Shae had felt confident about her first day at A.L. High up until her dad pulled into the parking lot, her parents refused to let her ride the bus, because they felt that was where all the bullying happened. But anyway, seeing the school, which was attached to the middle school so she had seen it before, but seeing it today and knowing she was entering through the main doors was terrifying. She had vowed that she would try harder to make friends and not just sit on the sidelines but now she wasn’t so sure.
She also wished she would have worn something different, she usually wore the basic jeans and t-shirt combo but today she had decided to try a little harder and was wearing green jean shorts and a yellow tank top with a cupcake on it, she felt very colorful.
“Alright, have a good day,” her dad said, waiting for her to get out of the car.
“I’ll try,” Shae said, reluctantly opening the door and getting out of the car. With one last wave and goodbye her dad drove away off to drop her little sister at the elementary school across town.
Shae turned to face the school and froze at the sight of the millions of students loitering outside and around the door. She didn’t know why she was so nervous, it’s not like she didn’t have to do this stuff in middle school. But in middle school she had Matt.
Speaking of Matt, Shae saw him at with a group of people talking in on the steps.
“Ugh,” Shae mumbled, she did not want to walk past Matt right now. But she had to get into the school somehow, and while she did she might as well make it look like she wasn’t a nervous wreck. So she put on her best smile and started towards the school and up the step. She glanced at Matt as she passed him and was terrifying so see him watching her. He smiled and waved. She smiled back and continued into the school.
Once safely out of Matt’s sight she let out out a breath and stopped with the smiling. She figured smiling too much would look weird.
She was glad to find her locker rather quickly, but not so glad to see two identical looking girls hanging out in front of it.
“Uhm,” she said.
The girls looked at her, waiting for her to say something else.
“That’s my locker,” Shae said.
“Oh?” one of the girls said, she laughed a little and stepped aside.
“Thanks,” Shae said stepping forward and, luckily, opening her locker after only one try. But the other girls didn’t leave, they continued to talk quietly right next to her.
“Hi,” one of them said to Shae after the other girl left.
“Hey,” Shae said, not really looking at her. She was too busy looking at the map her mom had given her. She was trying to figure out where her homeroom was.
“I’m Mariah,” the girl said.
Shae looked up finally and gave the girl a small smile. She was trying.
“Shae,” Shae said. “So I assume you have the locker next to mine?”
“Yep,” Mariah said, “Where’s your home room?”
Shae pointed to it on the map and showed Mariah.
Mariah grinned, “same! We can walk together.”
“Oh,” Shae said, knowing this was good thing but not exactly feeling ecstatic about it.
“I was afraid I’d have to walk alone,” Mariah went on, “my sister, who was just over here, her name’s Ella BTW, has a different homeroom. Which is so strange since we used to share all of our classes.”
Shae nodded slowly.
“Do you have any siblings?” Mariah asked, tilting her head.
“Uhm, yeah,” Shae said, closing her locker just as the bell rang.
“Older or younger?” Mariah asked as they started walking.
“Younger,” Shae said.
“Cute!” Mariah said, sounding all too excited.
“I guess,” Shae shrugged.
“So you went to the public middle school?” Mariah asked.
“I guess,” Shae said, not really sure if their was another middle school.
“Nice, me and Ella went to a private school in the city,” Mariah said.
“Oh,” Shae said, trying not to make judge her as a preppy private schooler. What was she doing here anyway?
“Ella wanted to try public school out,” Mariah explained. “And I didn’t want to be separated.”
Share didn’t say anything, just nodded as they arrived at the classroom.
Shae took a seat in the back, old habits die hard, and Mariah looked torn as she looked at the empty seat up front and the empty seat next to Shae. Shae half wished she would take the seat in the front, and half wished she would sit next to her.
Shae didn’t know how she felt as Mariah took the seat next to her.
---
Ella’s plan for the first day of school was find the popular-est girl there and befriend her. You could imagine her joy when she found said popular girl in her homeroom class. You could tell she was popular by the way the people surrounded her, as she talked, listening as if she was Jesus himself.
Ella smiled to herself, this was working perfectly. But all the seats around this popular girl were taken. So Ella took a seat near the front and tried to make it look like she didn’t really care about the popular girl.
And then homeroom started.
And it ended and Ella waited for the popular girl to leave but somehow she missed it, probably because the crowd left with her, and suddenly she was the last person in the classroom.
This was gonna be harder than she expected.
The next time she saw the popular girl was in study hall, which was mixed between grades. The girl was with the same guy she was with in homeroom, they looked terribly similar and Ella wondered if they were related. But they didn’t act like brother or sister, Ella noted as she took her seat behind them so she could watch without anyone noticing. The way the girl leaned in as the guy talked and smiled at him looked like they were dating. But they looked so similar, that would be kind of creepy.
Then Ella remember that she was supposed to be befriending this girl, not watching her. So Ella tapped her on the shoulder.
The girl jumped and looked back, she looked especially cute when she was shocked, a good aspect for someone popular, “Hm?”
“Hey,” Ella said, “I just wanted to say I LOVE your shirt. where’d you get it?”
The girl looked down at her shirt and frowned thoughtfully, “I don’t remember.”
Ella laughed nicely, “I know that feeling.”
The girl smiled, “right. You’re new? I’ve never seen you before.”
“Yeah,” Ella said, “I’m a freshman, I went to a private middle school in the city.”
“Oh,” the girl nodded, “I’m Harriette, what’s your name?”
“Ella Montgomery,” Ella said.
“Cute,” the girl, Harriette, said. She then looked at the guy next to her and nudged him and looked back at Ella.
“Oh, hi,” he said. He had nice eyes.
“This is Ella, if you weren’t listening,” Harriette said to the guy.
“Nice to meet you, Ella,” he said with a nice smile. A really nice smile. “I’m Collin.”
“He’s my brother,” Harriette said.
“Oh,” Ella said, trying to keep her shock off her face.
“Twin brother,” Harriette continued.
Ella grinned, “hey, I have a twin too!”
Now she had something in common with Harriette. Good.
“Wow, really,” Harriette said, “What a coincident. Does she go here too?”
“Yeah, we couldn’t be separated,” Ella said, “Except for our classes apparently.”
Harriette laughed and smiled at Collin, “I know what you mean, every second away from Collin is torture.”
Wow, Ella thought, she sure does like her brother a lot.
Then the teacher told them to be quiet so with one last smile Harriette turned back towards the front.
And Ella was one more step closer to popularity.
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