Fresh Meat

Chapter Five: The New Friend

"Silence make the real conversations between friends. Not the saying, but the never needing to say that counts."
- Margaret Lee Runbeck

DAISY

Finding out that I wasn't in any of my friends' classes was both a good and bad thing. A good thing because this was a chance to potentially make a new friend. A bad thing because this meant I was on my own again.

At first, I wasn't worried. I was always good at having conversations, making people laugh and showing interest in starting a potential friendship.

The problem was they never returned the same intentions.

But maybe high school would be different. There would be at least one person who was interested in being my friend. Some jokes, a few months of bonding, and soon they would be in the friend group!

And English class was a great place to start.

My teacher, Mrs. Larabee, was the exact definition of her name- or the second part of it. Her personality was exactly like a bee: always happy, moving around the classroom as she talked, a smile bright enough to rival the sun itself. Plus, her clothes were black and yellow, so my comparison was pretty much accurate.

I knew I was right to like Mrs. Larabee, especially when she announced we were doing a small activity.

"As a way to get to know each other, we're going to be creating our own name tags!" Then she gave each of us a custom name tag and some markers, colored pencils, and pens. The custom name tag had a small square frame to draw a little self portrait and some basic questions to answer.

NAME:
AGE:
SCHOOL YEAR:
BIRTHDAY:
FUN FACT:

Mrs. Larabee gave us twenty minutes to complete our name tags. I left the self portrait for later and wrote down my info.

NAME: Daisy Thompson
AGE: 14
SCHOOL YEAR: 9th
BIRTHDAY: May 26
FUN FACT: I really love astronomy!

I worked on my small self portrait the best I could. I wasn't as artistic as Phoebe, but I tried my best nonetheless.

As I was coloring it in, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. I turned my head to look. Just two rows down, a cute girl was sneaking glances at me. She had long, black hair with purple streaks that was tied up in a high ponytail. She was wearing a violet crop top T-shirt, dark ripped jeans, and dark blue Converses. When I squinted to get a better look, I noticed that she was wearing eyeliner.

Suddenly, her eyes locked onto mine. I startled, feeling my cheeks heat up, and looked down at my name tag to finish it. When I looked up at the girl again, she was too busy working on her name tag.

I mentally slapped myself. She probably thought I was a weirdo and was going to stay clear of me now. And she was the first person I was planning to talk to. I covered up my disappointment by decorating my name tag with stars.

Twenty minutes later, Mrs. Larabee clapped her hands to get our attention. "Okay! Now that we've had enough time to make our name tags, it's time for icebreakers! Go around the classroom, introduce yourselves!"

She set a timer for 30 minutes and placed it on her desk. Everyone started getting up and looking around the classroom, looking for someone to at least wave to. Although some of my classmates looked like they'd rather stand in a bush full of thorns than talk to people, I was excited. I stuck my name onto my shirt, right where people would be able to see it.