I clutched my book close to my chest as I walked down the hallway. I guess what had happened was slowly fading, sense I could walk with my head up without people making comments and sucking their thumbs. Some kids even smiled and complemented me on my outfit. I was beginning to feel more and more confident throughout the day, but what happened with Brenda still haunted me in the back of my mind. Knowing that I caused her to leave the Emeralds was like carrying around a 20 ton bullet in my hands.
"Nice shoes." Someone said as I passed.
"Thanks." I called after them.
I smiled to myself; people were getting nicer to me. I was slowly finding my place in this school, slowly adjusting, and slowly finding my people. I passed April in the hall and she stuck her foot out making me trip. I dropped my books and my backpack; I got up and started collecting my books. I looked up at them and saw Brenda laughing along with April and her wannabe's. Anger boiled inside of me, she was such a trader.
I pushed that thought away; I didn't have time to get into a fight with Brenda. I had to get to my last class so that i could get out of this dumb school and go home. I wanted to be as far away from them as I possibly could. When I collected all my stuff, I got up and walked down the hall away from them even though I could hear their laughter, I didn't flatter I kept walking down the hall.
I turned into my designing class and took my seat in the front of the class. Beside my desk sat a big manikin. Fabric was on the side of the room, rulers and other supplys were all over the room. A bit stage was in the middle of the room so we can show off the amazing clothes that we all made. Today, we would actually start designing.
The class piled in just as the bell rang. They hurried to their seats just as the teacher Mrs. Paula came into the room. She was a French woman with dark brown curly hair, an angel like face, and a thick French accent. She wasn't very tall but she wasn't really short either.
"Good morning class." She said.
"Good morning, Mrs. Paula." We replied.
"Non,en français." She told us.
"Bonjour, Mme Paula." We said.
She smiled, Susan had warned me that she liked us to talk in french in her class. Lucky for me, at my old school I had took french every single year. So I was fluent in it, and I would have no problem comunicating with her.
"Today, we will be doing...as you american say, dresses, but in france we say Robes. Repeat." She began.
"Robes." We repeated.
"bon!" She exclaimed smiling.
She walked over to the board and started writing measurements and drawing how the dresses should look and what not to do and what to do. She seemed to like a certain type of stitching, but it was a really hard kind of stitching. Which ment if we did hat type of stitching we would get extra credit for it.
Soon, we were starting out sketches. I wanted to do a long flowy dress, it would represent that I'm the type of girl who could be blown easily by the wind, and I thought it would look good. When it's done, I'll send it to my mom for her birthday present. The dress would be a light blue which is my moms favorite color.
When my sketch was done, I brought it up to the front of the room and showed it to Mrs. Poula. She approved it and said that I could start picking out the fabric for it. The racks were full of fabric, from solid colors to zigzag and lepord print. The fabric I wanted was close to the bottom and it was smooth and soft. It was exsactly what I was looking for.
I started working on cutting, as I was cutting I glanced up to see Brenda walking up to Mrs. Poula. I hadn't even noticed her in my class, I was to focused on the dress I was making to even check and see who was in class with me. I caught a glimpse of her dress as she made her way to the fabric counter. She was making tight purple mini dress, with ruffles coming down the side.
Turning back to my work, all I saw was a plain light blue dress with a small ruffle at the bottom of it. It didn't even match Brenda's sketch, it was like Brenda's sketch was the mom and mine was the baby. I gulped, I wanted to throw my sketch away so badly, but I knew once Mrs.Poula accepted it there was no way she was going to let me waste my time redrawing another one.
I continued cutting, I cut fast and messed up a couple times. I didn't want to be at the cutters with Brenda. I knew she was just going to make me feel bad and say really mean things to me. Thanks to my luck, I finished cutting just as she was approaching the cutter. I was back at my desk just as she reached the cutter.
"Five more minutes class! Or as the french would say Cinqminutesplus de classe. Repeat." Mrs.Poula said.
"Cinqminutesplus de classe." We repeated without looking up from our work.
This was like a french class and a design class rolled up into one. Were always learning new french words and stuff.
I looked at my sketch and started stitching the sides. I wasn't going to stitch it the was she liked it beacause I found it harder and I didn't have time to waste. My moms birthday was in a week and I needed to finish the dress so that I could ship it off toher immediatly.
The five minutes seemed to be ticking by really fast. Pretty soon we learned the word nettoyer which means clean up. I quickly took my dress on the manican and put it in my bag. I was going to work on the dress at the estate. Brenda was staring at me and my dress for a couple minutes before she returned back to hers and talking to her florentine fiends.
"Bowling? today, I'd love to go." I heard her say.
"It's a florentine tradition, everytime we get a new member we go bowling to welcome them." A florentine boy named Larry explained.
"Sounds fun." She told him.
I rolled my eyes and slung my bag over my shoulder. I didn't care where the florenines were going or why they were going there. I couldn't even follow half their conversations sense they used the words sheek a lot. They mostly went out to fancy stuff and did fancythings that their parents payed for.
I walked down the hall toward my locker. I kept forgetting to put my backpack in there during the day. I don't even know how I could have possibly forgotten that sense I passed by my ocker all the time throughout the day. I opened it and pulled out my history textbook. I had to study, some people were talking about a pop quiz that we were having the next day and I wanted to be prepared for it.
Walking toward the exit Josh ran up and started walking next to me. A huge smile was on his face, I wondered what had happened to make him all smiley.
"What's up?' I asked.
"Oh, nothing. Your just looking at a guy to aced his math test!" He answered showing me a test paper with a big A++ on it.
"OMG! That's great!" I said giving him a big hug.
If it was me I would have gotten a F--, I sucked at math and that was a fact. I couldn't do a math problem correctly if my life depended on it. Math just looked like a big blob of symbols and letters to me.
"Tonight we celebrate!" He joked.
"Laser tag!" I exclaimed.
He looked at me as if I had said the dumbest thing ever, I didn't think it was dumb sense I've never in my life played laser tag. Josh had probably played laser tag before, lucky bugger.
"What?" I demanded.
"Nothing, just I was thinking pizza and a movie." He replied smiling.
'That's not a celibration young mister. Let that master of celebrations teach you." I told him.
"Teach away Master Brittney." He teased.
I rolled my eyes and we ran to the estate to get ready for laser tag. Nobody was home when we got there so we did some practicingI was hising behid the couch looking out of Obiwan Josh, when he jumped up from behing me and shot me with his laser remote control.
"I've been hit! Tell my mom I loveher!" I shrieked brfore falling to the floor and fake dying.
Next thing I heard was the door unlock and the others laughing. I looked up and sure enough everyone was home. I smiled and rolled onto my stomach and pushed fff theground.
"What's going on here?" Susan asked amused.
I looked at Josh and he looked at me, then we answered together, "House laser tag!" Then we started pretending to shoot lasers out of our remote controls.
"You guys are crazy, how about we go to a real laser tag aréna." Susan suggested.
"Even better!" We shouted and started running toward our rooms.
Everything was getting better for me and I was happy.