The morning sun shone through the window and through the baby blue curtains that were barely put on the night before. Small birds could be heard outside as their tweets and songs echoed through the quiet neighborhood.
On the bed, a tall tan boy laid asleep on his bed, wearing matching blue pajamas and a matching blue eye mask. All was still and serene as the boy enjoyed his deep slumber. Suddenly, his bedroom door flung open as an older girl almost as tall as he was stepped into the room and clapped her hands together.
"Look alive, Lance! First day of school since....Ever!" She said as she went over to the bed and shoved him off. The boy landed on the ground with a thud, wincing as he rubbed his tail bone.
"Veronica!" Lance whined as he sat up. "Wait. What time is it?" He asked as he checked the clock on his phone.
'7:15'
"Crap!" Lance said as he got up quickly and rushed with a pile of clothes into the bathroom.
"Hurry up! Mama and I got your stuff for school ready downstairs!" Veronica said as she exited the room.
After minutes passed, Lance finally was ready (and dressed) for school. His mom and sister started to tear up as Lance chuckled nervously, unsure what to say really.
"Mi nino's first day of school," his mom said as Veronica nodded in agreement.
Lance thought it was natural for a parent to cry for their child's first day of school. However, this usually happened when that said child was five. Lance is 17 years old, and until today, was home schooled along with his older sister Veronica. That meant that their mom was their only teacher. While Veronica had her taste of college and was already helping their mother in their cultural research, Lance still had to go through the educational system.
In his life so far, he'd lived in nine countries on 3 continents. He would spend all of his time learning about different cultures and animal species with his mom and sister. At night, they would do their schoolwork with mom.
It had always been just the three of them, until it happened.
"I got it! Dios mio! I got it!"
"You really got it?"
"We're going home."
His mom's articles about the patterns on large cats had earned her a full professorship at Northwestern University. So, it was goodbye wild life. Hello, society life for Lance.
"Are you nervous? It's okay to be nervous you know," Veronica said with a small smile as Lance shook his head.
"I'll be fine, I promise. I'm not nervous at all. I'm actually the opposite," Lance said with a reassuring smile. "I'll see you both when I get home."
With that, Lance finally turned from his house and proceed to start crossing the street. He nearly yelped as he jumped back, avoiding the yellow school bus that was driving back. Veronica and her mother sighed in relief as Lance pulled out a thumbs up. Onward he went into the new territory known as high school.
Lance looked around the main lawn of the school, almost studying all the different types of groups he could point out just by looking. There were football players pretending to wrestle each other. Others were trying to get high behind some bushes. An overweight girl was enjoying her McMuffins behind her car. To him, Lance just seemed out of place and was unsure where to land exactly.
********************************
The bell rang and students were already pilling into their assigned classrooms. Lance got ahold of his schedule and managed to find his first class. Lance approached a lady, thinking that was the teacher for the class, and started to introduce himself.
"Hi. I don't know if anyone told you about me yet. I'm a new student. My name is Lance McClain."
The lady...Well...Mature girl...finally turned around, frowning down at Lance in disgust.
"Who cares?" She said as she walked away, leaving Lance feeling awkward as he just stood there in embarrassment. In front of him, two students, a girl and a boy, laughed in amusement. Lance decided it was time to take a seat and decided to take the nearest one since it seemed open.
"You don't want to sit there," said the girl who was laughing at his awkwardness just before. "Zethrid sits there to be with her girlfriend."
The same girl who embarrassed Lance just a moment ago took the seat next to her "girlfriend". The two began to make out hard, disregarding others, especially Lance himself. He quickly tried to get another open seat, but the same girl stop him again.
"Don't sit there. He farts a lot," she added. The guy behind the seat Lance got ahold of shrugged, almost in agreement to the words.
"Thanks," Lance mumbled softly as he took the last seat open next to the girl instead.
"Did you go to St. Ann's last year?" The boy in front of the girl asked as Lance shook his head. "Because you looked like you were in the Grease play."
"Wasn't me," Lance responded as the boy sighed a relief.
"Thank god. They all had pitch problems," He said as he chuckled to himself.
"I'm Pidge. This is Hunk. He's almost too gay to function," the girl finally spoke again as Hunk gave a small bow. Lance took note of both of their appearances. Pidge had short brow hair with large glasses and small little freckles on her cheeks. Hunk was a bit more dark skinned than Lance and had short black hair.
"Nice to meet you both," Lance said with a small smile.
The principal came through the doorway, asking a few of the students coming in where the teacher was.
"Where's your teacher?" He asked as another adult stumbled inside with a box of donuts.
"I know, I'm late, Mr. Shirogane. I brought doughnuts," The teacher said as he placed the box down onto his desk. "Good morning."
"Morning...All right. I just wanted to let everyone know that we have a new junior student with us. He just moved here from Cuba," Mr. Shirogane started as the teacher turned to a very looking Hispanic boy.
"Don't look at me. I'm from California," he said as the teacher looked away in embarrassment.
"...Let's help him adjust to academic life here in Evanston. Lance McClain. Where are you?" Mr. Shirogane asked as Lance stood up.
"That's me," Lance answered as the principal gave him a welcoming smile.
"Well, welcome, Lance and thank you, Mr. Shirogane," the teacher said as he turned to him.
"You have to try and be on time next year, okay, Adam?" Mr. Shirogane softly said as Adam sighed. The principal walked out of the room as Adam introduced himself to the class.
*********
"Where are you going now?" Pidge asked as Lance looked at his schedule.
"Health. Room B14," Lance replied. Pidge looked at Hunk who nodded in approval.
"I think that's in the back building," She said.
"Yeah, totally in the back building," Hunk said in agreement. "We'll take you there."
The three of them marched through the crowded halls. Hunk was making a path for Lance and Pidge to walk comfortably in as they all laughed in amusement. Finally, they crossed the football field and Lance seemed confused. Where was the building? Pidge and Hunk slumped to the ground, sitting down on the grass as Lance stayed up.
"Where's the back building?" He asked as Pidge looked up at him.
"It burned down in 1987," She replied as Lance huffed.
"Won't we get in some sort of trouble?" Lance added as Pidge shrugged.
"If you show up late, yes."
"But if you don't show up, no one will notice," Hunk added.
Lance would never really know what was the lesson planned for Health, but he thought that he really wouldn't miss much anyways.
Pidge began drawing little robots on the sides of her binder as Hunk and Lance chatted next to her, often picking at the dandelions.
"So, you took all these tests and then what?" Hunk asked Lance who was blowing on a picked dandelion.
"They placed me in 11th grade classes, except senior Calculus," Lance responded as Hunk gagged.
"Ew. I have to retake Gym, but wow. That sucks," Hunk groaned as Lance chuckled. "I am so going to mentor you. What else is important? The cafeteria is terrible. You're going to have to buy your lunch from the school store. I recommend the white cheddar cheeezits. What else? Oh! Spring Fling!"
"That's not important," Pidge said as she looked up in annoyance.
"It is to me, Pidge. Anyways, At the end of every year, the seniors throw a dance called the Spring Fling for the underclassmen. Whomever is elected Spring Fling King and Queen automatically become head of the student committee. As an active member of the student committee, I say, yeah, it is important to me," Hunk finished as Pidge shook her head. "Oh, boy. Look at Shay's gym clothes."
The three of them looked at the PE class coming out of the locker room. In the front of the pack, there was a girl wearing the tiniest shorts Lance had ever seen made by man.
"Is that a shirt or a bandage?" Lance asked, eyeing Shay's tiny shirt.
"I don't know, Lance, but I do know that Shay is one of the dumbest girls you will ever meet. Hunk here had her in English class last year," Pidge responded.
"She asked me how to spell orange," Hunk added.
Another girl came up to Shay's side. She seemed busy on a phone call, trying to avoid everyone.
"That's Nyma. She's rich because her father created Toaster Strudel," Pidge said as she then mentioned another girl who was barely coming out of the locker room. "And that right there is Allura, queen of the plastics."
"Who are the plastics?" Lance asked before Hunk objected.
"Their basically queen royalty here. They always get it their way."
************
Lance was finally in his calculus class later that day. He learned from Pidge and Hunk to stay as far as he could away from the plastics. He wondered why to be honest, even though he could sense the hatred Pidge and Hunk had for them. Did everyone have that same mentality about the plastics?
Adam was his teacher for Calculus, and Lance was kind of relieved to see that it was. He had been having a rough day with his other teachers, not knowing exactly what to do or what not to do. Adam seemed like the perfect starter teacher for his first year, and he liked it that way. No distractions, nothing to make him lose sight of his favorite subject. As Lance was busy following Adam's instructions on the problem, the boy sitting in front of him turned back around and faced him.
"Do you have a pencil I could borrow for today?" He asked.
Lance felt his heart stop as he took a moment to admire this boy's features. His skin was a pale white, and he seemed to be rocking that black mullet hair of his. Those beautiful, stunning purple eyes made Lance want to stare at them for hours on end. Luckily, he snapped himself back to reality.
"S-Sure," Lance quickly said as he fumbled in his backpack for a pencil. When he found one, he handed it over to the boy who smiled in return.
"Thanks," He whispered as he turned back around and continued on his notes.
Lance had only one crush in his life. He was seven and his crush rejected him easily. Heartbroken, he thought he would never love again. What every kid thinks about amused Lance as he sidetracked again, not noticing his teacher speaking to him.
"Lance, what do you have as the answer?" Adam asked as Lance snapped back to the class again.
"Oh, um," Lance started as he looked at his notebook. " 'an' equals 'n' plus 1 over 4."
"Very good, Lance. That's right. Keep it up," Adam said excitedly as he turned back to the board and continued with the lesson. The boy in front of him looked back at him, giving him another smile, this time seeming it was a "good job" type of smile. It made Lance's chest flutter in excitement as he did a small little wave with his hand to the boy in appreciation.
After class was over, Lance packed up his things and placed his backpack over his shoulder. Not noticing where he was going, he bumped right into the boy he had wanted to look at more.
"S-Sorry!" Lance mumbled as he helped him up.
"No, it's alright. My fault for not looking," the boy said with a chuckle as Lance gulped. "Oh, your pencil." He held out the pencil and Lance took it, their fingers brushing against each other for a moment.
"Thanks," Lance said. "Almost forgot about it, heh heh."
"You're new, right? My name is Keith. Keith Kogane. It's a pleasure to have you here. Oh, and again, thanks for letting me borrow the pencil," Keith said with a smile.
"Lance. Lance McClain. Pleasure to meet you," Lance said, returning the smile with his own.
"Well...See you later or tomorrow then. I better get going," Keith said with a chuckle as Lance chuckled as well.
"O-Of course! Me too!"
****************
Lance finally got out of the classroom alive. Already being awkward with his first high school crush. Great. As he wandered the cafeteria nervously from his conversation with Keith racing through his mind, he was stopped by a boy with a clipboard.
"The name's Rolo. We're doing a survey with new students here on campus. Can you answer a few questions?"
"Um, sure," Lance responded as Rolo began to look through his notes.
"Is your cherry popped?"
"...What?" Lance asked, unsure how to respond.
"Would you like us to assign someone to help pop your cherry?" Rolo asked, disregarding Lance's request.
"Is he bothering you?"
The two of them turned and looked at the girl who was sitting in between two other girls. It was them. The Plastics. Team Royalty as Hunk dubbed them. Allura was the one who spoke up.
"Rolo. Why are you such a skeez?" She asked in annoyance.
"I'm being friendly to the new student. What? Can't I not do that?" Rolo asked, a bit offended. Although, Lance couldn't tell if he was being serious or not.
"You were supposed to call me last night," the girl Nyma said quietly as Rolo sighed.
"Rolo, you do not come to a party at my house with Nyma then prey on an innocent boy in front of us two days later. He's not interested. Do you want to have sex with him?" Allura asked, directing the question to Lance.
"No...Uh, thanks?" Lance said as Allura looked back at Rolo.
"That settles it. Great. Bye, Rolo," Allura said with a little wave as Rolo walked away madly, both embarrassed and upset. Before Lance could walk away, she spoke up again. "Wait. You should sit with us." She said with a kind smile.
"Really?"
'Totally!"
Lance glanced over to Pidge and Hunk who were sitting not too far from the Plastic's table. They were looking at him confusingly, and as much as Lance wanted to sit with them, he thought it was nicer to sit with the girl who just saved him. So, here he was sitting with team royalty.
"So, if you're from Cuba, why aren't you darker?" Shay asked as Nyma gasped.
"Oh my god, Shay. You can't just ask someone why they aren't darker," Nyma told her.
"Could you give us some privacy for just one sec?" Allura asked as Lance shrugged.
"Sure, I guess."
The three girls huddled together, speaking to each other very softly. Lance could see a few nods, some head shakes, and other unreadable things he didn't understand. When they were done, they sat up straight and addressed Lance.
"Okay. Let me say that we normally don't do this a lot, so you should know that this is a pretty big deal," Allura started as the other two girls nodded.
"We want to invite you to have lunch with us everyday for the rest of the week," Nyma said.
"Oh....Okay," Lance said quietly.
"Great! So, we'll see you tomorrow then," Nyma added as Shay cut in.
"Oh, and on Tuesdays, we wear pink."
******************
After explaining everything to Hunk and Pidge, they exploded in laughter.
"You have to do it and tell me all the horrible things they say," Pidge said in delight as Lance cocked his head.
"Allura seems nice to me though."
"She's not nice! She's the most plastic of the plastics," Pidge declared as Hunk crossed his arms and nodded.
"She is fabulous, but definitely evil."
"What would we even talk about?" Lance asked, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Just do it, please?" Pidge asked with puppy dog eyes as Lance sighed in defeat.
"Fine," Lance finally said. "Do you guys have anything in pink?"
"No," Pidge answered.
"Yes," Hunk answered.
********
With a pile of books on hand, Lance finally made it back home. He smiled softly, seeing his mother and sister chatting on the front porch. They looked happy and relieved to finally see him come back home.
"How was your first day?" His mom asked.
"Fine."
"Were the people nice?" She added.
"No."
"Make any friends?" Veronica asked this time.
"...Yeah." Lance answered, smiling a bit as he finally went inside the house. Veronica and her mother sighed a relief. At least that went well.
Lance went to his room, closing the door and sliding down it to the ground where he laid there for a while. He thought about all the people he met today. His newest friends, Pidge and Hunk. His first high school crush, Keith Kogane. The Plastics. His stomach clenched a bit, knowing he was going to have lunch with them despite him not wanting or being warned about the consequences of hanging out with them.