Pen Pal Project [Alex Gaskarth]

Chapter Twenty One

I made it to homeroom just after the bell went, and I realised that everyone was already in the room.

As I stepped inside, every head turned to me and I felt my cheeks flush as I made my way to the teacher.

"Ah you're the new girl that people have been talking about." She seemed nice enough. "I'm Miss Robson. Would you like to introduce yourself?" I panicked for a second before nodding my head and turning to face the room filled with judgmental eyes.

"Hi, I'm uh, Charlia Gaskarth and I just moved here from England. I have an unhealthy addiction to pop tarts and I've never been so scared about starting school before." This earned a few laughs and I grinned weakly before Miss Robson pointed me to the empty desk in the middle and I sat down quietly whilst she welcomed back the class.

By the time that the first break rolled around, I'd been forced to introduce myself three times and I was yet to make a new friend.

So it led to me being sat by myself outside, a book in my lap as I listened to the teenagers around me talk to their friends, kick around a soccer ball and just have a bit of fun.

"You know, sitting by yourself won't help you get friends." A girls voice startled me from the book and I looked to my side to see a bottle blonde girl, skinny jeans and sweatshirt completing her outfit.

"I'm too chicken to go up to someone and say 'hi, I'm the new British kid, can we be friends?' because that shit is a good way to give me a heart attack." The girl laughed and held out her hand.

"I'm Cali." I took her hand and shook it.

"And I'm the new kid, aka Charlia." She grinned.

"Do you wanna join me and my group of friends? Only, I could see one of the preps in homeroom this morning putting two and two together, and lets just say that if you're not careful-"

"I'd have people befriending me for the wrong reasons." She grinned before standing up. I followed suit and followed her as she made her way to, what I felt was a rather large group of people.

"I got the new girl guys, you can stop arguing over who'll talk to her first." The two guys who seemed to be aguing back and forth stopped to look over at us both before high fiving Cali.

"So they argue over decisions and you just do whatever you feel is right?" The group laughed.

"Pretty much. Okay, so I'm going to introduce you. That over there is Jennifer, but she prefers Jen." The girl who was sat furthest from me waved. "The goofball sat next to her is Fletcher."

"I'm not a goofball, you just don't appreciate my jokes." He glared at Cali and she just grinned.

"I like a good joke or a bad pun every now and then." I piped up and Fletcher let out a cheer as the rest of the group groaned.

"Guys shut up, she's staying now." I gave him a thumbs up.

"Moving on. This here is Rae and the girl next to her is Emma." They both waved and I smiled back. "The two d-bags that were arguing over who would go over and talk to you are Sean and Jordan."

"Who is who?"

"The guy with the bright pink fringe is Sean."

"Is he gay?" The question had fallen from my lips before I'd even processed it in my brain and I slapped my hand over my mouth as everyone started laughing at his expense.

"That's it, I'm gonna go back to brown." He groaned and I gave him a sheepish smile.

"Sorry."