Shoot Straight

October chill crawls through my jacket as I stand shivering in front of the school, waiting for my mother’s familiar blue van. Tears spike my eyes, snaking back every time I wipe them away. Footsteps sound behind me and I try to block out the jeering voices teasing me and making fun of my bland outfit. You would think that someday this “new girl” routine would go away, but it never has. Turns out the prissy attendees of Caverly Junior High are worse than usual.

I let out the air I’ve been holding when I spot an old and weatherbeaten blue van bumping its way through the lot. The paint is old and worn, the sides rusted from age. I can hear the rusty brakes screeching like cats, making people point, turn, and stare.

My mother pulls up next to me, sending another chorus of screeching. Naturally, she sees my tearstained face and knows better not to say anything. I don’t like to talk about what happens at school, and I am so grateful that she understands. It’s not that my mother doesn’t care about me; usually, the discussion is saved until we are under the roof of our tiny humble cottage where I can cry my tears freely away from prying eyes. The driveway is cracked with years, weeds spilling through them, and the old yellow paint is peeling and blowing away in the wind. But inside the warm light glows, and it feels like home.

She starts by asking what was wrong and if I was okay. I take several deep breaths to calm down, willing myself not to cry. And then it all starts spilling out. How kids made fun of my tattered clothes, my bird-nest hair, and my old shoes ridden with holes. How I had no friends to talk too, no one to be my oh-so-special partner in science class, and no one to sit and talk with during lunch. The faces made to me as I shuffled down the hall, people veering out of the way and holding their noses like I had some sort of disease.

My mother sighs. Her skin is pale, dark circles shadowing under her eyes, lips chapped and nails cracked. She reaches into her ragged apron and pulls out a crumpled paper, giving it to me. It’s a free archery camp, where you register and go fling countless arrows at circles and bullseyes for 2 weeks. I look at her, my eyebrows raised in bewilderment.

“For you to go and have fun, try something new. You can meet new people and make some friends,” she says with a faint smile. Her eyes are pleading, searching my face.

Things like this don’t come along often. Last summer, I pleaded and begged to go to an art and creativity camp. It cost 105 dollars for a week of blissful fun and cool projects. But I couldn’t go. We barely had enough money to sustain ourselves, let alone the fact that we were months behind our car and house.

I’d never done archery before and had no intention to. It seemed scary, with those shiny, piercing arrows, and those terrifying bows. But I was stressed out and worn thin from the realities of life, so I nodded my head, not that I expected anything to change after going to this.

The arrow misses by at least 2 feet, bouncing and disappearing into the shrubbery behind the target. I hear laughing behind me, and “Is she blind or what?” It’s day 3 of this blasted archery camp and I’ve only hit the target twice, both by accident, so far from the center of the target. I’ve even almost hit a person with an arrow, getting a whole lot of snickering, name-calling, and a 30-minute time out. My fingers are too clumsy to hold the bow steady and my sense of direction too inadequate. My instructor isn’t much help either. He mostly looks at his phone with an uninterested expression on his face, and barely glances up at me when I let out an exasperated huff and snatch up another arrow.

I’m not sure why I am so determined to improve my archery skills. Even if more of my recent arrows haven’t missed, I’m still terrible at archery. While other kids are expertly getting bulls-eyes and hitting targets every time they shoot, my arrows are either in the woods or far from the center of the target. Maybe it’s because I’m just so desperate to get this right, or I’m sick of being alone, but I seize another arrow and concentrate on the neon bullseye. I let go, expecting it to fly off somewhere when it lands with a smack in the center.

I can feel eyes on me as I turn around, and 10 gaping mouths shaped in perfect o’s are staring back at me. I have to admit that I was equally surprised at my bullseye. Perhaps all that hard work finally paid off; the looks on their faces are priceless. Who knew that weirdo girl could land a bullseye?

They flock toward me like a herd of wild birds, throwing questions at my face. Kids try to size me up, arrows flying. I shy away from people as they push forward, not used to all this talk.

Throughout the rest of the camp, I still find kids lingering around my station. They want me to teach them how to shoot better, asking what techniques I use, how long have I been doing archery, and can I have your number?

I thought it would never happen. I thought that I would never accomplish anything but being the most picked on in life. Just knowing that I could make a bullseye changed the way I thought about things. If I was determined to change something, I could do it. Even if somewhere is so far away it seems like you might never reach it, just shoot straight toward it, and one day you’ll find yourself there.