AND THREW IT DOWN THE CHUTE. IF YOU WANT IT, DIVE FOR IT"
"Shit," she breathed, and had to blink back tears again, for an entirely different reason. Blind, stupid rage. Monica. Well, Monica and the Monickettes, anyway. Why was it the hot mean girls always ran in packs, like hyenas? And why, with all the shimmery hair and long tanned legs and more of Daddy's money than Daddy's accountants, did they have to focus on her? No, she knew the answer to that.
She'd made Monica look stupid in front of her friends, and some hot upperclassmen. Not that it had been all that hard; she'd just been walking by, heard Monica saying that World War II had been "that dumbass Chinese war thing." And by simple reflex, she'd said, "It wasn't." The whole lot of them, slouched all over the couches in the dorm lobby, looked at her with as much blank surprise as if the Coke machine had just spoken up. Monica, her friends, three of the cool older frat boys. "World War II," Claire had plunged on, panicked and not quite sure how to get out of what she'd gotten herself into. "I just meant - well, it wasn't the Korean War. That was later. World War II was with the Germans and the Japanese. You know, Pearl Harbor?"
And the guys had looked at Monica and laughed, and Monica had flushed - not much, but enough to ruin the cool perfection of her makeup. "Remind me not to buy any history papers off of you," the cutest of the guys had said. "What kind of dumbass doesn't know that?" Though Claire had been sure none of them had, really. "Chinese. Riiiiight." Claire had seen the fury in Monica's eyes, quickly covered over with smiles and laughter and flirting.
Claire had ceased to exist again, for the guys. For the girls, she was brand-new, and unwelcome as hell. She'd been dealing with it all her life. Smart and small and average-looking wasn't exactly winning the life lottery; you had to fight for it, whatever it was. Somebody was always laughing at, or hitting, or ignoring you, or a combination of the first two.
She'd thought when she was a kid that getting laughed at was the worst thing, and then - after the first couple of school-yard showdowns - getting hit jumped up to number one. But for most of her (brief, two-year) high school experience, being ignored was worse by far. She'd gotten there a year earlier than everybody else, and left a year ahead of them. Nobody liked that. Nobody but teachers, anyway.
Słownictwo:
- chute - zsyp
- shimmery - lśniące
- slouched - zgarbić się
- couches - kanapy
- frat - stowarzyszenie studentów
- plunge - pogrążyć, zanurzyć się (tu zgłębić się w temacie)
- ceased to exist - przestać istnieć
- showdowns - ostateczna rozgrywka
- brief - w skrócie, streszczając
- by far - zdecydowanie
Pytania
- Put sentences in the right order.
a) Claire guesses author of the note.
b) Description of relationship between Claire and other students.
c) Note content.
d) Description of Monica's humiliation. - Why Claire is unaccepted by:
a) Monica
b) Other students - How people behave, if they want to feel better than others?
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