It was my fault. I invited vipers into my den. When it came time to send out invites to my 12th birthday party, I padded the list with my frenemy, Lindsey, and friends of friends like Lela and Rachel until I had as many guests as I now had years. Several of them probably resented spending their Sunday afternoon at the home of a girl they barely knew, but once the invites get sent out, RSVPs are in the parents’ hands. I knew I could count on that. I got along with parents a lot better than I did kids my own age.
Lindsey and I were barely speaking at the time. She was a natural-born cheerleader with bright, bouncy, blonde curls. I was a dishwater blonde with uncomfortably large breasts. She only hung out with me when her cooler friends were busy. I only hung out with her to look cool.
I thought I owed an invite to Rachel, a sinewy brunette who made one-piece bathing suits look “athletic,” not childish. She had invited me to her birthday party a couple of months before, a big blow-out at her house involving air hockey, an aggressive game of hide and seek and some serious trampolining. I felt pretty cool opening up that letter. “I’ve made it,” I thought, “I’ve finally arrived.” When I showed up that Saturday, a pan of homemade potato skins in hand, I realized how foolish I had been. Our entire sixth-grade class had made the cut.
The trampoline was a small one with a four-person limit, so no one should have been surprised that it broke while eight tweens jumped up and down on it manically, but Rachel blamed the whole thing on me. I was the chubby straw that broke the camel’s back.
I should’ve learned from Rachel’s example and planned a few activities for the day, then blamed somebody else if anything went wrong. I assumed we would just hang out and talk while I opened presents, then we’d eat some cake and everyone would go home happy. How hard could it be?
Surprisingly hard. This was a new friend combination, one I cobbled together for expedience’s sake. Conversation didn’t flow.
I had eclectic (read: confused) musical tastes back then. In the sixth grade alone, I cycled through obsessions with Bon Jovi, then Prince, and eventually Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. I taught my whole sixth grade class the words to “Last Dance with Mary Jane” at recess one week.
While my mom frosted the cake in the kitchen, I racked my brain for a way to entertain my guests and lighted on a video recording I made of Prince performing at the MTV Video Music Awards the week before. I popped it in the VCR and we began to watch the artist formerly and currently known as Prince perform “Pussy Control” in a bright yellow jumpsuit with giant holes exposing each bare purple butt cheek. I sang along to every word, my audience briefly entertained, if only because they were scandalized by the content of the video: “Good mornin’ ladies and gentlemen, boys and motherfuckin’ girls. This is your captain with no name speakin’ and I’m here 2 rock your world.”
When his performance ended, I rewound the video and started it over again.
I had a bad feeling about this party. In the days leading up to it, my mom said she wanted to try making a buttercream frosting instead of one of my usual favorites: Chocolate, German Chocolate, Any Kind of Chocolate. At least the cake would still be chocolate.
If there’s one thing my mom knew, it was dessert. As a child, I caught her sneaking a second helping of homemade cakes and pies as she cleaned up the kitchen at night, assuming no one was watching.
So, I consented, reasoning butter and cream were both very good things. I assumed the sugar was silent. I was wrong: the sugar was nonexistent. Lela took one bite before setting her fork down for good. Rachel was more resourceful, eating the chocolate cake out from under the piles of flavorless frosting. Lindsey played with her serving, mashing beautifully handcrafted cake and cream together until it looked like a dirty snowball and showing the others, “look what I made.” I was embarrassed: a fat kid’s birthday party should have excellent food.
My birthday party was ruined. But the buttercream travesty was only the beginning. What came next was the real icing on the cake.
One of my guests stole my diary.
Like most class clowns, I was painfully self-conscious underneath the disguise. When I didn’t have the stage, other kids tormented me about my weight.
I kept my diary in the middle drawer of a wooden desk in my bedroom. It was a place of honor. I opened my diary after school every day and confided in it. I sought the same solace when my party finally came to an end, but when I looked for it, it was gone. My heart sank.
My diary was the only place I could be myself. I filled pages with elaborate fantasies. I made a list of all the boys I liked, “Mike Sellers, Jordan Brandon, Paul Short.” Paul’s was an unfortunate last name. He was really, really short.
I knew immediately that of my “friends” had stolen my diary. Guests had been trickling in and out of my bedroom all afternoon. Anyone could have taken it. Still, I searched frantically for it, in my closet, behind rows of black dresses, next to my favorite black combat boots, beneath my bed amidst dust bunnies and a long-forgotten troll doll, hoping desperately I was wrong, but I didn’t find it.
I couldn’t sleep that night. I agonized over the content of my diary. In one section, I claimed I was a vampire. I wore one earring in my left ear because it was the sign of the vampire (and gay guys and nutty old women who always seem to be losing things).
My favorite movie at the time was Interview with a Vampire. I admired Lestat’s ruthlessness. I thought if I was a vampire, people wouldn’t mess with me. I wanted to be un-fuck-with-able. I also wanted to be Kirsten Dunst’s character in the film. I wanted Brad Pitt to kiss me. For vampires, it seemed, anything was possible.
I imagined people whispering about it in class. “Did you see the list of boys she likes? Mike Sellers, yeah right. He would never date her.” Only a week ago, a girl sitting next to me asked our teacher why liking someone was called a “crush.” Before Mr. Bonner could reply, Chaz piped up, “because Eileen would crush any guy she likes.”
I showed up to class the next morning feeling half-dead, but on a mission. I walked into the room just before the bell rang. All eyes were on me. People pointed and whispered. The wolves were already ripping me apart, but I stayed calm. I had only one thing on my mind: get it back. Get the diary back. For two hours I suffered through math and English lessons as if nothing was wrong. Finally, when it came time for mid-morning break, I stayed seated and waited for something to happen.
Then I saw it.
Rachel pulled my diary out of her backpack and handed it to Mike Sellers. I flew across the room and grabbed it out of Mike’s hand before he had a chance to open it. Rachel was stunned, “I – I didn’t take it! Lela gave it to me this morning.” Mike just shrugged. He didn’t care about reading my diary. He knew I liked him. Everyone liked him.
I probably should have smacked her. I certainly thought about it. But as soon as I had my diary back in my hands, all I could think of was getting the hell out of there. I ran to the principal’s office and called my parents, complaining of a stomachache.
I spent the next two days at home, sick with embarrassment. I didn’t dare tell my mom what was really going on. I learned a long time ago there was nothing she could do about it.
When I was too young to walk home from school, my mom used to pick me up. As soon as I was safe inside her mini-van, I would collapse in tears. I begged her to homeschool me every day. Maybe she should have talked to my teachers, but she was a teacher herself. She sympathized with them. It was around that time I started developing a sense of humor. Fast.
When I returned on the third day, the sadistic idiots had already moved on to the next target. “Did you hear John has a hernia? What a loser!” One of my classmates actually had the idea to kick balls at John to try and rupture it, but John complained to one of the teachers. He was a social pariah after that, but at least he was safe.
I was too afraid to write for a very long time. I didn’t keep another diary for twelve years. I never submitted anything to my high school literary journal, Connotations. I dropped out of Creative Writing my sophomore year of college.
And I’ve never, ever, thrown another birthday party.
But now, vampires are really cool.
Tags: betrayal, birthday parties, diaries, eileen beard, friendship, one-piece swimsuits will always be cool, the horror, these girls are not your real friends sweetie
I knew when I read the title that I would be horrified by this story. Thank goodness you were clever enough to get it back SO FAST and they moved on so quickly. I don’t know if I would have been so clear-eyed in your situation!
Middle school girls are the worst.
So are middle school boys. Middle school in general is just awful.
Middle school girls are the worst. Middle school boys are the worst. Middle school teachers are the worst.
The years between the ages of ~11 and ~15 are just THE ABSOLUTE WORST.
Why middle school teachers? I think mine were American Heroes just for putting up with me.
I know many middle school teachers in our town, and they are TOTALLY heroes.
In fact, I have a good friend who is a middle school teacher and she is awesome. My middle school teachers were probably not, in retrospect all that bad. (The changeover from a magnet elementary school to a garden-variety public middle school was a bit of a shock.)
Middle school girls are the worst: The Toast Commentariat Story.
Oh, man. I really want to travel back in time and take 12-year old you out for a milkshake or something. As a fat-and-unliked class clown myself, I had my fair share of similar horrors, but the worst weren’t until I was a few years older than this.
It’s good that you’re writing again. 🙂
This is like all of my childhood fears come to life, right here. Someone stealing my diary at 12 would have CRIPPLED me.
DITTO. I don’t think I would have ever written another word again.
My dad took mine, read it, and then WROTE FUCKING RESPONSES IN IT.
I was not pleased. We still don’t talk. And I don’t keep a diary anymore.
How pathetic of him.
My brother did that too. We’re still close, but I can’t think about that incident too much or else my blood pressure rises.
My grandmother did that to my mom! Terrible, terrible woman.
Ugh, if it’s any consolation, it sounds like 12-year-old me would have totally crushed on 12-year-old you. Oh and if it’s any FURTHER consolation, my sister once stole my diary during its most embarrassing phase (middle school also). This was right when I was discovering rah rah sisterhood womyn-power earthy rage, and I regret to tell you that for a few months, when I got my period, I would smear a little on the pages and like, revel in my womynhood.
TOO GROSS?
omg that is so great.
Oh god. The thought of someone stealing my diary even now is paralysing, so I just want to high five 12 year old you for managing to get your diary back, even if you did have to fake sick afterwards. Why are 12 year olds so awful and why does all that crap hang around for so long in our minds?
Oof. That age where kids are like lions and pick off the weakest members of the herd. It’s terrible. I remember well staying home “sick” when I really just couldn’t face another day of the cruelty and I wasn’t even targeted particularly badly.
Oh man, this was a stressful read. I still am very nervous about journals, but always forget to hide them properly.
In a semi-related story, my mother recently told me that people in middle school made fun of me but I was too distracted to notice, so I was so odd it canceled out the bullying. Counting that one as a win, I guess.
I did the same thing. My mom still sometimes goes into this overprotective mode where she’ll try to shield me from something that might bring up painful memories of middle school and I’m like, “I have no memories of middle school that are not about searching for cool rocks on the playground.” It’s the positive side of ADHD.
ahhh same here. I remember once my sister and my cousins (we went to the same school for a few years) were talking about who was and wasn’t popular and my reaction was basically “there are other people in our school?”
I am glad to hear this happened to other people! It always made me feel like I was getting the best bits of no lasting trauma, but still with the cachet of being an outcast in junior high.
Oh god. My whole middle school life is flashing before my eyes. Diaries. Birthday parties. Constant fear of embarrassment (in particular, people finding out I like certain boys or have never been on a date at the ripe age of 12 or 13). Moms doing the wrong thing. I had a really nice 12th birthday that involved me and my friends getting sunburnt at my lakehouse and going to bingo at the country club (what) and then it all went TO CRAP once I started middle school. Boy did it go to crap.
Yeah, this was an awful time in my life, too. But what made it worse is that my aunt – who is 9 years older than me and came to live with us after my grandmother died – stole my diary, pried open the lock, and I came home from school to her and my mom reading passages out loud and laughing uproariously.
Scarred for life, I’ll tell ya. 😉
“these girls are not your friends sweetie” – everyone’s middle school life, perfectly encapsulated in 7 heartbreaking words.
Jesus. That is some serious Harriet the Spy shit right there. I think the bottom dropped out of my stomach reading the part where you got to school the next day.
The potato skins were my mom’s idea, too.
Moms’ social ideas, I tell ya.
Seems like a good idea to me! Potato skins rule!
Sometimes I hate people so much…
I’d like some closure on the buttercream issue. How did your mom manage to screw that up? Any idea where the sugar went? I’ve never had a buttercream frosting that wasn’t too sweet.
Real official decorating buttercream only has a tiny amount of sugar in it. It is sad, but holds up well in high-pressure cake situations! (I only use it to put details over marshmallow fondant, which tastes like marshmallows…)
Ah, thank you. That clears things up somewhat. I don’t like frosting very much (no, I don’t want the roses or the corner piece), so maybe I’ve been longing for professional buttercream all these years and had no idea…
I’d like some closure on the buttercream issue as well. Years later, I asked my mom if she forgot the sugar, but she insisted it came out perfectly. Our 12 year old taste buds just weren’t refined enough to appreciate it yet.
She must have been going for something similar to what lemonadefish described.
I have a few of those childhood issues I’d like closure on, too, but I know I’ll never get any because everybody remembers the event differently. I’ve had to give up on some of them.
Oh my god, so many elementary school and middle school memories flooding back to me. Teachers catching friends with notes and reading them out lout to the whole class, and being loudly, publicly rejected by the group of girls I thought were my friends, and being the girl whose mom called Ricki’s mom when she came home crying because she didn’t get invited to Ricki’s Halloween party (and then being the girl who dressed up as Sherlock Holmes at Ricki’s Halloween party after getting a belated but UNDOUBTEDLY GENUINE invitation the next day)…man, people are awful and I still writhe thinking about some of those things. Except the Sherlock Holmes costume. That was badass.
Man, if my kid got in the minivan every day after school and burst into tears begging to be homeschooled, I would fucking homeschool my kid.
I did the same thing in Middle School, only usually the crying occurred in the morning when I had to go to school. My mom and dad both had to work to pay our bills, so my homeschool pleas fell on sympathetic but helpless ears. I feel pretty bad today for the stress I put my mom through. A couple of times, I just refused to get out of the car. Looking back, she was probably freaking out between wanting her kid to be okay, wanting to get me educated, and worrying about missing or being late to her job.
“In one section, I claimed I was a vampire. I wore one earring in my left ear because it was the sign of the vampire (and gay guys and nutty old women who always seem to be losing things).”
I remember being 12 and watching Interview with the Vampire and being aware, for the first time, of my sexuality. Which has not, as you might imagine, resulted in me being into anything sexually bizarre like bloodlust or even Tom Cruise.
Ahhhh middle school. I remember clearly being in the car with my mom shortly after my 11th birthday and she commented “when I was 11, I suddenly felt very religious” and I thought “well, that’s weird” but LO AND BEHOLD, this struck almost immediately, taking the form of a gothy new-age witchy thing with me and 3 friends. (this was but a few short years before The Craft came out which also means, youngins, it was essentially BEFORE THE INTERNET – it’s impressive that we had the initiative). Our practice, such as it was, was heavily, BUT HEAVILY influenced by The Mists of Avalon. Eventually our coven disbanded under the guise of “deciding to become solitary practitioners” which was a polite way of saying we had all gotten sick of each other and all this new-agey crap.
I think, nay, know, we weirded out some classmates at our small all-girls’ Episcopal school. Bizarrely, my parents have never (to this day) said a word about this whole episode. They certainly knew about it — we were constantly asking them for rides to the new-age crystal store.
Who am I kidding, I still have a soft spot for new-age crystal stores and Windham Hill recordings.
I never kept a diary for fear of just such an occurrence. Also, I think young me would have very much liked to have been friends with young you. And I would have loved it if somebody brought homemade potato skins to my party.