Two: First Day at School

“Andria. Andie sweetheart it’s time to get up.” I opened my eyes and sat up groggily. It took me a while to realise where I was and why someone who wasn’t my mum was standing in my room. After a couple of blinks, the truth crashed over me. I remembered where I was and why I was here.

“Morning” I said my voice still thick with sleep.

“Morning, I put your uniform out for you” My aunt smiled at me and pointed to the shirt, skirt, jumper and tie lying at the end of my bed.

“Thanks.” I said quietly, suspiciously.

“I’ll see you downstairs for breakfast” She left the room and flashed me a parting smile. I smiled back but perhaps a bit too late for her to catch it. Once I got dressed, I went downstairs where breakfast was waiting for me. My aunt wished me luck on my first day and I followed Alice out of the door and towards the bus stop.

                The bus ride to school wasn’t long. But during the ride Alice met a crowd of her friends and it was hard to refrain myself from laughing when they were all standing together. It was difficult not to notice how similar they all looked -skirts much shorter than they were intended to be and shoes with too much heel for school, some of them had even dyed their hair the exact same colour as Alice. I suppose its possible that she had copied one of them but they all looked at her like she was a Queen bee and they were the working bee’s waiting for a command. She introduced me to all of them but I forgot their names just as quickly as she’d said them.

                Although I was dressed just the same as everyone else, when I walked up the hallway towards the form room, I stuck out like a sore thumb. Every step I took it seemed that another set of eyes were on me. Some of the eyes were kind and sympathetic, others were harsh and judgemental, and a few were just plain surprised. Wherever I walked the crowds thinned and stood back to let me walk, not out of respect or awe but as if I was contaminated by some kind of contagious, hideous disease.

                As soon as I found the right room I slipped in as quickly as I could, but the saying ‘out of the frying pan and into the fire’ came to mind. In this small room the eyes could get a lot closer to look without looking strange or rude. I personally thought it was rude to stare no matter what the circumstances and I had a sudden urge to remind them of that, but I decided that it was silly of me to start an argument on my first day and it also wouldn’t be very good for my first impression.

                An adult walked in behind me- I assumed it was the teacher- as he walked in all of the people who had been staring at me before sat down, the talking quietened but didn’t stop. The man walked past me without seeming to notice I was there. I walked up to him and coughed quietly, he pushed his hair out of his face as he looked up.

“Yes?” he asked sharply.

“I’m new here. My name is Andria, but call me Andie.” I said politely, although I was slightly annoyed by his bluntness.

“Oh yes, I was told we would be getting a new student.” He looked at the rest of the class, who silenced momentarily when he spoke, “This is Andria…”

“Andie.” I corrected, but he ignored me.

“She’s new and needs someone to show her around. Any volunteers?” It seemed that although he had clearly asked the question loud enough for all of them to hear, everyone was determined to pretend they hadn’t heard it; probably because none of them wanted to be lumbered with the new girl. One boy sitting near the back looked around the class, smiled sympathetically at me and then raised his hand.

“I will.” The boy said.

“Thanks Robert,” the teacher said motioning to the seat a couple of chairs left from Robert.

“Rob,” he corrected. The teacher just nodded in answer. I sat down and heard a few girls mumbling behind me.

                “Why did he say he would help her?” The girl made no effort to keep the acidic infliction from her voice. I tried to block them out but it seemed like they almost wanted me to hear.

“He probably just felt sorry for her.” A different voice tried to reassure the first.

“Yeah, no one wanted to be stuck with her.” Another voice joined in the conversation.

“True, Rob is just nice that way. I hope she doesn't think she‘s anything special.” She practically spat the last couple of words. A few girls found that quite amusing.

Before I could stop myself I spun around and demanded, “Do you have a problem with me?” Most of the girls looked shocked and some looked slightly embarrassed. Good. But one, looked angry. Then I could feel all the anger I had been locking away bubble up towards the surface.

                “Excuse me?” said the angry girl with unnaturally blonde hair and way too much make up on.

“I said, do you have a problem with me? Because you’ve known me for a maximum of 10 seconds, the extent of the information you have about me is my name, but you already seem to have made your mind.” Our little argument seemed to have attracted an audience.

                The unnatural blonde flushed (whether with embarrassment or anger I wasn’t sure) then stood up scraping her chair as she did, I copied her action and then it became obvious that a fight was inevitable. It was no longer important that there was a table between us. Anger exploded and direct itself towards this girl that I knew nothing about. Rob stood up a second after me and stood in between us.

                “Rose, she’s new. Leave it.” He looked at the unnatural blonde- Rose. He put his hand on her shoulder and she seemed to melt at his touch, she took a step back and looked at him pathetically. I scoffed at the look on her face and she glared at me. Rob turned to me, “Andie wasn’t it?” I nodded, “Maybe you should take a few breaths, count to ten or something.” He attempted to joke with me but my face was blank. I just turned around and sat back down. I was trying desperately to lock away the anger that I’d just set loose inside of me, it was raging and refusing to return to cage it has originally been locked away in. The teacher seemed to realise something had happened, “Andria, problem?” he asked.

                “No.” I said a bit louder than necessary. He looked from me to Rose, whose eyes I could feel boring into the back of my head. “Jack swap places with Andrea.” The boy I assumed was Jack huffed, slung his bag over his shoulder and walked towards me, I stood up and walked to the seat that he had left empty. It happened to be the seat behind Rob.

                I looked back towards my old seat and saw Rose was glaring at me, seemingly out of jealously. Was she really that desperate? Pathetic. When I sat down, Rob turned around and smiled at me. It would have been polite and diplomatic to smile back and start a normal conversation, but I was annoyed at him. I had so much anger inside of me and he’d just stopped me unleashing it, so I just glared at him.

                “Oooo moody. I was just going to see if you needed any help working out your schedule. But if you’d prefer to sit and pout, fine.” He turned around. Grudgingly, I realised that I needed him to show me around, this school was at least three times bigger any of the other I had been to.

“Fine,” I took out my schedule at the same time he turned around with a smug smile on his face. I looked down at my timetable, “I’ve got history..,” a loud bell trilled through the school, “now. How do I get there?” He stood up and so did I, I pulled my bag over my shoulder. He looked at the piece of paper that held all the information for my classes.

“I have Mrs. Leigh too. Come on I’ll take you there.” Rob said cocking his head to the door that most of the class had already left out of.

“I’m okay, just tell me how to get there.” I said stubbornly.

“Don’t be stupid, we’re both going to the same place, just come with me. God!” He shook his head, mumbled something about ‘girls’ and walked out of the classroom, I had no other option but to follow him. Outside the door Rose was standing there, I assumed waiting to continue our argument but her face dropped when he saw me walking beside Rob and I realised she was waiting for him. I felt a pang of guilt for the girl I was all but ready to rip the head off of.

                I walked with Rob out of the building into one next to it. Even more eyes were watching us but Rob seemed immune to it, he didn’t talk or act arrogantly but it was hard to shake the feeling that he was. He asked me questions about myself as we walked.

                “So why did you move schools?” He asked. I thought about my answer quickly. I decided not to lie, but not to tell the entire truth either.

“Moved house.” I said vaguely. He nodded in response, smiling slightly to himself.

                We started walking up the first set of stairs when he said, “I’ve lived here for as long as I can remember. I live way over there,” he pointed out vaguely out of the window, I assumed he meant over the houses that were across the street. Perhaps near the church that was clear but distant. I nodded and smiled slightly, wondering why he was bothering to tell me. He pointed into a classroom that was already half filled, with a teacher standing behind a desk at the front of the class. I walked into the classroom towards the teacher’s desk, while Rob went to sit down. This teacher seemed prepared for me.

“Andie?” I nodded. “I’m Mrs. Leigh.” She smiled at me and motioned to the empty seat next to where Rob was sitting. Unbelievable. He grinned at me again.

“Are you following me?” He joked, moving the books sprayed over the table into a pile in front of him.

“Funny.” I said sarcastically. It’s not as if I was offended by his comment, in another situation I might have even smiled and continued the joke. But I was still struggling with the anger battling inside of me. He was quite then until the teacher demanded we worked with our partners to decipher the nature, origin and purpose of ten different sources. The activity was simple enough. I was looking at the list slightly bored, I must have looked confused because Rob said, “I’ll do it don’t worry. You just sit there and look pretty” My mouth dropped opened.

                “Excuse me?” I was surprisingly offended and it didn’t help that he was grinning from ear to ear. I was no feminist but I didn’t appreciate stereotypes either.

“Andria I was joking” He looked at me to see if he had been forgiven. I wasn’t giving up that easily.

“Firstly, it’s Andie. Secondly that’s not funny. And thirdly for your information I’m probably better at history than you are,” I glared at him. I wasn’t exactly a show-off, and to be perfectly honest for all I knew he was the next Einstein, but he was out of order and I wasn‘t going to back down.

“I wouldn’t go that far…” He scoffed obviously amused, I wasn’t sure whether by the fact that someone was better than him or that that someone was a girl, either way I was annoyed. I stared fiercely at him.

“I have an idea. You stay on your side of the table and I‘ll stay on mine. Don’t speak to me and I won’t speak to you. Deal? Great.” His face look confused and shocked- he obviously wasn‘t used to girls standing up to him.

                I was wrong before, he was arrogant. I could see it now, it was clear he thought he was God’s gift to women. I had to snap my teeth shut to stop myself from growling at him. I continued to stare fiercely at him. I glanced towards him briefly and I could have sworn I saw hurt glazing his eyes, but he blinked and it was gone, emptiness took its place. I’d probably made a mistake, he was too full of himself to care what anyone else thought. I turned away from him and leant on my arm so that I was obviously facing away from him.

“Fine,” he retorted, acid dripping from the single syllable. At the end of the lesson, Rob stood up quickly. “Maths is upstairs.” He walked out of the room and I slammed my stuff into my bag. Cursing Rob silently I stomped up the stairs, half expecting that he had been lying the location of the maths room, and that it was actually nowhere near here. But guilt washed through me when I found the maths classroom exactly where he said it would be. Then just as quickly as the guilt had crashed over me, anger did.

                Who was he to make me feel guilty? He was the person who had assumed I was stupid. What, just because I was a girl? Mumbling about girls, I didn’t make any assumptions about him. A small voice reminded me how I’d assumed he was arrogant. I ignored the voice and realised quickly that having conversations with yourself, let alone a argument, wasn’t exactly normal. The teacher made me introduce myself to the class and I kept it as short as I could, I said ‘Hi, I’m Andie‘. Then I sat down in the seat she’d assigned me.

                Half the lesson past before I’d even noticed I wasn’t paying attention. After that I tried hard to listen to the teacher droning on. At the end of the lesson Alice was standing outside my classroom.

                “Meet me at lunch.” She smiled. “Come sit at my table.” She looked me up and down, “But first I’m gonna have to fix this.” She loosened my tie and hitched up my skirt, “There you go.” She kissed my cheek then walked off. I pulled my skirt down and looked down the corridor. Hoping desperately that my next classroom would just appear. It didn’t. I stumbled around until I found the right room.

                The next few hours were a blur, not because it went by quickly- in fact it could have qualified as the longest day of my life- but because it was all so similar. When the bell rang for lunch I followed the crowd and fortunately ended up in the lunch hall.

                I queued and had to bite down on my lip to stop my self from screaming at those who pushed in front of me. I just settled with giving them dirty looks and nudging them slightly. I paid and felt extremely vulnerable as I searched for Alice and her table. I caught her eye, she waved me over. As I walked towards her, the once unrecognisable faces became clear, as well as the clones she was talking to on the bus, some guys were sitting near her. Which normally wouldn’t bother me, but the empty seat that had obviously been saved for me was directly opposite Rob. Yay.

Author's Note

Please leave comments and reviews :)
(sorry it's so long)

Reviews

[Daydreamer54]

I didn;t think it was too long, yet again i am a fast reader. :P
“Firstly-just say first,second, and third.
crashed over me-u mean crashed into me.