The seventh grade puts on the school production every year. It is a Big Deal, and the most exciting thing about seventh grade after the last few bat mitzvahs are over. All the classes get together for most of the practices, which take tons of time from class (though maybe not quite enough).

The teachers start practice by lining us up in a formation by height. To my total dismay, I am told to stand right in front of Libby, who always picks on me in class. At my sides are girls I don't really know, from a different class.

Sure enough, as soon as the teachers go back to the front of the room to start teaching the song, I feel a jab in the small of my back. I try to ignore it, but a harder one comes. My back starts to throb. "Stoppit!" I hiss. The teacher turns and gives me a Look. I stand up a little straighter.

By the next practice, the unknown girl on my left catches on and joins in the teasing. She and Libby say things that make me feel squirmy and touch me in ways that make me uncomfortable. They are rough and some of their pokes and pulls really hurt, but as fiercely or pitifully as I ask them to stop they just grin at each other and giggle silently. They tease me about that too. I threaten to tell the teachers but I know from too much experience that the teachers won't do anything about it and Libby will really make my life miserable if she finds out.

Still, after each practice I ask the teachers in charge to please, please change my place. They brush me off as an annoying nudge and tell me seventh graders should be able to get along. I tell them that I'm trying and it's not my fault, but they say I have to be mature and take my place like everyone else. I knew this would happen. They never do anything.

I have no more personal space, I have nowhere to go, and I am too wimpy to fight back. In fact, they make fun of this too, pinching my arms and saying that they can't feel any muscle there. The black and blue marks from this will last for days but I can't make them stop. I leave my place in middle of practice and tell the teacher that she has to do something or I quit. She tells me to get back in my place because I'm disrupting practice. I leave the room instead.

I don't know what else to do, so I sit outside and try to conjure up some pitiful tears, in the hopes that this will garner some sympathy and maybe get the problem taken care of. Every time someone passes by I hope they will save me, and I am disappointed when they walk on like they didn't see me.

Finally, someone comes straight towards me. Unfortunately, this is the Evil Math Teacher. Instead of the tender concern I was hoping for, I get a verbal beating about how I'm supposed to be at practice, as if I seem unsure about that. I try to get a word in edgewise but there are no buts to be had. I am informed that I will lose my part in the production and sent to the classroom to do unbelievable amounts of boring busywork, practicing math that I already knew perfectly. After another feeble attempt at self-defense, I trudge off to meet my fate, utterly beaten.

Having never been a major fan of the performing arts, I don't really mind being docked from the production. But before the next practice I am told that despite losing my solo, I must still participate in the choir. In the same place. And now I'm a "crybaby" too.

You know, I never really wanted my solo in the first place. It was just a few words and not really a singing part, the kind they give someone with no talent because everyone had to get a part. At the time I had made fun of this tradition, thinking that getting a part is not such a compliment at all if everyone has to get one anyway.

But being the only person in the entire seventh grade without a solo is pretty embarrassing, after all.