The school year at Model High School in Rome, GA started Thursday Aug 1, 2019.  Diane arrived a week late (Thursday Aug 8).  The clothes she wore looked like something she got at Goodwill when she first arrived.  Blue jeans a bit worn and a blue jean looking blue shirt.  She walked with a limp and looked like she had been in a bad accident recently.  But that wasn’t what doomed her to the life of a social pariah. She arrived in a salvage yard truck to be dropped off by her father.  Her father wouldn’t let her just get out and walk.  No, she had to live through the embarrassment of being dropped off right in front of the main entrance.

Oddly enough she was all smiles.  But he time it took was plenty for the local mean girls to get ready with their smartphones to take a video of her getting out.  If she noticed she paid it no mind.   But her fame - or perhaps infamy - spread by the next day.  A video short of her showed up on Facebook with a caption.  Junkyard Jane.

It didn’t stop there.  She had dropped off a guitar case in the music department - so she wouldn’t have to carry it everywhere.  By midday Friday a new video of her opening her guitar case to find her guitar covered with trash had surfaced.  This time she was less amused.  She had stripped down the guitar, removing the strings completely so she could get the muck out of the body of the guitar.  But even with her best efforts the guitar now stank.

Very uncool.

The teacher was livid.  Diane shook her head quietly and told him she didn’t think it was anyone in his class.  Karma had a way of catching up with people.  She said she’d try to fix it at home.

She arrived in Environmental Science carrying her stinky guitar.  The teacher looked around trying to figure out where the smell was coming from.  She pointed at her guitar and quietly asked if she could set it up at the front near the door.  That was when a janitor arrived with some car fresheners.  Diane smiled and thanked him and looped one over the neck of the guitar and dumped the rest around the guitar itself.  Then she closed the case.  It looked like she was closing a casket.  She didn’t explain the smell.

Then the teacher started asking for students to turn in assignments, excluding Diane.  But Diane just smiled and handed in a small stack - the past week’s work.  “Only a week.  And I’ll be fine for the test Monday.  I’m caught up.” Her father arrived with the salvage truck to pick up Diane’s guitar to take it home.

And that was Diane.  No looks of desperation.  Mildly amused annoyance.  Scheming notions of revenge on the people bullying her - and maybe a little pity for them if she decided to act on them.  They were way out of their league.  She had expected the social media coverage.  

************

http://sc02.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1ongTJVXXXXb6XpXXq6xXFXXX3.jpg
https://www.payless.com/on/demandware.static/-/Sites-payless-catalog/default/dw9d9403ad/images/hi-res/170732_6_1400x1400.jpg
http://d254andzyoxz3f.cloudfront.net/vintagetrucksunder12k_dodgebseriespilothouse_art.jpg (You will have to imagine the dark blue.  This one is greener than hers, but she does have the dump truck mod.)

[color=f26522][b]Monday Aug 12, 2019[/b][/color]

She showed up Monday dressed in slender denim overalls and a white T shirt and denim jacket, cute black boots, hair styled, manicured, probably pedicured.  She parked a blue vintage 1946 Dodge pickup, its permit already displayed.  A temporary sticker was proudly displayed in the rear window - low enough that it couldn’t block her view - that simply said Go Green.  Recycle.  It was quite the transformation.  It was as if, to her, the whole cyberbullying issue was a non issue.  She carried her guitar with her.  The case was new.  This one had a biometric thumbprint lock.

She walked right past the kids who had taken the video on the previous Thursday and smiled and winked at the head cheerleader’s boyfriend whose eyes tracked Diane’s movements.  He had been one of the two boys that dumped trash in her guitar case.  The head cheerleader angry - though whether she was madder at Diane or her boyfriend was a good question.

“Slut!” the girl called Diane out.

Diane stopped in her tracks, turned and looked at the other girl.  “Is that really the best you could come up with?  How about … you soulless soul-sucking skank?  Soulless because you sold yours long ago.  Soul-sucking because you need to feed off your so called friends to make up for the one you sold.  Skank because …. Well …”

“HEY!  YOU TWO!”  It was the school security.  His voice stopped the cat fight that was about to erupt in the parking lot before it happened.

**********************

Diane was spotted again until Lunch.  Diane had found the visit to the Dean’s office amusing.  Unfortunately for the the school, neither girl would talk.  And the simple fact that security had no idea what had led up to the near confrontation before interrupting it they couldn’t even justify Detention.  

The incident had, however, made Diane a pariah.  She found herself sitting alone at lunch with multiple tupperware type containers and a plastic drink bottle such as a jogger would use.  The drink bottle contained a rich dark hot tea.  One of the other containers had a thick soup in it - chicken gumbo.  Another had some sort of salad with all sorts of unidentifiable ingredients.  The last container was quartered red potatoes.  She was smiling as she enjoyed her piping hot meal.

At another table, the cheerleader and her friends were talking.  Every now and then one would look over at Diane.