• The lights were turned off. My sixth grade class was watching a movie. This is when it all began. The middle of the school year. Every one already had their best friends, and we weren't exactly ready to welcome another one. At least we shouldn't have been...
    Mr. Boss, our principle, walked into our dark, movie-mood-filled classroom, and brought with him a family, who was looking at our school. It was a mom and dad with four kids.
    They looked normal enough.
    There was a daughter, whom we were told would be in our grade. There were three younger boys, and the littlest one was very cute. They left the classroom and we continued our movie-watching, talking about who wanted to be friends with the new girl, and who didn't.
    That was a Friday, so there was a whole weekend before she would be in our class, on Monday.
    Then it was Monday.
    The new girl's name was Juliet. What a strange name. Did she come here to find her Romeo? We thought it was funny.
    It was even funnier that she came to our little everybody-forgets-it-exists state of Iowa. From California!
    Wow, really? lol
    Well, it turned out her family isn't normal at all. They are weird and Juliet is super...weird.
    By the end of the first day, everyone made fun of her. So, my best friend Alexis and our friend Louisa decided we should be nice to her. Louisa really didn't like her but she went along with it anyway. Since we were the only ones being nice to her besides Marissa, the girl who was chosen to welcome Juliet and show her around, Juliet became our friend. We didn't really know what to do with her really. I mean, she was super annoying, she always bounced up and down in her seat very awkwardly, and she kept making up stupid stories that weren't true just to make people accept her more. Except all the lies did was make us dislike her more.
    After sixth grade was over, Louisa left to attend one of our school's rival schools. She stayed friends with Alexis for a while, but in that sixth grade year of school when I was in her class, she started hating me, so she made no contact with me after she switched schools. I was sort of upset. Louisa was cool. And now it's just me and Alexis stuck with Juliet.
    In seventh grade Juliet still didn't learn. Alexis and I tried to pretend we were good friends with Juliet, and I guess we are some pretty good actresses. Of course that didn't do anything good to our social lives. But that wasn't even the worst of it.
    I know, what could be worse than ruining your reputation by hanging out with a girl you didn't even want to be friends with?
    That girl's mother.
    I swear something is wrong with her.
    Yea, sure she wants her daughter to have a good friend or two. But she doesn't KNOW her daughter!
    She thinks Juliet is some sort of shy angel who never speaks to anyone and it's a blessing that Alexis and I are her friends because we are the bestest girls in the world.
    Juliet is a perve, a lier, a social outcast, and never shuts up when she should.
    And her mom doesn't know or care about her kids, and yet she is a journalist with ideas of "how to properly raise your children". Yes. My dad thinks it's funny how the mom who lets her 4 1/2 year old son play in the streets and do whatever he wants out there, and who doesn't go looking for her daughter (who ran away) until 10 o'clock at night has a talk show about how wonderful a mother she is.
    Alexis and I sure had our doubts about how good a mom she really is, but we didn't have much of any personal problems with her until our eighth grade year.
    That's when the real problems began.....