War Bride

Back to School

School wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be, looking back. The rich clique girls made fun of my slight British accent, of course, but I quickly made friends with two girls in my class: Barbara and Maureen. Barbara was a bigger girl; we called it “heavyset” then, with long, shiny dark hair and a fascination with the occult. Maureen was a tall skinny blonde, super smart, and one of the nicest people around. We three outcasts formed our own little friend group and no one bothered us. We often spent the afternoons after school at Barbara’s; her mom was a teacher and she lived within walking distance of the school. We’d play things like “light as a feather, stiff as a board” and read books about astral projection- and then we actually tried it, anchoring each other. Or so we thought.