Excerpt: Beauty's Beholder

I'm sitting in the back of the room where my regular seat is, trying to pay attention enough so that Mr. Blair won't call on me yet trying not to make eye contact so that he won't call on me and mortify me in front of the whole History class. I sit slouched, my tiny frame as low in the chair as it can be while remaining semi-upright. Since my purple-black hair is so short, I don't have it to hide behind, and I left my hoodie in my locker. Could he be any more boring? I mean who cares about Getty's dress and where in my future will I ever need to know this? Oh wait, it's the Gettysburg Address. I learned all about that last year at my old school. The old school where I fit in. Where I had friends and where I knew everyone, where I'd been going to school since kindergarten. The old school where I was popular and where I had a boyfriend. The old school, where I wasn't some outsider moving in where I was neither wanted nor where I wanted to be. The new school, where I am now, is Disappointment Cove High School in Disappointment Cove, Missouri. I'm not kidding, that's the name. To say that it has been a major disappointment to me would be a major understatement.