Lemon Water // Paul Lahote

thirty four

Serena

"Woah" I said taking in the size of the school in front of me. It wasn't that big, way smaller than Forks high school, but the building looks massive. There were people all around the parking lot and lawn outside the school, and all the eyes seemed to be on us as Paul's noisy truck pulled into the lot.

"What? Is it bad?" Seth asked

"No it's just- it's so big, and all those people are staring at us. Why are they staring at us? How many people are in my grade? There's a lot of people out there"

"Relax little sis," Embry said leaning against the car and sticking his head through the open window, "there's 34 of us in our grade, 164 students total. They're staring at us because they all think we're a part of some cult-"

"You're a cult?!" I screeched

"No! People only think that! Come one, let's go inside, class starts in 15" Embry continued, opening the door and letting Quil slide out

I followed the group all the way to the door where the people next to it shuffled out of the way hurriedly. "Is this how people always treat you?" I whispered into Kim's ear

"Pretty much, ever since the boys, you know, phased, they've been avoided the like plague. It's annoying at times, especially being the only girl but now I have you so it'll be much better" she whispered back.

I walked with my head tilted down to try and draw less attention to me, but I could tell that everyone was curious as to who I was. This is an everybody knows everybody kind of school, and I was the new girl.

"Your locker is on the opposite end of the hall from the 3 of ours," Embry explained, "so we'll get you going then go to ours. Seth will meet you and take you to home room, then show you to hg"

"This is it shorty" Jake said as we stopped in front of a beaten up black locker labeled 237

I put in the combination and opened the locker, with some difficulty, and was met with a busted in floor and 1 hook barely hanging on. "It's nice, very rustic looking" I said trying to cheer myself up about the terrible locker situation

"Oh don't worry, this looks better than all of our lockers, Quil doesn't even have a hook in his" Jake laughed

"It's not funny, my bag gets all gross every day" Quil said solemnly

"I'll see you in study hall" Embry said, ruffling my hair before walking away

I huffed and began to fix my hair quickly, "so you're the long lost mistake" a voice said from next to me

I looked over to see an obviously dyed blonde haired girl staring at me. "I'm sorry who are you?" I asked

"Bailey Briar, sophomore. Let me tell you something now, Serena, I run this place, you play by my rules or you'll be sent to the dog house"

"Oh? And what are the 'rules' ?"

"Listen very closely, I have claim on Jacob Black, Paul Lahote, Laken Kirk, and Sebastian Regin. You're not allowed to date any of them unless you want to be a social out cast. Don't talk to the weirdos, aka Aiyana and Kellan Prince, Laurel Maslow, Harland Hart, and Samaria Foley. If you're seen talking to them you're out of the clique"

"Clique?"

"The popular squad of course, I like you, you're part of the group. I'll see you in honors geometry, and I'll save you a spot. Bye bye bestie" Bailey said before flaunting away

"So I see you've gotten Baileys attention" Seth said, startling me

"Oh, uh, yeah, she called me a mistake"

"What the hell! That girl is a diva!" Seth was interrupted by a bell going off, "come on, let's get to home room"

I followed Seth down a flight of stairs and to the end of the hallway. He walked into the room and to the back of the middle row of desks, motioning for me to sit in the desk next to him.

As I took my seat another bell rang, probably the beginning of this class period. "Alright class let's take attendance. Paisley, you're here ok, Callum, here, Jade? Where's Jade? No Jade ok, uhm, Dustin, there you are, Serena? Serena Call? You're new right?"

I made eye contact with the teacher and nodded, "Seth? Here, Birkley? There she is, how'd your drivers test go yesterday? You passed? Congrats! Zahara? No Zahara today, let's see, Torrence and Tyler? Both here, Abby? Yep, Neville? Alright, Bianca? Ok, and finally Destiny? Alright class, you know the drill, bell rings in twenty, do any homework that you didn't do and don't bother me unless you need to. If all of you have no work I'm down to play hang man"

Three people pulled out work and the rest of the class groaned, "come on man! I wanted to play hangman!" A black haired boy said

"Hey Serena" Seth whispered to me, "can you help me with some math homework? I can't figure this out"

"Sure, what is it?"

"I don't really know how to do fractions, and I have to multiply them and find the opposite reciprocal"

"Alright, how many do you have?"

"I have to do 3 for this problem. 2/3, 3/7 and 18/21"

"Ok, so first you're going to have to make the denominators match, so multiple the 3/7 by 3 on bottom and top to get 9/21, and multiply 2/3 by 7 on bottom and top to get 14/21. Now I'm pretty sure you can just multiply them all together to get 2268/21, then divide 2268 by 21 to get 108. To find the opposite reciprocal you just put 1/108 and make it negative"

"Awesome! Thanks so much!" Seth exclaimed

"So you're Serena? Bailey told me about you" a heavily makeuped fake red head said, "I'm Birkley, Baileys second hand woman and second leader of this school"

"Oh, yeah I am, hi"

"Baileys already gone through her rules with you right?" I nodded, "good, so here are mine, I have dibs on Callum Abernathy and Tyler Reinhender. Along with the other rules you've heard of course! Later!" Birkley cheered as she left the classroom.