Chris M.

“Hi, Chris!” A girl I met over the summer greets me with an air hug. Good, I hate hugging anyway. She has straight blond hair, denim shorts, and a tank top.

I ask her the usual socially acceptable but not meaningful questions about how she has been. She responds with equally vague answers. We continue on our ways and suddenly I look up in surprise. A girl with bright pink hair is standing across the hall.

My old school was mostly rich kids who are on a golf team and have a beach house and are surprised when people don’t follow Dance Moms.

This new school is different. Those kids exist here, but the school is a lot bigger, so there is a bit more variety. I seem to have found what the blond girl once referred to as the “fake emo group.”

I have very little opinion as to whether they are fake or emo, but I can’t stop staring. The pink-haired girl is wearing shredded jeans and black low-tops. The rest of them are dressed similarly, but with black or white-blond hair. I wonder if she is the group leader because her hair is different. Probably not. I wonder if they have a group leader at all. Maybe.

I don’t know them or what they’re like, but I am drawn to them for some reason. I think it is the fact that they are new to me. I know hundreds of people like the blond girl—my old school was full of them. They dress alike and seem to label and reject people with major differences in style or interests. Don’t get me wrong—I like Blond Girl! She is nice, and I enjoy talking to her. But I’ve never met anyone like the Pink-Hair-Girl Posse.

I’ve been to many different schools—five of them outside the U.S.—so I should be used to diversity. I used to be. But after a year in Mega Preppy Land, I seem to have forgotten about the outside world. The world of people with all different colors of hair and all different kinds of ideas.

If you lock an animal in a dark room, it will probably run to the first sign of light, no matter what the source. I am that locked animal. The Pink Hair Girl Posse is the light. I have no idea whether they are actually cool or nice or fun, but they’re the first sign of light. The source is irrelevant. ♦