Sophisticated Sharks and I'm Soaked and Covered in Glitter

Chapter Two: What the Pancake-Flipping Heck is Going On?

My living, breathing alarm clock (AKA Mom) wakes me up waaaaaaay too early for this crap called school. I honestly would rather take sleeping in a whisky stench-filled bed with smudge on my feet and being homeschooled than this. But I'm supposed to be positive for Mom's sake, for whatever reason.

"JINGLE BELLS, JINGLE BELLS, JINGLE ALL THE WAYYYYY!" I screech as I jump on my newly made bed. "What the heck are you doing?" Mom asks as she opens the door. "I'm trying to be positive, it isn't working." I say as I fall off my bed. "I hate life..." I complain.

Well, I'm about to go to school. High school. And if it's anything like the movies, I'll die. Like in two minutes. Reason one, I'm small, under five freaking feet. I'm four feet and seven inches, barely tall enough to go on most water park rides. Reason two, I suffer from a terrible disease called I-haven't-started-puberty-and-I'm-a-teenager-itis. If you can't tell, I made that up. I have the chest of a four year old. I can"t even fit into a training bra.

I change into clothing, which consists of jeans and my chibi panda shirt. My skeleton hoodie goes over that. Technically, it's from the boys side of Walmart, but I don't care. As I get changed, I look in the mirror to see if there's been any curviness between my ribs and my hip bones. Nope, no change. I think I might need doctor-prescribed estrogen. I'm so androgynous it isn't even funny.

"Mom, can I take estrogen?" I ask as I eat cereal. "Honey, you don't need it. You were born female. I have pictures." Mom sighs.

"This isn't about that, it's that I am fourteen and have zero presence of puberty." I say, rubbing my head. Mom still hasn't dropped my dumb theory from when I was nine.

When Mom drops me off, I do the mature thing: panic. "Mom? Wait, Mom? Where are you going? Don't leave me here! MOOOMMM!" I screech. Then I fall on my face.

"Um, I'm Elaina Ann Pick?" I say to the nice looking office lady wearing a purple cardigan with a white brooch, making it sound like a question. "Ah, yes. Elaina Ann. Here's your schedule, map, and locker number." She hands me a pamphlet and I walk away. I hate offices. They make me feel like I'm going to die.

The locker is close to a stair well, and I bring out my combination lock and school supplies. It's heavy as a baby elephant. There's two pictures I put on the inside of the door. One's of the cats, Smudge, Starfighter, and Warsword. The other is of Chandler and I when we were ten. I smile slightly when I hang it up, but then I realize that I have no friends. I recall Chandler saying something way back when about a TV show, but that's not helpful. We used to LOVE watching TV together.

I scramble myself into into homeroom or my first class which is science. I hate science, mainly due to the fact that on the farm, it involved shoving my hand up cows' butts to see if there was calves in the womb.  But since this is Atlanta, I'm guessing they don't have the room for a cow. But I'd like to see some of these aberzombies do that, though.

There's a stiff looking teacher in the big desk, where there's a nameplate reading 'Mr Suderman'. "Excuse me, but where do I sit?" I ask, sheepishly. He doesn't even look up! He just points to a table in the corner! "Wow, thanks." I mumble under my breath as I trudge towards the desk.

I take out a large green notebook and mark it 'SCIENCE' in large bold letters in sharpie. Other students filter in, and I slowly regret more and more not running out of the building when I had my chance. Mr Suderman finally stands up. "In case you haven't noticed, there is a new seating plan. That means you, Mr Riggs, are going to sit next to our new student, Ms Pick." He points towards me, so I do the most logical thing:

I slam my head into the desk.

When I finally look up after my new classmates stop laughing, I see a face I thought I would never see again.

WHAT IS THIS HELL? IS THIS A CRUEL JOKE? WHAT IN THE SPOON FLIPPING HECK IS GOING ON HERE?