Christiane Lee was a big eleven -year -old, standing almost six feet tall, same as my mother’s prize horse. Her pig nose framed her football sized head, paired with small, cauliflower-like ears. She had hair on her knuckles and mean, beady eyes, her mouth permanently set in an ugly snarl.
When she was near, all the other children would scatter like mice, leaving Christiane Lee to bulldoze across an empty playground, on the hunt for stragglers under the red slide, or clinging to the top of the monkey bars.
During lunch she’d always sit alone, occasionally using her straw to spray chocolate milk on fresh, new school outfits, or goading the youngers for lunch money. And if you tried to run, you better believe Christiane Lee would catch you, with her thick knees and strapping calves. Then she’d wring you dizzy with those giant, pumpkin crushing hands, and take any valuables you had- be it gum or next period’s test answers. You’d be a sorry sap if you were anywhere near the girl’s bathroom before the 8:00 a.m. bell rang, or you’d be introduced to her favorite stall, riddled in Ozzy Osborne lyrics where your new shampoo would be toilet water supreme.
Yes, Christiane Lee was the epitome of a Neanderthal, a bully who made the rest of us kids miserable. She’d always deserved it when she was the last one picked in dodge ball, for she always made sure to kick the ball directly at gaping faces. And her unfortunate lab partner would always become privy to chemical explosions and dissections gone wrong. Christiane Lee was a beast, a powerful entity determined to crush others like bugs.
So why did I see her crying, all alone in the deepest corner of the library, tears streaking down her face. This huge girl, mean as a snake with the blackest of hearts that we’d theorized was ice-hard, or perhaps microscopic like the Grinch’s, was sobbing, blubbering like an infant. And I don’t know why, but I sat down next to her. She didn’t punch my teeth down my throat, or smash my nose with her book, but instead smiled. She smiled. Then I thought, that maybe there was more to Christiane Lee.