• Briiiing! Score! First hour over, only four classes (plus lunch) to go before I’m “home” free.
    “Hey Fresh Meat!” the tall, stupid football captain of a jock yelled across the hallway like an idiot; Fresh Meat, typical term at Belleville Hell School for someone lacking a boyfriend, or a Freshman.
    “Hey D Average!” my smart mouth tended to come in handy every now and then. Especially considering the fact I’m a junior, it wasn’t even Freshmen Friday (which had already passed). Definitely, oh, and I do lack a boyfriend.
    I heard a muffled watch this. I turned quickly catching the football throwing it back to… back to… Michael. I believe his name was; one of Casey’s best friends,
    “Maybe I should try out for the football team,” I heard his friends hoot in unexpected approvement I took gladly took the encouragement,
    “Maybe, I’ll replace you,” burns flew through the hall. Immaturity is a disease, just to prove that fact I smiled to myself proud of the positive attention. Ha, Ex-Preppie embarrasses Jock in hall. That’ll make headlines….
    I finally fished my way to my locker, jimmying the little handle impatiently. It finally popped open, I grabbed my Civics book, and my second hour folder; standing on my toes, I finally reach my pencil pouch. And yes, I was too short to reach the top shelf.
    The class dragged on and on, the Constitution, whatever. Blah blah blah. Have you ever had your teacher tell you, you learn the stuff because you’ll use later in life? That’s B.S. you should only have to take Civics, if you either have no other classes to take (me…), or you’re planning on being on the Supreme Court or becoming a lawyer.
    I usually sat in the corner by bookshelf; the best if you don’t to be bothered, but still look like your paying attention. I pulled out my notebook and prepared to take “notes”. The margins were soon filled with meaningless doodles that made absolutely no sense. The only educational thing on the paper… Civics Note – the Founders of the Constitution; hence my lovely little quotes.
    “When was the Constitution written?” my participation grade for that day, I rose my hand confidently a look of pure boredom on my face as I held my head in my hand.
    “Samantha?”
    “The Declaration of Independence was written in 1776,” He was proud I had managed to put the time and effort to raise my hand. Oh! How difficult it was! Trust me, it wasn’t as difficult as some of you may believe, I have a habit of reading ahead when one the Preppies on the other side of the room ask a question. Then, another interrupts asking another pointless question making Mr. Mathison spend ten minutes on something we’d already gone over. He was such a pushover. Besides, the questions were written in a nice list with the answers in bullet points on the page. Easy to figure out, I went back to doodling.
    “Today, work in pages 61 and 62, completing the section assessment,” he went back to his desk setting the Expo Marker on the computer keyboard, “you can work in partners today,” he looked directly at me thinking I wouldn’t notice his glassing sliding down the bridge of his nose, “ or you can work independently.” The work was easy and I finished it as the whole other side of the room babbled about their boyfriends and such things.
    The worst thing was, I had taken the class last quarter too. And we had already learned the material last year. What fun.
    “If you didn’t finish your section assessment in class, make sure you turn it in by the end of the day,” I skillfully ripped the paper out of my hot pink notebook, not leaving any of the annoying fuzzy stuff. I should get a gold medal. I dropped into the cluttered black tray labeled – 2nd Hour Civics. I grabbed my books from the table and sped of to my hopefully soon to be favorite class Drama.
    As I walked to the other building, I thought about the year before. 10th grade was probably one of the best years of school I’d had. I was a Preppie, was happy, and had a cute jock “boyfriend”. I say “boyfriend” because we never actually went steady. We went to the movies a lot and hung out. Then, the rumor. My ex-best friend started a rumor with the other girls that I had been the one to ruin the last football game of the season, well actually she went up to my boyfriend telling him I had a crush on the linebacker and had kissed him. Of course, Casey the star quarterback was just so emotionally distraught as Rachel would later put it, because I had been secretly dreaming of a different man. She had been the one to convince Oscar to write me a note asking to meet to at the pool, then proceed to kiss me. She sat hidden in the exercise room with a camera phone in hand. The rest is predictable. On the last day of school all of the new yearbooks and my perfectly parted hair, perfectly placed makeup and smile scribbled out with black permanent marker. The beginning of the end of my high school life.
    I passed Casey in the hall; he looked at me almost giving a smile. But then my XBF (ex-best friend if you hadn’t caught on yet) snagged his arm and dragged him into the deep dark cave of Preppie-Land. My XBF Rachel had perfectly straightened black hair that placed neatly over her unsatisfying boobs. She always wore pink, that day it was a hot pink t-shirt with ripped black sleeves. It was definitely too tight, and the tightness made it obvious she was stuffing her bra. Well, at least to me… She was very tan, due to the fact their parents knew people in the Bahamas. Damn rich people. She also had cold grey eyes that matched her empty soul. Whoa, that sounded pretty scary… ANYWAYS, she wore light blue skinny jeans, that did nothing for her flat butt. It was fun to watch her shake her no-butt through the hall. Shake it like there was actually something there.
    I finally made it to the auditorium and slid into the aisle that was a few rows from the stage. I was so excited I’d almost forgotten Casey was in my class.
    Damn. The first day of the new quarter and Casey just had to be in my class. Let my rain of gossip begin. He sat a few seats away from me and I could sense him staring at me.
    “What?” my voice was sharper than I had meant.
    “Oh! Hi Sammy, I was kinda zoned out,” he waved his hand in front of his face. He didn’t seem phased by my tone of voice. (he was probably used to it); he wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box, as you can tell. He had the typical shaggy Zac Efron; High School Musical hair, bright brown eyes, and semi-tanned skin. Stupid football jock, just like Michael.
    “Ah…” I looked away awkwardly.
    “So what have you been doin’ lately?” it was actually a surprise he was talking to me after the whole drama thing.
    “Not much, I put in an application at the A&W,” I was proud of myself, I’d put in an application the local carhop. Belleville, Michigan, barely ever on a map. Yes’m that would be my hometown.
    “That’s pretty cool, I’m still hoping for that football scholarship,” I hate small talk. It’s only acceptable if you’ve never met the person. It’s horrid if the person thought you were “cheating” on them. Can you say awkward?
    Of course, he was planning on coasting through life without a major education. More kids filed in filling up all the seats away from me, the slut. Casey scooted over two seats so he was sitting next to me. I blushed a tiny bit. Hopefully Casey was daft enough to think it was the lack of air conditioning in the muggy auditorium.
    “Alright ladies and gents, let’s get started, I’m Ms.Engil. But please feel free to refer to me as Ms.En,” high-heeled shoes clicked against the painted black wood of the stage. She wore shiny, black open-toed heels, a red off the shoulder short-sleeved shirt. That had to be against school policy. She also wore black slacks that bunched around the ankle. (Like skinny/slim jeans) Although I’m not going to be the dork to call them “Skinny Slacks”; she reminded me of a less collagen puffed Angelina Jolie. Of course, Casey took notice to the teacher’s umm… “Ta-ta’s” (tee hee), he deepened his already concentrated stare as he leaned forward resting his head in hands as he leaned his elbows on his knees. I feared for his last brain cells, that were fighting for their lives. I snickered as I realized what he was probably thinking of. X-ray specs.
    “First, we’ll start working on small skits. You can work in groups in group of two or three. And I’ll need to know your groups one week from now. So start thinking of ideas for the skits and who you want to work with now,” she grabbed a pile of hot pink packets handing them to the boy in the front row. I could see was his black hair and pale neck. Soon enough the monstrous pile of pink made it to Casey, I absentmindedly grabbed the pile as he passed it to me. Feeling a strange urge to go and see what the boy in the front row looked like. I leaned across the aisle passing it to the girl in the row across from me.
    “What you should be getting now, is a rubric to help you work through your skit. It has on the front the rubric I’ll be using to grade you. The second page shows you the format of how to make a script and ideas for plots. And the last page is about presenting your skit. We’ll be performing these at the Honor’s Assembly in three weeks. That roughly gives you a month,” she gave an obviously dentally whitened smile. Damn people with good teeth.
    She ended up going over the whole packet. Ugh.
    Briiiing! Saved by the bell, I thought drama was going to be my favorite class. I went back to my locker, snatching my math book and at the same time tossing my Drama folder onto the second lower shelf. Then, I sped to one of my least favorite classes 4th hour, Math. (-insert exasperated groan here-)
    I had a side row seat by all the posters and bulletin boards, and I was right in the middle/back area of that row so I could pretty much get away with whatever I wanted to. I felt kind of bad for Ms. Crocker, a lot of kids zoned out during the lessons, me being one of those students. The lesson she taught was easy and I actually paid attention, we had twenty minutes to work on our homework, and I ended up finishing all of my math and some of my social studies.
    I stopped doing my social studies, so I could finish it at home and have something to do in hell. There was fifteen minutes left so looked over the packet from Drama. I was right, the skit was easy, she overdid everything because she wanted it to be a bigger deal than it actually was. Besides, most of the middle schools had a Drama class available as a elective/special so most had already taken it at least once.
    I hadn’t noticed how immediately quiet the room had gotten; there were no sounds of wooden pencils scratching or mechanical pencils squeaking against the paper, and there was absolutely no fidgeting. I sat up slowly looking to the analog clock on the wall. One minute left, of course, Ms. Crocker made us stay until exactly 12:45, and it was our responsibility to decide when it was time to start getting ready to go. But if there was too much noise we’d get yelled at.
    “Get back to wo-,” Ms. Crocker’s voice was cut off by the sound of the bell, and in less than thirty seconds, the whole class was gone.