The colossal bronze statue of no other than Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom and art greeted me as I walked towards the gate. She was dressed in armor and was holding a spear,prepared to lance it in case enemies attacked. She looked exactly the same with the image in my middle school literature book – lengthy wavy hair, robe that extended up to her ankle (or was it a gown?) and bare feet . Her eyes were eyes of a warrior, knowing and fierce. She was eyeing me with careful surveillance, as if she too didn’t like the idea of me being in her high school.
“Welcome to Athena High school.” I muttered under my breath disgustingly as I looked up the statue. Another five steps or so and I’d be officially a student of the famous high school for promising, if not genius, students of art and music. It was as if the I.D that I was wearing, the school map I had in my hand and class schedule tucked inside one of my notebooks in my bagwere not enough to convince myself that indeed I was already anAthenian.
Me an Athenian. I cringed at the thought. A voice inside my head was telling me I didn’t deserve being here. I wouldn’t consider myself smart. Although I had straight As in middle school, it was all because of hard work. My works of art were not as impressive as an able Athenian should be. Let’s get it straight. I got here because of influence. I know you’ve heard of the word “backer”. Thanks to my mom’s latest boyfriend, Greg,who worked here as a music teacher. He sure did all the "work". He even enrolled me and paid my tuition himself.
The bell rang loudly, sending students and cars dashing towards the gate out of fear of being late.
“Jessica!” a female voice called. “Start walking if you didn’t want to get a late slip.You wouldn’t want to be late in our first class.” A girl in her thick-rimmed eyeglasses grabbed my wrist and tugged me feverishly towards the campus. She was Mikaela, Mika for short,my neighbor. She lived right beside our home, I mean, house. Well, we just moved in the other day from Hopkinton, the capital city. So you really couldn’t blame me if I didn’t consider Princeton City as my home. This city was my mom’s boyfriend abode but not mine, nor mom’s. Honestly, I hated all of these changes. The moving and transferring I mean, but for Mom I embraced them, reluctantly though.
We jogged towards the first building. The thought of having our first class theremade me smile. It was the second comforting thing about this High School. Why? You’ll learn later.The first was Mika because she was so like me. The moment she walked into our doorstep with her mom, I knew right there we were going to be friends. I didn’t know why. I just knew. Maybe because of her reading glasses and her hair that was arranged into a haphazard bun, which made me think she was like me – a studious low profile girl; whose company was her pencil and paintbrush; who was not very particular of her appearance and who would came into class during middle high school in all by herself,without a friend excitedly holding a seat for her…or vice versa.
“We’re here” Mika announced panting, releasing my hand from her grasp. “We are lucky Mr. Jackson isn’t here yet.” I was panting too and yet we hadn’t ran that much.
Mika and I chose the seats beside the window at the last row. It was perfect spot. We could see everyone, yet they wouldn’t see us.
Mika introduced me to Charice Mantle, the auburn-haired girl sitting in front of me, and Nicole Box, who she introduced as her childhood friend. They three were classmates in middle School. They happily chatted abouthow they preparedtheir portfolio and how tediously shot and edited their video essay that they seemed to forget I was there, but it was on my favor since I had nothing to share because frankly I couldn’t remember doing the same. When mom asked me to prepare them I did them simply because I had to. So I was quite a bit shocked when Mom handed me the letter of admission. I was in disbelief but then I remembered Greg.
