Strain 7

Chapter One

Chapter One

Janie’s POV

          “Hey Mr. Grady? Do we have anything due Thursday?” I asked my biology teacher.

          “Yeah, an article” He said. I groaned and he looked up at me and laughed.

          Don’t get me wrong, I love Mr. Grady. He is probably the coolest teacher I’ve ever had. We get free days in his class; we can text, listen to our iPods; but when it comes to working and taking notes, we take a lot of notes. And his tests are so difficult! Also the article is where we have to look up a legit science article, read it (yeah, crazy I know), summarize it, critique it, and evaluate it. Then we have to make a poster with our own title for it and pictures. Then, the day it’s due, we turn in the paper part and go in front of the class and talk about the article, using the poster to point out pictures. Then we receive an overall grade.

          Yeah, and we don’t get to use the paper or article for the speech. It sucks.

          But I live through it.

          Everyone else groaned with me just as the bell rang. I grabbed my book bag and purse before heading out the door and down the stairs to the first floor. I walked to my locker and started grabbing stuff I needed for the next day and putting away the books from today.

          Our schedule is weird. We got to different classes every other day. We only have four blocks a day. So this first day, red day, I got to P.E., computer, theatre, and English. Then the next day, gold day, I got to history, geometry, theatre, and science. Yeah, it’s crazy. I go to theatre both days because it’s my magnet.

          The bright side, we get two days for homework. Yeah, we got lucky there.

          I jumped as someone kissed my cheek, from behind me and whispered hey. I turned around to see Nick, my boyfriend. He smiled and gave him a hug before closing my locker. I followed him outside to his car, where he would take me home.

          “How was your day?” He asked.

          “Good, we have articles due next class in biology though. It sucks!” I whined. He laughed, “Yeah, I had him yesterday so mine’s due tomorrow” He replied.

          “Awww, sorry” He just laughed and put his arm around me.

          “Janie!” I heard my name called. It was Haven; my sister and best friend.

          I turned around and smiled. She doesn’t ride home with Nick and I because she has after school band practice, like, every other day. And even when she doesn’t, she goes over to one of her friend’s house to do homework. We’re still really close though. She’s one of my best friends and I don’t know what I would do without her.

          She ran up to me, “Guess what?” She said excited.

          “What?” I asked.

          “Hunter asked me out!!!” She screamed and I squealed in excitement. This was great! Haven has had the hugest crush on Hunter for the past several months so it was great to hear that he asked her out.

          “When?” I asked.

          “Tomorrow night! He won’t tell me where we’re going though, only to dress very nicely!” We both squealed again and jumped around.

          “I will definitely help you get ready!!” I exclaimed.

          “I hope so! This is going to be great!!” She squealed once more before saying bye and running to practice. I couldn’t stop smiling. This was perfect for her. She never talks about it really, but she envies what Nick and I have so I’ve always hoped that a guy would come around for her soon. And now Hunter stepped up to the plate! Perfect!

          “Well that was entertaining” Nick said, laughing, as he put his arm around my shoulder. I laughed and nodded my head as I got into his car.

          If you don’t know, I’m a freshman and Nick is a sophomore. We have a couple of the same classes though. He has the same science class as me, just a different period. Also we have geometry, computer, and theatre together. So we see each other second and third block everyday and even have the same lunch wave! So we’re pretty happy about that.

          I was thinking about the first time we met when something out the window caught my eye. A girl. Coughing a lot. That’s weird. I know her and her pride and joy in life is that she never gets sick. Of course, there’s a first for everything, but this isn’t the season for the flu either. No one really gets sick during these months.

          I shrugged it off. So she’s sick. Big deal.

          Yeah, big deal. Like wipe out the world big deal. If I had only known…