MOVING ON BY CAROLINE BROWN
 
I had been dreading this day for over a year now. The school smelled the same as every other day, of pencil shavings and text book paper mingled with the occasional waft of perfume as one of the popular girls walked by. I never understood why I couldn’t be that way: constantly smelling wonderful and catching the eye of all the guys as I walk by merely to sharpen my pencil. The school smelled the same that day but still it was different. Every one of my senses was heightened and sharper. I could smell lunch, though I’m not sure if it was even being prepared yet, the smell of the calculators’ plastic, and even the smell of the old books my teacher left in a basket for the students who he deemed ‘too lazy to get a book of their own.’ The fluorescent light flickering ever so slightly above me was maddening as usual, but different. Somehow I felt I would miss it. Mr. Smith’s voice was, as always, annoying and boring, but I sensed it was something I would miss as well. The last day wore on. In every class, students ran from desk to desk, swapping yearbooks, phone numbers, and goodbyes. Meanwhile, I stood next to one person and stayed there talking instead of running to several people in search of multiple messages that all sounded the same. Of course, the person I attempted to stay beside would run away to another person to gather farewells. Lunch rolled around, and I eagerly hunted down friends who sat at the same table as every other day. But this was not just any other day; it was my last day in Indiana, and I didn’t want to leave. My father is in the military, and that makes me a ‘military brat.’ But I just prefer to be called what I am, the daughter of a man in the military. I never really liked the way ‘military brat’ sounds. And what I’ve come to realize is that I am not simply a ‘military brat,’ I’m something different, and unique. My father is on recruiting duty, keeping me from bases and the possibility of joining up with past friends, making me almost like a gypsy, simply moving through life the only way I know how. But ‘military brat’ is still the title others prefer whether I like it or not; so I smile and accept it when I randomly hear the title directed at me. “Caroline, there you are!” Dona called, and held out her yearbook to me. “Come on! Sign! Sign!” I took it gratefully. No one had offered me their yearbook yet; I had been the one handing mine out to people. If you’ve ever had to ask, you know it’s not as wonderful a feeling as having someone ask you, just like when you have to ask for something as simple as a hug. “Got it, Dona, you have to sign mine too though; don’t forget,” I said, and smiled. She had already snatched mine right out of my hands to sign it. My best friend Dona and I had taken the time to write a story together in a red binder we passed between classes. The binder cover had the kanji (Japanese writing) for ‘dragon’ drawn in white ink with an odd spiraling design. Beneath the cover, more than 200 pages of story we had written together, (over half of it is my work) now lies unread, dormant and gathering dust in my bookcase at our home in South Carolina. As I began to write a message in Dona’s yearbook, attempting to take up an entire page, she jotted down her words and handed mine back with a giggle. I hadn’t finished hers yet, and I wanted to make my inscription as long as possible. But Dona was in a hurry; she has always been more popular than me, and needed it to pass on to her other friends. So I took my yearbook, handing hers back and read her message: “HA! I signed your crack! lol. Caroline I had a very exciting experience this year with you. I will NEVER! Forget You! We will always have Quizilla! -Dona-“ Quizilla is a website Dona and I used to talk to each other. We wrote poems or short stories there too. The “crack” was the crease along the middle of my yearbook, a message that had become a tradition. I wrote the same in her yearbook, along with how badly I would miss her, and how she was my best friend. Lunch continued with more yearbook exchanging, but soon lunch was past, and the last class of the day reared its ugly head. I faced it with fear. The teacher allowed us to talk to each other during class. She knew that the last day wouldn’t have gone well at all if she denied us the right to speak to each other one more time. But I had only a few friends in this class, if you could call them that; they never spoke much to me. So I sat there and still wished someone would simply speak to me, or Dona could magically appear, whichever came first. Then came time to leave. I hugged my friends tightly and said goodbye one more time. It was strange to know that this was truly our last goodbye, but it had happened several times before. I should have gotten used to it after the first or third time we moved to a new town. I felt like a failure for not being used to all this moving yet. Dona allowed me to keep the Kanji Dragon Storybook. I held it close to me as I ran out to catch the bus, and rode home in silent misery knowing I would never see my friends again. Summer came and with it a new town (leaving me with no one to talk to). Family counts, but usually it counts as a whole lot of nothing and nobody when you’re young, without a friend, and have an entire summer to spend in a beautiful coastal town like Beaufort, South Carolina. While I sat in our family car full of a bickering family on the way to South Carolina, I decided to have nothing to do with anyone there. I wanted to cling to my friends from Indiana, to hold onto the past I had created with them, and to keep it as the present; only I’d be watching them from the rear-view mirror. In my heart, I was sure that would work, and that pretending was the only solution to loneliness. To be young and to be lonely is the most terrible thing. The South Carolina summer was hotter than any summer I had previously experienced. I stayed inside, waiting for Dona to join my online status on Quizilla. She never did. Children in my neighborhood were invisible. I stayed inside and did not regret a thing about staying in. Nothing out there interested me. I made new friends for myself on the computer. One new friend is Kassy, whom I still talk to, a young woman from Texas. August arrived. I dreaded the first day of school. Every time Mom checked if my backpack was ready for the “big day tomorrow,” as she put it, I felt queasy. We had already inspected my new school. We looked around inside, and we even said hello to a few teachers, but that didn’t make me any more prepared for it. On the first day of school, I stood at my bus stop with my father, who was making sure I would be getting on the right one. I felt embarrassed when the bus driver pulled up, opened the door, and my dad stepped inside to question the driver. Luckily I had that bus stop to myself, all alone as usual, and I was the first pick-up, the only girl in a big empty bus. People began to file onto the bus. I blocked them out, staring out the window and remaining silent. The smell of the wind, and these new people was something I would need to get used to. We stopped in front of my new school, Battery Creek High School. Going inside and beginning the day I realized that not only was I new to this school, but I was also a freshman. At my old school I had been the eighth grade top dog. Now I was the new dog in town, in a place where I knew no one. The day went better than expected. I made a few “friends,” mostly young men who decided for me that I wanted to talk to them. I wanted nothing to do with any of these people, but I smiled and made nice; acting kind is an easy thing to do when you’re an actor. You can grow a good sense of how to be an actor when you aim to please. I faced the second day with apathy, while still trying to deny that I wanted someone to talk to quite badly. The day went on dully: wait by myself, get on the bus, get to school, go to algebra, go to English, go to Spanish, go to lunch, and sit alone, then go to Computer class. I lost my way to class. A young blonde woman helped me. She was going the same way. I never expected to have to ask a cheerleader for help. Everyone in class introduced themselves. I spoke about my dog, Stuart and my favorite color, black; it’s a hue and not a color, as several students pointed out. This cheerleader, Casey, did not expect me to be the type to like black or the store Hot Topic, which I also spoke about. Hot Topic is a store for music and Goths. While I was speaking Casey chuckled and looked away. Once again I was cast out. School still felt like a chore and none of these people felt like friends at all, more like just someone to say hello to. Then one day in computer class I met someone else. “May I go to the library?” I asked with my tail between my legs, “I don’t know the way, can Casey show me?” Casey had already gone to the library with her friend while I was finishing up my work, she was the only person I knew and trying to find my way on my own would end badly. The teacher denied my request. I sunk into my seat, rejected. “I’ll take her,” a girl called, and stood up. Looking up to her, I saw that this girl seemed to genuinely want to take me, or maybe she just wanted to get a book too. The walk to the library was without conversation. Our footsteps echoed in the silence, and we avoided eye contact as we spiraled through the winding halls. In the library she headed away to one side of the large room and I headed the other way. Silently I looked over the few, short books they classified as ‘vampire books.’ There was one I had seen before simply titled Vampires. I picked that book out when the girl, named Daphne, came over and looked at the books with me. We hadn’t exchanged names properly yet, but I could remember her name being called in the beginning of class. “You like vampires?” I questioned out of pure curiosity. “Yeah! They’re cool, I guess,” she said and smiled. From that point on we talked. We exchanged names of favorite television shows until we found one that was the same: an anime, Naruto that we bonded over. After that, Daphne was my best friend. I had never met anyone as funny or as interesting. And not only did she supply me with the friendship that I realized I wanted more than anything, she brought me out of my shy shell of loneliness and got me to open up to people. Now I don’t stare at the popular table wondering why I can’t be like them; I welcome in anyone who is willing to talk, and I have more friends than I ever could have imagined. That doesn’t mean the old loneliness never comes back from time to time to haunt me. That Dragon Kanji Storybook still sits untended, where I have not touched it since losing Dona. The military brought me to a place I faced with as much courage as I could muster, and introduced me to a friend I may actually be able to keep the rest of my life, something I never imagined before. And soon I will leave the nest of my family. At college I will find another new world, filled with new faces and new places to explore. But the military will be a part of me forever. Caroline Brown is the daughter of Ralph R. Brown, a man who has been in the Marines Caroline’s entire life. She is in most of her high school’s (Battery Creek High School’s) plays and has had her art work on display. She often writes fiction in her spare time and babysits around the neighborhood. Writers_Gallery.html