Kayla entered her next class before anyone had arrived, it was American Lit, a junior level class that she was taking as a Sophomore, so that next year she could start college classes early. This wasn't the only class she was doing this with, it was also in Math, Science and History that she did this, but this was her favorite of them all. In what other class could you read funny people like Twain and Vonnegut, Enders Game, Neil Gaiman? She took the novel they were reading out of her purse, she had decided to travel light for the rest of the day and swapped her backpack for her purse which she usually kept in her locker for most of the day, the backpack was heavy and clumsy, the purse was small and elegant and felt like it belonged when she picked it up.
Class started, the teacher began where they left off, with Amy Tan's Joy Luck Club, a book about Asian immigrant women and their American born daughters. It wasn't the best thing they had read, it was well written, had characters and ideas and pathos that was interesting, but Kayla just didn't care as much about it as she had the other things she had read. If this was true before it was doubly true today, because today she had experienced so many changes, for no apparent reason...too many other things to think about. She found herself bored by the lecture on the significance of Swans, paranoid that there had been another change, so far they had all been cosmetic, little changes to hair, make up, cloths, she could deal with that, and they weren't bad changes, she liked the way she looked and felt and it was nice to be made up without the having to go through the work of getting dressed and prettied up. Yet still, what if something more had changed? Were her eyes still brown? Would those change too? She was proud of her red hair and brown eyes mix, she was always telling people that only 3 in 1000 had that mix, a random factoid she had picked up. Would she start to talk differently? She couldn't let this new desire in her to be pretty overtake her studies, that came first. She tried to refocus on the lecture. Did her shirt feel more snug in the chest again? For as nice as it looked it pinched at times. The pressure soon went away though, as what had been 30a's and had become 30b's during lunch, grew again to 32b's. She didn't notice.
Kayla caught of glimpse of herself in the reflection of the window outside, her hair done just so, it took a moment to recognize it was her. She decided to try and take another picture of herself to track if anything new had changed. She sneaked her hand into her purse, which was on it's side and pulled out her phone, an Iphone which was two versions out of date. Her hand slipped and it fell to the ground with a crash, the phone popping out of the case. She apologized to the class and teacher for interruption, the teacher gave a her a stern look but continued talking. On the floor where her cards which she kept in the casing of the phone, it was just easier that way. Her student ID photo made her cringe every time she saw it, there was a girl who still had the braces she had just had removed two months ago, with the big goofy smile and glasses that she had traded in for contacts that year, she looked like an awkward kid. "What a Nerd" she taught to herself as she contrasted her new self with her old. The year was nearing it's end, and the further away of the time of that photo the more like a different person she felt. Then she noticed it, it had to be a mistake or a joke... It said Junior where it should have said Sophomore.
What did this mean? Was she a year older now? Had she lost a year of her life and not noticed? She thought she looked a bit older but that was just the make up, right? Was that what was happening? She was aging into a different version of herself, or was this a vision of what was to come for her? No, that couldn't be because she was still in the same classes. Then the worst of it hit her, she was a Junior in a Junior level class. She was normal, before she had prided herself on her smarts more than anything, it was what set her apart, now she was just one of the crowd, doing what was expected. She still didn't feel amazingly pretty, but that seemed to be what she had gained to exchanged for her year, a bit more beauty, she was now just an average girl. It was the worst thing in the world.
Class ended. In the back of the classroom sat a different girl, a Sophomore named Sarah, she had been having a rough day as well, strange things had been happening, like she was losing little bits of herself, but she did feel some pride in the level of notes she had taken in an upper level class. Maybe she could work out what was happening and fix it, or maybe she had just had a run of bad luck.
Next Sarah's No Good Rotten Bad Day
