Bent Penny...

They should have been friends, Sebastian and Penny Nickels, and most thought they were or at least joked about them being - being friends, she's your girlfriend, he's your boyfriend - sitting them in trees together, k.i.s.s.i.n.ging together - yes, they should have been friends. Both outcasts, teased and tormented, both freaks, unknown and unwanted, they should have been friends, but they weren't...not really. Why? Don't we, in school, seek out and attach ourselves to those with similar qualities, clothing styles, tastes and muscle sizes. And with that said, might not a school's entire jock and cheerleading population be wiped clean with just one tiny bomb, strategically placed under that certain cafeteria table under the trophy case, or instead, the table by the exit door, tick, tick, tick, KABOOM...no more drama kids. We go with what we know, and while Sebastian knew Penny, she didn't know him. Their similarities meant nothing to her and what ever connection they should have had was lost on the girl, for Penny Nickels lived in a world all her own.

They were in the same grade, though Penny spent most of her time in the "special" class, the same special class which Sebastian's parents fought vehemently to have him removed - such a thing would not look good in the yearly Family Christmas Newsletter. The few days Sebastian spent as a classmate of Penny's, he came away from the experience grateful for his parent's prejudices. That class, filled with kids in helmets and padded chairs, plastic and unusable scissors seemed more of a holding pen than anything else. The noise from hands and heads banging on chairs, feet on floors and windows, pounding and smacking and screaming and in the middle of all the chaos sat Penny, quiet and still, unaffected and disconnected. Sebastian noticed as the kids ran and rocked themselves around and around the room, no one, not a single child came within three feet of the girl. Her chair, dead center of class remained an unspoken restricted area, and for Billy's constant pacing, well, he knew to detour. Penny Nickels lived within the confines of that three feet zone and it followed her from class to the hallways, to lunch and the playground at recess - her wall, her invisible stone and mortar wall where no one may enter.

Penny's silence, unlike Sebastian's, was dark. It frightened people, kept them away. She exuded absolute passivity, her non-reactions to the most hateful words thrown at her smashed against her wall, its strength made her invulnerable, crippling her assailants, rendering them and their words useless. Sebastian studied her and at times tried to copy what she did, showing no weakness, but...Sebastian was weak - the fatal crack in the wall, needing just one push and down it comes. Sebastian admired Penny Nickels and believed they should have been friends...maybe someday.