teacher. Mr. Booker was the kind of teacher that would smile and try to make a joke, but the students would be lame if they laughed due to the laws of being a teenager. He always tried to make it so class was interesting for the student. I assumed that it was a learned mechanism that he needed to acquire in order to cover the stench of his course’s boredom.
We instantly began taking notes on rudimentary words such as Geography and Location. I began to look around me and wonder if anyone else had felt that this was utterly pointless. I later learned to just write the definitions of words I didn’t know. The main thing I focused on in that entire room was the inhumanly gorgeous guy that sat in the corner. I didn’t know his name yet, but I was determined to find out. He had a smile that could quite effortlessly substitute the irritating florescent lighting. Unfortunately within the first 10 minutes of class, he simply had to open his mouth and speak. His words spilled out into the room like a marching band that was far too ill equipped with talent to be marching in the first place. His very essence shifted before my eyes and it was tainted just as quickly as it first began to shine.
I looked at my notebook and realized that I had nothing other than Geography and Location written down. Not that I was too startled, however. The girl in front of me was also daydreaming; of what I’ll never be sure. For some reason, at least when it came to me, so long as someone else was doing something stupid it was ok for me to do the same along with them. As if there was some cosmic consensus that so long as stupidity was in a group, it couldn’t be traced down to just one person for their own actions. As if I was saved by the grace of god, the bell had finally rung once again. Mr. Booker, just as the study hall teacher before him, bid us farewell by saying have a nice day. Once again, it was bleakly reciprocated by the students. I, once again, just left a weak smile for him. I felt that maybe if someone else had acknowledged his kindness, maybe then he would understand that someone appreciated it and would keep it up.
Fourth hour was quite possibly my darkest hour. Even as a kid in grade school, my math skills could be fairly considered as deplorable. The plus sign and the dash all made sense to me. It was when the plus sign fell over and the dash had dots above and below it that I started to suffer. My teacher was one of very few words, which I didn’t honestly appreciate when it came to this subject. Maybe I would with world geography, but simply not math.
Mr. Henson would teach us the lesson and then sit down at his desk and talk to the jocks about sports. I couldn’t say I blamed him though. Math was boring. I would often imagine that a math teacher was just a person that wanted to teach but drew the shortest straw. Pre-algebra would seem like an easy class to most but to me, it might as well have been Chinese Calculus. I did however, have several grade school friends in this class that helped pass the time along tremendously. My friend Natalie was a very nice girl, but she was also the kind of girl that was quick to speak her mind. She told it as it was, why it was, and why it shouldn’t be. I also had a friend named Jeremy, who was pretty mellow in terms of opinions on things. His primary goal in life was to just keep breathing until he decided what to do with the life he’d been given. Our collective primary goal in that class was to just barely squeak by. Natalie and I would sit and talk with Jeremy instead of doing work until Mr. Henson would eventually snap and tell us to quiet down. Obviously we were interrupting the sports talk at the round table.
Due to it being a class of general ease, it was also my first introduction to the stoner crowd of kids. In elementary school they didn’t quite exist and in middle school they were the kids sniffing the expo markers. They were always there, but just masked by their inability to acquire weed. Pot heads would have 5 major topics of discussion: where they bought it, where they hide it, how they smoke it, who they smoke it with, and where they were when they smoked it. It was one of the main reasons that I, to this day, have removed myself from the possibility of even trying it. The thought of being reduced to that level of thought was enough to keep me at bay throughout my teenage years. Suddenly, just as a paper airplane lurched into the air and glided onto the floor, the bell rang. Mr. Henson’s conversation had not even been slowed down as the kids began their trek to the next destination on their list. I decided in this instance, no smile was necessary. My next period was lunch, where there was only one terrifying aspect to consider. Where the hell am I going to sit?
Chapter 2
Boom, boom, boom; my heart could probably be heard from miles around. Where could I sit without instant rejection? I was the organ transplant and my only hope was that the student body wouldn’t reject me. There were a few tables where I would see an opening, but then the seats all too abruptly closed as the musical chairs game from hell ensued.
All I had to do was sit with one table with a majority of friends or nice people. Then it was virtually my seat to have for the remainder of the year; or at least until second semester started. After finally spotting my best friend, I made haste to grab her attention. Apparently she had met some nice new friends. Spectacular, she did all of the hard work. All I had to do was associate myself with her and act politely.
As I sat down, I noticed that it was a rather miss-match of a crowd. There was a very skinny girl with a thick layer of knowledge and education about her. She had thick glasses and usually right in front of them, there was a text book. Then there was a boy who she would occasionally speak with if he just happened to speak first. He would also claim to have all this homework that needed to be done, yet I had never seen him work on anything. Then there were my new-found friends. Unfortunately, as I sat down, they stood up to get their hot food. I myself was not too enthralled with the idea of eating at a time when my heart felt the need to break through my ribcage. Then, out of nowhere, homework boy initiates a conversation.
“How’s your first day of being a freshy?” My initial reaction was to say something witty. But all I did was smile and sigh, as if the stress had finally popped my insides and they were releasing the built up energy that was stored.
“Ah don’t worry too much about it. At least you’re not as annoying as most of the freshman.”
Annoying? How do freshman have any time to be annoying when there is all this worrying to be done? I finally thought up a sentence to say.
“Well thanks. At least I have that going for me.” If only it sounded as polite as it did in my head. I scrambled for a way to dilute the words and make a nicer sounding follow up.
“At least I don’t have too much homework yet.” The sentence worked as a double edged sword. I didn’t feel awkward about the first sentence anymore, but now it opened up the floodgates for his view on homework and why it should be banned from schools.
Like a galloping brigade, my saviors from the lunch room had arrived. My best friend Faye had made some friends with a couple girls from her classes. One girl was a friendly girl with a very noticeable lisp. She later showed me that it was because she had pierced her own tongue. Her mother wouldn’t let her get it pierced so she did it herself and got an infection. That’ll show her to tell her what to do. The second girl was slightly larger, but was also very sweet and kind. She seemed like the type that would drop herself into a puddle so people could walk on top of her and avoid getting wet.
As they all began to eat their food, the conversation began. The girl with the infected tongue, whom I later learned was Brittney, apparently had a crush on a boy in front of us. He would shoot glances at her with that little smirk on the side of his mouth and she would smile and even wink. All I could think of was what I wouldn’t give to be able to just walk up to a guy I like and flirt without worrying about a cross being burned on my lawn. Then the conversation shifted, and like a giant expanding bubble, I was involved.
“So what do you think Andy?” I quickly looked around and tried to act as if the name didn’t belong to me; like I was objecting her field of vision toward some other person.
“Yeah he’s ok, I mean I don’t really
