-Excerpt from Chapter 3-
Casady, against her will, starts to slowly wake up. Out of focus, she blinks the blurriness out of her eyes so she can see clearly. As she begins to regain the ability of sight, Casady is unable to remember where she is, nothing looks familiar. After staring into oblivion, she recognizes where she is, it's her own room. Why couldn't she remember what her own room looked like, what is going on with her?
Before Casady has enough time to ponder over the thought, her head erupts with pain. Pounding faster and harder with every passing second, Casady grabs her head as if to calm it. Soon, the agonizing pounding in her head begins to make her dizzy, causing Casady to topple over her own two feet. Within minutes she passes out cold on the warm wood floor of her bedroom.
She lays there, on the soft oak floor with one arm extended out in front of her, and the other to the side. It takes about half an hour until she finally wakes up and regains consciousness. Blinking her eyes, she is bewildered that she passed out because it has never happened before. she slowly pushes herself off the ground into a standing position, the i pain in her head has completely disappeared. Looking at her watch, she realizes that she is supposed to meet Beverly in fifteen minutes! As she slides the closet door open, she wishes that she was already completely dressed for School. Beginning to feel light headed again, Casady leans back and takes a seat on her bed.
After a few minutes she opens her eyes, coming to realization that she passed out again. She shakes her head in confusion and allows for it to pass. About a minute later the light headedness and pain is gone, as if it was never there. However, when she looks up at the mirror, she sees that she is already dressed for School. How is this possible? Could it be that she got dressed before she passed out? No, it can't be, she passed out as she opened the door to her closet. She dismisses the thought and decides just to go meet Beverly, as it is, she is already late. Even on her walk to meet up with her, all she can think about is how she magically got dressed. It doesn't make any sense.
TTG
"Good morning class, and welcome to your first period! My name is Mrs. Richardson and I am your Language Arts and Journalism Teacher this year. I will be here if you need anything. Since it's your third year in high school, I am sure you all already know what supplies you need for this class. Either way, I made these packets for you all just in case. Can..." She looks down at her list of names, and chooses one at random, "Casady please come here and pass these out for me?" Mrs. Richardson finishes, waiting for Casady to show herself.
"Okay" whispers a short, shy-looking girl in the back right corner of the class. She slowly makes her way to the front of the beige classroom, grabs the packets, and begins to pass them out to all the other students. Avoiding eye contact with her classmates, she stares at the packets until there are none left to be passed out. Her best friend, Beverly, eyes Casady, as if to say, 'I'm sorry for that'.
" After you all receive your packet, you can put it away. Also, please take out a piece of paper and a pen or pencil."
After a moment of silence, everyone has their paper and pen on their desk, so Mrs. Richardson continues, "This week we are going to work on a project that I put together during summer, it is called, 'Looking For Life'. There are five parts to this project. It is designed to help both you and I to get to know yourself and the other classmates. No part of this will be homework. Everything will be done in class. The first part in this project is to write some basic information about yourself. Today we are going to begin part one. Part one contains two slides total. This Power Point will tell you everything you need to do for now. Just so you know, this is a five week project." Once she finishes talking, Mrs. Richardson takes a seat at her desk and watches as her students get busy to work.
While the students get their butt in gear because Mrs. Richardson changed the slide, and not everyone was finished. Meanwhile, Mrs. Richardson, along with Casady, are in their own world. They both love to write. Casady is working on editing her almost complete novel of 385 pages, while Mrs. Richardson is still writing and on . page 237
"Um, Mrs. Richardson?" A younger teenager asks as Mrs. Richardson is still typing away. "Mrs. Richardson?" He asks a little louder, this time getting her attention.
'Oh, sorry. What is it?" Mrs. Richardson responds, realizing that there is a student standing right next to her at her desk. .
"I was wondering what the final project Intel's?"
"What is your name?"
"My name is Jacob."
"Okay, well Jacob, I was planning on telling the class tomorrow. Would that be okay? Or would you prefer me to explain it today?"
"Okay, that's fine. I'll wait for tomorrow." Jacob says.
"I know most of you finished the first slide thoroughly. However, if you did not, you will have the first five minutes of tomorrow to finish it. Also, after you have that time to work more on it, I am going to explain what this project is really about. I know that some of you are getting your work done, and I greatly appreciate that! However, this is not social hour, if you are talking and not doing your work, I will hand out detention's. If you finish and then start talking, I have no problems with that."
After a few more minutes the bell rings for break. Everyone starts to file out while a few students stay behind because they are zoned out. . After everyone has left, Casady walks up to Mrs. Richardson to ask a question that she has been wondering the whole morning. While Casady is walking toward Mrs. Richardson, Beverly, Casady's best friend, packs all of their stuff into their backpacks.
"Mrs. Richardson?"
"Yes? Casady, right?"
"Yes,"
"Sorry for picking you earlier, I should of asked for volunteers."
"It's okay. I had a question for you though."
"What is it?"
"I noticed you typing a lot and you seemed to be deep involved with what you are writing, are you writing a book or something? Or just a lesson plan?"
"Wow, your observant! I am actually writing a book. I'm, let's see, 251 pages into it."
"That's really good! How long have you been working on it?"
"Well, I started about a year ago, but I am just starting to write again."
"That's cool, are you going to get it published?"
"I hope so. Have you done some research or something? You seem to be really interested in this, are you writing a book too?"
"Actually yes, although I have already finished it."
"Congratulations! Have you contacted any publishers or agents?"
"Um, yes."
"That's great, with who? If you don't mind me asking."
"Oh, it's fine. I am waiting to hear back from Scholastics and Penguin Random House."
"Wow, how did you get those contacts? That's really big!"
"I kind of just stumbled upon it."
"That's cool."
"Yeah, well, I better get going!"
"Okay, have a nice day Casady, I'll see you tomorrow."
"Okay, you have a wonderful day too!"
"Thanks."
"So, what did you think of Mrs. Richardson?" Beverly asks.
"She is super cool!"
"What makes you say that?"
"Didn't you listen to our conversation at all?"
"No."
"She is writing a book too!"
"Really? That's awesome! But what did you think about her as a teacher?
Well, she was nice and I like the fact that she gave us an interesting project. Plus, we don't have to do any of it for homework." Casady answers optimistically.
"Yeah, that was pretty cool, but..." Beverly replies hesitantly.
"But, What?"
"Well, I don't like how we are already doing a project. It's only our first day back. And, it's not even like it's a small project!"
"That's true, but it seems like it's going to be a fun project.."
"Yeah, I don't know. Anyway, what do you have next?"
"I have Advanced Culinary, you?"
"I have Chemistry honors, ugh!"
"I told you, you should of taken it with me last year."
"Ding-Ding-Ding" The second, warning bell, rings.
"I know. Hey, I'll talk to you at lunch, yeah?"
"Okay, see you later."
After they exchange goodbye's, they walk in opposite directions toward each of their next class. As Casady pulls her lace sweater over her head, hiding herself from sight,she reaches the door to culinary class and slowly pulls it open to find everyone staring up at her. She bows her head and quickly rushes to the nearest open seat, not realizing that it is right next to the most popular girl in the school, Rachel.
"Um, yeah! This seat is taken loser, so move it!" Rachel, with an attitude, says rudely to Casady, causing her to jump from the seat she is about to take..
"Oh, I'm so sorry Rach-" Casady begins to say, as she is rudely cut off.
"You better be shy-freak!" Rachel shoots at her with pure annoyance showing all over her face.
"Uh," Is all Casady can make out while tears fill up in her eyes.
"Good idea." Rachel says with a hair-flip.
After that fiasco, Casady rushes to the back and takes a seat, keeping her head down, while the whole class stares at her. Embarrassed, she covers her tomato red face, which now has wet streaks on her face. The seat next to the one Casady chose is empty, which makes Casady feel a little better. However, the peace that Casady's has in her mind, only lasts for a few more seconds.
At the front of the classroom, three juniors file into the rows of seats, trying to find one of their own. Chris and Adam both find a seat next to each other in the center of the room, leaving Jordan to fend for himself. Jordan, a completely rebellious Jock, sees the open seat next to Casady, and takes it. That's when he realizes that the girl next to him is actually Casady, of all people, he had to sit next to her. Casady and him use to be friends in middle school, before he became popular and pretended Casady didn't exist. Of course, Casady was not happy about her second best friend totally walking out of her life. A million emotions start erupting inside of Casady, Anger, Hate, Jealousy, Longing, and Happiness all spill onto her face. Casady wipes the tears off of her face, using her sleeves, and looks dead ahead, avoiding any and all eye contact with him.
The room erupts with the sound of the late bell and ass if on cue, Mr. Benard stands from his desk, and walks to the front of the classroom. Turning to the white board, he write's down three words. 'Chocolate Chip Cookies'. Next, he turns to the class and looks at the students.
"To make a simple chocolate chip cookie, you only need five ingredients, what are they?" He asks the class. More then half the class is ready to answer the question, however he calls on someone whose hand is not up. "Do you know, Jordan?"
"Uh..." He says, utterly confused of what is going on. He didn't even hear the question because he is on his phone, which is hidden under the desk.
"Chocolate chips, flour, eggs, butter, and sugar." Casady whispers, discreetly, under her breath to Jordan.
"Well, you need chocolate chips, flour, eggs, and butter." He says confidently.
"Sugar!" She whispers urgently.
"Most importantly you also need sugar." He adds with a short laugh.
"That is correct Jordan. Sometimes people think that..." Mr. Benard starts to talk, meanwhile Jordan turns to Casady.
"Thanks for bailing me out." He whispers.
"Forget it happened." She responds quickly, without making eye contact, obviously not wanting to keep a conversation going.
By the time the first four periods are over, Casady and Beverly start to head over to the secluded spot they found the previous year. Both Casady and Beverly pack their own lunch each day so when they sit down, conversation immediately begins.
"So, how was culinary and Calculus?"
"It was horrible!"
"What happened?"
"Nothing, I just don't even wan't to talk about it!"
"Are you sure!"
"No, it's just, Ugh! First, in culinary everyone stared at me when I sat next to Rachel. Then I chose a seat where no one was at, that's good, right? No! Jordan sat next to me. Then, in Calculus, Mr. Reyez kept calling on me!"
"Casady, I am so sorry!" Beverly says immediately, hugging her tight, "It's going to be okay. It will work out, I promise." She says as comfortingly as she can.
"Okay, I'm sorry, huh...how was science and algebra 2?" Casady says wiping her tears away.
"They were okay, nothing special. My teacher in my math class is nice, but my science teacher is a tool. Haha, I got to math class a few minutes late cause I got lost."
"That sucks!"
"Tell me about it."
Before they know it, the bell rings and they have to go to their next class. Both Casady and Beverly have French 2. When everyone is at their seats, the bell rings, and the teacher stands in the front.
"Bonjour classe comment allez-vous aujourd'hui?" The teacher, Miss. Baker greet's her students.
A muffled, "Bonjour." is all she is given from her students.
"Well, we are going to have to work on that, now won't we?" She says in a thick french accent.
Meanwhile, Jordan, along with Chris and Adam, make their way to Trigonometry. When they get into the class, the three are able to find seats together.
"Hey Jordan?" Chris asked.
"Yeah?"
"Why on earth would you sit next to that shy freak in culinary class?"
"For one, she is not a freak-"
"Oh sorry, he meant loser." Adam joins in.
"She's not a loser either! Anyway, I just felt bad for her, and what I did to her."
"So! Your rep is going to go down the drain if you keep that up!"
"And?"
"Dude, this is your reputation that we are talking about!"
"Okay, okay! Your right, it is bad for my rep. I guess now I can't change it though cause that's where I sit. Whatever, I just won't talk to her, would that make you guys happy?"
"Thank god! Do you know what that would do? It would be catastrophic!"
"Class, please be quiet, we are going to start." Mr. Warts says, gaining their attention.