Hello,

It's Mastiff! I'm the new guy, and I'll be reviewing your piece. These are just my thoughts and forgive me if I ramble, and realize I make just as many mistakes as anyone else. This one is special, as it's celebrating your birthday! Thank you for sharing your writing.

Title: The title wasn't near as enticing as the subtitle. Together it works, but realize the title by itself doesn't make a clean draw. By that I mean, "Growing Up" wouldn't bring me in by itself.

Initial Reaction: Honestly, I wasn't thinking other planets and such, I went towards some strange experiments. It's good. It didn't hit fully until later.

Setting: It really could have been anywhere, but you captured the school setting well. You used the sense of touch very well, and I always like when writers use as many senses as they can.

Character Development: You excelled here. I could feel the frustration and then the anguish your main character was experiencing. From the undeveloped girl all the way through to alien.

Plot: Unusual, to say the least. You took a theme that has been used before and made it your own. I enjoyed it all the way through.

Ending: All that pain and she ends up in Mississippi? Ouch...

Line-by-line and Suggestions:
Para. 2 Ln. 5 - Not sure EWWWW needs to be all caps, but that's just me.
Para. 14 Ln. 7 - "Gees" wants a z, either "geez" or geeze." Probably a comma after "Mom" would be appropriate.
Para. 35 Ln. 1 - Just me, but "passed" instead of "handed" lets the sentence stand on its own. Without the next one, they could have been turning the quizzes in.
Para. 42 Ln. 2 - I think a period instead of a comma is what you want.
Para. 48 Ln. 1 - Adding "up" after "pulled" would make for better flow.
Para. 77 Ln. 6 - A comma after "see" would be a good add.
Para. 81 Ln. 2 - You can drop the comma in this one. :)
Para. 83 Ln. 1 - Consider reworking this sentence, and perhaps the next, to make it read better.
Para. 95 Ln. 2 - She seems to be thinking, and if so, italics have been used everywhere else.

Overall - It may seem like a lot, but in a story of that length, and most being minor corrections, it's not much. Easy enough to edit up for a nice read!

Happy Writing!

Mastiff