Bitten by the In Crowd

Chapter 1:

"Just remember to smile and be nice. I'm sure you'll make a ton of friends." My mother squeezes my shoulder and hands me a brown paper bag for lunch and heads to the front door. We moved here from California a week ago and have barely finished unpacking all of our boxes. Even though we haven't really settled into the new house, I have to go to school today. I was reluctant, but in my mother's words 'there's no time like the present,' and 'you learn something new everyday.' My parents are a walking cliche. But it's already mid-semester, and if I don't get started on my schoolwork soon I'll be way too behind and I might have to repeat my junior year. That would suck. 

"Yeah yeah, Mom." I sigh. "It's not like I've never been to high school before." I shut the front door as I step outside into the fresh morning air. One thing I neglected to learn about Maryland is that it actually gets cold here. The first thing on my to do list is to buy a jacket. Bearing through it, I open the passenger side of my mom's Subaru and climb inside. 

"Just promise me you'll try and enjoy it here, honey." She says with a warm smile as she starts the car and backs out of the driveway. The whole drive my stomach is churning with an awful mixture of butterflies and nervous energy. I've never been the new kid before. I'd been going to school with the same people ever since kindergarten and I knew everyone in our community, but now I'm a fish out of water in a brand new place I know nothing about. What if they have some sort of East Coast traditions that I'm not aware of?   

"I will, I promise." I reassure her just as she's pulling in to the school parking lot. There are kids roaming around everywhere; talking, laughing. What if I get a bad reputation because my mom drove me to school? I didn't feel rushed to get my driver's license back in Malibu because most people lived in walking distance of the school and it was always nice outside. 

Knowing I can't avoid it any longer I hug my mother goodbye and step out of the car, swallowing a deep breath and taking in my surroundings. Everyone in the lot seems to be pouring in to the one main entrance so I follow the crowd hoping that I don't get lost or trampled. Once I make it inside the building I head for the double doors marked Administration and walk up to the front desk. The secretary is talking to someone on the phone and she holds up a finger as if to say give me a minute. I turn around, glancing through the window and see different cliques hanging around in the front lobby of the school. 

There's a giant statue of a lion in the middle of the floor and some guy in a varsity jacket is climbing on top of it while his friend is taking a picture of it. We didn't have very many sports teams at my old school and we didn't even have a stadium, so there were no stupid jocks. This new town is really going  to be a change of pace. There's another large group of kids that seem to be looking at me. I start to feel uncomfortable but they just keep glancing back at me. One girl with long brown hair looks angry, another boy with striking blue eyes is grinning, but all of them appear to be looking at me in one way or another. 

I'm drawn out of my paranoid state when the secretary hangs up her phone and looks at me with a raised eyebrow. "How can I help you?" She says flatly. 

"I'm a new student. They said I needed to stop by the office and pick up my schedule." I say softly. 

She nods. "What's your name?"

"Nina Rollins." She doesn't respond but instead just starts rummaging through the folders and papers on her desk until she plucks one from the pile and thrusts it toward me. 

"Here. Your homeroom is 324 and your locker combination is on the bottom of your schedule." She says and then turns back toward her computer screen, signalling that she's done talking to me and I need to leave. 

I push open the doors and cross through the lobby, scanning the schedule she gave me for my first class. I can't help but notice that the group of kids who were looking at me has disappeared. Once I find the Biology classroom the teacher tells me to take the empty seat in the back of the room and the bell rings as the last couple of people file in. I sit down in between two girls and they both smile politely at me. The one to my left has wavy blonde hair pulled back by a headband, and the one to my right has small crown of pink flowers laced through her light brown tresses. "You're the new girl, right?" The blonde one asks with a big grin.