Late April, Early May :: Personal Narrative Writing

Late April, Early May Eileen was special. At least, that's how all of the teachers described her. But all of the kids knew that saying she was "special" was really just a nice way of saying that she was handicapped, or retarded as most of the kids said. The problem with Eileen was that she wasn't completely retarded so she knew when she was being made fun of, which was often. Whenever I'd see her in the halls there would always be a string of kids behind her making jokes and doing impressions of her. She acted as if she didn't notice, but I could always tell from the look on her face that she heard them perfectly, and I could tell that it hurt. I had seventh period gym with Eileen. This is where, for the first time, I was able to see firsthand the torment and ridicule that Eileen had to go through. We were doing pull-ups on a large metal bar one day. When it was Eileen's turn to go, she got up on the bar, went down, and then began with all of her might to pull herself back up. All of the kids began to chuckle as she struggled terribly, all red in the face. It was at this point that we all saw something fall from Eileen's shorts and plop down on the floor beneath her. "She's shit herself," someone exclaimed. It was true. Eileen was pushing so hard trying to pull herself up that it came out right there in front of the entire class. After she had gotten down the class was still laughing hysterically. She looked more confused than embarrassed really. To be honest, I couldn't tell if she was indifferent about what had just happened or if she was horribly embarrassed but just didn't quite know how to react to the situation yet. She bolted out the door in tears just moments later. In the weeks following that incident I didn't see Eileen much. Maybe she couldn't handle coming back to school so soon after what had happened, or maybe I was just lucky enough to have a break from seeing her being constantly belittled and mocked. Not that anyone would ever admit that they really cared, but during those weeks I heard a few kids inquire as to where she was. I think that people liked having her around because she was almost like a safety net for them.