Inside a beautiful, woman's mind

By Jane Impair

This book recounts the final school year of a very shy girl. Few people know what true shyness entails; how their friendly conversations and actions appear as noise and confusion that overwhelms calm spirits. Quiet, introverted, sensitive people are ridiculed in this extroverted world where giving grand speeches and making exaggerated gestures are promoted as ideals everyone should aspire to. This book is different.

This book is written from the perspective of thoughts deep within the author’s mind: a calm, safe refuge from the vociferous world of others. It considers the pains of adolescence, including: self-esteem, suicide, sexuality, love, abuse, individuality and learning who you are. Most of all, it describes the innermost thoughts and feelings of one struggling with life in a world where too much happens. It describes a journey of survival.

The author provides this book to anybody and everybody, especially those who are yet to see their perceived weaknesses are actually their strengths. Please reproduce and share it with anyone who may benefit from it. This book’s sole purpose is to find the person who by reading it will realise they have a place in this world; a world that seems to tell them they have no place in it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jane Impair
• Release date: Feb 3, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524215477

Jane Impair

Jane grew up different: extremely shy and a target for abuse. From feeling inferior she eventually found her place in the world, with excellent jobs and a happy family. Inside a beautiful, woman’s mind is her free gift to others who are yet to see their perceived weaknesses are actually their strengths.

Book preview

1.  Day one

This book is not an autobiography.  Autobiographies are written about interesting and important people.  They are written by people who believe they are interesting and important.  I am neither.  I’m not Jane Eyre, my hero.  I’m just odd.  The story of my life is a story I need to tell myself.  Telling my life story may heal wounds that will otherwise not heal.  Perhaps, I hope, the pain within a soul may heal by allowing the pain into the world beyond one’s mind.  Hopefully this is the answer to world peace.  Sometimes you reach a point where you have nothing else to lose.  A world without peace is not a world worth living in.  The choice is to change the world you live in or move to another world.  Telling people may unleash the pain from within the mind and make the world more liveable.  It might make it more peaceful.  Perhaps the truth lies more in the fact that it is possible to reach a point where things are so bad that there is nothing that you can do to make things any worse, and even if things did get worse it would not matter anymore anyway. 

My story is a simple story but I can not endure to begin at the beginning.  Instead I start on the first day of my last year of school.  They say adolescence is a time of transformation but I do not see why this should be viewed in a negative context.  Words such as turmoil or confusion are sometimes mistakenly used to describe this period in one’s life.  I envy people who speak of adolescence as a time of turmoil because this reflects the privileged childhood they experienced.  I experienced no such childhood.  Luckily I was not wise enough to recognise this deficiency at the time.  The truth is a valuable commodity but not always one that is healthy.  Despite all I have been through I still maintain that knowing and telling the truth is ultimately the most appropriate outcome since it is by knowing the truth we can improve.  Sometimes knowing the truth is painful but this is invariably when knowledge of the truth has been delayed.  I remain loyal to the notion that knowing the truth early is better than knowing the truth later, but knowing the truth later is still better than never learning the truth.  This book is my truth to myself.  Perhaps if you are reading it and you have always thought of yourself as not fitting in with the crowd, of having deficiencies, of being odd, then reading this book will make you realise you are not so different after all.  If after reading this book you still think of yourself as odd, then take heart in the knowledge that you are not alone. 

The first day of school each year after the summer holidays always filled me with dread.  As I walked into school everyone watched me and noticed how pathetic I was.  There was nowhere to hide.  Everything was unfamiliar again.  I did not know where my friends were, or where the monsters were congregating to petrify my weak being into stone.  It is one of the mysteries of the universe how I ever managed to walk within the school grounds.  The fear blurred my vision, dumbed my hearing and sent my mind into an agonising spiral towards hell.  I try not to think about it even now.  As I did then, I block the thought of it from my mind.  It is the only way to survive.  As I walked into the school grounds on that first day of my last year at school I moved my mind to another world so I would not have to endure the intense movements and sounds within that horrid world.  The students ran around greeting each other with enthusiastic excitement that hurt my senses. 

Whenever possible I averted my eyes from the confusion that ruled that terrible world.  My senses would be overcome and my mind destroyed if I was to look upon the scene of violent destruction cascading around me.  Instead, as I slowly and carefully made my way across the desolation of no-man’s-land towards the relative safety of the school buildings, I looked at the still, quiet ground in front of my feet.  If I concentrated with all my effort on that peaceful ground then I could block the horror sufficiently from my mind to somehow survive the ordeal.  Survival probably sounds positive as it conceals the mutilation of my soul.  My thoughts would always be focussed on the hope that I could reach a place of quiet sanctuary: the toilets.

The commotion of students shouting and shrieking to each other with greetings of hello deafened my ears and sent pulses of pain throbbing through my mind.  Gentle smiles of reassuring tenderness were not welcome in this hostile world.  In its place was uncaring and attention seeking aggression.  These greeting announced to the world that the issuer existed and demanded attention.  The thrilling volume and excited demeanour of the greetings contradicted any possible sincerity of someone who truly was pleased to meet a loved friend.

The first day after the summer break was always the worst.  I would look different after the months of separation.  People would laugh at how I had changed.  It might be how my hair fell in a different way, how I was noticeably taller or how my breasts protruded more.  It was impossible to prevent the cruel passage of time changing my appearance in some unimaginable way.  Everyone would gawk at my ugly, hopeless being.  It would take all my energy and concentration to survive.  I moved swiftly into the toilets and locked the door quickly but quietly behind me.  This was the closest I would ever find to a sanctuary within the school grounds.  Here I could be alone and unseen.  Here was a quiet and undisturbed place; an environment I adored.

I would often think of my best friend Ella during these turbulent times.  Ella was a good friend who seemed happy for me to be around her.  She was easily one of the prettiest girls in high school but she did not hang out with the trendy or popular girls.  I’m not really sure why she let me tag around with her, but she did and I was very grateful.  I’m still very grateful.  Once I was in the toilets and I heard the trendy girls making fun of her as they washed their hands and groomed their bodies.  They were so cruel.  Ella’s only crime was not participating in their horrible world.  She was nice to everyone but this offended them because this did not make them special.  They retaliated by ostracising her.  I knew it was Ella’s kindness towards me that caused her such pain.  I felt terrible for my part in her misery.  I sat quietly in the cubicle ashamed of my guilt and in utter despair.  I did not dare leave my sanctuary until the toilets were quiet for many, many minutes afterwards.  I did not want them to know I heard them and it took time for me to recover my composure before venturing out once again into that horrid world. 

I should have told Ella just how grateful I was she allowed me to be with her but somehow it never seemed to be the right time.  Sometimes I got close to expressing to Ella at least a little of how she filled my life with things that made living worthwhile, but the right time never quite came.  There was always something that interrupted me just before I spoke. 

So it was that I fooled myself into believing it was not my fault I never told Ella how special she was.  I tried to tell myself something happened to get in the way when I was about to tell her.  Sometimes Ella said something on a different topic.  She would sound so happy and what I had to say sounded so bad that to say anything would destroy her happiness.  Perhaps I feared she would see how odd I was and then she would not let me hang out with her anymore.  Sometimes someone else approached us.  Saying what I had to say was difficult enough when we were alone but saying it with a crowd was not a possibility for me.  I could not bear it.  Sometimes an unfortunate event happened far away that attracted everyone’s attention.  Ella, her attention drawn to the incident, would no longer be in a place to hear what I had to say.  I, distracted by events, lost my train of thought and must therefore start the agonising process of preparing what I had to say from the beginning once more.  It was such an exhausting process.  Preparing for what I should say drained every ounce of energy from my body and I was left to quietly try to recover my senses rather than speak the words I should say. 

Deep down, within the most inner recesses of my mind, I knew these were just excuses.  There were no external events that deserved the blame for me not expressing my gratitude to Ella.  The blame for this always was all mine.  Each time I contemplated the words to express at least a small part of my innermost feelings about Ella I felt defeat through my inadequacy.  I stumbled with clumsy expressions for the strong emotions inside me; searching for words that do not exist.  The words available to me in the English language always proved insufficient for my intended purpose.  As I alternated between the many possibilities of inadequate words to speak, I envisaged the effect they may have on Ella: how stupid they would sound to Ella; how Ella would see me as pathetic; how Ella would realise I’m so much less of a person than she is; and how realising this she would not allow me near her anymore.  Every combination of words I sounded out within my mind, in anticipation of speaking them out loud to Ella, only served to prove that I’m beyond hope.

I know I’m odd.  I see everyone else.  I watch them.  I’m different.  I’m odd.  I remember in primary school when the teacher was explaining even and odd numbers.  That was so stupid: there are even numbers and odd numbers and they go in pairs, so we were told.  For each odd number there is an even number.  Half the numbers are even and half are odd, as if there is some universal law of equality and it would be unfair for all the numbers to be even except for one number that was odd.  I knew instantly this was rubbish, but what do you expect from a mathematics class? What could numbers and mathematics possibly tell you about real life?

I remember sneaking a look in my dictionary when I first got a chance and when no one would notice.  At the time I had no idea whether it was a good dictionary or not; it was simply the dictionary primary school students had access to.  I looked up odd but this just confirmed my dictionary was not very good.  I fully expected to see my name under odd.  It would be a much better description without the need for lots of unnecessary words: ‘Odd: Jane’.  If dictionaries had peoples’ names in them then I know what would be under mine.  ‘Odd, odd, odd’.  Not ‘Odd, odd’ you notice because I did learn in primary school that two odds make an even.  I must be an odd number of odds.  If you took all the odd numbers in the world and added them all together then all the oddness in the world would add up to me.

This book is not to say my life is more miserable than yours; I would not presume any superiority to you even in this regard.  Instead, it is a story of how things are not always as they seem, for better or for worse.  It is my story of how by not fitting into the world I found my place in the world.  It seems the world does keep a place for those of us who appear to have no place in it.  Without reading my story this will sound odd; how my worthwhile place in this world was being at odds with what it appears to mean to fit in.  But then I am odd.  I’m not only odd, but I’m odd in an odd way.  Everything about my life is odd.  Perhaps you are odd too.  Perhaps, just as with numbers, half the people in this world are odd.  Perhaps the truth is that most of us are odd in some way, and therefore logically those who do not see themselves as being odd are really the odd ones.  This book, however, is not their story.  It is my story; a story entirely odd. 

3.  High school girls

The oddness of my life was brought home to me every day by watching others.  This was especially the case when it came to the other students at school.  They all fitted in somewhere.  Of course there were always the popular girls.  I call them the trendy girls because they acted as if they were the trendiest people ever and I hate to think of them as being popular.  There were really several groups of trendy girls within the school hierarchy.  At the top were a group of four girls who were always together.  They were always laughing or smiling or animated; such confidence emanated from their presence that you would bounce off it should you be silly enough to approach them.  It was like an invisible force-field that surrounded them and stopped people like me getting anywhere near them.  Of course it was not really invisible.  I knew it was there.  I could see it.  It is just that people do not talk about seeing things like this.  It was like a pane of glass.  You can see everything through it and yet somehow you could also see it.  You could probably walk through it if you wanted to, but this would shatter the glass into many knives that would cut you to pieces.  The only way to break the barrier would be to break yourself.  Sure the barrier would no longer be there but nor would you to know the barrier was broken.  Surely this is not the answer to world peace.  Destruction brings peace to the world but peace in a destroyed world is not real peace.  I would never walk through their air of confidence because even if that was to bring peace to me it would not bring peace to them.  They need it.  It is what made them live.  They were slaves to a merciless force that controlled their lives.

Sometimes I sat and watched them.  Perhaps I hoped to learn what to do from them.  They had everything and were so happy.  Everyone knew one of them dyed her hair blond.  Maybe that is the answer? It does not seem to matter to people that she is not really blond.  The boys still liked her and the other girls still admired her.  She was not even herself.  Sometimes I looked at her and wondered why I did not dye my hair blond too.  It seemed such a simple answer.  Sometimes I found myself in the supermarket staring at the shelves with so many packets of hair dye on it.  Most people must dye their hair because there is so much for sale in the supermarket.  All sorts of different colours and all sorts of different types; even blond is not just one colour.  I could not understand it.  I stared at it all trying to comprehend how the world worked and ended up giving up.  Sometimes I was with Mum and she told me to hurry up.  She had all the groceries and was heading for the exit and there I was, staring into space at something or nothing.  Once Mum offered to buy some hair dye for me but I quickly said no and hurried away.  How embarrassing.  After that, I tried to quickly walk past the hair dye section whenever I was with Mum but it always got me thinking.  Thankfully Mum only ever mentioned the idea of me dyeing my hair the once.

There were of course trendy boys as well.  They were capable of walking straight through the girls’ barriers of confidence, although they did not do so often.  When the trendy boys and girls were together their barriers of confidence merged into one: they did not exclude each other but everyone else was excluded.  I would not say these trendy boys and girls were nice to each other.  In fact, I would say they were quite horrible to each other and yet they seemed to act as if they were being nice to each other.  When the boys acted in this horrible way to the girls the girls seemed to like it.  They even encouraged it.  I can not say if the boys felt the same way about how the girls treated them.  They seemed to like it, or at least be indifferent to it.  They kept coming back for more of the same so I can only presume they liked it.

Luckily the boys left me alone.  To them it was as if I did not exist.  This is probably because I did not really exist; I’m just at school to make up the numbers.  I’m not attractive.  I had nothing to offer.  I kept out of their way and they never saw me.  They either did boy things amongst themselves or interacted with the trendy girls.  Sometimes the things they got up to were quite amusing.  They played jokes on each other, the teachers or the other students.  Most of the time it was sort of funny but really it was very childish.  For example, one of them might place their foot immediately behind the foot of another boy and then push them.  Under normal circumstances, this would result in the boy simply being pushed backwards a step or too.  However, when he tried to move his foot back a step to maintain his balance, he would trip over the other’s foot.  This would generate great laughter from amongst the group of boys, including the one that tripped and fell to the ground.  Perhaps this might be humorous if the episode was performed once, but the repetition with which they performed this manoeuvre became tedious.  Sometimes the unanticipated, like tripping, can bring laughter from the unexpected nature of the result; an unexpected result to an otherwise predictable series of events.  When this is repeated several times, however, the humour in the unexpected becomes mundane and even irritating.  Perhaps the fascination was not so much with the tripping but with the way the boys were constantly amused by something so dull and predictable.  It was amusing to see these trendy boys generating so much laughter from something that should not generate even the least bit of amusement.  Perhaps this is why they laughed too; the only reason for everyone laughing was because everyone else was laughing.

Occasionally the trendy boys would acknowledge the existence of a girl who was not so trendy, but it was clear this was almost always for the benefit of the trendy girls.  It would usually consist of talking amongst themselves, or acting out some silly scene when a girl walked past them.  Occasionally it would reach the extreme of a little name calling, such as derogatory terms aimed at implying a girl was ugly.  This, however, was invariably aimed at acknowledging the trendy girls as being popular.  It seemed the most effective way of making someone look good was to make other people look bad.  The trendy girls, of course, delighted in these occasions.  Having the trendy boys put girls down was the highlight of their day.  It legitimised their place as the trendy girls in the school.  Usually the boys would take this action when the trendy girls were nearby and invariably the trendy girls would react to ensure everyone knew they were there: visible and not the poor unattractive soul who was not trendy.

I do not know how it came to be that the trendy girls obtained this air of popularity.  I never heard anyone say they were popular.  I never considered them as popular.  I despised them and at the same time was curious about them; I was impressed with the way they could produce this presence of trendiness.  They were not popular because the other girls liked them but they were popular because they projected an image of popularity.  The trendy boys acknowledged this and reinforced the popularity of the trendy girls because it suited their purposes.  The teachers took advantage of their status because they knew that if they got the trendy girls to do something, often by inflating their egos, then everyone else would follow.  For example, once a teacher was trying to teach us how to throw a ball into a round hoop.  Apparently it was part of a game called netball that was meant to be fun and character building, but was really just a silly reason to allow the trendy girls to boss the other girls around and thereby promote their superiority. 

The teacher would tell the girls to line up to take turns trying to throw a ball into a hoop.  They never explained why we should do this, why it was important, what we would learn from the exercise or how it would make us better people.  Perhaps one day we would bring world peace by having everyone stop fighting and throw balls into a hoop? After all, if people are throwing a stupid ball into a stupid hoop then they can not be killing each other.  Perhaps this was the motivation, however if this was the case then it was fatally flawed.  In practice, netball was simply an exercise in humiliating the girls who did not know how to play; reinforcing the trendy girls who could play at the top of the hierarchy.  The purpose was to ensure the torment and destruction of innocent souls.

The teachers must have known all this, although teachers of sport seemed to be particularly insensitive and cruel beings and it was possible they did not have the intellectual capacity to know what they were doing.  The teachers simply knew that if they picked the chief trendy girl to go first then she would not be able to help herself but oblige.  Going first was in their mind, and possibly only in their mind or the minds of the other trendy girls, a sign of superiority.  It reminded everyone they were at the top of the hierarchy.  They would therefore comply with the wishes of the teacher even if under different circumstances obeying the wishes of a teacher might be considered nerdy; the antithesis of being trendy.  The teacher also knew that the other trendy girls would jostle for position lining up to take their turns next.  This not only reinforced the chief trendy girl as chief, an act that would please the chief trendy girl and hopefully be reciprocated later, but position themselves as trendy girls, next in the hierarchy of girls that was the natural order of things.  For one to gain from the hierarchy it seemed one had to reinforce the hierarchy, even if this meant pushing yourself behind another girl.  To ensure the hierarchy beneath you looked upwards to you it was necessary to look upwards to the girls trendier than you and acknowledge their position in the hierarchy as being superior to you.

I had to be careful I did not stare at these trendy girls.  Ella seemed to ignore them, and yet I knew she could be one of them if she wanted.  Sometimes I saw them looking our way and laughing; obviously making some joke about me.  Sometimes they caught me looking at them and then I could die.  They usually made me pay for it on these occasions.  Sometimes they did not even have to say anything.  Once they saw me staring at them but I did not realise I was staring at them until it was too late.  They looked angry with me, and yet were still laughing with each other and clearly happy about something.  They were probably looking forward to and planning what they were going to say or do to me.  There was nowhere to hide.  We were all waiting for English class to start but the teacher was late again.  There was no escape because to run away would create an even bigger scene and make things worse.  I just had to wait and watch them approach.  Anticipating what was about to happen was so painful it was hard to imagine what they could possibly do that would be worse.  Then the world erupted into action I could never have anticipated: action that saved me.

Over to my right screaming erupted that was so loud and terrifying that everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to look.  Even the trendy girls, having walked half way towards me, stopped and turned to see what was happening.  I could sense everyone had done likewise.

What we all saw was a primary school girl, screaming the high pitched scream you only hear in horror movies, and fighting with three teachers.  Two of the teachers were men from the high school, but they did not dare touch this student.  They stood nearby, as if to block the girl’s passage.  The female primary school teacher was trying to hold the girl, or maybe she was defending herself against the wild, swinging arms of the screaming girl.  My heart went cold.  The screams of the girl were truly terrifying and the look on her face was torment.  The girl tried to get through the corridor from the primary school to the high school but the teachers blocked her way.  The high school teachers seemed to just stand in the way.  The primary school teacher tried to grab her arms.  I could not hear what the teachers were saying, if indeed they were saying anything, for they were some distance away and they had their backs towards me.  The girl was perhaps issuing words amongst the screams, but they were mostly incomprehensible, if they were words at all.  I was sure the girl wanted to get through from the primary school to the high school.  This perhaps was an assumption based on the actions of the girl and the teachers rather than any spoken words. 

It was not unusual for primary school students to enter or walk through the high school.  Technically they were not meant to, I seem to remember some school rule forbidding it, but it was one of those rules that prevented people from doing something that did no harm, so it was difficult to ascertain why the rule existed.  It was quite common for primary school students to walk through the high school before or after school on their way between home and the primary school.  This was just a short-cut, nothing more than that.  Some high school students did go to the primary school but this was quite rare since the primary school did not provide a short cut to anywhere important.  I can only think of one boy, Jake, who I had actually seen entering the primary school.  I saw this only a few times after school and once at lunch time.  I have no idea where he went.  He was a strange boy no one took much notice of; new to the school this year.  He was probably just going for a walk and went the wrong way.  He was in my English class but no one noticed him there either.  As far as I could tell no one ever took any notice of him.

Some of these trendy girls were in my English class too.  I quite liked English class because this was where we got to read.  I love reading.  I do not have to deal with people but can disappear into another world.  English class was where I first got to read Jane Eyre.  Often English classes were terrible though, like when we had to make speeches.  English classes had a real mix of different students too.  Not like other subjects where the smart nerds were in the top class and the retards were in the bottom class.  In English it was all mixed up: intelligent students and stupid students; trendy students and untrendy students; noisy students and quiet students. 

Our English class consisted of three trendy girls, two trendy boys, about a dozen boys trying to get high marks to go to university and about half this number of girls doing likewise.  These students trying to get high marks were generally okay.  They kept to themselves and worked hard without disrupting the class, a characteristic for which I was most grateful to them.  Some of them are a bit weird, but I had little to do with them.  Luckily Ella was in this class too.  Sometimes Ella explained things to me I did not understand.  She always seemed smarter than me and yet when we got our results back it seemed I did better than her more often than not.  Maybe she understood things quicker than me.  I guess the trendy students saw us the same as the students studying hard to go to university.  I never thought about going to university though.  I had too many other problems to worry about.  Besides, most of my subjects were rather boring.  It was only English that could be interesting, and this was usually when we were reading one of the great novels.  Mostly I just read because I wanted to, nothing to do with school at all. 

Our English teacher was okay.  I mean, being an English teacher is a great start.  He had a passion for books I can relate to, but he also made us do things I dreaded.  I like reading, I do not mind writing about what we read, but when we had to read out loud or give speeches I hated him.  He must have known I hated doing these things but he still made me do them.  I dreaded the days he would call my name out to read the part of a play or to give a speech on something.

Our English teacher was often late for class, and our classroom was in the middle of the school where everyone can see you waiting for class.  Lots of people have to walk past and there is nowhere to hide from all the things that happen.  It is also not far from the primary school.  This is where we were, between classes and waiting for English class, when the girl started screaming.  I’m sure she looked over our way, towards our English class waiting outside the classroom.  There was no reason for her to do this; there could be no expectation of assistance from us.  Furthermore, why should she want to get to our English class or anywhere into the high school for that matter?

I could not help but wonder what life this wild, screaming girl was living.  The terrifying screams, the flaying arms, the forceful look on her face, but most of all the attention she was bringing upon herself.  Clearly this small girl, perhaps only eight years old, had no hope of overpowering three adults.  Even the primary school teacher seemed capable of withstanding her blows.  Perhaps there may have been some hope of escaping past this teacher but with three teachers and such a narrow passageway between the primary school and the high school there was no room to push past.  On one side there was a wall to a building and the other side a fence almost as tall as she was.  Beyond the fence was a drop of over a metre into a garden.  From this garden, even if she did somehow manage to jump the fence, there was no way back up into the high school.  The garden only led back into the primary school.  Indeed, apart from this narrow passageway that was completely barred by the three teachers, the next option was to move through the primary school and walk around the long way to the front entrance of the high school.

At last our English teacher arrived, minutes after the classes had been scheduled to start, and opened the classroom door.  At about the same time one of the teachers blocking the passage of the girl yelled out for everyone to get to their classes.  We all shuffled into class and took our desks.  Jake was the first to enter, which was most unusual.  I could not remember him ever being the first to enter a classroom.  The trendy girls entered next.  They were busy chatting amongst themselves about what we had just witnessed.  Suddenly, I was not important to them anymore.  This is precisely how I prefer it.

During English class we were meant to be quietly reading poetry and making a start on an essay.  I started reading something about the mixture of love and temper together making both stronger.  I did not get far.  I had other things to do.  I thought of this terrified primary school girl and how I could help her.  My personality might have a calming effect on people who were wild and otherwise uncontrollable.  That afternoon, after school, I will meet her in the school yard and calmly talk to her.  At first she will be wild, thrashing her arms about and trying to kick me in the feet.  She will yell obscene words in a terrifying and impatient voice but I will withstand all she throws at me.  The louder she will yell the quieter I will speak.  The more violent her movements become the more composed I will become.  I will be in complete control.  Nothing she will do will create a reaction in me, either physically or inside me.  With time the combination of my calming presence and her physical exhaustion will create a change in her attitude.  The terrified look in her face will disappear, replaced by a combination of peace and tranquillity. 

I will move my hand slowly to her head and part her course, scruffy hair from her face.  Her hair will remain as wild as her demeanour had been.  It will look, and feel, like it has never had a brush run through it.  Beneath this matt of hair a round face with analytical eyes will hide.  She will be observing everything, learning the ways of the world and how to survive within it.  Her eyes will meet mine and she will relax as I slowly stroke her cheeks with the back of my fingers.  I will then crouch in front of her, our eyes level with each other, and I will tell her what she needs to hear.

This scene is just as it would be described in the classic great novels.  It is perfect.  When I ask her a question about what was wrong she will answer me calmly.  I will give her the advice that could only come from a worldly, intelligent woman.  I review the scene many times in my mind over the course of that day and occasionally recount it over the following weeks; she was in trouble and I helped her.  She was desperate and in torment as if peace in this world was impossible but I calmed her.  I acted with sincerity but there was no acting involved.  This was the way I was and it came naturally, without conscious thought or planning.  My actions were as ordinary to me as breathing was to most people. 

After confirming with the girl that she is okay I will give her a reassuring smile to ensure she has the confidence to survive alone.  She will give me a hug and skip away smiling.  Mr Jacobson will be standing nearby the whole time but I will act as if I’m unaware of this.  He will walk towards me from behind.  As I rise, turning, and start to walk away, we will gently collide.  Unaware of his presence and slightly off balance, my body will brush against his as I rise to my feet to move behind me.  He, not expecting my quick movement backwards, will move to what should have been a comfortable distance from me but suddenly is the space I move to occupy.  As our bodies gently touch, he will move slightly back, retreating far enough to prevent any real force in our collision but not so far that his movement is ungraceful or lacks tenderness.  His motion will be the act of a mature gentleman waiting for the woman to enter a doorway before doing so himself. 

As our bodies touch his hands will clasp me, catching my body to prevent it falling after this unexpected impact.  His arms will both absorb any mild impact and provide me with extra stability to remain on my feet.  His hands will gently touch my hips, providing reassurance to my body that far exceeds any pressure they exert.  My hands will lightly hold his arms as I complete my upward trajectory to my feet.  Briefly, we will stand with his hands on my hips and my hands on his arms.  Our eyes will make contact and, smiling, I will thank him for his help.

Mr Jacobson will be full of praise for what I have done for this girl but he will not need to say many words.  His kind words will be intermingled with kind smiles, a gentle touch and a look in his eyes that will penetrate mine.  He is a good man.  He will invite me to dinner and I will accept.  Inside a small, quiet café we will talk, eat and talk some more.  We will talk of world events, of people in trouble, and of course we will discuss literature.  The conversation will be sophisticated and cultured.  There will be lots of smiles and laughter.  I will see his thoughts as if they are my own and yet we will not agree on every point.  We will share a common understanding of how things are uncertain.  Discussing possibilities will be productive.  That night, in bed, as I try to move towards sleep, these possibilities flow through my mind and bring me a sort of peace, for a time.  Thoughts of how perfect the world will be, and me within it, are the prerequisite to a peaceful sleep.

5.  Invisible fools

Of course not all the students were trendy and confident.  Some students naturally demanded attention but others did not.  Some students moved around the school almost invisible, only occasionally and briefly getting into the way of the trendy students.  They were the necessary blandness that made the trendy boys and girls stand out. 

I would feel guilty to mention these invisible students here.  Doing so would be wrong because they would no longer be invisible.  I would hate to think someone would write or talk about me, an invisible girl, so it would be immoral for me to mention them here.  Instead, I mention incidents without mentioning names.

One unfortunate girl had the misguided notion she might be a trendy girl but unfortunately for her no one else saw her this way.  She tried, too often, to impress the trendy girls and become part of their upper hierarchy.  Ella often commented on how pitiful her actions were, but not in a condescending way but instead with a sincere sorrow in her voice.  To see someone chasing their mistaken idea of value in life is difficult to watch.

For example, this girl took delight in exposing her bra strap to the world.  This made me cringe in horror.  For me to be exposed in even this way brings forward unbearable pain.  It brings into my consciousness memories of pain I can not endure to think about.  Some things your mind tries to forget but events around you threaten to bring them out from the deepest recesses of your mind where you try to hide them.  She did not walk around with her strap visible all the time but rather chose her occasion; making a scene when she allowed the strap to become visible from behind her blouse.  The school blouses we were encouraged to wear in summer were so thin that bra straps were invariably visible, if not directly then from the impression they left upon the blouse.  This, however, was normal practice so not worth more than a brief mention.

Instead, this girl made a scene by bringing attention to herself when she allowed the bra strap to become visible.  The fact the bra strap was visible is, to most people at least, of no consequence at all.  Indeed, many modern fashions dictate that bra straps should be visible.  I could never wear such fashions for fear of exposing my ugly body, but nevertheless this might be considered the fashion for normal people.  This exposure of bra straps, however, was not the intention or norm behind the school uniform.  The expected norms of wearing clothes to school did not include bra straps that are not covered by clothes, no matter how thin the material covering the strap. 

It was the way the girl acted when she exposed the bra strap that was significant.  She brought attention to herself more than she brought attention to her bra strap.  She showed the trendy girls the strap, expecting praise and acceptance for behaving in a flirting way that was not so different to how the trendy girls acted.  She let the trendy boys see, but from a distance so they had to acknowledge her and approach her rather than her making the initial move to approach them.  She exaggerated movements to bring attention to herself, not dissimilar to how the trendy girls and trends boys did, but not with the same effect.

The trendy girls tried to ignore her however their actions did not downplay the scene.  They could not help but use the situation to reinforce their place in the hierarchy.  She gave them the attention they sought by showing to them her exposed bra strap.  In seeking this acknowledgement that they were at the top of the hierarchy, they inadvertently acknowledged her existence.  Briefly, by being put in her place outside their trendy, inner circle, she became part of their world.  I’m not so sure what the trendy boys made of this.  They seemed to have a bit of fun with it, as if playing along with the notion she was some slut, an object rather than a person, but this perhaps is the attention she desired.  It placed her in the hierarchy of trendy girls, but not at the top.

One invisible boy who had grown unusually long hair came to school one day with very short hair.  You could not help but look twice at him because he looked so different.  Everyone teased him, especially the trendy boys.  They used insults that were hurtful because of the way they spoke rather than the words they uttered.  Silly things really, such as commenting on how he had fallen under a lawn mower.  He was usually such a sensible invisible boy that this was most out of character; to bring such unnecessary attention upon himself.  I was always careful to have small haircuts and have them often to avoid such an embarrassing change in my appearance.  Perhaps this was the real reason I had long hair: the fear of having unwelcome and unnecessary attention from such a big change was too intense.  Hence with each hair cut I would protest if too much hair was removed, and gradually my hair became longer and longer.  I did not mind having long hair.  It gave some small sense of protection, as if hair was a safe barrier to hide behind.

On this day this poor invisible boy was exposed to the world.  Everyone could see him.  There was no veil to hide behind.  What was worse, he knew it.  His pain was in full view and this brought more attacks.  There was no option available for him but to accept the taunts.  There was nowhere to hide.  Even the next day he still received pain from the other students; the intensity diminished but to my dismay the attention lingered for more than a day.  Once he walked past me, trying not to get the attention of any monstrous eyes by looking their way.  As if by accident he looked up at me as he passed.  Perhaps he knew he had nothing to fear from me or perhaps he needed to get a glimpse of where he was going for fear of crashing into something.  Such a crash would only attract more attention to his already tormented and exposed being.  There was a brief pause as he saw it was only me.  I could feel the terror in his eyes; he had no hair to hide behind.  I tried to show an encouraging smile but there was little I could say to help.  He passed quickly and I was glad his fear was no longer within my view.  I felt bad there was nothing I could do to help his tormented soul but unfairly glad the attention be attracted made me look even more invisible and therefore safe.  I learnt so much from these occasions.  I would never allow my hair to be cut in this way. 

There were, of course, school bullies too.  The physical bullies tended to be boys, not necessarily those at the highest level in the hierarchy but those just beneath this level.  Perhaps they felt physical bullying was a way of promoting themselves in much the same way as the trendy girls might use emotional bullying.  One boy, a particularly nasty physical bully, delighted in knocking the books from the hands of students.  He found particular delight in doing this to a particular invisible boy that he had selected for this purpose.  One day, just before class, he most forcefully knocked the invisible boy’s books to the ground.  With one hand he grabbed the end of the books and pulled them towards him with such aggregated force that the rotation threw the books flying along the ground.  They scraped along the surface of the floor before hitting the wall or the feet of those standing nearby.  The sudden motion and noise drew the attention of everyone nearby.  Some students managed to jump out of the way to avoid the books colliding into their feet while others were too slow and only moved their feet after contact between feet and books had been made.  One jumped awkwardly, and while avoiding initial contact as the books slid along the floor, only managed to land just as the books were moving beneath his feet.  The sudden movement of feet sideways as they tried to