Chapter 14

"You want to eat lunch with me?" This was more uncharted territory for Adele. No one had ever asked her to eat lunch with them before; she usually ate by herself. Although still slightly overwhelming to her, Adele's beginning to find it easier to accept these unbelievably extraordinary events as not so much a case of her must be dreaming, but indeed, a reality. She immediately accepts with a gracious smile and an appreciative… "Yes." "Great. Come on…" Nadine looks reproachfully at Christy's table, "let's go find a better class of people to be around." As they're walking away, Christy glares at Nadine. Adele leads Nadine to a lone tree at the other end of the schoolyard; far away from the area that most of the students usually congregate to have their lunch. This is where Adele has her lunch. It's kind of apropos; just her…often being shunned by the rest of her classmates…and a tree…standing alone by itself…keeping each other company. "I like to eat my lunch here…if it's okay with you?" "It's fine." "Thanks." Adele sits down under the tree, gets her lunch from out of her backpack and starts eating. Then Nadine sits down next to Adele and places her lunch tray off to the side for the moment. "Adele; you know…you shouldn't let people talk to you like that." "Like what?" "Tease you…call you names. It's not right." Adele sounds resigned as she looks downward and responds, "I guess…but what can I do?" "Uh…you tell them to knock it off…or give it back to them." Adele shakes her head, "No…that would be wrong." Though not directed at Adele, Nadine appears perturbed over the situation. "And what they're doing's wrong…so why not give them a taste of their own medicine?" There had been one other person almost as close to Adele in her life as her grandmother is…and that was Grandpa Joe. Adele looks to Nadine and explains… "Before my Grandpa Joe died, he used to tell me that when people are mean to me, it's because they're uncomfortable because they don't understand me. Or that they couldn't help it, because they were just plain mean; and that's just the way they are. Either way, just because people are being mean to me, doesn't mean I should be mean back. It won't help none…if anything, it makes things worse; because then I'd be a mean person too. And being a mean person is way worse than having people be mean to me. That's what he'd say to me." She pauses briefly before concluding, "I just want to be good; so my Grandpa Joe would like the kind of person I am." Adele returns to eating her lunch. Nadine tells her… "I'm sure your grandpa would like the person you are, Adele. But I don't think he'd like the way people are treating you. You know; it's okay to stand up for yourself, Adele. I hope you realize that someday." Adele stops eating and looks at Nadine for a brief moment; then resumes eating. Nadine puts her tray on her lap and starts eating her lunch. Though they sit together the whole lunch period, neither speaks again for the remainder of it; while they each think about what the other had said. Nadine has unknowingly been the proverbial thorn in Christy's side for several years now; and after last week's insolent remark during lunch about finding a better class of people to be around, Christy has decided it's time to remove the ‘thorn'. And the recent turn of events, in Christy's opinion, should help facilitate the task at hand. The four most popular girls at Roosevelt High School after Christy Rosenberg…in no particular order…Veronica Cornwell, Samantha Davis, Tasha Wells and Nadine Martin. Christy has been nefariously vying to keep her number one position throughout both her Junior High and High School years, managing to keep the other three's popularity in check simply because they're just as vainly shallow and blatantly pretentious as she is; having to coax others to like them. But Nadine's popularity is different…people have a tendency to truly like Nadine Martin because of her kind-heartedness and overall niceness; which Christy views as viable threat to her popularity standing. And for that reason, Christy never dared attempted to attack Nadine's character; fearing the possibility that it would backfire and make her fall in the ranking.