The original Natalie vs Veronica

Chapter 7

I went to soccer practice after I got home from school. I got in the car and Mom took me there. When we got there I got out of the car and warmed up with my team.
“Hey Natalie,” Beverly said. “What’s up?”
“Nothing really,” I replied. “I have lots of homwork to do when I get home. I hate homework.”
“That’s a shame because I hate homework too. I have it every day. Even on the weekends.”
“Yeah homework sucks,” Anitra said. She looked up and held her arms out. “I wish homework was illegal in this state.”
“How about the whole country?” I said.
“No,” Jessica said. “I like doing homework. If it was prohibited, no one would be able to get their work done.”
“Sure they will,” Jessi said. “They’ll just finish it in school.”
“That’ll just take longer,” Jessica protested.
“So,” Beverly said. “It’s better than homework.”
“Yeah but it’ll just slow the teachers down.”
“What do you mean slow them down?” Beverly said. “We have about one hundred and eighty school days.”
“We won’t learn as much that’s all.”
I saw our coach come back with his clipboard.
“Dad, why do we have to practice?” Natasha asked. “We’re already good.”
“Because everyone needs to practice,” he replied.
“But we’re already good.”
“Do you think Michael Jordan ever practiced when we played basketball? He was already good but he still practiced.”
We all did our soccer drills and then our coach and the other coach wanted us and his team to play against each other as a scrimmage game.
Guess who was on the other team? Veronica. Oh no. I’ll be fine.
“Hi Natalie Evans,” Veronica said in a snotty voice.
“Hi Veronica Roberta,” I said back in a snotty voice.
Veronica crossed her fingers. “Blackout. No Natalie germs on me.”
“I put my germs on the blackout,” I said.
“Ew,” she said. She uncrossed her fingers.
“And my germs are all over the field,” I said.
“My shoes are protecting me from them.”
“Then my germs are on your shoes then,” I said.
Veronica jumped up and down and ran all over the field screaming. All her teammates were looking at her. Veronica ran over to her coach and asked if she could sit out and the answer was no.
Ha-ha.
We began our scrimmage game. Veronica stayed away from me. She wouldn’t even steal the ball from me. Good thing she’s afraid of my germs. she’s so stupid. Everyone has germs and so does she and I’m not afraid of their germs. I decided to tease her a little bit. I ran up to her and tried to touch her but she moved away.
“Go away,” she said.
“Here comes the Natalie germs,” I said.
“Quit,” she said. “Go away.”
I listened and bugged her again about three minutes later. I snucked up behind her and touched her. She turned around and saw me and freaked out. “Ewe w!” she yelled. “I have Natalie germs.” she touched her own back (where I touched her) and touched one of her teammates.
“Hey don’t give them to me!” she yelled. She touched her own shoulder and tried to touch Veronica’s back.
“I don’t want her germs!” Veronica yelled.
Her teammates touched another girl on her team.
I decided to touch Veronica again. I ran over to her and reached my hand over to her and reached my hand out but she backed away.
“Don’t even think about it,” she said.
I noticed my coach was talking to the other coach. They weren’t watching.
“Natalie, over here!”
I looked toward that direction where I heard my name. it was Anitra. She passed the soccer ball to me I caught it and dribbled it toward our goal. Then I fell down. Veronica had tripped me with her foot.
“Don’t worry about it,” Jessica said to me.
Me? Not worry about it? This is war. I got off the ground and kept playing. I got near Veronica and touched her.
“Aaah!” she screamed. She started rubbing my germs off of her and touched her teammates. Her teammates scraped my germs off with their hands and touched my teammates. My teammates ignored them. They didn’t care about my germs.
Then parents were starting to arrive. I looked at my watch. Three minutes till practice is over.
The other teammates kicked the ball to Veronica but she missed.
“Ha-ha!” I shouted.
Veronica stuck her tongue out at me. I ran after the ball with her and the other kids. The ball was right next to the hole in the ground. The ball was still in the field. Veronica placed her foot in the hole. She kicked the ball as I placed my foot on her foot. Veronica started to run but she fell because my foot was on her left foot. She couldn’t pick her foot up. I took my foot off of hers. Her team circled around her, “Are you okay?” one of them asked.
“I can’t move it,” Veronica replied. “I think she broked it.”

Her teammates glared at me. “You hurt our played thanks to you,” one of them said.
“Sorry,” I said. I didn’t mean to hurt her that bad. I just wanted to get even.
Then practice was over. Mom came and picked me up. “How was practice?” she asked.
“Fine,” I said.
Good thing Mom wasn’t here. She would have been mad at me.

Chapter 9

“Ooo here comes Natalie, I’m so scared,” Veronica said on the next day in school. “Everybody watch out.”
I turned around and have her a double loser sign. Then I bumped into someone. Turned around. It was Megan Stewart. A eleventh grader.
“Sorry,” I apologized.
“Jeas, why don’t you watch where you’re going?!” she said and picked up her binder.
“Jeas. I said I was sorry,” I said.
“if you weren’t so clumsy. This wouldn’t have happened.”
“Megan, she said she was sorry,” her friend told her.
“So. She was walking backwards. What a retard.”
“Aren’t we getting too old for this behavior?”
“Not when we see that weirdo.”
“Hey!” I shouted and pushed her.
She fell against the other kids and they all fell down. They all looked disgusted as they picked up their stuff.
“Jesus Megan!” lot of them said. “Watch it!”
“it wasn’t me,” she said. “It was her,” she pointed at me.
“That’s what you get for calling me a weirdo and a retard,” I said.
“if you weren’t walking backward. None of this wouldn’t have happened!” Megan yelled.
“if Veronica wasn’t making fun of me I wouldn’t have turned around and gave her a double loser sign!” I yelled back.
“You’re retarded Natalie!” Veronica said.
“I am not,” I said.
“Okay, then give me five times five.”
“Twenty –five,” I answered.
“Oh duh! A mild retarded person knows what five times five is. What’s ten and ten?”
“I don’t understand your question,” I said.
“See. You’re retarded.”
“No I’m not.”
Veronica had a cast on her leg from what happened yesterday so she had to use crutches. I guess I did break her led. It was an accident.
“Yes you are,” she said. “You couldn’t understand what ten and ten was,” she said.
“I don’t understand what you mean. You need to be specific. I can’t read your mind.”
Veronica started to laugh. “Hey everybody!” she shouted.
Kids stopped to listen.
“Natalie thinks that we can read each other’s minds!” Veronica said.
“I don’t think that!” I shouted so everyone can hear. “No one can read anybody’s mind!”
“But that’s what you said in the first place!”
“No I didn’t. I said I can’t read your mind not I can’t read your mind like everyone else.”
“You don’t know how to talk do you?”
“I do know how. I’m talking right now.”
“Why are you so literal?”
“I’m not. Just because people use the wrong words and they meant something else doesn’t mean that person was being literal. That’s called a misunderstanding. That happens to everybody.”
“But not all the time,” Megan pointed out. “That only happens to you because you’re different. No one wants to be your friend because you’re too dumb.”
“Megan, that wasn’t very nice.” Her friend said.
“Shut up Linda,” Megan said.
“I was just correcting you because I have a friend who has a cousin who’s autistic.”
“So.”
“Yeah so are you saying my friend’s cousin’s dumb too just because he’s literal. He’s more literal than Natalie.”
(Author’s note: Why did I take this part out too? Don’t you love it when bullying backfires because they end up offending someone else instead of the victim only and they are basically insulting other people as well and making themselves look ignorant and closed minded like Megan did and her friend called her out on it. Linda took insult because of her friend has a cousin with special needs who happens to be literal so calling Natalie dumb for it was offensive because of what it implied. But most people don’t even think when they start insulting someone just to be mean so they end up telling more about themselves than their victim and making themselves look bad and they say people on the autism spectrum have a hard time seeing the big picture?)
Then the tardy bell rang. Kids rushed to their classes. As I rushed to class, Veronica tripped me with one of her crutches. I fell down and my binder slid across the floor about a foot.
Veronica laughed. “Ha-ha.”
Lot of kids were doing fake laughing when they saw what happened.
I was mad and embarrassed. I was so mad, I felt like beating her up but I remembered what Mom told me last night, “She’s just trying to get you started” so instead I grabbed one of her crutches and my binder and ran away with her belonging.
“Ha-ha,” some of the kids were saying to Veronica.
I ran through the courtyard with it where the new sprinkler system was getting put in. I put Veronica’s crutch in the trench and buried it with some dirt and ran to class.
When I got to biology, I sat down.
“Natalie, you’re five seconds late,” said Mr. Englet. Here’s our biology teacher.
I sat down at my table. Bla bla bla, went Mr. Englet.
My head started to get heavy so I rested it on my hand. I noticed Billy and Bobby had their heads down (They’re in my biology class). I started to yawn. My brain was getting filled with words.
Then Ms. Penny came in.
“Yes?” Mr. Englet asked.
“May I see Natalie Evans for a sec?” she asked.
“Sure, no problem,” he replied.
I got up and picked up my binder.
‘She can leave her stuff here,” Ms. Penny said. “She’ll be back before class ends.”
I put my binder down and left the room.
Ms. Penny talked to me in the hall.
“Veronica is very upset,” she said.
“She was making fun of me,” I cried.
“Listen to me. Don’t interrupt. Veronica is very upset. She’s in the office crying. She told me you took one of her crutches.”
“She was making fun of me,” I said.
“I’m not done yet,” said Ms. Penny. “Veronica said you took one of her crutches and put it somewhere. That is childish behavior.”
“I am a child,” I pointed out.
“That is grade school behavior. You’re in high school now. I expect you to be mature like everyone else.”
“I am mature.”
“High school kids don’t hide people’s crutches. Remember yesterday we had a deal? You break a rule, you get isolation.”
“That was about arguing with teachers,” I corrected. Even though I never did. They just judged it wrong.
“Right, I’m adding another rule. No immature behavior ever.”
“Kids make fun of me,” I said.
“If you change, they will stop.”
“I do want to stop wearing diapers but my mom and dad won’t let me,” I said.
“That’s nothing to do with that. It’s your behavior. Crying, getting upset, body playing, fidgeting, chair rocking, falling asleep, and laziness.”
“I am not lazy,” I said.
“I see everyone’s grades. I see your grades all the time. I can see you’ve been skipping some school work.”
“Because it’s too hard.”
“Work is supposed to be hard. It’s hard for everybody.”
“But it’s only stressful for me and it’s very hard and I don’t get it so the only way I avoid anxiety is if I skip it.”
“That is called being lazy. I want you to go get Veronica’s crutch and bring it to her.”
“Okay.” I went to the courtyard. The workers were there. They were putting in the pipes. I walked to the spot where I hid Veronica’s crutch. It was gone.
Uh-oh.
I looked around.
“Are you looking for something?” one of the workers asked.
“Did you see a crutch?” I asked. I described it with hand gestures.
“Yeah, one of us found it and we put it over there right next to that tree,” he pointed.
“Thanks,” I said.
I got her crutch and gave it to her in the office. “Here you go,” I said as I handed it to her.
“Ugh,” she said. “This has dirt on it.”
“What do you say?” Ms. Penny asked me.
“I hid it in the court-“
“No, what do you say?” Ms. Penny said.
Adults have told me interrupting was rude but I guess they were wrong. Everybody else does it too so why can’t I? I guess it’s because I’m different.
“I grabbed one of your crutches because-“
“Natalie!” Ms. Penny interrupted again. “What do you say?”
“I am saying,” I said.
“No, Your apology,” she corrected.
“Oh,” I said. “Sorry,” I apologized to Veronica. “For hiding one of your crutches.”
“And tell her you won’t do it again,” said Ms. Penny.
“I won’t do it again,” I said to Veronica.
“Ever,” said Ms. Penny.
“Ever,” I repeated.
“Thank you,” she said. “Now I want you and her to shake hands.”
When I shook Veronica’s hand, she had her fingers crossed.
“She’s doing it again,” I said.
“Doing what?”
“Crossing her fingers so she won’t get my germs.”
“I am not,” Veronica lied.
“Yes you are,” I cried.
“Whoa stop,” Ms. Penny said. “Veronica, why do you have your fingers crossed?”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “It’s a habit I started when I was five.”
“Liar,” I said to myself.
“Natalie, Veronica crosses her fingers because it’s a habit she developed. When she does it, don’t assume she’s doing it to make fun of you,” Ms. Penny told me.
“She was lying,” I said and touched her.
She scraped my germs off of her and she touched me back.
I touched her back.
“Will you stop it,” she said and touched me.
I touched her back.
“Stop it you two,” said Ms. Penny. “And Natalie, I want you to stop causing childish behavior on others, do you understand?”
“Yes,” I said.
“You do it one more time, there will be a consequence. You can go back to your class now.”
(Author’s note: Does this all sound familiar to anyone who was bullied? Always blame the victim, always the ones at fault and the bullies always get believed when they tell their side of the story which they lie about. People always take the bully’s side. I wonder why I changed this too in my new version. Was it so upsetting I had to change it to make it more pleasant?)
I left the office and went back to class.
The class was in big chaos when I walked in Mr. Englet’s room. Kids were out of their seats and they were at the other side of the room looking through a microscope. I can see kids were in groups.
”What are we doing?” I asked.
“Looking at the plant cells,” Heather replied.
“What group am I in?”
“I don’t know. Ask the teacher.”
“Mr. Englet, what group am I in?” I asked at his desk. He was on the computer checking his email.
“The kids in here got into groups of four randomly to do their assignment on plants,” he replied. “So just choose a group that doesn’t have four.”
“Okay,” I said. I looked for a group but nobody wanted me.
“Go away, we got enough,” said Jordan.
“You’re not going to be in our group,” said Amy. “You’ll ruin everything.”
“I will not,” I said.
“Yes you will. You’ll touch everything and mess it all up.”
“The teacher told me to find a group that doesn’t have four.”
“Well you’re not going to be in this group,” said Kara. “Because you’re like Curious George. We don’t want you.”
“Yeah!” said Amy and Sarah.
I went to my teacher and told him I couldn’t find a group.
“You can’t?” he said. “Okay let’s see.”
He looked for a group for me. About three groups only had only three kids.
“How about that group over there,” Mr. Englet pointed.
I looked at the direction where he pointed.
Julian, Kyle, and Tara! OH NO! they hate me.
“They don’t want me,” I said.
“They don’t?” said Mr. Englet. “Let’s see.” He took me over to them. “Excuse me. Would you three mind having her in this group?”
They all sighed. “No.”
“Good. That was very nice of you guys to let her be in your group,” said Mr. Englet.
He gave me a piece of paper what everybody had. “Make sure you guys help her with this.”
They all rolled their eyes when Mr. Englet turned his back.
“Now we’re stuck with this retard,” Kyle whispered to Tara.
“Come on, having her this once isn’t gonna kill us,” she said.
Julian and Kyle kept complaining about me.
“Will you two shut up and get on with this. We only have about fifteen minutes,” said Tara.
They stopped complaining.
“You’ll need a pencil,” Julian told me.
I went back to my seat and got a pencil and went back to my group. Tara gave me her paper. “Copy everything down,” she said.
I copied everything down and gave back her paper.
Kyle put another slide in the microscope and looked through. He adjusted it. After he was done, we all looked through it and wrote down what we saw. After we were done, Tara took out the slide and put in another one in. She had troubles adjusting it.
“Here, let me try,” said Julian.
“No I got it,” she said.
Kyle and Julian fussed over. “Here, I’ll do it,” said Kyle.
“No!” Tara said. “I’ll get it.”
“I’ll help,” I offered.
“No! You’ll make it worse,” said Julian.
“Com on!” Kyle said impatiently. “We’ve only got about five minutes.”
Tara struggled finding the plant cell.
Kyle sighed. “Here, I’ll do it.” He pushed her away and looked through the microscope. He moved the slide around and focused the lens. “There it is,” he said.
We all looked through and began to write down what we saw.
“Okay, it’s time to wrap things up,” said Mr. Englet. “We’ll finish this tomorrow.”
Kyle took the slide out and put it away with the other slides.
Tara turned off the microscope and Julian put the plastic over it and we waited in line. Kids were talking and goofing around. I felt pressured. What if I do something clumsy like bumping into someone because someone bumped into me.
“Kids, either you wait in line and keep your hands to yourself or sit in your seats,” said Mr. Englet.
Bunch of kids were offended. “We’re not kids!” lot of them said.
“You’re acting like you are,” he said.
“We’re teenagers!” Ashley said. “Just like babies cry, and three year olds throw temper tantrums.”
“Okay, everybody in your seats!” Mr. Englet ordered.
When we refused, he told us if we didn’t, he won’t let us leave and we’ll be late for our next class so we listened.
Then the bell rang.
We rushed out of our seats and went to our next class.
* * *
“I’m home!” I said as I walked through the front door. I took my shoes off and put them away.
Mom doesn’t like it when things are out of place. I took off my coat and hung it up and went in the kitchen.
“How was school?” Mom asked.
“Boring,” I said.
“I hope you’re not skipping any school work,” she said.
In the middle of this month, my Mom got my report card and saw I got some Fs because I didn’t do some schoolwork because it was too much information and it was too stressful. I left the kitchen and went upstairs. I was about to play The Legend of Zelda when Mom came in my room. “Do you have any homework young lady?”
I looked down. “Yes,” I said.
“Come down and get started on it.”
I sighed and turned the game off and went downstairs. I took my homework out of my backpack and sat down at the kitchen table.
Kelly opened the sliding door and came in. “Mom, Matthew keeps mimicking me. I told him to stop but he won’t listen.”
Mom opened the sliding door. “Matthew, knock it off!” she shouted.
“Okay!” he said.
I was a little concerned. What if Matthew didn’t know Mom was using ‘knock it off’ as an expression because he didn’t hear Kelly come in and told on him so I went outside and said, “Matthew, Mom means stop mimicking your sister!”
“I know,” he said.
“Just making sure,” I closed the sliding door. “Mom, I need help with my homework.”
“I’ll be right with you,” she replied.
She had to finish washing the kitchen counters.
My mom works in the downtown area in a bookstore but it’s for adults only so that means no one under twenty one is allowed in there. The books are inappropriate. The store even has Playboy magazines in there. Mom doesn’t work there every day. She only works there on Tuesdays, Thursday s, and Saturdays from ten to three.
Outside Princess and Mittens sat on the patio chairs as Matthew was playing fetch with his dog.
“Kelly, will you get your brother?” Mom asked.
“Sure,” she went outside and called him.
When he came inside, Mom told him and Kelly to sit at the table.
(Author’s note: Yeah I can see why I took this all out. Natalie has a tutor so her mother wouldn’t be asking her if she has any homework, Matthew and Kelly wouldn’t be home yet because they get out after she does so they wouldn’t even be home yet when she is so this part just wouldn’t have worked. Plus parents don’t even get their kids report cards until the quarter has ended so it would be October when she gets the cards, not September. Plus it’s more likely she would have been sent a letter from her school to inform her of her daughter skipping schoolwork. That’s the way it was in my school when kids would refuse to do their school work, letters were sent home and I had to help fold them and put them in envelopes and seal them and put them in the pile for them to be mailed out. Plus since she has a tutor, she wouldn’t even be skipping schoolwork and her work would be modified)
“Kids, today your brother called and said Kate’s little sister’s turning ten so we’re invited to come.”
I was very excited. I love making new friends but then a thought came to my head. What if she doesn’t like me? What if she’s mean to me? I tried to drop the thought.
“Where is that at?” Kelly asked.
“At her parents’ house,” Mom replied.
Matthew and Kelly kept discussing it.
“What time do we leave?”
“We need to get her a present.”
“What if she doesn’t like our present?”
“Kids, don’t worry about it,” Mom said. “We’ll figure it out tomorrow.”
Matthew went outside and Kelly sat on the couch in the family room to do her homework. Mom helped me mine.
Then I remembered something. “Mom I have a soccer game tomorrow.”
“I know. You’re going to skip it. Do you mind?”
I thought for a moment. Family is more important than a sport game. “No,” I said.
(Author’s note: I wonder why I changed it to next Friday instead of the next day. Maybe because you don’t tell people on short notice about things and it’s so damn annoying when they do this. I just think they have poor time management and are very disorganized people they tell people things on short notice so I changed it in my new version because I want Kate’s family to be more considerate. But then I notice in that story the weeks seemed to repeat themselves and it was like a never ending month but it happens in stories and movies. I’ve seen it. Unfortunately that part is implausible too in my new version and it’s nearly impossible to change or it will have to be all rewritten again and parts being changed and taken out and all)