Laurel Middle School was a sprawling relic primarily made up of old-fashioned portables; small rooms hauled into place and assembled into what should have been temporary classrooms. All of the older, outdated structures, aside from the cafeteria, auditorium, and administrative buildings had been razed to make way for new middle school facilities, which were tied up in state funding and never seemed to appear.
All Tabitha had on hand for today’s adventure, besides her backpack and some scavenged school supplies, was a handwritten note. She’d managed to prepare the names of her teachers and the class period for each, information gleaned from headings scribbled at the top of various old assignments she’d collected her room. Although the middle school seemed vaguely familiar, she only remembered the actual location of her last two classes with any certainty, so her first stop was the administrative office.
“Hello. My name’s Tabitha Moore,” she said, sliding her note forward across the counter there. “I suffered a severe head injury last Thursday. I was told to have someone write down the locations of each of my classes.”
“You... don’t remember where your classes are?” the administrative assistant behind the desk frowned, looking over the list with a doubtful expression. The lady was a spry woman in her mid-forties, quite a bit younger than Tabitha used to be, and Tabitha found herself wondering how similar working at a school was to working as a clerk in town hall. “Should you be here attending class at all then, if you hit your head that badly?”
“I don’t know?” Tabitha shrugged, giving the woman a helpless expression. “Maybe not, but—my Dad said, with it being this late in the school year, I might as well try to finish the year anyways?”
Just like that, her hastily-planned excuse was rewarded with a simple printed map that had her classes circled in highlighter, and she started her school day without a hiccup.
Okay. Here we go. Although Tabitha would be bullied severely later on in high school, here in eighth grade she felt almost like a non-entity—she lacked any sort of presence at all. Not a single one of her fellow middle-schoolers tried to engage her in conversation on the way to her portable, even after waiting outside the boxy structure with several other classmates.
When their language arts teacher, Mrs. Hodge, arrived to unlock the door, Tabitha cautiously followed them all inside, pretending she didn’t feel terribly out of place. She loitered awkwardly around the back of the room as the other students showed up and gravitated one by one towards their desks, eventually exposing a lone empty seat. Tabitha carefully sat down, trying not to seem as self-conscious as she felt. The bell rang, a series of tones over the loudspeakers, and class began.
That… worked?
“Tabitha—you missed a practice test on Friday,” Mrs. Hodge smiled, and strode forward wetting her fingertip with her tongue so she could separate the stack of papers she was preparing to pass out. “Here’s the packet for this week. I understand you had to visit the hospital?”
You almost gave me a heart attack, Tabitha thought wryly, and she looked up from her own tightly clenched hands to take another look at the young woman who was her teacher—seemingly in her thirties, surely no older than thirty-five. But, I must seem like a child to her... I guess I’ll see how far I can push the SLOW act.
Tabitha had decided to keep answers to her teachers’ questions short and perfunctory, so that she wouldn’t give away that she was now a drastically different Tabitha. Since she wasn’t sure she could portray a convincing normal Tabitha, she was going to be attending instead as severe head injury Tabitha. So, she gave Mrs. Hodge a muddled look and forced herself to slowly count to three in her head before finally responding.
“...I hit my head,” Tabitha answered after that long pause. “I hit my head really bad. Had to get an MRI.”
“Er... are you okay?” Mrs. Hodge asked, appearing surprised.
“...I don’t know,” Tabitha said, looking back down at her desktop and then back up to Mrs. Hodge. “They said it wasn’t good.”
“Are you... feeling alright for class now?” Mrs. Hodge asked, her smile faltering. The young woman looked like she regretted bringing the topic up, and Tabitha felt a pang of guilt. “Do you think you’re okay to work on review material, today?”
“...Yeah. Yeah,” Tabitha nodded weakly, furrowing her brow. “I just feel kind of... dizzy… I guess?”
“Well,” Mrs. Hodge stared, apparently hesitant to hand Tabitha one of the review packets. Finally, she let out a slight sigh and offered one. “If you have any trouble with the packet, then you can come see me, alright? This isn’t due until the end of the week.”
“...Okay,” Tabitha tried to look confused as she accepted the small stack of stapled-together worksheets from her teacher. Mrs. Hodge lingered over her for a moment before moving on down the row to pass out the rest of the packets.
That was some of my best acting yet, Tabitha decided, slightly pleased with herself. Didn’t get nervous after all... except at the beginning. I think it helps really realizing how young Mrs. Hodge seems to me now.
The thoroughly concussed charade would hopefully establish a believable change in her behavior, with any luck precluding unwelcome curiosity or questions from students. Tabitha really had no idea how she’d acted as a thirteen-year-old girl back then in middle school, and being among so many of her peers, someone would have been bound to notice discrepancies.
In some ways, it was convenient for Tabitha to not have any school friends—she wouldn’t have known how to interact with them, how to maintain that appropriate thirteen-year-old facade. At the same time, however, it would have also been nice to be able to share a textbook with someone. All of her books were probably in her locker... which she didn’t know the combination for. Or even where the blasted thing was located.
Turning her attention now to the first page of her work packet, she blinked in surprise at the coursework laid out before her.
th Grade Language Arts Section 9, Vocabulary Terms
Match the following vocabulary words to their definitions:
) Symbolism
) Forshadowing
) Suspense
) Theme
) Setting