Mean Girls

Brigham Young University researchers find girls as young as three engage in "relational strategies" to become the queen bees of cliques. They said the little mean girls use psychological control techniques to freeze out others and get their way. This pseudonews arrives concurrent with my reading of C.J. Cherryh's Cyteen: The Rebirth in which a girl child clone learns to manipulate and bully both peers and elders. Both items reminded me of a kindergarten incident: sitting at tiny tables of six, my group includes the class' only colored child. I am last to receive the boys' whispered message to "kick Sharon". Long afterward I learn that her latte skin color was the excuse for cruelty. I am ashamed. It's all I remember of my first school experience. When Sharon shows up at Roosevelt, the "white" junior high school, I slink around corners to avoid her eyes, not knowing if she remembers.

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