He could hear his classmates chatting excitedly around him. Eddie was having a birthday this weekend. Eddie was rich and having a party in his luxurious condo and everyone was invited. Brian could see kids waving their invitation cards excitedly at one another. They were sealed in shiny gold envelopes, so anyone could see them from afar. The cards were made of expensive card paper, a photo of Eddie grinning widely infront of his luxurious condo pasted in the middle with glitters around the edges and the words 'You're invited' in cartoon style wording on top of the photo. Insides, the party's date and address was printed neatly in bold letters.

Brian didn't get an invitation, and he didn't mind as there was no one to go with him anyway. He was in a new school, a new kid, not even the new kid. If he was 'the new kid' people would have started talking about him, like he was a novelty, like a topic, that got bored after a while. As it was he didn't even have the luxury of being a temporacy topic. He wears glasses, have freckles and a messy mob of hair, not exactly a topic kids find interesting to talk about. He was okay with it. He didn't like being the centre of attention. He'd find it weird if people started talking about him. As it was kids had alot of interesting things to talk about and Eddie's upcoming party was one of them. He felt slightly left-out, an emptiness in his stomach no food could satisfy. But he pushed it away and made his expression blank. Or maybe he shouldn't bother because no one was looking at him and no one would have bothered even if they were. He tried to read a book but kids were talking and laughing too loudly. He couldn't concentrate at all. His eyes went to and fro the same sentence and no words sank in. He sighed to himself and peeked around at the top of his book.

Brian heard a few girls chatting away what dress to wear, what sort of make-up, probably trying to out-do one another. What's it girls always compete this way. If you're pretty, then you're no matter what you wear.If you are ugly, well, it's not your fault. No one cared if he was invited or not. He felt like sitting in front of the TV and all this going on around him was some sort of TV program he was watching. He knew everyone was there, what they were doing but they didn't see him at all or cared or he was invisible so they saw through him and didnt' see him at all.

Thankfully it was near the end of the day. Only two more lessons to go. Ms Lee droned on and

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