my creative writing class.

First Day of School

I was shaking as I walked into the building, feeling as though the entire building could see the nerves radiating off of me. Watching from the front doors of the looming building, I see the students reuniting after their summers; friends screaming and hugging, teachers saying hello to older students. I feel lost and alone. I imagine a single blue dot in a sea of red dots. Everyone else is full of life and excitement, but I am the new kid.

    I make my way to my locker, number 7084. I spent yesterday taking a last minute tour with my counselor so I wouldn’t be lost this morning. I pull open my locker, the inside of it is dusty and the bottom is plastered with some sticky substance. The dull blue outside of the empty box could use a new coat of paint, the faint graffiti still visible even after someone tried cleaning it off. I store some of my useless supplies in it. I have no books or binders yet as it’s only the first day of school. That’s the one thing I share with these people.

    I shrug a little and decide to walk around before I head to my class - might as well be early to it as I have no one to talk to yet anyway. I pull my hood onto my head, trying to fall further into myself and ignore how lonely I feel without all my old friends. Being forced to move across the country so your step-dad can follow his dreams isn’t the best way to start your senior year.

    I look at people as I pass by them; there are the typical clingy couples who try and make their friends know how “happy” they are with each other, the bros who don’t want to hug because it would be gay, and then the nerdy boys who stand in a small circle yelling outdated memes at each other and calling each other losers. I roll my eyes at all of them - every highschool is the same no matter where you are.

    Room 420 is my first class of the day, pottery. I have never been good at it, but I needed to fill in the space and I didn’t want to pick up an instrument on top of being in this middle-of-nowhere school. As I walk in, the scent of clay hits my nose. Clay mixed with an array of very strong paints. I take a seat at a table that is in the far back corner of the room, nearly hidden in the shadows. The teacher is sitting at his desk, not even bothering to say hello to me. He’s more interested in whatever Clay Times is.

    He is a middle-aged man with light fluffy red hair that seems like there is no controlling it. He is wearing a loose green polo shirt with dark wash jeans. His shoes are almost too fancy for the rest of the outfit with mismatching socks. I study the socks a little more, noticing that they are almost the same, but with slight differences. The man is of a healthy build and has very strong, defined features. I’m sure he stands around five foot seven or five foot eight. I can see the smile lines and wrinkles starting to form on his face and guess he is around the age of forty to fifty. I stare at him a few seconds more before moving onto the rest of the medium sized room.

    It’s of an odd shape, neither a rectangle nor a square. It is a room with unnecessarily high ceilings and with many windows to look out when I feel like daydreaming. The pale walls are covered in basic teacher posters about cheating and doing your work quickly, ones that everyone has seen and no one listens to. I move my eyes to first focus on the entrance that is on the right side of the room. I see people still moving about to their classes through the blue doors. Surrounding said doors are rainbow streamers and a large mural dedicated to many children shows from the early to late nineties. I see on the wall to the left of that one, hand drawings and painting from past students, many of them are breathtakingly impressive, the teachers desk sits against this wall facing the students. Moving my eyes to the wall to my left, I look up and around at pictures of sculptures that are not present in the room. I turn slightly to see work tables and shelves against the back wall holding storage bins that contains our supplies for the next semester. Scattered about the room are brightly painted pottery pieces done by, what I assume are, past students and maybe the teacher himself. They range from mediocre to impressive, almost making me want to try in this class.

    As the bell to start class inches closer, more students file into the class. Many are avoiding me. I hunker down into my corner and notice the teacher is now greeting students and trying to make a good impression of himself so we won’t hate him. I roll my eyes at the fake smiles and relieved sighs from the brightly colored students seeing who they are stuck with for the next semester. They are all brightly dressed in pastels or neon like colors. I close my eyes and wait for the bell to ring. Right before it does however, the chair to my right moves and a skinny boy sits next to me.

The boys is also in dark clothing, his features darker in every way compared to mine. He has darker hair with less volume. His eyes had deep bags and wrinkles showing that he has also had several restless night, and his face seems to be hollowing in on itself. The boy looked like behind his eyes there was a smaller him that was crying for help.

He regarded me in the same way I regarded him, curiosity with some familiarity. We sat like that while the teacher started introducing himself to the class, the boy finally smiled at me.

    “Jared.” he said simply, seeming to be a person who gets buy with as few words as possible.

    “Albert. I’m new here.” I shrug. It was an awkward thing to say, but he seemed relieved to hear it.

    “Same. Guess we’re stuck in here together?”

    “Guess so.” I shrug again.

    “Maybe it won't be so bad then.” he turns to face the front and start to listen to the teacher. I sit and look at him a bit more trying to understand what he means by this. Eventually, I smile too.

Hi. I'm back. This is just publishing my projects from class. Read it please? I love you all. Also, Casey is back too. So, yay!! ❤️❤️