Middle School, The Worst Years of My Life

Rafe expresses many fantasies with accompanying drawings: drawing himself as an iconic rebel, driving Jeanne in a Lexus SUV, or enjoying his bedroom as a “kid cave,” chock-full of snacks and electronics. The one fantasy to which Rafe continually returns, however, is a medieval struggle pitting the forces of good and evil against one another. These images have certain common features. For instance, Rafe portrays the old HVMS school building as a dungeon or a walled fortress. He depicts other school children as prisoners, sometimes chained to the wall or marching sadly behind barred windows. He transforms teachers and administrators into mythological beasts, trained interrogators, or sly monsters like the lizard king.

In these drawings, Rafe often depicts himself as a victim among other victims. Sometimes, as in the mural he creates near the end of the narrative, he portrays himself as larger than life in the armor of a knight, attacking the school to free the entrapped children while destroying copies of the code of conduct. What is consistent throughout these medieval fantasies is that Rafe perceives himself as noble, someone fighting for the good of others against overwhelming forces of evil. Thus, a key question regarding Rafe’s future is whether the adults viewing the images he creates can decipher Rafe’s noble intentions in the face of his misbehavior.