Bad Dreams of the Past

I remember my adolescence so well.  It was a traumatic time for me at home, but school was also filled with trauma.

When I was in the seventh grade, my family moved to Pennsylvania.  I didn't want to go in the first place, but had no choice.  After a year there, my father decided he didn't like it, so we moved back to North Carolina.

I should have been really glad to move back.  But I wasn't.  You see, in the year that I had been gone, my body had gone through a metamorphasis.  I no longer looked like a little girl.  I looked like an older teenage girl.  My breasts were...well....huge.  At least compared to the rest of the girls in the eighth grade...who seemed to have no breasts at all.

Needless to say, when I walked into the eighth grade for the first time after being gone for a year, everyone's eyes about popped out of their heads....especially the boys.  Nobody could seem to believe it was me.  And whenever anyone would talk to me, they would not look at my face.  They would talk to my breasts.  It was ridiculous and uncomfortable.  It was like people thought my breasts were going to answer back or break out into song or something.  The boys loved me.  The girls hated me.  And so began my eighth grade year.

Science class was the worst.  My teacher was a man, and for some reason, he had placed me in the back corner of the room, surrounded by boys.  As if that wasn't bad enough, he was prone to put a filmstrip or a movie on and then leave the room the entire time it was playing.  The second he would leave, the boys would attack....and I mean attack.  Their hands were all over me.....grabbing at me in the darkness of the room.  I would fight them off as best I could, but this seemed to only cause them to be more aggressive.  They would laugh and jeer, and make sexual comments to me.  I hated it, but was afraid to tell my parents, due to all that was going on at home.  So I kept it to myself.

One day, however..the boys were particularly aggressive, and I told the teacher.  His course of action was to move me to the front of the room right in front of his desk.  Now he was the one constantly staring at my breasts.....as well as looking up my skirt.  It seemed as if I couldn't win for losing.

One day, our class was practicing for an upcoming play for parent's night.  Several of us were in the play and we had to practice on the auditorium stage.  I was up on the stage with a bunch of other kids decorating.  The teacher left the auditorium for a bit and told us to carry on with what we were doing.  As soon as he was gone, the lights went out.  There was pitch darkness.  I couldn't see my hand in front of my face.  And then I felt them...the hands...groping me.  I screamed...loudly.  The next thing I knew I was being pushed to the floor,   and i was fighting and kicking and screaming the entire time. 

I was so so scared.  Even now, when I think of it, those feelings come back to me as if it was yesterday.  I thought they were going to do the worst to me. Soon, a couple of teachers ran in....hearing my screams.  The lights came on and the boys made a mad scramble to get themselves together.  I was crying and getting up from the floor, feeling totally humiliated and filled with shame.

The teacher asked me what happened and I told him.  He chuckled and said, "Well, you know.  Boys will be boys.  I'll have a talk with them."

And that was that.  But I still have bad dreams about this...even though it happened over thirty-five years ago.