Fitting In- A Short Story

Hannah was sure she wasn’t very welcome here the moment she walked in the door.

It was her very first day in James T. Kirk Middle School as a seventh grader. At the sound of the door, every student whipped their heads round and seemed to all stare at her disapprovingly, as if they were expecting an angel. They’re going to hate me, she thought. They already do.

“Why, hello there! You must be Hannah,” chirped a warm female voice. It was her teacher, no doubt. “I’m Mrs. Coldwell. I’ll be your writing and homeroom teacher. Class, let’s give Miss Gold here a warm welcome!”

A few claps here and there, a couple nods. One girl, a brunette, whispered to the girl next to her, who took one look at Hannah and started giggling.

“There are two empty seats,” Mrs. Coldwell said, then added in a lower voice, so only her new student could hear, “but you might want to choose that one,” and pointed across the room. Immediately Hannah realized where the other seat was, across from the stupid brunette girl and her stupid brunette friend. At least Mrs. Coldwell has some sense in her, Hannah thought gratefully.

Hannah tried not to imagine what horrible things they had said and still were saying about her, as she sat down in her seat. She found herself sitting next to a nice-looking boy who was smiling at her; across from her was a blonde with bouncy curls and a pink plaid forearm sleeve length shirt; and next to the blonde, a pretty, freckle-faced redhead wearing this gorgeous shimmery black—was that a dress? Hannah couldn’t tell, she was sitting down—anyways, the sleeves came to her shoulders and it was just adorable! Hannah would have murdered her own mother to have that thing.

They’re almost perfect, thought Hannah. Compared to me, they are perfect.

Hannah Elizabeth Gold was born with albinism. She had white skin, flat shoulder length white-blonde hair, and light purple eyes. People at her old home in Creston, Alberta thought it was sort of weird at first, but after a while they got over it. But would that never happen in Bushnell, Oklahoma? Everyone here seemed to thrive on looks and only looks.

Looking down, Hannah realized she had been too sleepy that morning to even pick out the right clothes, the ones she had set out a week ago; the sparkly cherry-red t-shirt that only covered the top of her shoulders from Dynamite (Size XS), the black skinny leg, slightly-ripped jeans from Stitches (Size 000), and the gold belt that tied it all together. The belt was from Ardene, and Hannah’s mom had had to cut off three inches and make another hole so it wasn’t too loose around her waist. She didn’t need a belt, of course, but the outfit just wouldn’t be complete without it. It was supposed to be perfect, and when Hannah walked into the classroom with it on everyone was supposed to swoon over it and she was supposed to receive a million compliments from all the popular girls. But instead Hannah worried almost the entire night before so she woke up late, threw on an old dirty pair of white bootcut jeans from Value Village (Kid’s LG) and a forest green shirt with white polka dots from some garage sale. And she forgot to do her nails, too! This day cannot get any worse, she thought grumpily.

“Hey,” a soft voice said, interrupting Hannah’s embarrassment. “I’m Martin. That’s Mona,” he pointed to the blonde, who had turned around in her seat and was talking to a boy at the next closest table, “and this is Denise,” he gestured towards the now spaced-out redhead.

“Hi… Uh… Martin. Why are you talking to me?” Hannah inquired. “Don’t you have friends?”

“Are you kidding? The people here are soo mean!” Martin cried. Then they both started laughing.

From then on, Hannah and Martin were friends. Martin was sweet, and helped Hannah to feel better about herself when she needed it. She tried to do the same for him, but it seemed like he didn’t even need it. Martin informed her about Selena, the girl who was whispering on Hannah’s first day. She was the bully of the school and made fun of everyone. Martin told Hannah not to get too worked up about Selena Barter, but she wasn’t the best at that sort of thing. She got teased by Selena and her friends every single day, and every single day Martin stood up for her.  Selena seemed to believe Hannah was fat, and took advantage of the fact that she was albino.

One day at lunch, Hannah and Martin were sitting outside. Martin was munching on cold Hawaiian pizza from last night’s supper, and Hannah was just sitting with him, refusing to eat her lasagna politely, claiming she wasn’t hungry. On the inside she was burning with hunger, but she was determined to stick to her new diet.

“Oh no,” Selena said mockingly. “It’s the albino, execute her! Hey Hannah, I see you took my advice in laying off on the triple meat pizzas.” Martin turned and stared at Hannah. He hadn’t been there for her when Selena had called her fat. “Anyways, I came to give you this.” Selena took a folded up brochure out of her pocket and handed it over to Hannah. Hannah glanced at it with pure curiosity.

“Just shut up, Selena!” Martin attempted to stand up for his best friend once again. “Hannah’s a million times smarter and prettier and skinnier than you’ll ev—“

“Martin… There’s three words that I need to say to you,” Selena said innocently.

“…What…?” Martin asked, confused. Surely she wasn’t going to say…

“I………. DON’T CARE!” Selena cried menacingly. No wonder everyone was scared of her, she could turn into a complete animal when she got angry.

Martin and Selena kept quarreling as Hannah slowly unfolded the brochure. The front page stated, ‘ALBINISM AND WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT.’ She opened the first flap, which was entitled ‘Skin,’ and explained how you shouldn’t go out in the sun too often and if you do you better wear tons of sunscreen, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. She’d heard all this before. She opened all the flaps and most of the things they had wrote, she knew off by heart. There was, though, one title that caught her eye: ‘LASIK EYE SURGERY.’ Excited, she read on….

The cost read to be $2,200 to change eye color. Since she was a child, Hannah had always wanted to change her eye color. Usually when she first met someone they were really nice to her, then they noticed her weird purple eyes and got all freaked out and ran off.

Okay, so that’s not exactly what happened. But Hannah just really, really, really wanted a beautiful pair of hazel eyes.

Selena nodded towards Hannah’s exhilarated expression. “Knew you’d be interested in that,” she said smugly. Then she walked away, her posse following closely behind her.

“Don’t listen to her,” Martin said immediately. “Don’t change yourself for her.”

“Don’t do this, don’t do that. Martin, you sound like my grandma!” Hannah’s grandmother was probably the grumpiest human being on the face of the planet before she passed away. She was never happy with anything or anyone. When she died, Hannah and her family were secretly celebrating. (They would never admit it though.) “I’m not doing this for her. I’m doing this for me.”

“Oh yeah?” Martin asked sarcastically, glancing at the prices. “Where are you planning to get two thousand bucks?”

“I’ll earn it.”

And she did. Well, she attempted to. Every other night for the next three weeks, she babysat Ben, Carly and Joel, five year old triplets. The three were quite a handful, and I mean quite a handful. In total their parents paid her $525! But it still wasn’t enough.

Hannah was so tired of babysitting. When she told Martin this in Homeroom in the morning, he was about to try to reason with her when Selena strolled over to them.

“Still want those pretty eyes, sweetheart?” Selena pretended to pout. “Well guess what, fattie. You’ll need cash. Have you been saving?”

WHY AM I NEVER GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU? Hannah wanted so much to scream. THE ONLY THING I’VE EATEN SINCE YOU CALLED ME FAT IS A BAG OF STRAWBERRIES AND THIS IS HOW YOU TREAT ME STILL? I’VE LOST 30 POUNDS FOR YOU?

But she didn’t say that. She held in her feelings and said calmly, “Yes. I’ve been babysitting.”

“Babysitting,” Selena snorted. “Babysitting won’t get you $2,000. You should get a job. My dad needs some help at the library…” Selena’s father owns the library in town. He inherited a million dollars from his father when he died, so he and his family are filthy rich, of course.

So the next day Hannah went to the library and got a job organizing books and helping customers find what they’re looking for. She worked every school night for two hours over the next four weeks, which, since the pay per hour was $5, she earned more money. But she only earned 38% of what she got babysitting the twins. In total she earned $725. When she figured this out one night after work by counting it all up, she was extremely disappointed. Seven hundred was barely enough for ONE eye. The next day Hannah quit her job on the way to school in the morning.

That day at school Mrs. Coldwell taught the class about how the Mayan calendar ends in 2012 and put everyone into groups to discuss about whether or not they believed the Mayans were just tired of making calendars, or if they had a reason not to continue. Hannah was put in a group with a tall guy with brown hair that covered his eyes named Caleb, the redhead she met on the first day named Denise, and Selena. Caleb and Denise didn’t like Selena, which meant they were pretty much friends with Hannah.

“’Kay, so I don’t really care what you losers think, but I believe in the whole conspiracy 100%. I hope,” she coughed into her sleeve ‘Hannah’, “gets drowned or burned or whatever while my father and I are protected by our—“

“Seriously, we don’t care, Selena!” Hannah said so loudly that the whole class turned in their seats, surprised. Martin smiled, which encouraged Selena to go on. “Selena, you have manipulated and controlled every single person in this room, and I won’t let it happen anymore! Calling me fat doesn’t make you any skinnier. Calling us losers doesn’t make you any cooler. Calling your best friend stupid doesn’t make you any smarter. If you want respect, you should earn respect. All I’ve ever been is nice to you and all you’ve done is push me around. I’m not going to change my appearance. I’m glad to be different like this.”

“Yeah,” Martin added. If you’re friends with Selena, you might want to reconsider.”

“No they shouldn’t! My friends are loyal to me, it’s not like they would just—“

“You’re right!” piped up the girl who Selena had whispered to on her first day. “I’m sorry, Hannah. I never even liked her. I just wanted to be popular!”

“Selena’s so mean to me!” Mona cried. “And we were best friends!”

“I hate her too! She thinks she’s so cool but really she’s just a stupid little b—“

“Kay thanks Jade, that’s enough!” Selena said quietly, stopping her.

“She calls me ugly, when she’s the one who’s such a PIG!” said another girl.

I’m right here you dumba—“

“Give it up,” Martin said surely.

I wish I could tell you that Selena learned from her mistake and from then on, treated every human being with respect.  But that’s not what happened. In 2025, Hannah turned on her new TV… Guess who she saw as the new head chef on Hell’s Kitchen??