The Black Sheep Diary

Princess Charlotte

Halfway through third grade Karen decided to dump her back into Tecca Venice public school, where Vanessa had spent her kindergarten and half of first grade. Karen grew up switching schools often, so the swap meant nothing to her, but it threw Vanessa's whole world for a loop just like it had done to Karen many years ago. Besides the school name, nothing else was familiar to Vanessa. She was in a different building, and a lot of the kids she either no longer recognized, or they had moved schools as well. On the bright side though, she was back with her best friend from Tecca who never left, and even a few kids from St. Tory's had also moved to Tecca before Vanessa had. She was glad to see the few familiar faces and names, but this far into the school year meant that they had already established their own friends and daily business.

Vanessa's best friend was Katie Jagger, and she was glad to have Vanessa back at her school. Katie had slightly wavy dark brown hair complete with big, shiny, dark brown eyes and her face was adorably shaped with puffy, little kid cheeks. She was about the same height as Vanessa, and enjoyed a lot of the same activities. The two girls would play together every chance they got, and they were inseparable; stuck together at the hip.

School came fairly easy for Vanessa. The hardest part to adapt to was all the different teachers and classroom changes. Even in just third grade Vanessa had three different teachers, not even counting the different teachers for extra curricular activities such as art class, music class, PE, and more. Those classes came once a day, and they would rotate - art would be on one certain day of the week, PE on another, and so on. Vanessa was the art teacher's favorite student. She was creative, colorful, and good for her age. Vanessa had once been bullied at a younger age for her art. A few of her peers at St. Tory's had loomed over her shoulder as she was drawing and called her work "scribbles". They told her that she was no good. Vanessa responded in the most productive way possible. Every single day for several weeks after she got home from school, she would bring out her art supplies and color and draw until her fingers hurt so bad she cried, and still she would press on until bedtime. So Vanessa's high status with her art teacher made her heart fill with pride. It wasn't long before there was an art contest being held, in which Tecca would complete with other local schools for a chance for select students' artwork to be framed and displayed in the local county's courthouse. This was a big deal to Vanessa, particularly because it was for the fifth grade students, and she was still in third. Her art teacher thought Vanessa should have a chance as well though, and had specifically invited her to compete, and had even gotten special permission from the competition for her art to be allowed to be entered. Towards the end of third grade, Vanessa and the other competing students had finally received word on the judgment. For the ones whose art didn't win, they received their work back in a complimentary  frame. For those who won, their art was hung on display that day. Vanessa did not receive her artwork back, she had been one of the winners!

Third grade went very well and very easily for Vanessa, and she loved her teachers. She got lots of classroom free time, and due to the amount of reading she was made to do at Tecca school, she found a love of books. She would sit in one of the beanbags in the corner during class free time and lose herself between the pages. She would envision herself as the character, putting herself completely in their shoes. She felt every emotion they felt to the highest extent. She would become so enveloped within the stories that she wouldn't even hear things in her surroundings in the real world! Vanessa looked up from reading and had discovered that class would have already restarted without her, and she would have to awkwardly make her way to her seat hoping no one would notice, but of course everyone always did. Her classmates probably thought her to be rude or even bold for continuing reading after the class was called, and she didn't know if the teacher had tried to get her individual attention or not, and the thought made her nervous. Her teacher though, handled it very sweetly. She never brought it up, and never complained, and Vanessa was never in trouble for it. After the second time it happened, Vanessa couldn't figure out why she zoned out so much while reading, and had decided that it was becoming an embarrassing nuisance, so she brought it up to her teacher.