STUTTER BUG


I step into the reunion with a death march ringing in my ears. My heart is begging to explode from its prison and leap-frog across the room in a bloody spectacle of beats and spurts. There I'll be, lifeless on the floor, plucked, waxed and toned to perfection while everyone dances around my dead body.

Keep it together, Viv. Be CON-FI-DENT.

I need my life coach Janine right now. I try to conjure her up in my mind for some hideously cliched advice.
'Whatever's going on Viv, you can handle it. Your only barrier to self empowerment is you!'�
Ugh. At $300 an hour you can't help but believe the self help spiel. But I'm a long way from New York right now. I'm back home. Back here. I'm going to have to keep the confident self-chatter happening on my own tonight and use it to put on the best performance of my life. The delicious anticipation sends a tremor of adrenalin surging through my body. I've been waiting for so long. Ten years of bitterness and revenge fantasies that even the world's finest therapists couldn't shake out of me. Ten years of securing the perfect life just so that I can stick it in the Bitch's face and watch her squirm in the aura of my supreme magnificence.

Be CON-FI-DENT.

I breathe in and out to centre myself.

Whatever happens here, I can handle it. I am better than everyone here. There's no one here like me.

The memory breaks through just like I knew it would. The classroom. The locker room. The taunts. The Bitch's face.

***

'Hey St-St-Stutter Bug! Move your fat head. I can't see the board!'�

I glance back and see the Bitch, Hayley Cross, glaring at me with a smirk pasted across her pixie face. Giggles erupt from Kate and Kristy. The three of them are a barrage of blonde hair, big boobs, dangly earrings and chewing gum. I turn my back on them and concentrate on my fingernails, pretending that they need my undivided and most urgent attention. I try to imagine smacking the leer right off Hayley's haughty countenance, but that's just a pipedream - Hayley is way too popular and powerful.

My mind flashes back to Nicky Sheldon, surrounded at lunchtime by the pack of baying bitches with their spray cans of deodorant. I remember the guys from class looking on and laughing as they coated her head to toe with the stinking mist.
'B.O. Queen!'�
'This is deodorant! You should buy some, Smelly!'�
Nicky left school three months later. Hayley's strike rate is phenomenal. As soon as she begins to bully someone, they leave the school or face eternal harassment and a slippery slope towards depression.

I move my head marginally to the left and hope that this will be the end of Hayley's power trip.
'Thanks St-St-Stutter Bug! You're a real ch-ch-champ!'�
More titters hit me from the back row. I blink back the years. These girls don't care that I go to speech therapy three times a week to try to combat the stuttering problem. Hearts of stone. I glance across at Jamie McAdams, my eternal crush, to make sure he hasn't heard them teasing me. I am elated to see that his head is buried in his work.

'Is there a problem, Ms Cross? What are you all giggling about now?'�
Mr Ellis, the history teacher, glances over his half moon spectacles wearily. He hates having Hayley in his class, like all the teachers. The fact that she is the deputy headmaster's daughter is yet another reason why she is so untouchable. Jamie looks over. I feel the blush spread across my face and it sears a crimson streak across my neck.
'Nah, Sir. No probs. I was just asking Stutter Bug'� I mean Vivien, to move her head so I can see the board.'�
The laughter now erupts from half of the lemmings in the class. Jamie is looking at me with a pitiful look on his face. Utter humiliation - he feels sorry for me. I avert my eyes back down to my exercise book and keep them glued onto the phrase that I have just copied from the board.

No more tears now. I will think about revenge.
Mary Queen of Scots

***

Breathe, it's okay. Breathe, it's okay.

I glance back at my bodyguard, Maurie. He's making himself invisible against the far wall ' as invisible as a six foot three former wrestling champion can be. I smooth down my fabulous figure hugging dress and paint a confident smile onto my face.

It's showtime.

The ballroom is a myriad of complicated streamers and balloons. A disco ball rotates above the empty dance floor, refracting shimmering beams of light across the faces of chattering ex-students. Everyone is still too sober to dance, so instead they stand in small clusters and cliques, scattered throughout the room. Some are chatting politely, modestly updating others on their achievements of the past ten years. Some of the guys are acting as if they are seventeen again, knocking back beers and chortling over pranks committed in their high school days.

'Then we jammed his balls against a tree trunk!'�
'Got detention for two weeks straight!'�
'But it was so worth it to see tears in that little prick's eyes!'�
'Little prick! Literally!'�
'Haw! Haw! Touche!'�

I fight the urge to run and check to make sure that Maurie is still nearby. I strut over to the entry table and find my name tag. Not that I need to wear one. It's pretty damned obvious who I am. All six feet of me is ready to show these 'people' just how far I've come in this world. The stupid tag refuses to adhere to the expensive fabric of the dress and I am forced to press on my left breast repeatedly to get it to stick. It's a frustrating exercise and perspiration springs onto my brow. Anxiety flutters through my stomach. Tears form in my eyes and threaten to ruin the 'smoky eyes' effect that I insisted that my make up artist redo three times before I left the hotel.

No more tears. Remember Mary Queen of Scots.

***

I am at my locker begging my face to return to a normal colour so I can go to maths class looking relatively composed. I can hear the Bitch outside having an exchange with another one of her minions.
'Hayles! Still having a party on Friday night?'�
'Yep! My parents are away. Gonna be awesome! You better still be coming!'�
'As if I wouldn't be! See ya then!'�
'Cool! Bring a bottle of Bundy with ya! No alcohol, no entry!'�
'Yep, already sorted! My Dad always buys my alcohol for me. He's cool like that!'�
'Nice! Well in that case, get him to buy two bottles! See ya then.'�

Her confident footsteps clomp into the locker room behind me. I take a deep breath and hear the snap of chewing gum and the rattle of bracelets clinking together.
'St-St-Stutter Bug. We meet again. All alone together in the locker room. I'm starting to think you're a stalker.'�
I glance sheepishly at her and she smirks at me, with her hand lolling on hip.
'Sorry about the little altercation in English class, but you're so freakin' tall. Anytime you're in front of me I can't see the board.'�
I give her a half smile. Another smirk and a pop of gum.
'You know'� you're probably tall enough to be a model. And you've kind of got that weird, alien look that models often have. You could probably be one if you weren't so retarded.'�
She titters and opens her locker. I glance at my feet and feel the scorching pain jolt my eyeballs.

I will not cry. I will not cry. No more tears now.

'I'm not re-re-retarded.'�
It comes out as a half whisper. She turns and stares at me.
'What's that? You gotta speak up if you want to be heard, darls.'�
'I'm not re-re-retarded. I just stutter sometimes.'�
'Oh'� okay. You're not re-re-retarded. Whatever you say, St-St-Stutter Bug.'�
She slams her locker shut. 'You're pretty much a ge-ge-genius.'�
Hate. Pain. Anger spewing forth like lava. I could kill the Bitch. I clench my fists. I clench my teeth. I clench my toes.
'At least I'm not a stupid, fucking bimbo!'�

Bad move! Bad move!

My brain is telling me to put on the emergency brakes, but I've started now and there's no point stopping. I will be the Bitch's next Victim and there is nothing that I can do about it from this point on.
' I don't even know why you're so up yourself, you bitch! You're dog ugly anyway!'�
I slam my locker shut and glare at her. Her face is a picture of utter shock. Silence. A geek has dared to challenge the Bitch. We stare at each other. A Mexican standoff of glares.

Ten seconds. Twenty. Thirty.

I can smell rotten fruit in Alex Verco's locker. Dust blows into the locker room from a sudden gust of wind outside. She's blocking my way out of the room.

Forty seconds. Fifty. Sixty. Her face distorts into a monstrous leer.

'You just made a big mistake, retard. Your life is now officially gonna be hell.'�

Calm. Quiet. Silence. I want to look away desperately, but I keep looking into her eyes. I can't avert my gaze now.

Ten more seconds. Twenty. I feel like I can't breath any more. Like I'm going to faint. My heart is a jackhammer inside my rib cage. She spins around and leaves me alone in the room with the smell of rotting food and the knowledge that I am dead meat.

No more tears now. I will think about revenge.

***

'Holy shit! It's Viven Foxx! She came!'�

Gary Meadows was always the loud mouth of our grade. Always a jerk'� and yet I am delighted by his dropped jaw'�their startled glances. I'm a vision in Versace and Jimmy Choos.

'But of course I came.'�

One bat of the eyelashes. Two. Three.

'I wouldn't miss this for the world. Where is Hayley Cross? Can someone point her out to me please?'�

Gary laughs. 'You as well? There's already been like, three chicks, who have wanted to have it out with her. I'm surprised she's still here, the way her night's going!'�
'Just point her out please, Gary.'�
'The chubby one in the blue dress.'� I follow his pointed finger and see her glowering in the corner. The entire class reunion has stopped talking and they're all gawking at me, mouths agape.

Viven Foxx has arrived.

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