Chapter 4 High School

Diamond was about to finish what had been the worst year of her school life. She had done well with her studies, but socially she struggled for the first time in all her years at school. Everyone changed this year, and mostly not for the better. Kids that had been allies since kindergarten had turned into unrecognizable beasts and she found herself dreading the day each morning she woke.
Jim walked into the kitchen and popped an espresso canister into the machine on the counter. It gurgled out his coffee in a frothy tan stream. Diamond sat at the table and hung her head over her cereal bowl. Cradling his coffee, Jim sat down across from her.
“Good morning hon.”
“Morning Dad.”
“Ca va?”
“Fine.”
“Pourquois?”
“Dad!” Diamond wasn’t feeling French this morning.
“Ok, Sorry, desole....je suis tres desole...” Jim smiled.
Diamond sunk deeper into her hair and bowl cocoon.
“C’mon what’s goin on” he asked.
“School is full of jackals and adults that pretend to know things”
“That’s all?”
“Daaad! I’m sick of it!”
Jim mused that she had a ways to go to high school graduation, and college if she chose.
Jim had news for Diamond.
“Diamond honey, I have a cool surprise.”
“What?” Diamond grumbled.
“Look at me please, sit up.”
Diamond collected her tresses off of the table and straightened. She looked at her dad.
“We’re taking the trip.” Jim gleamed.
“What?!” Diamond was instantly changed.
“I got the time off and we’re going on the sail down to Mazatlan this summer, right after school gets out.”
Diamond screamed and Jim jumped.
“Ow....so.....Jesus...can you quiet down?.”
Diamond was up and dancing around the kitchen.
“Can you stand to go to school a while longer?” Jim asked.
Diamond curled her lip and snarled,
“Yes Matey, I’ll swab their decks to get to the southern seas, arrrr, I’ll scarf up their silly fables to get me to warm waters, arrrr, I’ll pierce my lobes at the equators edge!”
Diamond staggered with her imaginary crutch and wooden leg over to Jim and hugged him.
“i’m sooo exited mon pere.”
Diamond kissed her dad on the forehead, grabbed her bag and ran out the door to school.
Jim wondered how he would break the rest of the news to her. That he had a new job and they might not be coming back here after the summer. He had until the fall before he started full time with them, before they had his labs built in the new facility. He’d decided to use the time to make good on a dream they had wished for every time they sailed his prize possession around the San Francisco Bay and up and down the California coast. The dream was that they would pass by the Faralon islands just outside the Golden Gate and turn south and just keep going.

As Diamond left her driveway that morning on the way to school she saw Karolyne and quickly looked away. A queasy feeling grew within her. She braced for the impact as Karolyne stomped over quickly joining Diamonds fast pace.
“Does your mom know you’re wearing that much makeup?” Karolyne interrogated.
“Did your mom drop you a-lot?” Diamond retorted.
“My mom says girls who wear lots of makeup at our age are being inappropriate… Does your mom let you, does she know?”
Diamond groaned audibly and glared at Karolyne. Many of the other girls in their class were wearing makeup by now, Diamond was somewhere in the middle of the curve.
“Yea Karolyne, she knows.” Diamond picked up her pace.
“Why do you wear makeup?”
“Why do clowns cry when they surf the crimson wave?”
“You’re so weird.”
Karolyne ran ahead and chanted after her: “Diamonds and Pearls, what a weird girl” a stupid rhyme that a boy made up years ago and had stuck. He didn’t even go to their school anymore.
Diamond imagined that southward turn with the sails above her and the sun on her left rising up over the far off california foothills.
“Diamond and pearls, she married a squirrel” Karolyne faded off spotting another young sinner in need of her superior opinions and policing. Diamond walked quickly towards the school feeling irate and burdened as usual, but also triumphant with the news of the trip.
Karolyne wasn’t the worst of it, Diamond thought steeling herself, she was just insecure and bossy. Diamond knew better than to take her on. The morning had already been complicated by the new arrival of her womanhood, she menstruated for the first time and had to run to her parents bathroom for help. Diamond’s mother had let her wear some makeup to celebrate what was actually mortifying her. It was all so strange, but kinda sweet of Mom, she thought. She was a late bloomer compared to most of the other girls, her mom had made her wait until her menses came to let her wear makeup. Diamond didn't’ mind actually, unlike most of her peers she was in no hurry for adulthood.
Karolyne would find anything she could to make drama with Diamond, had been doing it since Jr High, she was insecure and always trying to elevate herself above the others, always the bossy one, Diamond had long ago dismissed her superiority complex. So, as for Karolyne and the rest, Diamond reassured herself, she just had to make it through to June.
Up until this year Diamond had gotten on well with everyone, always feeling free to be herself. She was openly different, easy with being creative and expressive, and up to a certain age it never occurred to her peers to see her uniqueness as a problem. Throughout grade school and jr. high she had been embraced. But as high school approached the kids began to engage a kind of terror. They began to warn each other of the dangers of standing out, of being seen as different. They gossiped about what awaited them when they switched to high school. They told ominous stories of kids who found themselves cast out by wearing non name-brand clothes, by talking to the “weirdos,” by freely expressing themselves, by being talented in the arts, or taking any risks outside of accepted suburban sporty norms. This year she had suffered the result of all their fears, she had come to represent what was to be avoided.
Prior to this year, Diamond didn’t track the subtle movements of criteria among some of the children who were beginning to judge her quietly for not dressing like the others, for singing openly on the playground, for being unaware of popular T.V. plot lines, for being ... different. Before then, her peers never openly criticized her, though they naturally sensed her differences.
When she switched to high school, their judgment was in plain view. Girls who had joined her in long nights of sleepover giggling and play, who had been with her since kindergarten, began to fear her. If they were seen talking to Diamond, their social status would be damaged. They would be considered strange too. Outcast, she found herself ignored at lunch by the various groups that she used to eat with. Cliques were forming and she was not being welcomed in any of them. She was weird.
She would make small attempts to tone herself down and put on a show of being “normal.” But her colors had flown since the beginning, these kids knew her, and would not soon forget the hazard of authentic personality that she represented. They were pack animals and their greatest fear was to be ostracized, banished from the group, a primal and ubiquitous fear. She had earned her banishment by being too different, too honest, too expressive, they could not make that mistake.
Summer break was coming soon, and it’s liberation called out to her like a beacon. She was desperate to sail away from these trolls.