The Snake Pit: Jr. High Can Be Torture by Donna Dillon

Chapter One
    Life In The Pit
     
     
     
    7 th grade is hard.  Even if you are the most beautiful, the most athletic, or the most brilliant, the pressure is intense to become something that someone else decides you should be.  I'm not sure why I'm telling you all this....you're old and can't possibly understand.  You went to 7 th grade in, what, the 70's??  Okay, I will try to explain this to you in words even you can understand.
     
    What we're talking about here is bullying.  All this zero-tolerance, no child left behind crap is just that...crap.  Kids run the school and everyone in it.  Adults are too busy with their own problems to see what's going on under their own noses.  And bullying is bullying whether it ’s done by a 200 pound bruiser or the cute little cheerleader next door.  Kids are cruel.  They zero in on one small flaw and they pound away at you until you conform to their idea of perfection, or drop out of school and hide in a closet somewhere.
     
    I'll admit , I've done my share of bullying.  I have laug hed and poked fun at the goths . I've pointed and giggled at the geeks . I've even taken a shot at the cheerleaders   ( they can be sooo stupid.). Face it...some kids can handle it....and some kids wind up shooting up the school.  Don't look at me like that , it happens and you know it does.  The thing is, I figure the goths , the geeks and the cheerleaders are different because they CHOOSE to be different and , therefore, fair game. And I knew the game was on the minute that Cinda walked into the snake pit.
    The snake pit is what we lovingly call the school cafeteria.  The snake pit is the perfect place to pick on someone because, frankly, the teachers are tired of us and want nothing to do with us until the next period bell.  There are teacher aides milling about, but they are all too busy discussing what their plans are for the weekend then to worry about what we're all doing.  Unless there's blood, and a lot of it, they are oblivious.  Minimum wage is hardly worth the effort to pay attention apparently.
     
    Me?  I have so far escaped the bully train.  My father owns Carston Plastics and employs most of the parents of the kids at my school.  I have never once played that card, nor have I had to...it's understood that I am off limits.  I am neither popular, nor unpopular at school . .. I simply exist and observe.  Now, back to Cinda . I had heard rumors all day about a strange new girl at school.  I had yet to see her, but she made a grand entrance into the pit.  Not quite the entrance she intended, but a grand entrance all the same.
     
    A hundred years ago, the cafeteria was once the old gym.  The floor is warped and uneven and if you don't look where you’re going, you can take a nasty fall.  I watched as this small, dark haired girl trudged slowly along, head down trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, carrying her lunch tray and definitely NOT looking where she was going.  It was a disaster waiting to happen.
     
                  Then it happened.  Her toe caught the uneven floor just right and down she went... tator tots and creamed peas flying everywhere.  The whole pit erupted in laughter and the next thing I know food was being flung at this poor creature from left, right, and sideways.  I never did get a good look at her face.  Not that day anyway.
     
    Did I throw food at her?  No.  I skipped breakfast that morning, I was still hungry.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Two
    Monster
     
    Well, I don't need to tell you that the fiasco that was Cinda's first day is the stuff legends are made of.  She must have gone home because no one saw her again until the next morning.  Personally, I was impressed that she came back to school at all.
     
    I have noticed that the girls in my school tend to exaggerate a little.  By the time I got home that night I had countless text messages and e-mails recounting the events of Cinda