"Leslie! Hey girl!" Sarah squealed and ran up to me to give me a hug.
"Hey Sarah." I smiled and hugged her back. No screaming or jumping up and down, I left that for her. She was always the more enthusiastic, more bubbly one.
Sarah was my best friend, and I hadn't seen her in weeks. It was the end of August, and we were at our school open house. I was actually kind of excited to start this year.
I was going into eighth grade. I couldn't wait to be done with the last year of middle school and finally be a freshman. I loved saying that. It made me feel like a big kid.
I looked around at the building. This was the only downside of this school year. We had sold our old campus to raise money to build our fancy new one, and this was the transition year. We were stuck in a cramped old vacant school that we rented from a local church. 8th through 12th grade in one building and 6th and 7th in the one next door. Why they couldn't have just put middle school in one and junior high the other is beyond me. Sure would've saved me a lot of trouble.
I went through our classrooms with Sarah and groaned to myself when I saw the size of some of them. This was going to be an interesting year...
When we went into the auditorium for the orientation I found some of my other friends. I came across Hayley, my other close friend and hugged her. I had only seen her a couple of time over the summer.
"I've missed you," I said as I squeezed her tight.
The two of us sat down with Sarah and listened to the principal talk about what the year would be like. We didn't pay much attention and did more whispering about our summers and the new kids we saw as we were walking around.
When the open house ended I invited them out to ice cream with me. As my parents drove us over to Dairy Queen we blasted my ipod with our windows rolled down and laughed and talked about random things. I was thankful to have friends like them.
It was a fun evening. We were excited to start school again, but it was nice to have one last night of summer. We stayed out until midnight almost and I was surprised our parents didn't complain. I guess they understood.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
We still had one more weekend before the first day of school, and I spent it shopping for supplies. I'm a good ol' procrastinator. Have to wait till the last minute to do everything.
I sighed as I entered Wal-Mart and saw that the school supply isle had been picked over. I ended up with a few crappy pens and pencils and one big zipper binder because all the individual ones were gone. Oh well, who cared that the list said one per subject?
I went to sleep on Sunday night excited and hopeful. I was sure this was gonna be a good year.
