Stories That May Or May Not Be True

Day 1.

June 7th, 2015.

Been in this country for a month, just sitting at home while mum and dad sort everything out, but today is my first day of school. I'm nervous. I just bought the uniform, which is an ugly green plaid-skirt with a white button up shirt and a hideous dark blue cardigan. I barely heard of this school two days ago but it was either this or miss the whole year. I arrive a week late but there had been no tests or evaluations so it won't take me long to catch up. Today is the welcoming ceremony. I sit with my younger siblings. The other students sit together. I can see them talking about me and it makes me feel insecure and uncomfortable, I've never been one to stand out.

The school system here is different that what I'm used to, but my parents told me "first year" here is like "fifth year" in my country. Wrong. I hear the headmaster naming the teachers. Fifth year, where I come from, is the last year, and here, there's an extra year of school which is third year, and the equivalent of fifth year is "second year". Confusing, I know.

I get mad. My parents made a mistake and I'm such a bad mood I overanalyze and begin to think I'd be set a year back. I sit by my parents to tell them about the situation. I am sure my face looks like I am about to punch someone but I don't care. I hear some more bickering and decide to ignore it. I have a low-sounding tantrum and my parents promise they will fix it. I am about to cry out of frustration because I was not mentally prepared for school, leaving my country with all my friends was hard enough and I know I'm being immature but in this moment all I care about is hiding my face so people can't see the tears on my face, it's hard since my hair is in a bun and I have a full face of make-up on. I calm down but I know some girl saw me crying and I begin to feel worse. The ceremony ends and a teacher takes me to my wrongly assigned classroom until my parents change the year I'm supposed to be on. This school is very small, there are only four boys in the classroom. They introduce themselves and so do I, but I'm not in a friendly mood so they probably think I'm a stuck up weirdo: again, I fail to care. A teacher enters the classroom and greets me, tells me I look a bit old to be in the first year which just pisses me off even more since we all know this, it is obvious. These boys are in the 13-15 age range and I'm 16. The teacher starts to talk about ! mathematics but he suddenly leaves to talk to the principal about some issue that had nothing to do with me. The boys in the room try and talk to me, ask me where I'm from but I'm too mad to speak.
Abruptly, two girl looking heads pop out of the door and ask me to come with them, I ask them what they need and they say to just do as they say. I don't want to be here anyway so I follow them out of the class, and the three of us sit on the stairs with another girl who was playing a game on her phone. The girls introduce themselves.

"I'm Angelique" says the chubbiest of them, she had brown hair with turquoise ends and a sunflower tattoo on her left thigh, barely covered by the high cut blue sock and her skirt. "I'm on third year, just one more year to college! And this is Marina" she exclaimed as she pointed to the blonde chick who was apparently winning her mobile game. She mutters a simple "hi" and continues playing.

The only one left is the shortest of the few. "My name's Tia, nice to meet you..." She waits for me to fill in the blank.
"Brenda" I respond to the tanned girl. She had big glasses and long, straight black hair. She seemed bummed for some reason, hence me asking her "What's wrong?"

"It's just that I'm the only girl in a class with 6 boys and I can already tell it's going to be a nightmare. You see, I'm on second year so Angie and Marina are not my classmates" I analyze if I should tell her I'm probably going to be her classmate and I decide to do it since I trust my parents to fix the inconvenience.
"Oh, I actually have to go to second year but my parents messed up the inscription. I can't blame them though, the school system is very different here"
"Here? Are you foreign?" Marina asks me, finally putting her cell down. "Yes, I mean, my country is the one next to this one so it's pretty similar but not this time I guess" I answer frankly.
"Well, sorry for the change but I'm glad you're gonna be my classmate!" Says Tia, excitedly.

My bad mood begins to dissipate so I end up having a nice chat with all the girls, it turns out Tia and I have very similar taste in books and we're both applied when it comes to studying so I can already tell she's going to be my study-buddy.

The school coordinator comes and tells me to follow him to my new classroom, which is just 10 steps away, Tia comes with us and introduces me to the class full of 16 to 19 year old boys. The sight terrifies me, I've never been one to talk to boys, not even in a friendly way. In my other school, females outnumbered males so I never had to actually talk to one unless I wanted to borrow a pencil or something. Boys are super foreign territory for me, especially boys from another country with a different culture that I barely knew about. The boys say "hello" at the same time as I go to my sit right in front of Tia, and next to the door which is ideal for a quick escape when it is needed.

This class's teacher is also talking to the principal so we have a free hour. I turn to my back to talk to Tia and she tells me the boys' names. Six boys that I probably won't get along with. Not because they looked rude or anything but, most of them sounded rude. I sigh and continue to conversate with my new friend about movies and music we like. While I am glad the situation was fixed, I was still scared of fitting in a new school since I am very short from 'likeable' and this class just reeks of trouble.

If only I'd known how right I was.