The Paper Passer

Sometimes it's a bit surprising how little some people change over the years.

In middle school, she was annoying. She would rarely shut up. She’d get upset with people, and then she’d cry and complain, and even the teachers hated her for that sometimes.
She used to read in class. Which isn’t such a weird thing to do, but when she read, she would start whispering the words out loud to herself. She wouldn’t even realize she was doing it. It freaked the other kids out. Gave them more reason to hate her. When you’re in middle school, you can hate someone because of anything.
She used to get caught with a novel under her desk all the time, because her whispering would give her away. Teachers used to get really frustrated with her, snapping at her multiple times to put the book away, and then her eyes would get all red and she’d just stare at one spot in the classroom, blinking.
Some people’s eyes wander when they daydream in class. Not her. Her eyes zoom completely out of focus, staying fixed on one thing, never moving. She stares at nothing, sitting up perfectly straight, her mouth hanging slightly open, both of those clunky black earbuds in her ears as she listens to her iPod.

As long as I’ve known her, she’s been the kid who passes back papers. People made fun of her for that, too, but she never stopped. It never mattered what class she was in, or who the teacher was, or whether or not there was a TA who could do the job for her. She just did it. She still does it. To this day, after all these years, the Paper Passer still passes back papers.

She had braces for something like nine years. When she finally got them off, they were replaced with a drooly set of retainers that make her speech mumbly and slurred. She doesn’t read in class anymore; she doesn’t even talk anymore, really. She must've realized it gave people a basis on which to humiliate her. When she does talk, it’s to answer a question in class, and if you’re sitting more than five feet away from her, you can’t understand a word she says because of those retainers.

She used to ramble on about the most awkward subjects. Now she's just shy. She blushes when anyone talks to her, and can't make eye contact for long.

She doesn’t do any activities. She just does homework. She wants nothing more than to get good grades. Not just good grades—the best grades.
When she takes notes (which she always does, no matter what the teacher’s talking about), she crams in two or three lines into one college-ruled line in a notebook. All those words squeezed so tight together you can barely read them. When she types her notes on each history chapter, she fills up four of five pages of tiny font, and adjusts the margin so there’s barely any white space around the edge of each page.
She has a hundred and three percent in AP US History. Yeah. That's completely unheard of. It's a bit scary.

It’s these things about her that freak people out today. Not her being loud and annoying or crying about everything or whispering as she reads. It’s the way she tries so hard in these classes. Like they’re all that there is, like they’re all that matters.

Also, she still passes back papers.

"Why does she do that?" a girl whispered behind me in English today, as the Paper Passer darted around the classroom with an armful of graded essays. "He's got TAs; they're just sitting there. Look." She pointed to the English teacher, as he sat droopily in front of his computer screen. "He doesn't even notice she's doing it."

And that's why she does it: because she wants him to notice.

It probably started way back. Third or fourth grade. Maybe one day, seeking attention and wanting to be a good student, the Paper Passer volunteered to pass back papers. And in response, her teacher smiled and said something like, "You're so helpful, [Paper Passer]. You're always so on top of it. Thank you so much."

And that struck a chord with little Paper Passer. She was hungry for that kind of appreciation, and now she'd found a way to get it.
So she kept doing it. She kept passing back papers. And she's still passing back papers. She's spent the rest of her school career trying to get that moment back. She passes back those papers day after day, hoping one day a teacher will notice and thank her again.

Sadly, though, none of the teachers ever notice. They think she’s doing it just because. But she's not.