Mallory Pike's Thirteenth Birthday
Title/Prompt: Mallory Pike's Thirteenth Birthday, "thirteen"
Author: cassandraclue
Word count: 735
Rating: G
Summary: Mallory reflects on FINALLY turning thirteen. It is kind of supposed to be like a personal essay/journal entry Mallory is writing for class.
Link to table: click
Author's note: It's been a long time, but I want to start writing again, so I figured this community was a good way to do it!
When I was eleven, all I wanted to be was thirteen. Apart from my best friend, Jessi Ramsey, all of my friends were thirteen. Back then, we all lived in Stoneybrook, Connecticut, and we made up the Baby-Sitters Club. The BSC's purpose was pretty simple: call one number, reach an entire club of qualified sitters.
It became much more than that, though. It was practically our whole lives for that year, the year I was in sixth grade. They were my best friends, and it didn't seem to matter that Jessi and I were eleven-year-old junior officers and the rest of the girls were all thirteen-year-old officers. I had thought that the Baby-Sitters Club would last forever, or at least until Jessi and I went to college.
Then I became Spaz Girl, and everything changed.
My school had a "Teachers of Tomorrow" program, where students at Stoneybrook Middle School were able to temporarily take over classes. In a moment of insanity, the teachers running the program put me in charge of an eighth-grade English class. Now, I am an excellent English student. Even as a sixth grader, I had probably read more books anyone in the eighth grade. I had even won awards for my writing. But all of that didn't matter, because I wasn't thirteen. I stood in front of the class as an awkward eleven-year-old, and that was all they saw. I went from Mallory Pike, friend, writer, baby-sitter, oldest of eight, to Spaz Girl.
Being eleven ruined my life in Stoneybrook forever.
So that's why I woke up that Saturday morning in May in a dorm in Riverbend, Massachusetts, instead of in my old bedroom in Stoneybrook. I exchanged SMS and my family and friends (at least while school is in session) for an all-girls' boarding school.
Most of the time, I love it. It's way more academically challenging than SMS, and I don't really miss having boys around. It's been refreshing for me to be known as Mallory Pike, writer and friend rather than the oldest of eight Pikes, or one of the younger members of the BSC.
Most of the time, I don't regret my decision. I do feel guilty about not being around to see my little brothers and sisters grow up, but Vanessa, two years younger than me, after her own disastrous first year at SMS, was polishing her application and crossing her fingers for a scholarship. And as far as friends go, the BSC disbanded the summer before the older girls started high school. Jessi left Stoneybrook in the middle of seventh grade for a full-time ballet program in New York City.
In Riverbend, I had great friends. Smita, Sarah, Jen and I were going into town that day to go ice skating and comb the thrift store for forgotten treasure. If I had been in Stoneybrook, I would have been already downstairs for breakfast, dealing with the circus that is breakfast at the Pikes'. I missed it, a little. Claire was probably saying something ridiculous at this very moment, and Jordan and Adam would be acting like they were oh-so-cool--but I knew they both still liked watching Pokemon when they thought no one was watching. I smiled.
I had thought that when I was thirteen, I'd be able to sit at night and I'd finally be made some kind of officer. I had secretly hoped for Chief Mystery Officer, since I had kept up our mystery notebook. (Somehow, the BSC always ended up solving crimes. But that's a whole other story that I suppose I'll use in my fiction one day.)
Things didn't look anything like I thought they would when I was eleven, but I was still ready to grow up and be on my own. I chose a t-shirt with the cover of The Great Gatsby on it and my favorite jeans. I opened my jewelry box, and my eyes fell upon a pair of earrings that Claudia, vice president of the BSC and our resident artist, had made for me when I first got my ears pierced. I smiled and put them on. Thirteen-year-old Mallory's life looked nothing like eleven-year-old-Mallory would have ever expected, but I knew that when I turned on my computer, I'd have messages from my BSC friends wishing me a happy birthday, and I'd Skype with my family later. But now, I had to go and meet my friends from my new life, and there wasn't a place in the world I'd rather be.
Author: cassandraclue
Word count: 735
Rating: G
Summary: Mallory reflects on FINALLY turning thirteen. It is kind of supposed to be like a personal essay/journal entry Mallory is writing for class.
Link to table: click
Author's note: It's been a long time, but I want to start writing again, so I figured this community was a good way to do it!
When I was eleven, all I wanted to be was thirteen. Apart from my best friend, Jessi Ramsey, all of my friends were thirteen. Back then, we all lived in Stoneybrook, Connecticut, and we made up the Baby-Sitters Club. The BSC's purpose was pretty simple: call one number, reach an entire club of qualified sitters.
It became much more than that, though. It was practically our whole lives for that year, the year I was in sixth grade. They were my best friends, and it didn't seem to matter that Jessi and I were eleven-year-old junior officers and the rest of the girls were all thirteen-year-old officers. I had thought that the Baby-Sitters Club would last forever, or at least until Jessi and I went to college.
Then I became Spaz Girl, and everything changed.
My school had a "Teachers of Tomorrow" program, where students at Stoneybrook Middle School were able to temporarily take over classes. In a moment of insanity, the teachers running the program put me in charge of an eighth-grade English class. Now, I am an excellent English student. Even as a sixth grader, I had probably read more books anyone in the eighth grade. I had even won awards for my writing. But all of that didn't matter, because I wasn't thirteen. I stood in front of the class as an awkward eleven-year-old, and that was all they saw. I went from Mallory Pike, friend, writer, baby-sitter, oldest of eight, to Spaz Girl.
Being eleven ruined my life in Stoneybrook forever.
So that's why I woke up that Saturday morning in May in a dorm in Riverbend, Massachusetts, instead of in my old bedroom in Stoneybrook. I exchanged SMS and my family and friends (at least while school is in session) for an all-girls' boarding school.
Most of the time, I love it. It's way more academically challenging than SMS, and I don't really miss having boys around. It's been refreshing for me to be known as Mallory Pike, writer and friend rather than the oldest of eight Pikes, or one of the younger members of the BSC.
Most of the time, I don't regret my decision. I do feel guilty about not being around to see my little brothers and sisters grow up, but Vanessa, two years younger than me, after her own disastrous first year at SMS, was polishing her application and crossing her fingers for a scholarship. And as far as friends go, the BSC disbanded the summer before the older girls started high school. Jessi left Stoneybrook in the middle of seventh grade for a full-time ballet program in New York City.
In Riverbend, I had great friends. Smita, Sarah, Jen and I were going into town that day to go ice skating and comb the thrift store for forgotten treasure. If I had been in Stoneybrook, I would have been already downstairs for breakfast, dealing with the circus that is breakfast at the Pikes'. I missed it, a little. Claire was probably saying something ridiculous at this very moment, and Jordan and Adam would be acting like they were oh-so-cool--but I knew they both still liked watching Pokemon when they thought no one was watching. I smiled.
I had thought that when I was thirteen, I'd be able to sit at night and I'd finally be made some kind of officer. I had secretly hoped for Chief Mystery Officer, since I had kept up our mystery notebook. (Somehow, the BSC always ended up solving crimes. But that's a whole other story that I suppose I'll use in my fiction one day.)
Things didn't look anything like I thought they would when I was eleven, but I was still ready to grow up and be on my own. I chose a t-shirt with the cover of The Great Gatsby on it and my favorite jeans. I opened my jewelry box, and my eyes fell upon a pair of earrings that Claudia, vice president of the BSC and our resident artist, had made for me when I first got my ears pierced. I smiled and put them on. Thirteen-year-old Mallory's life looked nothing like eleven-year-old-Mallory would have ever expected, but I knew that when I turned on my computer, I'd have messages from my BSC friends wishing me a happy birthday, and I'd Skype with my family later. But now, I had to go and meet my friends from my new life, and there wasn't a place in the world I'd rather be.