The Girl Behind the Brave Smile

My name is Fantasia Swan.

I am a student at Bratislava High School, class 1.B.

As Fantasia wipes the dust off the shelf with a rag in her bedroom, she reminisces of her kindergarten days when the world seemed to be kind and simple.

Swan.

What a twist of fate that a surname like that ended up belonging to an ugly duckling.

A little blonde girl with twin tails, Fantasia, is playing with cars and tool kits for kids along with other boys, while the girls, including Eleona who used to have short brown hair as a child, play with dolls and kitchen appliances.

I never had many real friends, besides Eleona, the one person I could always lean on.

Eleona stands up from the carpet and walks toward Fantasia, coaxing her to join the girls. However, Fantasia refuses to go as she has always been fascinated with toys typical for boys. Eleona, having no other choice, joins the game with her and the boys. She sighs. But she would rather play with Fantasia than with girl toys.

In the end, the other girls took their toys and joined them. Everybody was having fun. Except one lonely, chubby boy, who was completely by himself in the corner of the classroom, observing the other kids with his dark brown, disapproving eyes.

When I was in kindergarten, I got along with everybody.

A little girl opens a jar full of cookies, redistributes them to all 13 children playing in a group. Fantasia takes a cookie from the jar and brings it to the boy in the corner, smiling at him. The boy refuses the cookie and averts his gaze toward the wall, waving at Fantasia to leave him alone. Undeterred, she left the cookie on a nearby table and rejoined the group.

However, once children get to elementary school, their physical appearance begins to form and matter more and more.

The elementary school classroom had 12 desks divided in three rows. Each desk had two seats. The children were paired up. Fantasia was sitting next to a quiet girl that didn’t talk too much.

Eleona was attending a different school so we would hang out only during weekends.

Being in the first year, the children were taught to be respectful to each other under any circumstances. Their 9 year journey at this school was only beginning. Before summer vacation, each class had a traditional year-end party filled with pizza, snacks, lemonade and loud music. Everybody was dancing merrily. The tallest boy in the class was playing the macho since the beginning and so he asked every girl for a dance. Even Fantasia got her own dancing round.

My social circle revolved around my classmates, and I enjoyed talking to each of them.

In the middle of the second year, one of the girls who was seated in the front row, transferred to a school in a different town because of family circumstances. On her final day, we bid her farewell with tight hugs and heartfelt gifts.

As time went by, the wheels of fate were beginning to turn, shaping my future.

As they entered the third year, it was time for children to find their partner, with whom they would sit at the same desk for the rest of the year. This wasn’t any issue before because there was an even number of pupils. However, after the departure of the girl a year before, now there were 23 kids.

I didn’t really think it would be a problem because I did have my partner who I was seated with for the past two years. But…

The timid girl who used to sit next to Fantasia has decided to change seats and share the desk with a different girl who lost her neighbor.

Did I mind that? Not really. Somebody must have ended up with no neighbor and it just happened to be me.

However, whenever Fantasia tried to get involved in any kind of conversation with the girls, the topic changed and the girls dispersed.

But over time, I realized they talked to me less and less.

This was around the time that boys started to develop romantic feelings and chase girls, engaging with their first loves. The macho guy was showering compliments on all of his classmates. ‘Pretty hair!’, “Wow, that is a very cool t-shirt!’, ‘You look great in that jacket!’, ‘Are those shoes new? I like them a lot!’, ‘When did you become so cute?’. All but Fantasia. People started ignoring her and the only time she ever heard her name was when the teachers spoke to her.

In the end, I was left completely alone. It hurt.

Every day, after the third lesson of the day, children were allowed to take break outside, which was otherwise forbidden. Fantasia was often sitting on the grass, reading DIY books her father bought her.

The less I talked to my peers, the more I became interested in father’s plumber job, so he started to teach me the basics at home.

How come almost every girl was given attention? No. The correct question was. How come their eyes were so big, round and sparkling? How come they looked almost angelic when they smiled? How come their skin was so smooth? She began noticing the difference between her and the other girls.

I was ugly.

‘Be aware of that chick! She is gonna bite a piece out of you with those teeth!’

When I was given the dental braces in fifth grade, they stopped ignoring me because they focused on laughing at my teeth.

‘You know, Greg invited us all to his birthday party. He told me to ask everybody to come but only those who didn’t look weird!’

The children tend to be cruel. But… in a twisted way, I was kinda happy. They finally acknowledged my existence after years.

Fantasia was running through the hallway, clutching her backpack against her chest, gazing at the floor. She accidentally bumps into a boy who appeared to be a little older than her. He was with two others. She tried to apologize but the boy’s hotdog fell on the ground, making his vein pop on the forehead. As he took a few steps forward while cracking his knuckles, he made Fantasia back up. She was sweating and her pupils dilated.

I thought that I was gonna get hit for sure but this fit looking boy with a red stripe in his hair stepped in and got hurt instead of me. After the first punch, he chased the aggressor away.

The boy then disappeared from her sight as well. Fantasia didn’t have a chance to thank him or even see his face. After the incident, she became an easy social target for everybody to scoff at. The classmates’ derogatory remarks increased in both frequency and cruelty.

In order for others to not get hurt because of me, I thought I should just stay inside of my shell. I didn’t mind the verbal bullying. I was taught by my mother that people who bully others are usually alleviating their own complexes.

The kids in her class completely forgot that they were initially friendly toward her. ‘Don’t touch my desk you stupid monkey or I’m gonna catch that ugliness!’

So if anything, I felt sorry for them. If it makes them better to bully me, then I’ll be glad to help by enduring it.

After that remark about a ‘stupid monkey’, Fantasia just warmly smiled at the girl yelling at her and bowed in apology.

I’ll always smile back at them.

Fantasia now thinks back to the incident at high school the other day, when a student made her trip over. While Ravel and Yutaka were scanning their surroundings for the potential culprit, Fantasia, even with a little of blood under her nose, was still smiling, unbothered by the whole situation.

I can’t help but feel conflicted because of the whole Beauty Contest. But it just means that I was pressured to live my life differently than I truly wanted to due to the societal standards. I had so much to say, but I had almost no one to talk to. I had so many things to try, but I was afraid the others would just ruin it.

Fantasia hears knocking on the front door of their flat.

I don’t care about finding the culprits. I just hope that I can go back to my old self and laugh with the people around me.

She has already wiped off all the dust from her room, so she throws the rug away and walks toward the door.

Nowadays, there is somebody who gives his best to protect my smile. And I’ll do anything to protect theirs.

Once she pulls the handle on the door, a certain someone stands behind them.

“Welcome!” Fantasia’s face breaks into a radiant smile as her spellbound eyes fall upon Ravel.

My name is Fantasia Swan, a proud owner of the ugliest face far and wide!

CHAPTER 13: END