Kelly Starling Lyons

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED

THE COOL IN ME

When I walked through the doors of my Pittsburgh middle school, I felt awkward and out of place. I was a skinny sixth grader with too-big glasses and braids crisscrossed on my head little-girl style. I gaped at the hugeness of the school. I marveled at the fashions of kids who looked like they had stepped off the cover of a teen magazine. It felt like everyone rocked designer jeans like Jordache, Sergio Valente, and Gloria Vanderbilt, while I wore no-names from a discount department store.

My favorite pair had an embroidered patch of skates on a back pocket with real laces you could tie. I couldn’t wait to show them off, but when I got to school it took just one comment to make me wish I had left them on the rack.

“Where did you get those from?” a girl said with a sneer.

It wasn’t her words that stung, it was her tone. Oozing with scorn, it made me feel foolish for thinking I would get compliments. I pretended like I didn’t hear her question, but my shoulders slumped for the rest of the day.

I was in the gifted program, could spell like a champ, and was the only girl in the percussion section of the jazz ensemble. But I wanted more. I ached to be cool.

When tryouts were announced for cheerleaders for the Mini-Globes basketball team, I signed up. I had no dance lessons or experience cheering, but I had drive. I looked at the other girls, who seemed so poised and perfect, and anxiously waited for my turn. I stilled my nerves by going over the moves in my head. I had the motions and chant down:

Strawberry Shortcake, Huckleberry Pie, V-I-C-T-O-R-Y.

“Next.”

I was up. I gave the cheer my all. I don’t know if I didn’t muster enough team spirit or jump high enough at the end, but it was a pass. I left humbled and determined to try something else.

My next mission was diving into my secret desire to be a hip-hop queen. Breakdancing, deejaying, rapping, I wanted to do it all. I watched in amazement kids who broke out cardboard and hit windmills and back spins. I tried to scratch records and spin on my knee in my bedroom. I wrote raps about school, hanging out with my friends and cousins, and battling rappers like Roxanne Shanté. Some buddies and I pretended to be a crew, the Glamorous Gang, named after Sheila E’s hit “The Glamorous Life.” I was Lady K.

I daydreamed about spitting rhymes that made kids throw their hands in the air, and imagined popping and locking like I was an extra on the movie Breakin’. I even went to school one day armed with Mom-approved rhymes to lyrically take down some boys who were a pain. Ready to spar, I called one a roller skate and said I wanted to use his head to do a figure eight. Supercorny, but it cracked him up and me, too. I had imagination, but an MC I was not.

But something happened as I tried and failed at cheerleading and rap—I started feeling good about who I was. My cool came from making up secret codes and passing notes to my best friend, Nikki, between classes and sharing our own special jokes that made us giggle and lock arms.

My cool came from making good grades and being selected to be part of a special science club. Mr. Scott, a teacher who made learning the meaning of inertia as awesome as watching a new music video, was my hero: “Objects have a tendency to resist the changes in motion,” he rapped while we kept time with cowbells and tambourines.

My cool came from Mr. Powell’s band room, where I played synthesizer. In Jazz Ensemble, I jammed in the back with the guys who played drums, electric piano, and bass. Mr. Powell, brilliant, quirky, and exacting, pushed us to improvise and shine in solos. We played songs like “Sailing” and “Ride Like the Wind” by Christopher Cross and performed for students around the city. Then, one day, Mr. Powell wrote “Kelly’s Blues,” a song just for me.

Even in the out-of-date black tuxedo pants and gold butterfly collar shirt that was our uniform, I felt as smooth as Herbie Hancock playing “Rockit.” My fingers danced across the keys during my moment in the spotlight as my friends and family cheered me on.

As I came into myself, I discovered my style groove, too. Who needed designer gear when you had creativity? I mixed flowered jeans with my mom’s pastel ruffled shirts and wore cha-cha skirts with leggings and fluorescent high tops with a hat slung on my back. I rocked my glasses and sported hairdos that felt just right. I still heard an occasional snarky comment, but louder than that I could hear my own voice telling me to raise my head to the sky and strut. By the end of eighth grade, I didn’t need anyone’s approval. I was the kind of cool only I could be.