In the Spotlight

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Chapter 12 – Collapse

“All right now, you are in Mrs. Frill’s homeroom. She’s in room 402 in the Science hallway. And… Why don’t I just find someone to show you where your homeroom is? How about Delaney Rosen? Her homeroom is right near yours, 404. I’ll page her over the speakers.”

Glad to have someone I knew show me around, I waited patiently as she spoke into a black phone in that voice secretaries always used for announcements. “Delaney Rosen, please report to the check-in office. Delaney Rosen, come to the check-in office immediately.” She smiled and neatly placed the phone back onto the charger.

“Now, sweetie, how do you like school so far? Do you have any questions?” She smiled sweetly at me and I returned the gesture with a smile equally as fake.

“School is great, but I haven’t exactly attended any of my classes yet, considering I got here late on Friday.” The woman frowned at me but quickly rearranged her expression to one of the relief as the door opened.

“What? I didn’t do… Oh, hi Jenny! Ms. Heel, am I supposed to show Jenny to her homeroom?”

“Yes Delaney, you are. Because your homerooms are so close together I figured you wouldn’t mind showing her to 402.”

“Of course not. Come on!” Delaney said and walked out of the room. I smiled in a polite gesture of thanks to the secretary and ran to catch up with Delaney.

“Now, you’ll notice that everything is arranged into “wings”. We call them sections though. All the rooms are labeled with numbers just like any other school, and you’ll find that each section has it’s own set of numbers. Administration rooms begin with a one, Physical Education rooms begin with two, although there are only a couple of rooms that belong to that section. Music, Art, and all that stuff that isn’t standard is grouped together. And the language rooms also begin with two and are next to the Physical Education rooms, in the same section. They haven’t changed the sign to include languages since the school only recently began offering intensive required language classes. Are you taking Spanish?”

“Yeah, I am. I already took it in my old school though, so I think I might be in a sophomore class instead of a freshman class.”

“Aw, that’s too bad. That’s cool that you’re going to be with older kids though.”

We walked in silence through the long hallways until we somehow ended up next to my homeroom door.

“Well, this is it. You have a nice homeroom teacher I think, so you shouldn’t have trouble if you’re late because of the adjustment. The best part about boarding school is that you can wake up later since you literally live at the school! Well, have fun!”

Delaney opened the brown door for me and I stepped into the classroom. The tables were black and similar to the lab tables we had in the science classrooms before, and everyone seemed engaged in their own conversations. Even the teacher was deeply engrossed in a discussion with another teacher.

Feeling unsure of myself, I pressed my books to my chest and took a seat at the end of a table with some girls chatting excitedly. They didn’t seem to notice me, so I simply took out my phone to check my email. Now that phones were allowed in school when nothing was going on, my parents allowed the email feature on my phone to be enabled so that I could email them if I wanted to during classes.

I was actually checking for my call back email, not to email my parents. One of the worst parts of being an actress was the uncertainty of the whole thing. I had to give up my audition for Anne of Green Gables at home for a part that I might not even receive. I hated waiting, and the only thing worse than waiting was waiting without knowing what you were waiting for.