High School Hulabaloo

It’s the first day back at what’s going to be yet another unremarkable year of high school and my hearts already sitting at the pit of my stomach…I can’t stand this.

“It feels like my stomach is full of saliva.” I cringed.

“Don’t be so melodramatic, Ellie. You’re going to school!” My mom laughs as we pull up to the infamous H. M. Kline high school.

“You’ll be fine” she adds, but I can’t help but groan as I exit the car. “I love you”

I lean into the door of the car, “if you really loved me you wouldn’t make me go!” I grinned and then waved her away.

I head towards those horrible red double doors on the side and as I filter through a sea of hormonal teens, I search hopelessly for a familiar face. When I fail to find one, I figure I might as well get my schedule first. I make my way over to a couple of teachers sitting at tables marked A- G, H-P and so on. 

“Miss, What’s your last name?!” the teacher barked at me. I was a bit stunned by her tone of voice as she glared at me.  Her hair looked like it had been quickly pulled back in a bun and I could imagine that her glasses which were too small for her head left marks in the side of her skull; then there was the lipstick on her teeth all of which were probably the product of her impatient behavior. “You’re name!” she repeated just as prude like as the first time.

“Roy…al” I manage to say, “Ellie Royal”

She licks her finger and begins thumbing through her stack of student’s schedules. “Roy…al” she mocks me. “Here you go miss Roy...al.”

A bit confused, but not at all phased I grab my schedule and head for the bathroom.

Surprise, surprise… the bathroom is full of girls primping, plucking and powdering their cheeks. I find Cathy Gonzalez, my “oh so religious” friend in front of a mirror applying eyeliner. She stopped mid sweep when she saw me “Hey Grasshopper!”  Cathy was skinny and was considered to be pretty. She had short, curly, light brown hair and blond high lights, she wore glasses, she was quirky, and in the choir…overall I’d say she was my exact opposite.

“Hi-ya Roach!” I smiled, thankful for running into someone I could surround myself with. Some of the girls in the bathroom, who obviously had nothing better to do, raised an eyebrow at our insect pet names.  So in return, I gave them my best “it’s a long story, don’t ask” look. After me and Cathy compared our schedules it seemed we didn’t have any classes together this year. I frowned, and then I thought well at least I managed to avoid PE this year.

Eventually Cathy abandoned me in the bathroom for another friend of hers. So with no one to talk to I examined my schedule again. Crap, I realized that they had me listed as a sophomore again instead of a junior this year. So now, I was upset on top of my first day nervousness.  I thought I had already fixed this problem last year when I sat in the counselor’s office, for the first time ever, as she corrected and I quote, “a minor mistake.” 

Outside the counselor’s office I waited in line with one hand holding the other, at chest level, a tell-tale sign that I’m rather uncomfortable.  Having been overcome by that feeling, I unintentionally ignored Charlie Lorenzo when he approached behind me. Charlie had short, spiky, black hair and brown eyes, a medium build. His usual attire was a tee shirt with an insult on it and baggy jeans. He was always getting in trouble but in reality, he was really smart.

He wasn’t exactly a person you could ignore successfully. He was acting like a moron, as usual.

“Ooh, Ellie’s in trouble!” he joked, while this girl next to him giggled.

His younger sister I guessed, they were most likely waiting in line to register her. Charlie was mildly perverted and would say just about anything to get a reaction out of someone. Normally I hated that perverseness about guys, but it suited him…If that makes any sense.

 

 

Classes sure went by slow enough. I was well into third period (Intro to Health and Science) and so far I was grouped with a bunch of people I normally don’t talk to. All the while, I was secretly hoping to get a class with Charlie but, No such luck. I hadn’t run into Sandra yet either. My liking Charlie made no sense to me. I mean there’s something dirty about liking my ex friend’s ex boyfriend…am I right? A part of me rationalized that she was never a good friend to me, but my better side kept me a bit distant from him still. I thought back to the beginning of our friendship. Charlie and Sandra would play fight over me, there was a whole lot of she was my friend first. However now, Sandra and I weren’t friends because during the end of last year she kept blowing me off for a friend that would skip with her; even though I would always back her up.

I was dubbed the good girl/rule follower, and more commonly…the quiet one. You see, Even though it may seem that I hate school with a passion, I actually do quite good here.

When the bell rang, I made my way to my next class hopeful that I could relate to someone there. After all, it was Latin class and that’s where I met most of my friends. Mrs. Harold our old Latin teacher had left so I was and wasn’t so eager to see who would replace her. 

In The way the class room was set up there were two people to a row on each side of the room. I chose the 2^nd desk in the first row. I was in arms reach of the teacher’s desk. So you could imagine my best friend Mary Ellen’s disapproval, of my choice of seats, when she sat in front of me.

Mary was the straight forward type of person who didn’t take crap from anyone, but me, and once you messed up, you were pretty much dead to her. Mary was way more sociable than me although she might deny it, mostly because she only ever could tolerate me. Mary Ellen Had long brown hair, brown eyes and you’d always catch her wearing a band or anime tee and jeans.

I believe the reason we get along so much is because we think alike and like a lot of the same things.

“Really we’re going to be right next to the teacher?!” she whined. Now who was being melodramatic?

“Well, you can sit in the next row, on the side of me.” I suggested.

“And get stuck next to some moron?” she questioned.

Apparently she spoke to soon because in came Johnny, whom she’d qualify as a moron in a heartbeat, and wouldn’t you know it he sat right where I was suggesting she should.

Everyone knew that Johnny liked me a little too much. Even people I really didn’t know would give me looks like you know he likes you, wink, wink. In fact, they had secretly dubbed him my own little puppy dog. Instead of hanging out with his other equally as hyper friends he spent lunch with me, Mary Ellen and a little group of girls and I had no doubt he’d do it this year too.

Johnny was tall with a medium build, short brown hair and green eyes, he was a band “geek” but with less of the geek and more of the annoying younger brother essence. He would wear a t-shirt of some kind and carpenter blue jeans.

“Hey!” He smiled with his signature of a childish wave.

I smiled back and I could see Mary Ellen in the corner of my eye making her Johnny makes me sick grimace.

Her and Johnny always butt heads on account of whenever me and her are talking he always has to butt in and most of the time it was to insult her. Then later when he wasn’t around I’d have to listen to her go on about how he thinks he’s so smart. (But to be honest, he did) Sometimes he wouldn’t even let me get a word in.

Our new Latin teacher was a hoot. His name was Mr., sorry I mean Dr. Randle.  He was like 60 or something, a tall dude with white hair, but despite his age he was still real sharp, youthful, and funny. The great thing was he loved to talk about himself and the things he’s done, so once you got him started…no class work.

Our lunch period was in the middle of Latin class so we’d occasionally work the first half, go to lunch and spend the second half with our free period.

At lunch Mary Ellen and I did our usual bit of writing a story back and forth as we waited for the lunch line to get shorter. It was a habit of ours to reserve the seats and then when Johnny sat down with his tray we’d get up to get ours. During lunch we mostly talked about how far we were in the Black dagger Brotherhood Series. Johnny would talk about everything and basically nothing of value to anyone but our group. As I waited for the bell to ring, I spent the rest of my lunch time making a face with my left over mash potatoes, and casually glancing over at Charlie, who sat at the table before ours. Charlie was surrounded by a group of people, laughing as always.   I looked away when I noticed his friend Ricky was staring me down.

I tuned into Mary’s voice“…that episode where Inuyasha kissed Kikyo in front of Kagome pissed me off, how could-”

Pearl, Mary’s “friend” cuts in, “I like Kikyo with Inuyasha”

“ Inuyasha needs to realize that Kikyo is just an empty shell of dirt and stop fooling around with Kagome’s feelings, and that fool Kikyo needs to stay dead!” I say.

Mary bursts out in what I’d call a seizure of agreement/ hell yeah, “thank you!” she booms.

Then Johnny decides to buzz kill her joy and shoots back, “Inuyasha’s a Gay show!” Before all three of use girls can insult him the bell rings. We get up to throw are trays and its back to Latin class.

 

 

In Art Class Mrs. Zamora is busy passing out sheets of paper and asking us to draw the first thing that pops in to our head. Unbelievable this is probably the only class I have with Charlie and he’s skipping it?! I start doodling on my sheet of paper and when I look up Charlie is sitting across from me. He smiles at me.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to be drawing me naked!” Charlie gleamed.

 Most students stopped drawing to stare and Mrs. Z shot us a look of disapproval. My cheeks turned red with heat, “you wish you were the first thing to pop into my head.” I replied.

“It’s not your head he wants to pop in to!” Ricky laughed.

Ugh, Ricky was such a slim ball. Mrs. Zamora made her way over to our table.

“Ricky, get out of my classroom…Where are you supposed to be?”

Ricky just laughed and placed his hand above her head, “You’re short Mrs. Z”

 Mrs. Zamora turned bright red. Charlie folded his paper in half and slid it over to me, and then he escorted Ricky out of the classroom just as the bell rang.

I looked at the sheet of paper and unfolded it, inside was a pitiful drawing of me.

Reviews

[Red]

Hey, this is pretty good! I love the characters and the realism to this. No part of the story feels fake or overdone. Also, the Inuyasha part was hilarious. I didn't find ANY mistakes with this, but I was to busy enjoying the story instead of looking for ways to criticize it. Your attention to detail is the perfect and the humor hurt to hold in. I'm in class right now so I avoided laughing at the top of my lungs. The bottom line: this is awesome. Thanks for writing this; it's truly a diamond in the rough.
-Red