Inanimate Middle School • Inanimate Insanity AU

"Greetings and Salutations!"

   I quickly swung the door open and slammed it shut as I left my house. Late? On the first day? I can't do that, especially since this school is completely new to me. I don't want to ruin my attendance record already! Thankfully the bus stop is close, so it won't take too long to get there. As I ran, I scanned the new neighborhood I now lived in. It was definitely not the best. Some houses had beaten up cars in the driveway, grass that hasn't been mowed in probably years, and one of the houses didn't even have windows.

   We couldn't afford any better.

   But hey, at least the kids that lived here as well were sorta nice. This one kid, Bandaid, gave me a gift when I first moved in. The gift was a soda that had a quarter of it empty already. I drank it anyway, I was thirsty at the time. I also got an invitation to play basketball with the teenagers across the street. I tried my hardest, yet lost, nine times. They were way taller than me, so it wasn't the fairest game.
    I'm not even that short, yet now I have a nickname from those kids. "Double One". I didn't get it at first, but then they told me they were referring to the eleven in the S11 lightbulb. Let me tell you, those things are tiny.

   I made it to the bus stop, and not even a few seconds later the bus arrived. I got on and spotted an empty seat, so I walked towards it.

   It wasn't empty.

   There was a kid sleeping on the seats, a box of tissues. All the other seats had someone sitting in them. I sighed. And tried to find a seat with someone friendly looking to sit with. I picked out three options to decide between. A four-leaf clover, a bottle of hand soap, and a lit purple candle.
   The clover looked up at me and waved, making the choice a bit more obvious.

   I sat down next to her, and she smiled. I smiled back, motioning a small wave.

   "Hey!" She giggled. "I'm Clover, you?"

   "Lightbulb." Clover made an interested expression.

   "What kind? Fluorescent? LED?" She questioned

   "Incandescent." I replied. She nodded to herself. "That's nice." She looked out the window, admiring the nicer neighborhood we were entering.

   The bus stopped once more, picking up a glass of orange juice and a fancy spoon. The orange juice sat next to a piece of notebook paper, while the spoon sat next to the candle. I noticed the orange juice and notebook paper started conversing, I guess they knew each other.

   The bus was mostly made of eighth-graders, here and there a seventh-grader and maybe a sixth-grader. This area of the city had older kids, mostly high schoolers.
   We made a few more stops before arriving at the school. They dropped us off at what I assumed was the cafeteria, using the people eating breakfast at huge tables as my context clue. There were about ten more minutes before the first bell rang, so I pulled out my schedule and located my first class. Science, room 91. I pulled out a map of the school I printed out and searched, room 91 was on the other side of the school!

   I started to make my way across the school, using the sixth grader's hallway as a shortcut. It only took a few minutes to actually arrive at the classroom. I spotted a bench to sit on as I wait for the first bell.
   As I sat I noticed the kids walking by, they all seemed so excited. Kids walking in groups as they laughed together, couples holding hands as one talks about the latest drama in their friend group, and here I was, knowing nobody.

   I looked to my left, watching as another kid placed herself onto the same bench I was on. She pulled out a few papers and started jotting quick messy notes onto the blank parts of the papers. I tried to see what she was writing, but she then glared right at me.