She was not what onlookers would describe as “beautiful”. In fact, she didn't even look like she belonged in high school. Her hair was thin and matted, squaring a face aged beyond her years. Her eyes were sallow and bagged, nose wrinkled, chin imperfectly crooked. She was overweight and moved with a distinctive limping gait.

“Who is she?” Matt demanded of me, watching as she walked down the hallway.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I think that she’s a new student.”

“Here?” he continued, making a face. “In high school?” He looked at the squat, portly girl as she struggled to gather her textbooks from out of a locker. “She looks too ugly to be even a substitute teacher.”

As we watched a handful of divas sauntered past, staring evilly at the newcomer. They laughed as they passed her locker violently, knocking the books out of the girl’s hands. One girl whispered a single word under her breath: “Porcine.”

I sighed to myself. The cruelty of some kids.

The girl finished with her locker and slammed it shut, her head downturned, and shuffled in my direction.

“Well, I’m out,” Matt announced, suddenly abandoning me in the middle of the hallway. I felt like I was all alone; all alone, that is, with the strange female approaching me.

She moved to the left as if to pass me. I was about to let her when a tinge of guilt touched my heart. I sighed a second time and turned clockwise to face her fully. “Hey,” I greeted, extending my hand. “I’m Jonathan.”

She kept her head lowered for a few more seconds before eventually looking up at me. “I’m Francine,” she responded.

I closed my eyes as I realized what the mean girls had meant when they had passed her locker. They had used “Porcine” as a play on her name of “Francine”. But as I knew from English class, porcine was an adjective denoting pigs, not at all a flattering nickname.

My throat choked up a bit as I studied her face. She seemed to be a nice enough person behind those sad eyes, but I couldn’t get past her strange looks. If I didn’t know that she was a senior transfer student, I could have sworn she was a middle-aged woman. I checked myself from asking what physical deformity she had been born with to look that way. Instead, I eked out a pitiful, “Nice to meet you,” and exited the conversation as quickly as I had entered.

The hallway seemed unceremoniously colder as I left. I tried not to imagine what she looked like as I left rapidly. Was she still staring at me with those soft, quiet eyes? Or had she tearfully made her way to the nearest restroom after my disgusting display? I struggled to blot the possible scenarios out of my mind.

I shouldn’t feel guilty. I had done my part, right? I had said hello. There was nothing more that could be expected of me.

*

*

*


Turkey and provolone on a white roll. Again.

It was the same meal I got at lunch every day. I frankly could care less what my friends had to say about my dietary monotony. As long as I was putting lettuce and tomato on my sub and keeping off the high-fat mayonnaise, I reasoned that my doctor would approve.

I took a bite and chewed thoughtfully. My gaze was in the same direction as everyone else’s at my lunch table: toward the single figure seated at the far end of the cafeteria. Francine was alone with her simple lunch of home-packed salad and a helping of macaroni casserole. She sipped her milk noiselessly, eyes still characteristically diverted downward in an attempt to ignore the prying stares of hundreds of peers.

“I’m surprised Porcine didn’t bring an entire camel to eat today,” Matt joked, punching me lightly on the shoulder.

“I’m still amazed she hadn’t eaten the entire school yet,” remarked Terrance, a mutual friend sitting across from me. “I’m dreading her ever joining the track team. The entire high school will have to evacuate when she starts running.”

“Pig stampeded!” Matt yelled.

Francine looked up for a second, but didn’t respond verbally. She rotated in her seat to face away from us.

“Guys, keep it down,” I said. “It’s bad enough that all the girls in this school are crushing her reputation. She doesn’t need the guys teaming up against her as well.”

“Well, in all honesty,” Matt defended himself. “She really can’t be any worse off than she is now. If I were her I’d bank on my infamy and make a reality show called Swine and Dine.” He laughed at his own pun. “Seriously, though,” he went on, calming down slightly. “Melody and Tara are on a vendetta marring Porcine’s name all over the internet. This girl will probably kill herself if she isn’t lynched by one of her classmates.”

“Don’t say that,” I insisted.

“It’s true,” Terrance interjected. “They even want to make her the Prom Queen. Melody says that that way they don’t have to kill a sow to get enough pig’s blood for the dance.”

“Let’s just hope she doesn’t have telekinesis,” I bantered, chuckling lightly at my own joke.

Matt laughed. “Yeah, see…even Mr. I-Don’t-Think-We-Should-Be-Making-Fun-of-Her is joining.” He lowered his voice. “Look…it’s not our fault that she was born so ugly. If the teachers don’t want her to be bullied, they shouldn’t have brought her to school in the first place.”

“Careful saying that around here,” I warned. “You know that Principle McCarthy had been trying to enforce all those anti-bullying agendas around here for the past five years. She’s even bringing in a mandatory motivational speaker to preach out against bullying tomorrow in the auditorium.”

“Yeah, but will it work?” Terrance asked no one in particular. “We’ve had a billion speakers in this school, and not one of them has motivated a kid to stop bullying for more than a day or two. Come next week we’ll all be back to ribbing each other.” He jabbed a finger in Francine’s direction. “I think that the best remedy for bullying is to just pick on person to put all our effort into; in this case, Porcine. That way we don’t bully a lot of kids at one time. Just one. She can be this school’s sacrificial lamb.”

“Or, rather, the sacrificial pig,” Matt added.

The entire table, except for me, burst into uproarious laughter. I just couldn’t bring myself to smile at the witticism. Deep down I felt the same guilt I had felt when I had left Francine in the hallway the day before. I began to wish that maybe, just maybe, the speaker tomorrow really would make a difference.

Not for my sake. For Francine’s.

*

*

*


“This is some turnout.”

My comment was spot-on. The entire auditorium was packed to the brim, kids filling in slowly as they searched for seats among the din of swirling high schoolers. Every race, religion, size, and personality was evident in the room. Even Francine.

She was seated toward the front, theoretically putting herself the farthest out of danger by sitting the closest to the stage. If anyone was going to protect her form the jeers and taunts of the merciless teens in the theater, it was whoever the anti-bullying speaker was going to be.

I checked my watch. There was still a minute left until the show was going to start. I could already see Superintendent Masters on the side of the stage reviewing his introduction on a notebook. The lights and sounds people were scurrying around with all sorts of chords and tablets to make sure that the entire room was prepped before they began.

“Is this seat taken?” a voice asked above me.

I turned at the familiar sound. It was my friend May.

“It is now,” I offered, moving my coat off of the chair and allowing her to sit down beside me. I instantly was taken aback by how much she had dressed up for the night. “Wow,” I said, still looking intently at her. “You’re beautiful.”

“I know,” she answered simply. She craned her neck to look around the room. “A lot of kids here,” she remarked.

“Well, they didn’t all come voluntarily,” I explained. “You see, a few Public Speaking teachers made this lecture mandatory because they said it was…” My voice trailed off as the lights lowered. The event was about to begin. “You get my drift,” I finished briefly.

Superintendent Masters stepped into the middle of the stage with a big grin on his face. “How’s everyone doing tonight?” he asked. The crowd responded with limited enthusiasm. Masters shrugged off the response and continued with his overtly-jovial emceeing. “Tonight we have a special treat for everyone in this building. World renowned speaker, author and psychologist Edna Cott is with us this evening to share a message about the growing bullying epidemic in the United States.

“I know that many of you are here as a result of your Public Speaking class here at Woodstown High. But don’t let that make you think that this lecture is purely academic. We’re all here to have a good time, to laugh, to cry, and to learn a lot about how we act and interact with our peers.”

I leaned over the armrest between May and I. “The day our superintendent gives a short speech is the day that pigs fly,” I remarked with a derogatory tone.

“Porcine doesn’t have wings,” May responded with a smile. She tossed her hair and turned her attention back to the stage.

“So, without any further introduction, I would like to invite Dr. Cott onto the stage to begin her oration.” Superintendent Masters stepped out of the main light and exited to the right.

The entire audience waited with strange anticipation. The entire platform was lifeless. “She must be running late,” I suggested out loud.

But I was wrong. Dr. Cott wasn’t late at all. In fact, she had been in the auditorium the entire night, hiding in plain view. The entire crows of high schoolers gasped horrifically as she climbed slowly, ever so deliberately slowly, onto the podium.

Dr. Cott began with four words: “My name is Francine.”

The amphitheater was dead quiet as everyone present watched with hushed disbelief. The unattractive senior who they had all mocked the past few days was none other than the motivational speaker herself. I waited with shameful bated breath for her to continue.

“My name is Francine,” she repeated. “Dr. Francine Edna Cott.” She pursed her lips and pushed back her greasy hair before continuing. “But you would know me better by my nickname: Porcine.”

A few kids guiltily coughed. One girl even exited through one of the back doors, her face soaked in tears.

“Over the past three days I have been able to witness, first hand, what high schools are like in modern America,” Francine went on. “And, with all the candor I can muster, I am utterly ashamed and revolted at the current social state of contemporary adolescent education. For half a week I was ridiculed, mocked, scorned, ostracized, and discriminated against for being nothing more than a high school student who looked like a middle aged woman.” She lifted her hands in the air. “Well, now you can see that I really am a middle aged woman. Does that make me any better looking? Or am I still as ugly as a pig?”

No one dared say a word in response.

“I’m glad to see that you all have respect for me now,” Francine admitted. “But I haven’t changed at all. My prestige may have boosted when you heard I was a doctor, but my looks are the same. I still look like Porcine.” She paused for effect.
Dr. Francine Cott began to pace across the stage casually with her head downturned in thought. She eventually stopped and faced the audience again to deliver her main point. “I am truthfully impressed by how much zeal was shown by the students of Woodstown. No matter what I did or said, you continued to attack me, never slowing down or relenting in the tiniest bit. The bullying that ensued in the past few days was probably one of the greatest efforts of zealous conjoint effort that I have ever seen in my life.” She raised both hands in the air at this point and increased the urgency in her voice. “What if we as a school were to work together against bullying with the same zeal that was used to initiate bullying? How come it’s so easy to work as a team when your goal is attacking someone “less-attractive” or “overweight” or “homosexual” or “lascivious”? Why can’t that team mentality transcend into a zeal to stop, rather than start, bullying?”

Her words pierced me straight through my heart. I looked around me at the shocked faces of my peers. Dr. Cott’s speech was effecting everyone, I could tell. She just needed a single person to get her idea started.

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes for a second, and then got up from my seat. I stretched my back and puffed out my chest as I stood tall. A dozen or so faces stared at me quizzically, wondering what I was doing. Even Dr. Cott looked down to where I was located with an inquiring expression.

Without further delay I began to clap. Gently at first, then more rapidly.

Behind me I could hear the claps of other students as my classmates began to rise and clap in a synchronized symphony of praise. In under a minute the entire audience had risen to their feet in respect for the woman before us on the stage, applauding ferociously. It didn’t matter that Dr. Cott hadn’t finished her speech yet. As a matter of fact, I think that this is the way she would have liked it. At the beginning.

I felt the weight in my gut lift gradually as I continued to clap. The entire school was joining together under a single banner. Our zeal was no longer directionless; our ignorance had been enlightened. We were a team. A team with a beautiful goal to replace the dead, repulsive objective that had once driven our passion to depraved depths.

And we owed it all to Francine.