Hype

~Chapter 5~

            There’s no point of going through the rest of the details.  So, I’ll just take you forward in time a week.  Or rather, let’s just go forward a month.  That’s when most of the real issues started.  School trudged on very, very, slow.  The other years of high school, I felt like the days flew by.  It would be homeroom, then I’d feel like five minutes later the bell would chime for the end of the day.  This year, five minutes of first period felt like five hours.  I’m telling you, it was miserable.  Lunch was the worst−but I’ll get to that in a little bit. 

           So this is where we are: everyone still loves Mackenzie.  Now, it was even worse than in the beginning of the year.  I think the girls at my table are starting to look up to her or something.  I think she must be giving them some of her drugs.  What could be going through your mind to see Mackenzie as a role model?  Every day, she runs her mouth about who knows what.  She talks about all these piercings she has, or had.  Apparently, she has five holes in each ear, and used to have one in her nose, along with two piercings in her lip.  She doesn’t anymore because it’s not permitted in the school.  In my opinion, that is disgusting. 

           The Bible says you shouldn’t get a ton of piercings.  I am perfectly satisfied with a single piercing in each of my ears.  I thought my friends were too−but I guess not.  Mackenzie will talk about getting piercings, and all the girls will freak out.  They all start talking about how Mackenzie is so cool because of the piercings, and how they all want to get piercings all up their ears and in their lips−even Ginger−of all people. 

           Ginger is the most modest, down to earth person that I’ve ever known.  Her parents are the type of Christians that don’t even let her wear pants.  She’s only allowed to wear skirts that go to her calves, and now she wants to get a ton of piercings.  Mackenzie talks about her tattoos too.  She was two on her back that she says are of a butterfly and a rose, and then she says she has one on her foot that says “party girl.” 

          My friends, this group of Christians who talk about how bad people are, how bad society has gotten, how parents need to be in control of their children more, are wanting to be like Mackenzie: the girl who got expelled from public school for drugs, has piercings all over herself, and says she got her first tattoo at thirteen.  Oh, that’s real nice.  Peter and Gabe even switched tables.  They didn’t even mention why−because there’s no need to.  Mackenzie explains everything.  I could tell that over time they were growing fed up with her, but I know they’re too afraid to admit it.  Ginger and the rest of the Mackenzie Fan Club would gang up on them and throw a riot. 

           Okay, I know what you’re thinking.  I still don’t have actual proof that Mackenzie got expelled from public school or that she did illegal drugs.  Well, now I do.  Since Hayden’s locker is right next to mine, we’ve started talking a lot more.  She’s practically the only one who is on my side when it comes to Mackenzie.  Two weeks ago, she came up to my locker with this huge smile on her face.  “Hey Freya, guess what I just heard?”  Besides me, Hayden was the only person who held true to the fact that Mackenzie was a druggie.  Nobody else believed us.  I understand them for not buying into our story, but that was because we had no proof. 

          So Hayden goes on to tell me that she overheard Mackenzie talking to someone in her study hall.  They were gossiping about how much they hated the school and how they got here in the first place.  Hayden told me that she heard Mackenzie say “I had a ton of pot in my locker.”  The pieces of the mysterious puzzle have now been put together.  We have proof from Mackenzie herself, but even when I told Ginger that, she still didn’t believe me.  She thought that Hayden was making it up.  It’s the whole trust thing.  I feel bad for Hayden in the sense that her past keeps coming back to haunt her.