Part one: Changes and Difference

“Hey, doesn’t Keira’s hair look unusually good today?” Leon says, eyes narrowed in suspicion over his shoulder. 

I glance up from my work labelling all the layers of a eukaryotic cell at Mrs. Bernstein, who's still grading our last quiz at her desk; and turn to follow Leon’s gaze. He nods to the back corner of the room, in Keira’s direction. 

Keira’s hair is usually dishevelled looking. It clings to fabrics from the static she can never seem to get rid of and hasn’t really looked good since the 8th grade graduation party. It’s usually red in colour and an in-between texture of straight and curly. But today, its full and glossy looking especially under the sun’s rays streaming in from the window. 

She shades her eyes with her hand from the irritation, but undeniably her hair looks good, if not a little more auburn than red as it usually is. 

I turn back to work and shrug.

“Yeah, it’s usually more...I dunno...frizzy?” I say in a low voice absentmindedly. My head is back facing a partially labelled cell when I respond, but my eyes are glancing up to check if we’d caught Mrs. Bernstein’s attention this time around. It doesn’t seem like she’s noticed. Mrs. Bernstein doesn’t seem to have any affinity towards me and it makes it worse to be sitting in the front of the class. Seats were assigned at the beginning of the year starting with the first letter of our given names. Luckily mine was off towards the side of the class, as opposed to being placed right in front of her eye line. I don’t know how I would cope being in her direct line of vision for the rest of the year.

Honestly I’d rather just wait for the end of class to discuss this, but my being called out, given detention, and lectured throughout the year thus far doesn’t even register in Leon’s memory. 

“No, it’s dryness. Hair that sticks out like that and doesn’t have a sheen is dry!” Sammy says next to me. From the corner of my eye I notice Mrs. Bernstein’s head bob up in our direction. Sammy isn’t as good at volume control as we are. I look back down and I know Sammy and Leon are doing the same.

Earlier last week we had a student protest orchestrated by the student council president, and shoo-in for valedictorian. The news had been covering the dwindling percentages of raises for teachers over the past 5 years. Schools across the state have been setting up student protests to standby negotiating higher wages for teachers. 

I’m not sure if our student government insisted on setting this up to follow the trend, or if it was due to earnest love for the faculty; but I really doubted anyone could love Mrs. Bernstein. If she were having a bad day, she made sure everyone else would be having one too.

But the student walk out happened as planned and it was even covered by a small newspaper distributed by the local supermarket. I’m not sure if that ultimately went anywhere and am generally dubious of the efficacy of protests in general, but I did follow along with my peers since it was way too awkward to be the last one sitting in class. Having a teacher guide me to higher education, when I was supposed to be protesting for their wages would have made me way too conscious of their opinions. As if I were protesting the protest. 

“Pft, you’d know.” Leon sniggered at Sammy in a hushed, teasing voice; when he noticed Mrs Bernstein resume her work on the papers stacked on her desk.

“Oh shut up idiot.” Sammy teased back, but with a slight edge to her voice. Which made it seem like she was conscious of her own curly hair. A sentiment she had never shared with us before.

“Joanna, Sammy, Leon, be quiet! You’re disturbing everyone else from working on their assignments.” Mrs. Bernstein barked from behind her desk. Everyone looked up to turn in our direction. Staring at her in disbelief and scouring around at the faces of my peers that had turned their attention on us, I felt my face turn hot and I quickly turned back down to my paper.

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“I’m calling it the glow up epidemic.” Sammy says at the end of class as we pack up our textbooks and classwork that we weren’t able to complete in the alloted time. We were to complete it as homework, alongside assigned homework.

“What’s a glow up?” Leon asks. I can’t tell if he really doesn’t know, can’t figure it out, or if he’s protecting some abstract maleness he’s embodying. But I guess that’s partly because I feel more girly for knowing.

“You know, it’s like when you shed your old chrysalis form and become a beautiful butterfly! ...but through makeup, surgery, a great haircut, or ‘pretty woman’ shopping spree instead.” Sammy says fancifully. Her bag already resting on her shoulders, leaning on the side of her desk, waiting for us to finish packing so we can leave the room together. 

“I did notice Ryan’s nose was more button-shaped than normal. I thought it was the light or something.” I say thoughtfully, feeling much more at ease to talk now that class was over.

“All I’m saying is that people are starting to look better, and before you know it, we’ll be left behind as the 3 ugly ducklings.” Sammy says, sounding defeated by her own thoughts.

I turn to Leon, looking for guidance on how to follow up with Sammy’s insulting statement, but saw nothing in response. “I don’t know that people are starting to look better…” I say honestly. 

Turning around to gage my surroundings, I notice people starting to stream in for the next class.

“People are starting to come in. Let’s leave.” I say, turning to lead our exit. Leon zips up his bag and carries his textbook out, deciding this would be quicker than trying to shuffle things around in his overstuffed backpack.

“Look, don’t tell me Wendy was always that tall? Oh and Daniel looks like he doesn’t have baby hands anymore. Did Jeff get botox?” Sammy says, riling herself up and being not so inconspicuous with her pointing as we make our way down the crowded halls.

I pull her hand down, worried she might poke someone’s eye out waving her finger around like that.

“How are you able to pay attention to every physical flaw---erm maybe flaw isn’t the right word..” I say catching myself. “I just think that beauty can’t exist in a world where everyone is the same. So stop pointing!” Exasperatedly I pull Sammy’s hand down again, catching her pointing at another student. People are starting to stare at us, offended by Sammy’s gawking. I hold her hand in mine this time, stopping her from pointing when I’m not looking; as if she were a child that needed supervision. She intertwines her fingers in mine, a physical indication that she’ll go along with my parental controls. I smile and swing her arm in rhythm with our stroll, Sammy reaches for Leon’s hand to join in.

I’m not as capable as Sammy of identifying the exact differences in others. It’s more like a general feeling. What was once a familiar hallway full of familiar faces now seemed...distorted. Like everyone is stranger than they used to be, subtle but not unnoticed. They are changes that could easily be explained by puberty, surgery, visiting a new hairstylist, lights playing on the face...but...not.

It’s too sudden. It couldn’t be that everyone’s puberty cycles synced and suddenly Wendy is 3” taller, or Jeff’s jawline became more pronounced could it?

“Look. You and I, and Joanna haven’t changed have we? If you’re worried about body snatching aliens that couldn’t get their science quite right then... then...they missed out! Look! Carl still has a huge forehead. If everyone was snatched, wouldn’t they have changed that? Hey Carl!” Leon says cheerfully, greeting a now scowling Carl. Carl rubs his forehead self consciously and doesn’t wave back, obviously hearing Leon’s passing remark. 

I give Carl an apologetic look but turn away quickly as if I’m about to cough, trying to hide my giggling. I couldn’t hold it in anymore after seeing Carl’s adorably angry face. Like an angry puppy that had his toy taken away. Carl’s a good guy. I’ve known him since elementary school. 

I’ve known most of my highschool peers from elementary school, or middle school. Sure some kids have moved in and out of our district for one reason or another. But the ones that have stayed; seeing them turn into neighborhoods that I pass by on the way home, makes me feel more attune to our town. Like the phrase ‘what a small world,’ could be true.

Even though the appearance of my classmates was never something that I paid much attention to, it does bother me to suspect that something is changing and I don’t know what it is.

We reach my locker and I start turning the dial on my padlock. First left, 25 then right 62, the left again 12. Sammy opens her locker as well. This small, pleasant coincidence of having Sammy as my locker mate makes it so I never have to go to my locker alone. It’s probably why our friendship strengthened. Engaging in small talk but eventually hitting on something that really sticks everyday. 

Sometimes I feel guilty for Leon though, because for all the times that he accompanied us to our lockers; he often trudges to his locker alone. Sometimes we’ll go together. But some days, I’m too emotionally drained from school to move my body unnecessarily. So Sammy and I’ll just wait by the school gates for him. 

“All I’m saying is that I don’t like the idea of this paranormal shit. It creeps me out. You guys corroborating each others’ stories about how our classmates’ faces are morphing, makes me feel like the naysayer in every horror movie ever. And we all know they die first! I’m not looking to die at 16 and everything you guys brought up can be explained by puberty. Maybe some kids are getting tiny plastic surgeries. It isn’t that uncommon in Korea. And botox is a thing people are doing now a days!” I say. Even I didn’t expect to go down the surgery route. As if anyone in this town would be performing cosmetic surgeries. Although I do know that Carl’s dad had plastic surgery after a dog ripped up his arm. It was pretty big news at the time. I take a pause to pull the textbooks I won’t be using out of my own overstuffed backpack, and place them into my locker. I grab my coat. 

Sammy puts her arm around my shoulder, and pulls me into her side.

“I’d tell you if I were possessed or body snatched or whatever. So don’t worry. I was just kidding.” She says. It’s a little white lie she’s telling, because I know she believes what she’s noticed. I believe it too, but she says it to comfort me.

Leon leans back, resting his head on Sammy’s, her face grimaces from the sudden weight. “Yeah I’d tell you guys too... Hey, lets go to my house and we’ll watch a movie and order in!”

I perk up at the offer. Leon’s house is the closest to the school so we often go to his place to hangout. It’s basically become our base of operations, with the added bonus for being next to a corner store for cheap snacks and drinks.

Sometimes I wonder why such good, funny people would wanna be my friends when I’m so... not. I wished I were good at many things. Coping with embarrassment, being witty and funny but I just end up humbled into silence. I think that if I were better, cooler, prettier, I would deserve them more. But for how I am right now, I’m glad I have these guys. 

I know that even though it would be impossible for them to tell me if they were body snatched by an unknown entity; I love their youthful and baseless promises. And I know I would do the same.

“That sounds really good. Let’s do that.” I say, with my normal low and slow voice. I shut my locker door and snap the lock shut. Sammy pushes Leon off of her, shrugging on her own coat before shutting her locker too.

My mood improving with the love I have for my friend, I think I have the energy to walk together to Leon’s locker and accompany him this time around.