“I had forgotten how hard it was to be popular.”

The first person Harriette saw was DaeRi, who was standing at the top of the steps looking around, probably looking for them. Tamarai grinned when she saw her , running up the steps to pull her into a hug.
“Tamarai!” DaeRi said.
“Cute hair,” Harriette said, catching up to them. Over the summer DaeRi had gotten her hair cut short and was wearing it curly. It looked great.
“Thanks,” DaeRi beamed, she was always happy to get a compliment from Harriette.
“Come on,” Harriette said, “we don’t want to be late on our first day.”
“Okay,” Tamarai said. They followed Harriette into the school. The halls were bustling with people greeting each other after a long summer. As they walked through the halls people stopped to say hi and ask them about their summer, Harriette was sure she had told at least 20 people about her summer traveling with her family, and each one of those people were more fascinated than the last. But Harriette didn’t mind, she loved the attention. Just another reminder of exactly how popular she was.
Finally she arrived at her locker, the only person left walking with her was Collin who had the locker next to hers.
“Somehow I had forgotten how hard it was to be popular,” Collin said opening his locker.
“Hard?” Harriette laughed, “no, it’s great! People love us.”
“Sure, but we couldn’t even get to our lockers without being stopped by, like, everyone in this school.” he said putting some of his stuff in his locker.
Harriette patted Collin’s shoulder, “it’s just been a while, you’ll get used to it again soon enough.”
They closed their lockers and started off to homeroom. Again people stopped them, this time Harriette noticed that Collin looked increasingly uncomfortable. She tried to speed up the conversation as much as she could but one conversation in particular took a little extra work.
“Hi!” Heather said running up to her. Her and Tracy were, what Harriette called them, Wannabes. They hung around Harriette and her crowd hoping that they look included. They didn’t. Today they had another girl with them, this girl had blunt cut bangs and long straight blond hair. She was also wearing a terribly tacky outfit consisting of a black turtleneck and a beret. A drama geek obviously.
“Hello,” Harriette said politely, “we were on our way to homeroom.”
“Oh, let us join you,” Heather said.
Harriette frowned, “who’s your friend?”
“My new exchange student,” Heather said. That was weird, no one in A.L. High ever had exchange students, this was first.
“Where is she from?” Harriette asked, momentarily forgetting that she was supposed to be hurrying this conversation up.
“Uhm, somewhere in Europe?” Heather said.
“England,” Tracy said, “that’s where she’s from.”
“Bonjour!” The girl said. “I’m Brittany.”
“You’re not french,” Heather said, rolling her eyes.
“Uhm, okay,” Harriette said, “We gotta go.”
“Let us walk with you,” Heather said.
“Uhm, no.” Harriette said, not really caring about being rude. She wanted these girls gone.
Heather sighed, “okay. See you later!”
“Sorry about that,” Harriette said to Collin.
Collin just shrugged, “that’s fine.”
“Gosh, those girls are so annoying,” Harriette said, “they just cannot get a hint.”
And still the group of girls were trailing behind them, Harriette was sure they could hear everything she said. Maybe now they’ll leave her alone.
Finally in homeroom Harriette spotted Tamarai and DaeRi sitting together in the back. They waved at her and she walked back to them.
“If I have to talk to another person about my summer I am going to die,” Harriette said.
“Oh,” DaeRi said, “ then I guess I don’t get to hear about your amazing vacation.”
“I guess you don’t,” Harriette teased. “All you need to know is that we traveled around europe and then spent a week at our vacation house in LA.”
“Sounds amazing,” DaeRi said.
“How was Korea?” Harriette asked.
“The same, we spent the summer at my aunts,” DaeRi said, “she was the one who did my hair, she’s a hairdresser. She really wanted to cut AeGuk’s hair, but he refused. His hair is so long now, it needs a cut.”
“He must be so lonely,” Harriette said, “all his friends graduated.”
“Yeah, and Fedora broke up with him,” DaeRi said.
“Oh?” Harriette said, Fedora hadn’t told her about that.
“Yeah, back in July,” DaeRi said, “I think she found a new boyfriend.”
“Nah, she would tell me about it,” Harriette said, well she hoped she would.
DaeRi shrugged, “yeah. It was really sudden though, AeGuk was a mess.”
“Is he alright?” Collin asked.
DaeRi shrugged, “I’m pretty sure he is.”
“There he is right now,” Tamarai said.
To be continued.