It was Wednesday morning, September 1st. I had a shoulder bag draped over … well, my shoulder. It held your average supplies for eighth grade; a binder or two, a few notebooks, that sort of stuff.

“Mom! Are we ready!” I yelled to her. She was cooped up in her bedroom curling her hair.

“Just a minute, hon!”

I waited. Finally, she came out, her hair gorgeous. Today, she had an audition for the play Wicked, and she was trying out for Glinda.

“Alright, let’s go!” She said, grabbing her purse off the table. We quickly ran down the stairs of the building, and Mom hailed a taxi.

I watched out the window as New York flew by, and felt extremely scared I wouldn’t fit in here. New York, and Lorrington Prep.



?
? ?

I sat in the office of Lorrington Prep, completely mortified. Part of it was the uniforms, yes, which completely clashed with my hair, but the other part was, after much argument, my mother had decided it best to come in with me, to help me get settled.

Now, this would be okay, since she’s so pretty and all, except the whole time she was ruffling my hair and kissing the top of my head. So by the time we reached the front office, my hair was completely messy (it looked like I had just gotten out of bed), and, I already had the whole school laughing at me.

“Natalie!” My mom scolded, although I had no idea why. I looked up. The secretary was glaring at me. She had probably said something to me and I was so caught in my humiliation, I hadn’t noticed.

“Yes?”

“Do you know your way around the school?” The secretary must have repeated.

The answer was obviously no, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. Plus, I didn’t want a nerd to show me around the school, when I was already humiliated enough.

“I can figure it out.” I said.

“Your sure, sweetie?” Asked Mom.

“Yes.” I growled. She backed off, and I stood up from the comfy chair I was hiding in.

I kissed Mom, mumbled ‘Good luck’, and walked out of the office.

?
? ?


I seriously should have taken the help with finding my way. Because, by the time I found Ms. Griffin’s english class, which was my first period class, I had missed the first fifteen minutes.

I walked cautiously into the room.

“Are you Natalie King?” Asked a cheery woman who must have been Ms. Griffin.

“Yeah.” I said.

“Great! I asked if anyone knew where you were, but everyone claimed you must be new!” She exclaimed, really excited.

“Well, yeah.”

“Wonderful! Why don’t you sit next Tricia?” She indicated a smiling blonde girl. I could taste the bile in the back of my throat as I realized that this was the girl on the front of the brochure.

I stepped forward and sat in my new seat, in the front row. The way the classroom was set up was; there were 16 desks. Each row had four desks in it, and there were four colums. I was seated in the third desk away from the door in the front row.

On my right was Tricia, the blonde girl, to my left was some boy who looked like he could care less about anything that was going on, in fact, he was asleep. But right behind me, was this girl. She wore a lot of makeup, like me, and had really black hair. It went to the middle of her back, and was wavy. She was really pretty. Her eyes were green, and she had a lot of freckles. She smiled at me. Then took out a pen, and started writing furiously on a piece of paper.

I turned back around in my seat and received a glare from Tricia. I think she wanted me to pay attention. But, once the lesson got into a review of pronouns, I paid about as much attention as the boy next to me, who’s name I learned was Ben.

After about 5 minutes after the beginning of class, the girl behind me tapped my shoulder, then handed me a piece of paper. Here is what it said:

I’m Chasity Rae Stevens. Since you’re a newbie and all, I figure you don’t have anyone to sit with at lunch. You can sit with me and my friends if you want. There would only be four of us; me, you, Ben, and Spencer. Feel free to accept, or decline, I don’t care, but just so you aren’t lonely...

I just about fell out of my chair. I was so LUCKY! It was only first period and I already had someone to sit with at lunch! And the weren’t nerds!

I pulled one of my pens out of my bag and wrote back:

Yeah, that sounds great! Now I don’t have to sit by myself, or with the nerds! I was sooooo worried, and then my mom decided to come in with me to drop me off, and TOTALLY embarrassed me in front of like, the WHOLE school. And who’s Spencer?

I folded up the note and casually passed it back to Chasity. It’s a good thing that this lesson was a review, because I wasn’t paying attention at all. I heard the scribble of Chasity’s pen, and so did Ms. Griffin.

“Chasity?” She asked, walking over to our desks. “What are you writing?”

“I’m taking notes, Ms. Griffin!” She lied, tucking the paper into her notebook.

“That’s great!” Ms. Griffin replied happily, not seeing around the lie. “You’re such a great kid, Chasity!”

I looked back at her, once Ms. Griffin was back to the white board. Chasity raised an eyebrow and smiled. This girl was a lot like me. Like, seriously.

After a whole 40 minutes of pronouns, the bell rang, and I sprang up from my seat, and left the room. I found my locker, and looked at my schedule. I had science next. Ugh.

“Hey!” I turned as Chasity strolled up to my locker.

“Hey.”

“We haven’t officially met. I’m Chasity.” She held out her hand, and I shook it. I noticed her black nail polish.

“Natalie.” I said, smiling.

“Ya, I heard. So,” She said. “What do you have next?”

“Science with Mr. Graham.” I replied, with a grimace.

“That stinks, I got math. Heard Mr. Graham is a real charmer, though.” Her voice was full of sarcasm.

“Yeah, well thanks for the tip. Hey, I got to go.” I said reluctantly. “See you at lunch?”

“Ya, we’ll meet you at the door.” She said, turning toward the other end of the hall.

“Okay!” I called back.

I ran towards the science room. I had to run up a flight of stairs, and down a long hall. When I got there, I was only a couple of minutes late.

I sat through a whole period about what we would do this year, and how we would be studying astronomy, and then a period of social studies, then one of math. I was completely overwhelmed with stress. Then, the bell finally rang.