Small Town Love by Julie

Chapter 6: End of the Day

We walked down another long hallway past the cafeteria, and found the gym room. We opened the door and walked in. Everyone was already in there sitting on the bleachers, waiting for the teacher, so we sat together in the middle row.

                One of the locker room doors opened and out walked a thin, muscular, woman. She had long dark brown hair, which she had in a tight pony-tail. She was wearing light blue basketball shorts, like the ones I wear to bed, and a black tank top. As she moved closer, you could clearly notice her dark eyes which almost looked black.

                “Welcome class.” She started. “It seems to me we have yet another student in the room.”

                People started looking around until they found me. Everyone was staring wide-eyed at me.

                “It looks as if they found some magical rainbow unicorn by the way there staring.” Dustin muttered.

                The teacher looked at me. Her dark eyes staring at me just got chills up my back.

                “This is Miss Taylor Hansen. She flew down from Beverly Hills California. Well, let’s just see if she can adapt to our casual lifestyle.” Her dark eyes kept staring deep into mine. “I’m Mrs. Jaclyn. Marie Jaclyn.”

                She started to tell us that we’d be doing volleyball today. Some girls cheered and most of the boys were too busy to be talking, and didn’t hear what she said. She seemed to notice that most boys weren’t too enthusiastic about volleyball.

                “Alright class, I have a change of plans. You will have two options. The first option is to play volleyball. The second option is to play basketball.” Some cheers went up from most of the boys.

                Out of the corner of my eye I spotted Val, and as usual, she was sitting with all the boys. She looked over at me and gave a look that was almost identical to Mrs. Jaclyn’s stare. She turned away and started talking to some of the boys.

                Mrs. Jaclyn started walking up each bleacher row, handing out the gym clothes. The gym shirts were a light purple, which was the school mascot color, and black sweats and basketball shorts.

                As she reached me, she smiled at Dustin, but gave me one of her dark stares. I looked away quickly.

                “Apparently Val told Jaclyn about you and how terrible you were and rude you were to her.” Dustin said sarcastically, looking disgusted.

                “Okay I have two questions. How do you know Val and why does she hate me?” I asked.

                Dustin seemed to be thinking for a while. He was biting his lip and looking down. I could tell he wasn’t sure how much to tell me about Val.

                “Val was my ex, and she hates you because she wants me and will possibly do anything to get back with me.” He answered flatly.

                “Then why does she always hang out with all those boys? “

                “Because she wants me to get jealous and beg her to be with me again, which will never happen. I won’t make that mistake again.” He replied. He turned to me and smiled.

                “But don’t worry Taylor you’re the only one for me.”

                The main gym door opened and a girl walked in. Her hair looked exactly the same color as Dustin’s and with the same light blue eyes. She was very skinny for a ninth grader. Dustin rolled his eyes.

                “That’s my sister, Kayla.” He muttered.

                Mrs. Jaclyn looked over at her with her normal dark stare.

                “I’m so sorry Mrs. Jaclyn. I had to finish a test.”

                Kayla seemed to not mind the dark stare and seemed happy to be in here. Mrs. Jaclyn nodded and Kayla walked up the bleachers. She spotted us and started to walk over. Val saw her and stuck out her leg. Kayla tripped and face planted into the ground. Dustin saw this and stood up, his fists clenched.

                “Valerie, please go to the detention room. And Mrs. Boyer, find your seat now.” Mrs. Jaclyn said, looking bored, as if this was a daily thing.

                Val got up and left. Kayla stood up slowly and walked over beside me. She motioned Dustin to sit down, then looked over at me and smiled.

                “Oh, are you Taylor Hansen?” Kayla asked. Her voice sounded southern, as if she had lived down there for a long time. I looked over at her and nodded. She smiled really big.

                “Oh my god, Dustin tells me so much about you! And don’t worry, he tells me good things.” She said, still smiling.

                Mrs. Jaclyn looked over at me and scowled. She blew her whistle and announced for us to go into our locker rooms to get dressed.  Dustin leaned over to me, kissed my cheek, then when off and joined some of his guy friends and walked into his locker room. Kayla smiled again and grabbed my hand.

                “Come on! I know we’re going to be great friends, and besides, I’m glad you don’t act like Val. I never liked her, and as you can tell, she never liked me either.” She said, leading me into our locker room.

                Our locker room was painted a bright pink with fake flower air fresheners in each corner. The lockers were probably as tall and wide as me. Kayla led me to her locker and pointed to an empty one beside her.

                “That one is yours. So, which sport are you doing; volleyball or basketball? I’m doing volleyball. I’ve always been good at it; I started when I was at least nine years old.” Kayla said, as she changed into her gym clothes.

                “Oh, I’m probably going to do basketball.” I replied, pulling on my gym shirt.

                “So, from what I hear from Dustin is that you’re the kind of defensive tomboy right?” she asked, removing her long dangling earrings. 

                What did she mean by defensive? Yeah I might be kind of a tomboy, but I wasn’t that defensive, was I?  Before I could reply, Mrs. Jaclyn walked in and blew her whistle.

                “All right girls come on. It doesn’t take that long to change your clothes. Now go out there and play some volleyball.” Mrs. Jaclyn said.

                “Well what if we don’t want to play volleyball and we want to play basketball?” I yelled over to her.

                She looked over at me and gave me a dark stare. “I don’t care what you do Mrs. Hansen. Just do it and stop acting as if you are little miss tomboy.”

                Everyone gasped as she walked out, but I stood there, not shocked. Kayla looked over at me, her mouth open.

                “Why did you say that? Nobody ever talks to Jaclyn like that.” Her voice was sounding really southern. I shrugged, and kept changing into my gym clothes.