Rumors

You first learned what gossip was in the 3rd grade. 

You’d been sitting in class, minding your own business, when the sound of giggling reached your ears. 

You turned to look curiously, always wanting to be involved, and found a group of girls a few tables behind you. They were clustered together, their chairs pushed close, and their backpacks carefully arranged so that no one else could bother them. 

They laughed again before hurriedly shushing each other. Though the giggling still didn’t stop. 

Extremely curious now, you sat up from your desk and walked closer, hoping to hear whatever it was they were talking about. 

Right as you approached, you heard the tail end of one of the girl’s sentences. 

“And then she ate it!” the girl whisper-shrieked, loud enough to be heard by the other girls but quiet enough that the teacher wouldn’t hear, based on the way she kept looking in his direction. 

The other girls gasped at whatever it was she’d said, one even pressing a hand over her mouth and pretending to gag. 

“Ate what?” You found yourself asking, startling the group of girls, who all turned to look at you with wide eyes. 

Suddenly, the girl who’d been talking smiled wickedly. “Hey,” she began slowly, “You can keep a secret, can’t you?”

You tilted your head curiously but nodded all the same. You still had yet to tell anyone that your older sister wet the bed after all. 

The girl smiled again, sharp as a knife, and gestured at someone to make room. One of the other girls pulled another chair over, and the group pulled you in, sitting you down so quickly you could practically feel your head spin. 

Before you even had time to process what was happening, the main girl was leaning covertly over the desk toward you. “You know Amy Lawrence, right?” she asked lowly. 

You nodded hesitantly, thinking about the girl who you sometimes played with during recess. 

The girl nodded in return and, after another quick look at the teacher, said, “I heard that she eats bugs.”

Your eyebrows almost instantly shot toward your forehead, and the girl leaned back with a satisfied grin as the other girls around you similarly reacted, even though they’d definitely already heard her say that. 

After the shock came the revulsion, bugs? Who would eat bugs? And why?

The girl leaned forward again when she saw your expression, which was no doubt twisted in disgust. “I know, right? It’s so disgusting. I can’t believe she’s allowed to go here.”

You found yourself nodding fervently the minute she’d finished talking. The idea of eating bugs…ugh, even thinking about it a little bit caused your whole body to shiver. 

“Did you see her eat one?” You practically whispered, still struggling to process what you’d been told. 

“Ew, no!” the girl almost shrieked, cowing slightly when the teacher glanced their way. “Ugh, no. Believe me. I would have already told the principal on her if I had.”

Ok, well, now you were confused. 

“Wait, how do you know if you didn’t see?” You asked. 

The girl shrugged. “I just heard it from someone else.”

Your brows furrowed in confusion, but the girl wasn’t done talking. 

“But, even if someone just made it up, I wouldn’t be surprised if it were true. Amy is so disgusting.” 

The girls around you were quick to agree, one girl even throwing out a quick. “I heard she only showers once a month!”

Now thoroughly bewildered but still relentlessly creeped out, you forced yourself to ask one final question. 

“Made it up?”

At your question, all the girls in the circle turned to you, their eyes burning holes into your purple sweater. 

“Uhhhh yeah.” the girl from before said, scoffing as she talked. “What, have you never started a rumor before?”

You shook your head slowly, still trying to figure out what they meant. At your response, the other girl blinked, clearly thrown, and sat back in her chair. 

“Really?” she asked. 

You just shrugged helplessly, unable to tell what she wanted from you. 

The girls in the circle all looked at each other helplessly, neither of them sure how to respond, when the main girl from before suddenly sighed in exasperation. 

“Look,” she began, “it’s really not a big deal. Sometimes it’s just fun to make stuff up about people, you get that, right?”

You nodded slowly, despite not getting it at all. 

She smiled at you, both more genuine but also somehow more dangerous than before. 

“Come on, try it.” she prompted, looking around the classroom and picking out a random girl. 

“Her,” she said, pointing at the girl innocently reading in the corner. “What have you heard about her?”

You looked at the girl, whose name you vaguely remembered as Hailey, who was quietly reading her book and thought of something you could say. You didn’t like to be mean, but that was what the others had been doing, so surely it must be ok, right? And after all, it was just words. It wasn’t like anyone would actually get hurt. 

“Um,” your mind scrambled, trying to think up something good enough. “I heard that she….reads really boring books?”

The girl rolled her eyes, “Ok, no, you can do better than that, try again.”

You grimaced and looked at Hailey again, watching as she turned a page in her book and absentmindedly chewed on her thumbnail. Suddenly, it occurred to you. 

“Oh!” You said, flushing when everyone looked at you. “I um, I heard she, uh, bites her fingernails,” The girl rolled her eyes again and was about to open her mouth when you continued. “And eats them.”

The girls around you erupted into a series of ews, covering their throats and dramatically gagging. Across from you, the main girl smiled, satisfied. 

“Now that I believe,” she said casually, giggling with the other girls as they broke out into laughter yet again. You joined them hesitantly, your laughter gradually gaining more strength the more you did it.

Caught up in your feelings of belonging, you hardly noticed Hailey in the corner, and you definitely didn’t notice when she began to choke, hitting at her chest desperately. 

You only noticed when the teacher rushed over, hurriedly putting his hands over her stomach and thrusting them upwards multiple times. By now, the whole class had gone silent as everyone watched in subdued horror. 

Eventually, Hailey coughed something up, gasping for air desperately as soon as she did. She dissolved into tears soon after, collapsing into the teacher’s arms and heaving for breath. The sound of her cries echoed through the now-silent classroom. 

You couldn’t pay attention to that, though. The only thing you could see was the small fingernail sitting innocently on the carpet, only a few feet from where Hailey had been sitting. 

It almost glinted in the harsh fluorescents above you, and almost unconsciously, your hand wandered to your throat and clutched weakly. 

You hadn’t known it then, not truly, but that was the first time you’d ever used it. 

Though it definitely wasn’t the last.