Highschool

This story is told from four different peoples perspective; Mike, Gloria, Chris, and Andi. I am looking for input, please leave comments about what you think or email me at [email protected].

MIKE
Ch. 1 New Kid in the Hall
My alarm clock rang. I hated that hated that sound. It was the standard cross between a screech and beep that caused me to jump whenever I herd anything like it. I rolled over and punched the clocks snooze button. I just lay there and stared at the fan going around and around. I checked the calendar, October, 19th a Monday, crap. Then my mom yelled at me to get up. I did almost hitting my head on the ceiling. I have a loft bed
We live in a crappy apartment, in a smaller than average town just outside the Los Angeles area. We had enough for a nicer place; my dad said it saved us money. There were six of us living here. There was me, I was fourteen, and in the ninth grade. I’m thin, but tall and strong. I have long black hair and dark skin.
Then there was Jack. He used to have dirty blonde hair, before he died it black for the football team. If you ask me it looks more blue than black. He’s very short, only about five foot two, but he’s really strong, and fast, and stuff. Jack’s a senior; he already has just about all his credits, so he decided to go totally crazy. He’s on the hockey, football, and wrestling teams. He’s basically the king of Hidden Hills High; everyone loves him, and thinks he’s perfect.
Chris was the next oldest. He’s a junior, sixteen, and used to play on the football team. He got kicked off because they caught him taking steroids in the locker room last year. It wasn’t hard for him to hide it from Mom, and Dad because they’re never home. He’s really tall, like six two, and has dark brown hair. I’ve had debate with him this semester and I am finding out what a dumb ass he really is. Jack and I have also found out he is taking cocaine, and sometimes acid too. Just two months ago he went on a trip in our apartment around mid-night. I had to call Jack to come because Kristina, (my sister) and I couldn’t do anything by ourselves. When Jack got home I helped him force Chris into his room. He tried opening the door but couldn’t so he climbed out the window. We live on the fourth floor. Lucky for him the fire escape was being put up two floors down so he only fell two floors not four. Still Jack had to drive him to the hospital because he fractured his leg. Dad gave him a cast, but he also had damaged some leg muscle so he had to perform surgery. He didn’t find out that Chris had been high because he had used too much anesthesia to put him under so Chris had been out for like four hours after. By the time dad checked on him again, it had started to wear off so he could speak. But yeah that’s Chris for you. I don’t have a lot of compassion for him because he was a jerk before the drugs. Jack told us that Chris had been that way from the day he was born. So I know, even if we get him to quit, he will die hating the world, doesn’t matter if it’s at sixteen or sixty-five.
And last of us kids there’s Kristina. She’s like Jack, short; smart; popular; athletic; and beautiful according to all my friends. She’s just a grade ahead of me, and plays soccer for the girls’ varsity team. She’s that good. I’ve been thinking for a while about how much she is like Jack, and have been wondering if that means I’m like Chris. I really hope not.
Our parents are both doctors, Matt and Julie Fisher. Dad was the top surgeon at the Hospital, Mom was a heart surgeon. Our grandmother, on our mothers’ side, was the Chief of Surgery. Uncle Dave, dads only brother, got onto the hospital board. And then Mom’s only sister, Delilah, was the head nurse. So as you can see, my family has been involved with this hospital forever, and all of us are expected to do the same. Out of all of us I think only Kristina is even considering working there. Jack says he is going into some sports job, even if he’s not playing, he says he just wants to do something fun. He hasn’t told me, but I am pretty sure Chris will be a druggie, begging for money on the streets. That’s if he doesn’t jump off a bridge first. When Chris dies I really don’t know what I will feel. And I say when not if because out of Kristina, Jack and I, none of us expect him to get out of high school.
to be cont

I came out of my room in time to see Mom, and Jack leave, Mom to work, Jack to some practice. I walked over to the table, grabbed some cereal, a bowl, and milk, and started eating.
“Where’s Chris?” I asked Kristina.
“I dunno, sleeping maybe,” she said, and then added, “could you get him up.”
I gulped down my cereal then nodded. I dropped my bowl in the sink then went to Chris’ room, and pounded on the door.
“Hey, we’ve got school, get up!” I yelled, then I went in.
His room was messier than mine. He had cloths covering everything, even the fan blades; the only surface that I could see was the table across from the bed. That was because the TV and 360 sat on it. It occurred to me to search the room for his drugs. He always kept his door, and window locked because he knew we would take them. It was our only option because we wouldn’t turn him into mom and dad, or the cops, and we couldn’t talk him out of it. I couldn’t look though because he was blocking my view in a second.
“Did you break in or did I forget to lock the door?” His voice was deep, and scratchy.
“It was open.”
“Damn, oh well, glad I caught you” he sneered.
“Chris are you going to school?” Kristina yelled from the kitchen.
“Yeah I guess!” he yelled back, then he pushed me out and closed the door.
I went back to my room, changed, and left. It was always a race to the door between Kristina an I. Looser had to wait for Chris to make sure he actually went to school.
“You suck!” Kristina yelled after me.
I grinned at her then closed the door. I went down the hall to the elevator, and hit the down button. It stopped on the next floor and she walked in. Andi White, I’ve liked her since the seventh grade. Every time I decided I was going to ask her out she’d tell me she likes someone else. One time she even had me ask the guy out for her, it had been one of my friends, Austin Price. He had said no, but after that horrific attempt I decided I wouldn’t try again for a while. That was a year ago. I think they were just friends now, but she could still like him for all I know. Andi had lived in our building for only about nine months, she had moved because her parents worked at the hospital and this building was the closest to the hospital. Her parents, like mine, usually were not home. She had lived near four guys that I had known too, but who I envied all the same because she was always with them.
They were Eddie Jones, Martin Burns, Josh Jacobs, and Ryan Green. Eddie was short, blonde, and was on the soccer team with me. Ryan was tall, also with blonde hair, and was also on the soccer team, but he could have chosen football if he had wanted to. He was very athletic and funny, but had started drifting from our group of friends. Martin was black, short, and really good with computers; he could do just about anything with them. Finally there was Josh; he was kind of like Chris, only nicer. He was just as tall and had blonde hair. He did cocaine too.
“Hey, Andi,” I said as I got into the elevator.
“How’s it goin’?” she asked.
“Well its Monday” I said turning to look at her.
I knew I liked her for real because she was the first girl that I didn’t like for her looks. She wasn’t bad looking though; she had dark hair; and eyes, and was also shorter than Kristina. She was cute, but not gorgeous.
“Yeah, Mondays suck,” she agreed. Then the elevator stopped and Austin got in, half asleep. He grunted at us, then fell against the wall and dozed the rest of the way down.
to be cont

We walked to the bus stop, got on, and headed to school. We got there, and sat at our table. Andi was the only girl there. The boys included Martin, Eddie, and Josh, but there were a whole bunch of others to. Then we pretty much just sat there and talked for a while, but in our cafeteria a while felt like forever. It was like sitting in a Dr. Seuss book, the walls were painted electric blue, and the pillars were bright yellow. Some people actually wore sunglasses, as a joke while waiting for first period.
My first class was debate, it was my favorite class. I loved to argue, plus I had a whole lot of friends in that class, including Andi. Like I said, Chris was in that class to.
That day we were all sitting around talking when someone I had never seen before walked in. He was taller than Chris, and very thin, with long black hair, and pale skin. He was wearing a denim jacket, cut off at the elbow, and opened to revile a black under shirt. He had dark jeans with a chain wallet in one pocket. He glanced around, but then I kept talking until the bell rang. We all snapped around and faced the front. The guy that had walked in was standing at the front, a smile played about his mouth for a few seconds then he said, “I’m Mr. Jones, I’ve never subbed here before.” His voice was even, and smooth. He paused and looked around the class then said, shrugging. “I guess I’ll take roll.” After he did that he made Chris read about logical fallacy of a false dichotomy. It was really boring stuff and nobody really paid attention, it didn’t make sense we had already learned all this in the first three weeks.
I leaned over to Andi and, whispered, “Déjà vu.”
“Dude, look!” John, the kid who sits behind me, whispered pointing at the door. Mr. Jones was standing next to it, holding the handle so it couldn’t be turned, while looking through the closet behind him.
“He’s not dressed like a sub, is he?” Andi said.
“And he doesn’t look old enough,” I said slowly as I looked him over.
He pulled a key out of the closet and locked the door, then he walked over to the desk, threw the key onto the desk, put his feet up, and fell asleep.
“Yeah, I don’t think he’s for real,” John muttered.
After what seemed like forever Chris was finished, “Hey, um, Mr. Jones,” Chris said, poking his foot. Mr. Jones woke with a start.
“Huh, what?” he said when he woke.
“I’m done with this chapter.”
“Well then,” Mr. Jones started, then he looked out the window and stopped. “Um, go, go sit down.” He said getting up and gesturing with his hands for Chris to go. Then he quickly moved to the door, unlocked it, and tossed the key into the closet. Closing the door with his foot as he ran passed; he jumped into an empty seat just as Mr. Smith, our debate teacher, walked in. He was a short, balding, man who wore the same thing every day, a white shirt tucked into black dress pants, and he had round, wire rimmed glasses that had inch thick lenses which magnified his eyes to more than double there real size.

He looked around, then said, “Sorry I’m late,” in his deep voice, “I was just being told that we were going to have two new students today, so would Cody Johnson, and Gloria Gomez please stand up.”
‘Mr. Jones’ stood up. “Yes why don’t you come up here for a second?” Cody walked to the front of the room; the whole class except for Chris was suppressing laughter. “Go ahead and tell everyone something about your self” Mr. Smith said, smiling.
“Hey, I’m Cody,” he started in the same smooth voice, “and I” he paused, thinking about what he should say, “want to become a teacher.” He finished a half smile now on his face.
Everyone, except Mr. Smith, and Chris cracked up. “Ok, ok that’s enough!” Mr. Smith yelled after a few seconds. “We already have wasted enough time today, because I was not here for most of the class.”
“Oh, like I said sir, I taught the class great! There’s no hurry, we finished everything!” This time Mr. Smith joined out laughter, but silenced us quickly.
“Ok, ok my boy, um sit here.” He said, pointing to the desk next to mine, and in front of Andi, who couldn’t seem to stop staring at him. “Now,” Mr. Smith said, looking at the clock, “we have to squeeze an hour-and-a-half class into forty minuets, so-” he was cut off by Cody.
“Wouldn’t it be easier to just let us talk for this forty minuets? I mean it’s less than half the class, we’ll just end up going over what we learn today tomorrow, right? So we can, like, finish the lesson, it just seems easier to do it all in one day. But, you’re a smart man, you knew that.”
Normally, no teacher would buy that from any student. But Cody had put it so perfectly, perfect voice; charm; and complement at the end, it was all flawless. At least Mr. Smith thought so.
Mr. Smith smiled, “Well, I guess you’re right, everyone just talk amongst your selves, quietly.” He seemed to have forgotten all about the girl, Gloria.
Andi, John, and I turned to face Cody. Even Martin, who sat on the other side of the room, came over to hear what he had to say.

"What?” was all he said when he noticed we were all looking at him.
“What the hell were you doing?” was all I could get out.
“I’ve wanted to do that ever since I saw ‘Catch me if you Can’,” he said, grinning.
I saw Chris get up out of the corner of my eye, and sitting next to him was the other new student. She was wearing a black hoodie with the hood up, and black tight jeans. She was as small as Andi, but not as innocent looking, or as out-going; she sat alone, her dark eyes moving from side to side.
Then Chris came up. He shoved Cody in the back, almost throwing him out of his seat.
“You think you can come in here and make me look like a freakin’ idiot!” Chris said, trying not to yell. Mr. Smith didn’t look up.
Cody sighed a huge, exaggerated sigh, then said, in a fake deep voice, “No Napoleon and I’m not bringing you your chap-stick either.”
“Think you’re so funny!” Chris yelled, grabbing Cody’s shirt and spinning him around. I looked around at the new girl in the back; she was resting her head in her hands, watching with mild interest.
“Chris!” Mr. Smith yelled, Chris let go of Cody, and turned around. “Go back to your desk.”
Chris stalked back to his desk, and sat, arms crossed, face down. The girl looked at him with disgust, then looked back at Cody.
“So what’s your story?” Andi asked.
“Who asks something like that?” was Cody’s response.
“Oh just answer it, don’t try to dodge.” I said, then I saw something sticking out of a pocket in his jeans. “Isn’t that a girl’s wallet?” I asked pointing.
He pulled it out. “Hey that’s mine!” Andi yelled, snatching the wallet away from him.
“Give everyone else there’s back to” I added.
He sighed and handed John and Martin there money then pulled out my duct tape wallet. “I’ll give this back when I get mine,” he said, leaning back in his chair, a smug smile on his face.
I pulled his chain wallet out of my back pack and we traded.
“Where’d you learn to do that?” Martin asked, I guessed the question was for both of us.
“I taught my self,” Cody said.
“Internet.”
“Why did you need to know how to do something like that?” Martin asked me.
“My parents wont give me money, so when its not soccer season I can’t make any right?” I ref eight year old soccer games, So I need some way to make money.”
“So don’t think all this gets you out of it,” John said to Cody. I was just thankful John had gotten me out of that.
“Out of what?”
“Telling us where you came from and stuff.”
“You just won’t let this stuff go, will ya?”
“Hey, your gonna need me to protect you for a while,” I said to him.
“From what?”
“My brother,” I said, nodding at Chris.
“Brother?” he asked, then before I could respond he went on. Alright I’ll tell you all the crap you wanna know.” He cleared his throat, as if he were an amazing storyteller from the 1500’s.
“My parents split up when I was five. My half sister, Andrea, went with Dad, and I went with Mom. My mom died in a car wreck a year later. From there I went to live with Andrea and Dad. He started beating us, her worse than me, so we ran off. We lived on the streets of San Francesco for two years. To get money I taught myself how to pick-pocket. She started stealing. We had a place we’d meet at, then we’d use all the money we ended up with to try to get some food. We couldn’t go to a homeless shelter because they’d separate us, or send us back to Dad, so we slept on benches, hidden, so nobody else would find us. Then one day she got caught, I did to a week later. I haven’t seen her since. But I have been going through foster homes like crazy; this is the first one I’ve been to that hasn’t been a trailer full of ten other kids.” He finished with a weak laugh.
“That’s morbid,” John said, joking.
“That’s life,” Cody replied coldly.
“Where do you think she’s from?” I asked, after a small silence, looking at Gloria.
Everyone turned to look then shrugged, except Cody. “She’s my foster sister.” He said, grimly, “Her story is worse than mine.”
“So what is it?” Andi asked.
“It is a long story.”
“That’s what she said,” John muttered.
I laughed, then said, “We’ve got twenty minuets,” glancing at the clock.
Suddenly Gloria was walking by, as she passed she snarled into his ear, “Don’t tell anyone, anything, about me,” then she walked up to Mr. Smiths desk, got a pass, and left.
“So, why don’t we talk about something, I dunno, happier?” Cody asked after a few minuets.
“Um, anybody seen the new Transformers movie?” Martin asked weakly.
“Yeah, the one that came out tomorrow?” I said, sarcastically.
The bell rang.
“Ok, how are you supposed to keep that,” Cody asked, pointing at Chris, “away from me.”
“What are you so scared of, dude? You’re taller than him.” John said, laughing.
“Taller, yeah, but his arm is as thick as his head!” We all laughed, then he said, “Come on!”
“What’s your next class?”
“Algebra.”
“Cool, that’s where I’m goin’, it’s right across the hall, just run,” I said.
Once he was gone, of course, we talked about him.
“He’s really weird!” Martin said the moment Cody left.
“Yeah, I don’t think he was telling the truth,” I said.
“He could be,” Andi put in.
“Eh,” John said shrugging “could be, probably not though.”
With that we all went to class, John, and Martin to art, Andi, and I to Algebra. She went in, just before I could get through someone grabbed me from behind and spun me around.
It was Chris.
“Get your new friend to **** off, or I’ll make him,” Chris snarled, pulling me up so my nose almost touched his.
“Ok, calm down, he’s not gonna mess with you anymore,” I said calmly.
“He’d better not,” Chris breathed, then he dropped me and walked off. As I watched him go, I saw Gloria walk up beside him, and start talking to him, curious I followed, glancing at my watch. I had time.
She pulled her hood low over her head and pulled out a pocket knife. She flipped it open, and jabbed it into the lock of a storage room door. The lock broke and she pushed him in, then followed. I quickly walked over and leaned against the wall by the door. “Damn it,” I muttered. With the noise of the hall and thickness of the door I couldn’t hear anything being said. And by touching the door, I could tell they weren’t doing… anything like what you’re probably thinking.
I retreated back to the algebra room, and leaned on the door frame, watching. Three minuets later the door opened, Chris came out holding a duffel bag in one hand and a fist full of money in the other. Then she came out, and slammed the door behind her. She walked toward me, Chris walked in the other direction, pocketing the money as he went. I ducked into the room, and sat down at my desk in the back. Cody was sitting in the desk next to me. Andi was in front of me talking to him.
“I was wondering when you were going to show up,” he said when I sat down.
“Yeah, you were right behind me, where did-“I stopped her there.
“Chris stopped me,” I said, then I told them what I saw. When I was finished I asked Cody, “You know what that could be about?”
He laughed, then said, “I’m not close to her, like, at all, but I know she’s paying him to sell stuff.”
“Like?”
He shrugged, “Drugs, phones, ripped video games, and pirated DVD’s. Stuff like that.”
“And how old is she?”
“Just turned fifteen, but she did several, um, bad things, got her kicked out of a few schools, so she’s lucky that she’s still a freshmen.”
“Geez what did she do?” Andy asked.
He shook his head, “I can’t tell you.”

The bell rang, and Mrs. Solomon made us all quiet down. Before she could say anything, the door opened and Gloria stomped in. Her black boots sounded like bricks on the tile floor.
“Who are you?” Mrs. Solomon asked as Gloria clonked in.
“Gloria,” she said. Although she only came up to Mrs. Solomon’s elbow, she seemed to be frightening the teacher.
“Hey,” Cody said, whacking my shoulder as Mrs. S asked Gloria if she was the new student. “What’s she like?” he asked, nodding at the front of the room.
“Mrs. S?”
“Naw, Gloria! Yeah, is she one of those Bitchy teachers, or is she ok, or what?”
“Young lady, take that hood off now!” Mrs. S was looking straight down at Gloria; the whole class was cracking up.
Andi and I turned to Cody and said, “She’s a *****.”
Gloria whispered something in her ear. Mrs. S straitened, muttering something to Gloria. “She just said she’s got cancer,” Cody told us.
“Dose she really?” Andi asked, alarmed.
“No,” Cody said, shaking his head, and laughing, “she likes keeping her hood up I guess. I’ve never asked about it and I don’t want to.”
Gloria didn’t move she just pulled her hood tighter over her head. “Ok,” Mrs. S said, trying to recover, “um, I hear we have another new student so would Cody Johnson please come up here.”
Cody sighed and stood, “Gotta go tell somethin’ about my self now,” he said, rolling his eyes.
Once he was at the front, he leaned on the front desk, next to Gloria. “Say your name and something about your self.”
“Yeah, uh, I’m Cody, and I am really tall.” Everyone laughed, and he sat back down where he was.
“You can go now”
“Yeah thanks.” Gloria muttered, then said, “I’m Gloria, and I,” she stopped, and looked over the room stuffing her hands into her hoodie pockets. “don’t have anything else to say.” She stalked back to the desk next to Cody, boots thumping like drums of war.
The rest of algebra went without incident. I didn’t pay much attention, I was to busy thinking about everything that had happened.
I wandered to pre-ap English next, and was surprised when Cody came in at the last second. Luckily Gloria didn’t come to. Our English teacher, Mrs. Young, took pity on him, and only made him stand while she introduced him. Then she told him to pick an open desk. He sat at my table with Cole Howard, and Jewel Kwon.
Cole was, in my opinion, a stuck up jack ass. He was pretty smart, and funny, but all he did was make fun of anyone he didn’t like. That was both, now all three, of the people at our table.
Jewel moved from South Korea three years ago, she already spoke good enough English, but still had an Asian accent. She was very smart, quiet, and overly polite; saying sorry for almost everything. That was one of Coles favorite things to tease her about. Every time she said ‘sorry’ to him, he would reply ‘its okay’ with exaggerated sincerity.

Cody came over and sat down next to me, and across from Cole. “Are you stalking me or something?” I asked, only half joking.
He laughed, “If I could stalk someone wouldn’t I stalk a cheerleader or something?”
“Oh, wow! You’ve got a friend,” Cole said, smugly, “how does it feel?”
“Hold on!” Cody said, leaning across the table. He reached up, and ran a hand across one of Coles eyebrows which were large, and bushy, “Sorry thought that was a caterpillar.” Cody said, smiling.
Jewel and I cracked up, causing Mrs. Young to look over at us. We quieted immediately. She then explained what we were supposed to do, while Cole glared at his feet. She said we were going to do “something fun”, she lied. It was more fun than our last assignment, we had to read two books over the summer and discuss them in our group, then we did a bunch of worksheets over them. Finally we had to present what the books meant to us in a “creative way”, it was hard and boring. Our group got a hundred because Jewel pretty much did the whole thing. That took up the first half of the semester, or nine weeks. At the end of eighteen weeks, or the semester, we got a new schedule, I don’t know if that’s how all high schools work, but that’s how ours works.
The second nine was going to be writing. For this part of it we each had to write one page of a paper, leaving the end open for the next person to add on to it. Each one was supposed to go all the way around. We were going to be given six grades, one for each paper, and the average of the four papers counted twice. Today we had to come up with four different topics for the papers.
When Mrs. Young was finished, Jewel immediately got out a pack of notebook paper, and a pencil. She started jotting down ideas. When she was finished she circled one, then passed the paper to Cole saying, “If there is one you want that is not on here, just add it, then circle it.”
He read over it, circled one, then passed it to Cody, who did the same before handing me the paper. There weren’t really topics on the paper, they were more like genres. Sci-Fi, sports, and fantasy were all circled. Mystery was the most exciting one left, so I picked it praying I could write a good start to one.
When we were done with everything we were supposed to read until the bell rang. If you didn’t have a book you got sent to the office. I searched my backpack for almost ten minuets before I found a lost library book. I propped it open and pretended to read for the rest of class.
Most of the ninth grade had the last lunch of the day. It started at 1:55 so everyone was pretty hungry by the time it rolled around. If you didn’t bring your lunch and didn’t get to the line within five minuets, you ended up with about five minuets to eat. Cody learned that the hard way today, he went into the line, and I didn’t see him for the rest of the day.
I hopped onto the bench at our table. The guys I sat with at lunch, for the most part, were not real friends. They were Erik, Joey, Will, Mitch, Jason, and Daniel. There were more people at the table but this was all in our section. Austin didn’t like most of them so he started sitting with Eddie, Martin, and Josh, along with a whole bunch of other kids I knew, but didn't really like. Andi sat with her friends, who I didn’t really know, so that left me with a bunch of outsiders and Erik.
Erik had been my best friend since forever. He didn’t really like anyone else at the table besides Daniel and I, he pretended to like Will though. He was really short, and was in band so now he spent most weekends practicing. He was really funny, but didn’t talk much around people he didn’t like.
Joey was next in line. He was short, but taller than Erik, and wore glasses. He had long, light brown hair and buck teeth. I thought he was funny, but most people, like Erik, thought he was stupid. Unlike Erik he was outgoing, but not very bright.
Will was also was in band. He was funny but could get annoying really fast. He was almost as tall as me, and had short, blonde hair. He hated Joey, and Mitch.
Mitch was Joeys best friend. Although they always said they hated each other, they were always together so I’m not sure. Mitch, last year, got in trouble all the time for various things. He had thrown erasers across the math room, flung mashed potatoes across the cafeteria, and many other things that left everyone laughing except him. His parents never cared what he did.
Jason was insane, that was the only way to put it. During lunch, he would buy a ‘PowerAde’ and an ice cream, then attach the ice cream wrapper to the empty bottle and slam it against the edge of the table. He also chased a squirrel into the creek last year in gym.
Daniel was the last kid there, and I think he was the only other person there that nobody hated. He was funny and completely random. He could come up with the most random things to say that would end up being hilarious, but then sometimes he was normal. He was impossible to predict.
Throughout lunch I was listening to Erik, and Will from one side, making nasty jokes about Joey and Mitch, who I was listening to from the other side. They were telling some story that was so ridiculous I knew it had to be made up. Jason had melted ice all over his part of the table, and was sliding a plastic lid all over it. I was only really talking to Daniel, who was sitting directly across from me. I told him about Cody, and Gloria, what I saw Gloria give Chris, and what Cody said about it.
“Sounds like Gloria isn’t very smart since she’s having a druggie deal drugs. He’ll just take them wont he?”
I laughed, “Only if she gave him coke.”
“Where is she,” he asked, glancing around, “what does she look like?”
I looked around, finally I saw her staring at our table from the other side of the cafeteria. She looked away immediately. She was sitting at the goth table, fitting. I pointed her out to Daniel.
“That’s where color goes to die,” Daniel said, when he found her.
“Ha, yeah I wonder if she’ll dress like that every day.” He shrugged.
After lunch I had to go to soccer. I loved the game, but I hated the team. The season started next semester so all we have been doing so far is conditioning. Today was mile day. Every Monday we had to run the mile a whole bunch of times. If you came in first you could stop and go scrimmage with the girls ninth grade team. Eddie and I knew we would be running for a while, we were by far the slowest players on the team.
After practice I couldn’t shower, I had ten minuets to dress out, get my stuff, and run to the other side of the school to catch the bus home.
By the time I got to where the bus should be, it was slowly pulling away. I ran after it, when I caught up I pounded on the door. The bus driver, Mr. Jerry, pulled to a stop. He was a big man, in his late fifties, and balding.
“That’s it!” he yelled in my face, spraying me with spit.
“What’s it?”
“Late! Again!” he pointed to the front seat on the right side, “You’ll sit here for a month!”
As I sunk into the seat, I could here Andi, and Austin laughing. I looked out the window as Mr. Jerry pulled away. I saw Gloria rush out of the school, then turn and watch us begin to go around the corner.
“Hey, I think she rides this bus.” I said, pointing her out.
“You think making me stop will get you off easier?”
“If I get to annoying yeah.”
He grunted, then opened the door for Gloria, and she stomped in.
“You new?”
“Yeah.”
“If your late one more time you sit here,” he told her, pointing to the spot next to me.
She mumbled something, then stalked to an empty seat. I thought of Cody, if he lived with Gloria shouldn’t he be on this bus to? The thought was gone when the bus pulled away.
Gloria got off at my stop, and went to the apartments on the other side of the street. I’d been in those before, they were really bad.
Andi and I had a ton of algebra homework, we complained about it while Austin laughed in our faces. He didn’t have algebra this semester, and he wouldn’t have it next either. He would have geometry, which was the hardest math course offered to freshmen. He was taking the hardest course from every subject.
I went down to Andies so we could work on the homework together. She was bad at algebra, and I was half way decent so it took a while.
When we finished all we did was play Halo until I had to go back up at 6:30. Today when I got back up to my apartment nobody was there. I texted Kristy asking her where she was, she replied that she had just left the school because she missed the bus waiting for Chris and couldn’t find him because he had been in a fight and was in the office. When I asked why he had been in the office for over two hours she said he’d beat a kid really bad, but had gotten hurt to.
When they got back Chris had a cut just above his eye, and a nasty bruise on the side of his head. When I asked who did that he didn’t answer, but he said he beat the crap out of Cody. We argued about that until Kristy made us shut up. We ate a silent dinner, pretending today was normal when mom came home to eat. Jack came back later. By that time I was already playing video games or watching TV until I fell asleep. That was pretty much everyday after school. Except Chris sitting in the office for two hours.
When I lay down I couldn’t go to sleep. I couldn’t stop thinking about what weirdness Cody, and Gloria had brought just on there first day.
end of CH 1