Hype

~Chapter 1~

I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel in an attempt to calm my nerves. We were supposed to leave five minutes ago. This was my first day of senior year, and there was no way I was going to be marked down late because my little siblings can't get themselves out the door. They were thirteen, eleven, and eight. It's not like they were babies or anything. Seconds passed and I saw the front door open. Out stepped Faith with her plaid jumper, clutching her arms from the September chill because she was too stubborn to wear a sweater. A red bow flowed in the back of her long blond hair.

The door opened again, Frankie stepped out, little Fox following behind him. They started to come down the driveway and climbed into my massive car. Frankie took a seat in front with me, Faith and Fox in the back. The clicking of seatbelts was soon to follow. I turned around, seeing their tired faces. My siblings and I normally looked the same way on the first day of school: exhausted and rushed.

"Okay, now all of you have everything, right? Each of you has your backpacks, lunches, all of that?"

Faith nodded. "I'm good."

Fox was smiling at me with his two missing front teeth. "I got all of it."

I turned to Frankie. He shrugged. "I'm all set Frey."

With that, I put the car in reverse and backed out of the driveway. Here we go...senior year. I moved it into drive and down the street we went. School was about a ten minute trip down the road. However, I was driving with extra caution. I thought that was my first time driving all three of the kids in the car by myself. As of then, I'd only had my license for three weeks. I couldn't even believe it when my parents told me that I was allowed to drive all of us to school every day. But hey, who wouldn't be glad that their parents trust them? I continued down the road in amazement, trying not to get distracted by Faith humming songs to herself.

I thought about that day for a while: my first day of senior year, meaning my very last year at my school. My parents wanted to keep me and the rest of my siblings out of the "problematic" public schools. So when Fran, (my one older sibling) was going to start school, they enrolled her in Mercy Christian Academy. She stayed there all through the years, and graduated two years ago. I planned on following right in her footsteps. Thirteen years at Mercy Christian. The same went for all of us.

It didn't bother me tough. I loved my school. A lot of people had come and gone, but there were people in my class who I'd known since kindergarten. I loved all the people, all the teachers-everything about the place. Some people complained about the uniform, like Faith. She whined about it all the time. All the elementary girls had to wear the plaid jumper dresses every day. I'll admit, it was not the most fashionable thing in the world, but it was a small price to pay for a safe, Christian education.

Despite my excitement, I kept thinking that the end of the year was going to be horrible. I was going to miss everyone and everything so much. MCA was all I knew. Then I had to set off for college and move on to becoming a veterinarian like I planned. Yep. I was an animal lover. I was a fan of all kinds of animals, but giraffes were my obvious favorite. You could even say that I was a little obsessed with them.

I even thought I looked like one. Okay, giraffes are tall, I was tall. Giraffes have spots, I had freckles. Giraffes like to eat leaves, I loved eating salads. I was pretty sure that they're vegetarians too. So was I. Anyway, I'm getting really off topic. Expect that to happen a lot. My attention span: not great. I apologize in advance.

So, where was I? Right, I kept on driving down the road. Besides excitement, something else was in the back of my mind: curiosity. Last year, our class finished off the year with thirty-four people in our grade. Due to the fact that I didn't really care, I skipped out on this year's orientation. The day before, I was talking with my best friend, Ginger, online. She was one of the few people that decided to go to the dull occasion. She told me that our class had grown in size.