• Tossing and turning in her bed, Cameron opened an eye to read the glowing red numbers on her clock once more. Seeing that it was still four in the morning, she breathed a heavy sigh, causing a tendril of her long, soft brown hair to fly up and land lightly on her face, tickling her nose. Tucking the hair behind her ear, Cameron sat up in her bed and reached for the light switch on the wall beside her.

    Jerking back a bit as the florescent luminescence filled the room, Cameron squinted her blue-gray eyes as she waited for them to adjust. Silently cursing her current bought of insomnia, she heaved herself out from underneath the warmth of her bed sheets and walked over to her small oak dresser and picked up her notebook. Opening it up to the first page, she read the words “To Do List” which she had scrawled in her somewhat messy penmanship at the top of the page.

    The first day of school was always the hardest. On the first day, Cameron always found herself being rushed from one room of the house to another, desperately trying to get herself looking her best only to succeed in looking halfway decent compared to how she usually looked all the other three hundred sixty four days of the year. That’s why this year she had a system. A one by one check list of all she needed to do before walking through the doors of John Adams’ High School.

    Usually, she did not see the need for a check list. She just took the first day as it came. But this year was different. This year was her first year to be in a different school other than the small, rural public school she had gone to for so many years before. The students would be more diverse, the classes larger and harder, and the competition to be top in the class greater. Not only did having her check list make her feel more prepared, it made her feel more secure in taking on her first day of being a senior at Adams.

    “Not secure enough, apparently.” She mused aloud to herself as she grabbed her clothing for the day off of the hangers where she had placed them the night before. “I still can’t sleep.”

    She went through the motions: Step One: Take a Shower, Check. Step Two: Fix Hair (Don’t Go Curly or You’ll End up Looking like a Poodle), Check. Step Three: Clothe Self (Make Sure Everything’s Buttoned and Zipped. We Don’t Want a Repeat of Sophomore Year), Zip and Check. Step Four: Apply Make Up (Apply Sparingly, the Caked Look is Out), Check. Step Five: Grab Sustenance (Apparently Breakfast is the Most Important Meal of the Day), Check. Step Six: Brush Teeth (No One Want’s to See Said Sustenance), Check. Step Seven: Get School Supplies Together in Your School Bag, Check. Step Eight: You’re Done! Enjoy the Rest of the Morning That You Have to Spare and Take a Breather Before You Load Your Siblings Into That Piece of Death Metal You Call A Car.

    Tugging lightly on the sleeves of her light blue fitted top, Cameron sat cross-legged on the sofa with her youngest sister, Mary. She was twelve, and to wrapped up in the SpongeBob cartoon that was playing in front of her to seem to care much about what her first day at a big school was going to be like. Cameron knew that Mary could seem quite juvenile at times, but she really was quite intelligent despite all the cartoons that she flooded her mind with. At least she wasn’t as scatter brained as Sarah who was presently prancing down the second story stairs announcing that she was, in fact, going to be the prettiest girl in the entire ninth grade class.

    Sarah had the looks out of the family. Long, platinum blonde hair, stellar blue eyes, and a face that seemed to come straight out of a magazine. To bad that was about as far as her good traits seemed to go. Cameron realized that she was her younger sister and that she should love her and accept her for who she was, but Sarah was spoiled, ill-tempered and used her looks and charm to get whatever she wanted. Much like the time that she was caught sneaking out of the house to go to a friend’s party in the middle of the night, and all she had to do was bat those big blue eyes of hers, say “I’m sorry, Daddy,” and she was off the hook.

    Looking at her watch and finding that it was seven-forty, Cameron grabbed her keys off of the coffee table in front of her, told Mary to switch off the television, and led the way out of the house to Ol’ Rusty as they had named it a year ago when they had first bought the white ’93 Chevrolet. Opening the car door as she slid inside the vehicle, Cameron made a mental note to check off number eight.

    Pulling into the parking lot of the school, Cameron scanned the area for a place to park her battle tank so that they could get to their classes on time. She felt a little self-conscious about the fact that most of the vehicles there seemed to be either brand new or classics while hers, well, wasn’t.

    “Oh, oh! There’s one!” Sarah exclaimed as they neared an empty space, “Hurry, get it, get it!”

    Flicking on her signal and cutting her wheels to claim the spot for her own, Cameron began to pull in when from out of nowhere a dark blue Mercedes whipped around a corner and flew into the space, causing her to have to slam on the breaks and Sarah to slam face first into the dash.

    “Dang it!” Cameron spat out as she laid on the horn. If nothing else on the metal pile of junk worked, the horn sure did.

    “Cammi, don’t get so upset…” Mary said softly from the back seat, not liking confrontation at all.

    “They deserved it!” Sarah said, rubbing at the Chevy sign that was now imprinted on her forehead.

    Fighting the urge to open the door and give the person operating the vehicle a few choice words on what she thought of their driving, Cameron glared as a spoil, rich boy climbed out of his place in the driver’s seat and sneered at her from behind his Armani sunglasses.

    Walking up to the window of her car, he tapped on the glass and motioned for her to roll it down. Reluctantly she complied with his request and cranked the handle that brought the window slowly down from between them.

    “Yes?” She asked irritably, looking up at him as he sneered into the car at her family.

    Bringing his attentions back to her, he shrugged, “I just wanted you to know that I just didn’t think this hunk of metal would have been able to make it all the way to the parking spot, so I decided to take it off your hands for you.”

    Cameron’s hands squeezed tight over the steering wheel, turning her knuckles white as she glared at the Abercrombie model want-to-be. He probably thought he was hot stuff with his designer shades, polo shirt, dark denim jeans, short, pretty boy haircut and foreign car, but she thought he looked like a girl.

    Throwing the car into drive, Cameron pulled away from him, causing dirt and dust to drift up onto his clothing which she made her smile triumphantly as she watched him dust it off disgustedly in her rearview mirror.

    “Why’d you do that?” Sarah whined as she turned in her seat and watched him as he attempted to dust himself off.

    “He was being a reckless idiot, and then he came to the window and insulted us.” Cameron stated flustered, “Or do I need to remind you?” She added, gesturing to the bowtie that was still on Sarah’s forehead.

    Slinking down in her seat, Sarah pouted softly, tucking a tendril of blonde curl behind her ear. “But he was so cute.”

    Deciding it was better just to drop the subject rather than try and explain to her sister that just because a guy was attractive, didn’t mean that he was automatically not held accountable for the fact that he was a jerk, Cameron pulled into an open space and killed the engine.

    “Out.” She ordered her siblings as she took the keys from the ignition and grabbed her bag from the back seat beside Mary.

    Rolling up the window and locking the doors, the three of them made their way towards the Adams’ campus. The building that stood before them was large and impressive. Colossal ionic columns held up the overhanging that shaded the massive rock steps, and the building itself looked like something out of an Ivy League college brochure.

    After directing Mary to the small tram that shuttled the middle schoolers to their perspective campus, Cameron then started her way up the stairs to the impressive building which was to be her institution of learning for the next nine months. It was no surprise to her that before even reaching the oaken doors of the establishment that she found Sarah sitting on the edge of the steps integrating herself into what appeared to be the popular students.

    Unzipping her pack, Cameron removed her notebook and opened it back up to her list. Checking off getting to school, she then focused on the section where she had written down her locker number, class schedule and had taped a picture of the campus map. She was sure that anyone who happened upon her list would deduce her to be some kind of hyper intensive perfectionist, but she didn’t want to let anything go to chance.

    Walking down the wide corridors, Cameron wasn’t surprised to see that the interior of the building was just as impressive as the exterior. Tapestries hung around the main entrance, boldly showcasing the schools emblem and crest. Shortly following the tapestries was a long row of glass trophy cases exhibiting the school’s numerous achievements in everything from football to extreme chess. In the focal point of the cases was a bronze bust of Dr. Robert Pierson who founded the John Adams’ High in 1907 on the belief that “Through education, all persevere.”

    Surprisingly enough the lockers where just like the ones that Cameron had been used to back in Vermont. She had half expected them to talk or float with the way that everything else in the school had turned out to be. It made her wonder what the private school downtown was like.

    A lot of things were different here than they were back in Vermont. Everything had changed the moment that Cameron’s parents were taken away from her family in a devastating automobile accident and they were sent to live with their Aunt Stephanie in Santa Cruz. The grief counselor that the court had assigned her to go to for the first month or so of her move had informed her that it was because of the passing of her parents that she made such thorough lists for herself and she had such a need for structure in her life; for something she could control. This would have made since to her if he hadn’t also said that it was the reason that Sarah craved attention and Mary was so reserved. That’s how they had always been, so there was no reason to believe that all of these traits came from the loss that they had been through.

    Placing her bag in her locker, Cameron slipped a small index card that had her combination on it into the back pocket of her jeans and tucked her notebook into the crook of her arm. Heading to the west wing of the school, Cameron scanned the numbers on the doors for room 18A. Locating the room, Cameron turned the cool silver knob on the entrance and stepped slowly into the room, looking around for a sign of her instructor, Mrs. Feldman.

    A short, rotund woman with white, wispy hair smiled back at her from the front corner of the room.

    “Hello child,” The woman greeted warmly, “You must be one of the new students from Vermont, Stephanie Griener’s niece, correct?”

    “Yes, Ma’am,” Cameron replied with a smile, “My name’s Cameron Jamison. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

    “Yes, yes,” The woman replied, “Stephanie’s told me a lot about you and your sisters. You’re aunt comes and helps me quite a lot with certain presentations and such. With her running her own practice down on Waldron, she’s quite a help when it comes to showing the kids things like x-rays and such.” She then laughed heartily, “But look at me, boring the hair off of you without even introducing myself first! I’m Mrs. Feldman,” Mrs. Feldman then chuckled softly to herself as she turned around and walked down a roll of lab tables towards shelves piled high with medical equipment, “But I’m sure you already knew that.”

    Cameron smiled; glad to know that there was at least one friendly person in this new educational jungle. “Yes, Mrs. Feldman, my aunt has said many wonderful things about you. I’m sure it will be a pleasure being your pupil.”

    The woman laughed as she pulled a pair of safety goggles from the shelf as well as a pair of latex gloves, “Hush now, Child. Leave the sucking up to the miscreants who need to.” She placed the items she had retrieved on the end of one of the tables, “Now come here and sit, class is about to start soon and you don’t want to be forced to sit in the front,” Mrs. Feldman then gave a wink to a befuddled Cameron, “I might be forced to call on you, then!”

    During the hours that followed Mrs. Feldman’s class, Cameron was relieved to know that she had made a checklist of everything that she was going to achieve that day including the trip to the bathroom she made right before her lunch hour. Which was good because the line to the aforementioned restroom was ridiculously long, as well as slow.

    Finally making her way into the mess hall, Cameron was surprised to see the same square cardboard pizza that they had back in Vermont as well as the same plastic hamburgers and green hotdogs.

    “It must be a law that provisions in all institutions must be inedible,” She pondered halfheartedly to herself as she took a seat with her red tray which held her food and notebook on it.

    Grabbing a French fry off of her tray, she popped it in her mouth languidly as she opened her book, looking into the affairs charted for the rest of the day. Nodding to herself as she went over the room numbers, locations, and professors of her last three classes, Cameron drew a happy face next to her last hour class. Her day hadn’t been horrible, but it had managed to be long and stressful all the same and she was glad to almost have it all behind her.

    “Now what do we have here?” A male’s voice said from behind her and an arm reached out and took hold of her notebook.

    Whipping her head around to see who had taken her notebook, Cameron’s eyes narrowed once she found that the culprit was none other than the Mercedes driver from that morning.

    “You can procure my parking space again in the morning if you’d like, but I’d appreciate it if you would not procure my notebook.” Cameron warned through clenched teeth.

    Ignoring her, he slid into the seat in front of her and continued to look through the notebook, “Good Lord, Woman!” He remarked, yanking the book back and forth as she tried desperately to remove it from his grasp, “OCD much?”

    “Give it back…” She growled.

    “Do you honestly have a trip to the restroom scheduled in this thing?”

    Cameron’s temper flared, “I’m going to ask one more time, give it back…”

    “Oh! Even a one-to-ten on all the instructors,” He lowered the notebook and grinned at her, “Tell me, who’s your favorite, because I personally think Mr. Gabriel.”

    “Gabriel’s a ineffectual cretin who wouldn’t know history if it kicked him in the face, now relinquish the notebook!” Cameron lunged for the book once again.

    He lurched back in his chair as she came at him, causing the pad to spiral out of his hands, knocking into Cameron’s glass of Kool-Aid which then proceeded to spill onto her lists.

    “That had everything in it, you pompous idiot!” Cameron thundered as she dabbed at the wet papers, “My classes, my schedule! All my meticulously thought out documentations are stained because of you!”

    “C’est la vie?” He replied sheepishly.

    “C’est la vie?” She repeated icily, “You eradicate my sole means of knowing what courses to attend, and all you can assert is c’est la vie!”

    His blue eyes looked poignant, “I never meant to actually ruin it, I just…”

    “You just happened to?” She stated incredulously, “Now I haven’t an inkling of what to do. I hadn’t memorize my agenda because I didn’t think I’d need to.”

    “You certainly are articulate when you’re mad, aren’t you.” He mumbled, “Now quit your groaning and follow me, we’ll go to the office, I’ll tell Mrs. Schroeder that I accidentally ruined your class schedule and get you a new one. As for the campus map, I’ve got one that I won’t need, so you can have it.”

    “C’est la vie?” She asked, now feeling somewhat penitent for the way she had spoken to him.

    He nodded slowly, a small lopsided grin on his face, “C’est la vie.”

    Hanging her head, Cameron reluctantly followed him to the office, “C’est la vie…”

    “My name’s Lucas Gabriel, by the way.”

    Cameron winced, “Great…”