Bloom "John" Gardner

8:04am

Standing at the front of a grid of fellow sixth graders, I winced as Ms Ryland introduced me to the rest of the class. Chuckles rippled across the desks.

“What kind of a name is that?” sneered a blond kid wearing a Penguins jersey in the front row.

I buried my hands into my pockets and started walking to the empty desk at the back, before Ms Ryland stopped me.

“Not so fast, kiddo!” She spluttered. “How about you tell the class something about you? What do you like doing in your free time?”

My eyes darted across the classroom, desperately looking for an escape. Hesitating, I opened my mouth, but no words came out, just a measly squeak. The class erupted into laughter now.

“This dude stinks!” the same kid jeered. “How ironic,” he muttered to his friends.

Ms Ryland tried to settle the group of tweens. “Bloom is new, be nice.” She spat.

I grimaced as she said my name for the second time. It was my first day at this new school, I’d lost my voice, and my name was Bloom. Things were not off to a good start.

4:11pm

“Bloomy!” Mom squealed as I shut the door and walked into our cramped apartment. I rolled my eyes – there was another canvas in the living room.

“Mom, seriously?” I groaned.

She was an artist of sorts. After getting kicked out of art school, she’d decided our one-person apartment was her new playing ground, something I didn’t appreciate. The house was always a mess, I couldn’t put my elbows on the kitchen table without touching some recent oil paint, and we were dirt poor. She calls herself a ‘creative’, which is what led to my unfortunate first name. You’d think an artist would want some sort of cool stage name for her son, not a measly synonym for flower.

“Don’t get annoyed, Bloom. This is for a competition. The prize is a hundred bucks.” She replied defensively, gesturing to the half-painted canvas blocking the bathroom door.

I sighed and sat down on the sofa to watch ESPN. My jeans suddenly felt wet. I rapidly stood up. There was a wooden pallet in the crack of the couch with a patch of paint spreading across where I’d just been perched. I touched the blue paint blob. Still wet. Groaning, I stormed to my bedroom and slammed the door.

On my desk was a flyer that Ms Ryland had forced upon our entire homeroom class earlier in the day, encouraging us to enter the Pennsylvania State Science Fair. I racked my brains for some ideas, but struggled to find anything I could talk to the entire class about, let alone the state. Nevertheless, I grabbed a marker and scrawled my details onto the back of the flyer to sign up. “Bloom Gardner”, I wrote reluctantly, before adding “John” as my preferred name.

Three months later

I sat at the very end of my middle school’s designated row in the ginormous university lecture hall. Somehow, my project on hockey pucks had made it to the top three. Jace, the Penguins jersey kid from day one, elbowed me from behind.

“You’re up, flower boy.” He spat.

I trudged to the steps as the judge read out my name. “For an excellent STEM-focused project on hockey pucks of all things, in second place, we have John Gardner from Lawrenceville Middle!”

Everyone clapped politely but I glanced at Jace and his goons who were snickering obnoxiously. My hands started sweating as I suddenly remembered the months of tormenting I’d gone through at Lawrenceville. I thought about the attic, with all of Mom’s framed work and my hockey gear that no longer fit.

I took a deep breath. “Come on, John.” I whispered.

My feet failed to move towards the lectern where the judge was beckoning me over.

I gulped. Flowers don’t grow by being hiding in corners, they need to push through the soil.

I suddenly welled up the power to walk towards the judge, and took my award gracefully. Locking eyes with Jace, I announced to the microphone, “Actually, my name is Bloom.”

His face fell. Grinning to the local photographers, I held up my plaque and walked off the stage, finally taking my hands of my pockets.