1 Chapter One- A Clumsy Jasmine
"Jasmine! Wake up! If you're not down in the next 20 minutes I'm leaving you and you can walk to school for all I care!" the screams are followed by loud pounding on the door.
Rolling to the other side of my bed I use the bed side cupboard to help me balance, but when the big red numbers on the clock's screen catches my attention I nearly have a mini-heart attack and loose my grip. It wouldn't take a genius to guess what happened next.
With sore limbs and a throbbing head, I make my way to the bathroom to take a quick shower and brush my teeth. Being the germ freak I am, nothing not even a zombie apocalypse, will make me skip my morning shower.
I come back out with 10 minutes left and pull out the first outfit that catches my eye, a dark blue off the shoulder top and black skinny jeans. I tie up my long brown hair into a ponytail and apply lipgloss whilst slipping on my black vans. Not even bothering to check my appearance in the mirror ,because I really don't give two flying rats what people think of me anyways, I grab my school bag and slip my phone into my back pocket before heading downstairs.
The smell of cupcakes leads me to the kitchen, when I get there I see my mom standing behind the counter. She is humming and frosting chocolate cupcakes with Nutella and sprinkling it with broken pieces of almond nuts. I skip the remaining stairs and loose my balance half way but still continue to make my way towards the counter nearly tripping over my own feet twice. I finally reach the counter and use it to hold me up so I can grab a cupcake.
The look of horror accompanied by a scream let's me know that my mother did not see my near death experience and will not be lecturing me about my clumsiness later on, "Oh my! Honey, what are you still doing here? I thought you were already gone. Nikkita is going to leave you and your father already left."she says holding her chest " No worries mom I'm fine. And I'm going, I just came to say goodbye" I sarcastically say giving her a kiss on the cheek and grabbing my lunch. " Enjoy your day and please try not to get into any trouble today!" "I'll try ma!" I scream over my shoulder as I run to the front door.
When I step outside I see my two very irritated siblings impatiently waiting for me. "Hurry up or we are going to be 5 minutes late!" Kean screams. Honestly most times I wish my parents would have just stopped having children after me, " Jeez don't get your boxers in a twist, I'm coming!" As soon as I climb in my older sister gives me 'the look' and backs out of the drive way. " Stop being mean. It's your fault we are late anyways."
It takes us half an hour to reach the high school Kean and myself attend and as soon as we reach he dashes out the car and heads straight through the front doors claiming that he can't afford to have tardiness tarnish his goodie two shoes image, maybe those weren't his exact words but you get the point. With a quick goodbye Nikkita practically kicks me out of her car and speeds off in order to reach her university's campus on time for her first class.
Looking at the high school building gives me goosebumps all over and horrible memories involuntarily resurface. The warning bell brings me back to reality and I take a deep breath and pull myself together, silently reassuring myself that I only have two more years with this horrible school and the horrible people in it and then I will most probably never hear or see either of them in my life again. Making my way to the front doors, I push them open and walk to my first class, silently praying to God that today would be better.
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When I finally do reach my first class I see that everyone is out of their seats and chatting with their friends. The girls showing off their tans and pictures of hot guys they've seen this holiday and the boys flaunting their biceps. However when my presence is made known the whole class goes quite and everyone stares at me for what seems like centuries before hushed whispers break out and words like "ugly" "freak" and my personal favorite "dark skinned witch" , well they didn't say witch but they said something close to it, could be heard. With my head held high I make my way to the back of the classroom where my only friend Penelope is seated, her leg bouncing on the floor and her hand almost all the way in her mouth. She does that when she's nervous.
"Hey Peppy! How are you doing this fine morning?" I say breaking whatever trans she was in "Jaz! Finally, I thought you were gonna be late again. You're lucky that egg head teacher isn't here yet or he would have given you a detention", wow she wastes no time going off at me. "Yeah, well when he decides to grace us with his presence I have a bone to pick with him. That trigonometry work he gave us last term had me questioning my life's desicions." she stops bouncing her feet and we both laugh and talk about our holiday while waiting for Mr Egghead to finally arrive.
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When break finally rolls around Penelope and I make our way to the back of the school. You see we would sit in the cafeteria if it wasn't a tradition here at Mumbai High to trip and throw food on me and my friends. I haven't had many friends over the years because of this said tradition. Peppy doesn't care however, she moved to Mumbai from England a year ago. She arrived at this horror school and decided that she didn't like the snobby kids here. She was on her way to the back of the school to eat her lunch when she met me, sitting in my sweat pants and hoodie devouring a turkey sandwich. We've been inseparable since and together we plan on getting through eleventh grade alive and not giving our bullies the satisfaction of getting to us.
It's hard most days though, sometimes the bullies know exactly the things to pick on that will hurt you. But you got to keep going, there's life after high school and things get better. Well it's what the school counselor tells me anyways. She's the only adult that knows about me being bullied and she tires to help out wherever she can but high school kids can be mean. Still grateful for her wise words that I will never understand but appreciate nonetheless.
"I've got PB and jelly, what have you brought?" Peppy says bringing me back to earth."Mutton curry." "Wanna share?" "Sure." We eat our lunch and engage in small talk whilst admiring the view for a while. There's barely any place to sit on the ground, naturally as the back of the school wasn't meant for people to be hanging out at, so we spend most breaks on top of the roof of the equipment building. It's a good hiding place incase the football players decide to play a game at break and need their stuff. No one really notices us and we get to look at all the cars passing by and the people going about their normal lives. Watching all those people go on with their lives gives me hope, maybe life after high school is better.
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The rest of the day goes by normally, as normal as it gets in fact. I've been successfully avoided by most living creatures in my high school and one that didn't avoid me did trip me and I fell head first into a locker . But on the bright side at least I was not glued to my seat this time and neither was I kicked because some genius thought it was an amazing idea to tape a "kick me sign" to my back again.
When the last bell of the day finally rings I bid goodbye to my fellow outcast and practically throw myself into Nikkita's car, my whole being aching for the sweet comfort my beloved bed and food give me.
We reach our house in less than 20 minutes, because just like me Niki has been craving the sweet embrace of her bed. Entering the house I throw my bag on the floor and kick my shoes to the side, this earns me a scolding from Nikita. But I am too busy following the smell of crab curry coming from the kitchen to pay attention to her.
Call me dramatic but my eyes water at the sight of the crab curry and rice on the dining table. Whether it is out of excitement or because my mother used too much of chili powder we'll never know.
My mom makes us all wash our hands and sit at the table so that we can wait for my dad. After what seems like forever my dad arrives and we thank God for the food He has given to us before I start devouring everything like a hungry whale. By now I'm guessing you can tell that food and I share a special connection, food is the key to a women's heart after all.
We spend the rest of the night talking about our days and from what I've gathered from my selective hearing is that Nikita topped her biology class yet again and Kean has bought another train to add to his train model collection. All is fine until my parents attention turns to me, "So Jaz, anything exciting happened today at school?" "Well I dissected a frog today. It was gross at first but once I got the hang of it I didn't mind examining its organs." "I remember my first time dissecting something, feels like yesterday. But you get used to is once you're a surgeon. The only thing that never gets old however is the fear of leaving a utensil in a patients body. Lord knows how many times Manesh nearly stitched up a patient without checking where the operation scissors were." my dad says shaking his head and lauging fondly. My mother on the other hand looks at him in horror," If you father-daughter duo don't mind we've just finished dinner and I'd love to keep my food down in my stomach where it belongs."
She hates the sight of blood which explains why she went for a blood free career. My mom is the CEO of the biggest magazine in India, Chaay Ka Samay. As you can tell from the name they spill all the tea, perfect job for brown aunties if you ask me. It's still ironic considering the fact that my mother hates gossip, but I guess most things don't make sense anyways.
"Sorry love, let's talk about something else shall we. How about I tell you guys about the time I lost your mom's wedding ring down the toilet the morning of our wedding..."
