As Maya and I walked into homeroom after the bell rang, we soon realized there were only two seats left and they weren't right next to each other.
"I guess I'll see you at the end of the period then," she whispered before walking to the seat at the back of the class.
Great. She left me with the seat in the very front right by the teacher's desk. I hurried over to my seat just as the bell rang and started to pull out my binder from my bag.
"Good morning class, my name is Mr. Keith and I will be your Geometry teacher for the rest of this school year," he announced loudly.
As soon as the words left his mouth, I got a spray of coffee-smelling saliva directly to the face. I shot up my hands to my face in horror and quickly wiped his germs away with the sleeve of my jacket. I looked at Mr. Keith, who was now handing out papers to have our parents sign, in disgust. He was short, stubby man and had half a head of hair. It was mostly white, so I was assuming he's in his 60s. Underneath his nose lay a white stringy beard that grew down and hung below his chin. He was wearing an ugly brown shirt that did not go well with his ice blue eyes, and spoke with a hint of an Irish accent. If I had to sit in this seat all year long, I would just die. Maya is going to get it once class is over.
He spent the rest of the period telling us of his expectations for the class, and the rules. He had this weird rule that people had to write their name on the board if they had to go to the bathroom, and he would time them until they got back. However much time they had spent in the bathroom was the amount of time they had to stay in his class at lunch. That was a bunch of bologna. I already didn’t like this guy.
Right before the bell rang, I shoved my binder full of new papers into my already heavy backpack. It was the first day of school in first period and my backpack already felt like I was carrying around bricks. Thanks to Mr. Keith, since we are honor students we should be working out of the bigger book, because it has more work. Apparently since we were all smart in this class it meant we had more problems to do. Man, was this going to be a fun year.
After throwing my bag over my shoulder, I made my way out the door. As soon as I squeezed out, I patiently waited for Maya. She would be the last one out.
"Oh my gosh, Mr. Keith is so boring! I don't know how I'm going to survive all year. I mean bigger books? C'mon," she complained.
"That's not the worst of it," I said, slightly annoyed," I sit right in front of his desk and he spits when he talks. I'm going to get here early tomorrow so I don't have to sit in the splash zone again."
"Sounds like a plan," she said with an amused look on her face.
The next 2 periods seemed like an eternity. But finally lunch came around. When Maya and I walked into the cafeteria, it was like a madhouse. People were scrambling everywhere, some trying to get in line for food, and some just trying to find a table to sit at. Maya spotted a small table by the window at the back of the cafeteria so we quickly made our way over before anyone else could take it. We sat down throwing our bags into the seats next to us and start talking about our day so far.
“Dude, did you see Mrs. Frank’s mole in English?! I don’t want to look at that thing all year! She should just let us pick our own seats like every other teacher instead of giving us a seating chart. She put me right in front of her desk! I can tell she already hates me…” she blabbed away.
“Yeah, that thing was pretty disgusting,” I agreed scrunching my nose a bit at the thought of Mrs. Frank’s mole.
“No, you don’t understand. Sitting right in front of her desk is like looking at that thing with a magnifying glass! There’s even a hair growing out of it!” she yelled, her eyes wide. She pretended to gag and then pulled out her lunch.
“OK, no more talking about moles if you want to eat lunch today. Agreed?” I asked, sticking out my pinkie waiting for her to stick hers out to.
“Deal!” she said, locking my little finger with hers.
For the rest of lunch, we sat at our little table talking about the huge crowd in this little cafeteria. People were either standing in huge groups by the hallway or sitting down, squished together on the tables. I’m surprised we even found this one, even though it holds four people. It wouldn’t really attract much attention to other people since they have way more than four friends.
The bell rang and Maya and I picked up our trash. We threw it in the large bin right by the door and started heading towards our 5th period class.
After that, the rest of the school day went by super fast and Maya and I walked out to the front of the school together to wait for my mom.
“Oh, you know what? I forgot. I have soccer practice today; I have to go alley. I’m sorry. Is your mom here yet?” she said.
I scanned the line of cars but not one of them was my mom’s.
“Nope,” I said, “But it’s fine. Just go ahead and go to practice I’ll wait here for her.”
"Are you sure you don't want to just come to my house?" she asked.
"No, it's OK Maya, I'll be fine. I know you can’t be late for practice. I'll just see you tomorrow," I said.
"OK," she said with a small smile, “I’ll see you then."
She waved goodbye and started walking down the steps. This wasn't good. I didn't have any other friends but Maya so I had nowhere to go. I looked around, searching for somewhere to sit and wait for my mom. After a moment I spotted a tree and some grass over to my left. I sauntered over, feeling kind of lonely now. I threw my stuff down on the ground and whipped out my phone. I sent a text to my mom asking where she was, and she quickly replied saying she was going to be here in “about 30 minutes.” Knowing my mom and her estimating skills, it was probably more like an hour. Great, I would have to spend another hour here.
Trying to keep myself busy, I took out my binder and started sketching on a scratch piece of paper. I decided I would draw a horse, and started off with the outline. I penciled a large oval, trying to get it just right to look like the body of a horse.
Ever since I was little, I've been really into drawing. It's been sort of like an outlet for me, so whenever I feel sad or mad, I go and draw. Some of my friends in middle school told me I had real talent, and I would be some famous artist one day. Over the summer I got lazy because my best friend was moving to Iowa, so I wanted to spend as much time as possible with her before she moved. But now that I'm in high school, I've decided that I would take drawing seriously, and try to do it more often. If it makes me happy and I'm good at it, why shouldn’t I do it? Right?
When I finished the head on the horse, I paused for a moment and looked behind me. Mostly everybody was gone. There were only a few small groups of people left sitting on the steps in front of the office. Have I really been sitting here for that long? I pushed a button on my phone and read the time. It had been 40 minutes already. Wow time flies by fast when you're drawing.
I turned my attention back to my drawing when I heard leaves crunching behind me. Without hesitation I looked back to see what it was.
“Hi there,” a girl said.
She was about my height--pretty short—and had beautiful golden brown hair. Her hazel eyes glistened in the sun and she spoke with what sounded like a speech impediment. She wore a furry jacket with cropped jeans and some sneakers, and carried a small bag on her shoulder.
“I’m sorry if it’s weird that I came over here, cause I don’t know you. But I saw you sitting here by yourself and you looked pretty lonely so I just thought I would come say hi,” she said smiling. She had braces, but they looked surprisingly good on her.
“Oh, no it’s fine,” I said smiling back. I looked at her for a moment before talking again. “Hey aren’t you in my English class with Mrs. Frank?”
“Yup, that’s me!” she laughed, “She put me right next to you.”
“Yeah I thought you looked familiar,” I mumbled.
“Uh, do you mind if I sit?” she asked pointing to the spot in the grass in front of me.
“Oh of course not, go ahead,” I said as I pulled my stuff closer to me so she could sit there.
“So what’s your name?” she asked me with a bubbly voice.
“I’m Alley,” I said, automatically sticking out my hand.
“Hi Alley, I’m Alana,” she shook my hand with a friendly smile.
“Nice to meet you Alana.”
“Whoa, did you draw that?” she asked, pointing to my binder where I was drawing the horse.
“Uh, yeah actually, I did.”
“Can I see them?” she asked looking extremely interested.
I nodded and handed her my binder so she could see what I was drawing. I usually was too self-conscious to let anyone else see my drawings but she seemed like a pretty nice girl.
“These are really cool!” she exclaimed.
“Well thank you,” I said, relief flooding through me. I thought she wouldn’t like them, but I’m glad she does.
The wind picked up and blew strong in our direction. Both of our hairs flew wildly. I held my jacket closer to my skin in an effort to escape the sharp coldness of it. After it passed, I looked up at Alana to find her laughing uncontrollably. She rolled over on her back and laughed until she was crying. When she was done, she sat back up and stared at me with a huge smile.
“I’m sorry,” she said laughing again, “I just love the wind.”
“Oh it’s OK,” I said, laughing too.
I heard a honk to my right and when I turned around I noticed my mom’s car was waiting for me in the drop-off circle.
“Oh, hey I have to go,” I said putting my stuff away.
“OK,” she said smiling, “I’ll see you tomorrow in English! Bye!”
She walked away towards the library so I assumed she had to stay a little while more after school. At least I think it was the library…
I shoved everything back into my backpack and hopped up off the grass. After shaking any excess grass stuck to the back of my pants, I skipped over to my mom’s car and hopped in.
“Hey, sweetie!” she exclaimed, “How was your first day? I see you’ve already met a new friend?” She smiled widely.
“Today was great. It was definitely interesting. And yeah that girl you saw was in my English class; she came over to say hi while I as waiting for you,” I said excitedly.
“Well I’m glad your first day went well,” she said happily, “Now let’s go home and celebrate with a nice dinner!”