's just a little bit of acne."

Tony was not reassured, and scraped his chair away from me.

Acne? I was puzzled. The word itself sounded so harsh, like a cat spitting up a hair ball. I didn't want it, and now I had it. I sunk my head and wondered what I had done to get it, but then Miss Rose planted a kiss on my pimply cheek.

"Pick a hand!" she had teased, holding out both fists in front of me. I puzzled over which held the best prize, and picked the left. A jawbreaker the size of my eyeball rested in her pretty palm. I plucked it out of her hand and tucked it into my pocket for later.

"You're the prettiest girl here today," she whispered. She nodded reassuringly, and I instantly perked up under her gaze.

In the bathroom, I stared at my reflection and felt a lump the size of that jawbreaker stuck in my throat. I filled the sink with scalding water and drowned the facecloth in suds. I scrunched up my face and scrubbed my skin raw. Dunking my face in the steaming sink, I counted to thirty before gasping for air. I expected to see a new me, with all of the old skin sheered off. Instead, I saw the same me, only pink and red and puckered.

The next few weeks at school were slow as snails. I was eagerly awaiting my friend Lisa Palumbo's sleepover. She lived in a large brownstone with her mother and younger sister. Mrs. Palumbo was the first divorcee in our school. She wore long flowing skirts and beads around her neck. Lisa said her mother didn't shave her legs, and she read books about Buddhists and Hindus and Hare Khrishnas. She kept an aloe plant in the kitchen and an herb garden in the yard. For dinner, she would cook us foods that sounded more like conditions than meals, such as curry and hummus. Mrs. Palumbo preferred that we call her Lorraine. Over a steaming bowl of some reeking concoction, she lectured us about women's lib, whatever that was, and taught us to pump our fists in the air.

Lisa's house was our favorite sleepover spot. It was rumored that her building had formerly been a funeral home, and our seance activity was always very successful there. A group of us would gather around the ouija board, fingertips fluttering above the mystical pointer, communing with the dead and asking questions.

"Oh spirits of the underworld, who in the room will be the first to die?" Lisa would moan and groan. Whichever girl was least popular at the moment would miraculously have her name spelled out. Thankfully, my name had only appeared on one occasion. It happened to be on the same day that I wouldn't lend Lisa my favorite pink sweater.

The day before the sleepover, Lisa called me during dinner.

"Hey, Noreen, real quick. I forgot to mention. You, um.... Yeah. Look. Bring your own pillow tomorrow, okay?" There was a giggle behind her words that I didn't trust.

"Um, I guess. Why?" I asked suspiciously.

"No reason. All the girls hafta. Okay?"

"Sure."

"Cool. Later, gator." And the phone went dead in my ear. I now felt a nervous flutter where the excitement had been before the phone call.

I arrived the next night with my pillow tucked under my arm. Lisa opened the door and squealed with excitement. We hugged and she ushered me in. I was the first guest, and we were giddy with the events for the evening. There would be the seance, and the ritual torture of the first girl to fall asleep. We would gorge thoroughly on forbidden sugary snacks (no white sugar allowed under Lorraine's watch) and cuddle under blankets as we scared ourselves to sleep with horror movies.

One by one, the other girls began to arrive. I noted, with curiosity, that none of the other girls had brought their pillows. Once everyone was assembled, I whispered this fact to Lisa.

"Guys, get a load of this. Nor wants to know why she's the only one who had to bring her own pillow!" She snorted and slapped her knee. The other girls gushed with giggles and rolled their eyes.

"What?" I whined. "Tell me why."

Lisa widened her eyes and launched into it.

"Seriously? Look at your face. We don't want you infecting us. You're like, a total zithead!"

The girls erupted in volcanic laughs, and the ash of their words fell all around me. My face burned like lava. I wanted to rush out into the cold night and walk home in my socks. Instead, I laughed and shrugged my shoulders, swallowing the hurt that huddled in my chest.

I hung back for the rest of the night. My fingers fell limp on the ouija board, and I took no joy in freezing Tiffany's training bra when she was the first to fall asleep. My anger brewed inside of me like a stew. I wanted to sprinkle the seeds of revenge on these girls and the words they carelessly hurled.

I had my chance as they all crept out into the kitchen for a midnight snack. I snuck back into the living room where we were all set up to sleep. Quickly and quietly, I picked up each pillow and rubbed my face all over it. I made sure to cover every pillowcase with as many germs as I could spare. I said I small prayer over each pillow, and kissed them all for luck.

I ran to school each morning, bursting with anticipation. As Miss Rose took attendance, I inspected each girl's complexion. I was beginning to think that my spell had soured.

Three weeks after the sleepover, when I thought that all hope was lost, Lisa came in with her head hung low and her hand camouflaging her face. A bulbous bump was entrenched in her chin. An array of smaller blemishes orbited around the planetary pimple. Lisa looked as though she wanted her desk to open up and eat her. My spell had worked! I felt lighter than I had in weeks. A smile tickled my lips all day. I might have been number seven on the pretty list, but I could feel Lisa's stock sliding down the scale. Beware the wrath of Zithead!