Becoming Janie

I'm Janie Evans. Want to know a bit about me? Cool. I'm seventeen years old. I live in Florida and I've never had a boyfriend. Why, you ask? I'm not ugly; I get called gorgeous all the time, but I thought I was just okay looking. It's just that I'm shy. Way too shy; whenever I see a guy that isn't a relative of mine, or a friend of my eight year old brother, I just can't speak. This can get pretty awkward especially around male teachers.

Yes, that's right. I can't even speak to my male teachers. They've learnt not to ask me questions in class anymore because whenever they do I just sit there with this stupid look on my face, not saying anything. It's so embarrassing and extremely frustrating because, not to be vain, but I'm really smart and I almost always know the answers.

I don't think I even need to tell you that I'm not in the popular crowd. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that when you're in the popular crowd, it's mandatory that you are able to talk to boys. Quite frankly, it's a relief that I'm not in a massive clique. Troy Salem is the hottest guy in school. No surprises that he is in the popular group. Imagine him coming up to have a conversation with me, and me, just staring at him blankly. I would probably die of embarrassment right there on the spot. Gosh, I don't even want to think about it.

I only have one friend. Ruby Fields. She is really pretty and massively outgoing. She could easily be the queen bee of the popular crowd if she wanted to. It was no secret to anyone that Courtney Jester; the current queen bee wanted to be her friend, so of course, so did all of Courtney's friends.

Ruby probably would have obliged if it weren’t for one small problem. She hated all of them. She had listed on her fingers exactly why she couldn't stand them.

1. They were all bitches.

2.They dressed like Daddy's little princesses.

3.They were so blonde.

Half of them were brunettes, but they acted blonde. Ruby had not been shy to point out many times to them that they should all dye their hair blonde, just to fit their personalities. Thankfully, most of them had all been to dim to understand the insult, instead thinking that Ruby meant the blonde hair would match their bubbly personalities. I didn't know why they thought they had bubbly personalities. They had proven on more than one occasion that they were very self-centered.

Ruby hated Courtney the most. That was more because of the fact that Courtney and Ruby's cousin, Serenova Lafael, had been best friends in primary school but when Courtney had gotten to middle school she had told Serenova that she could no longer be friends with her because Serenova was just too weird.

I could see why Courtney had thought Serenova was weird. She was quite different, but I wouldn't say that it was a bad thing. If anything Serenova was like cool-weird. Unique, if you like.

Anyways, Courtney couldn't work out why Ruby hated her just because she was Serenova's cousin. It was pretty self-explanatory if you asked me.

Getting back to me though, despite the shyness, I was pretty happy with my life. I had a mum and a dad, Lucy and Vincent Evans, and as you already know I have a little brother, Jamie Evans. I also have an older half brother, Cobie Evans. He was Dad's son from another marriage before he had met Mum. His mother, Gracie Evans, had died when he was a baby from cancer. Dad had met my mum two years later when Cobie was two years old.

Obviously my mum raised him with our dad, but once he was old enough to understand, they had told him about his mum. He had been sad obviously but he hadn't lashed out and resented my parents like some children would, so I'm told, anyways.

I couldn't actually remember that far back. So, Cobie was three when I was born, and he had taken a shine to me; taking me under his wing to show me the ways of the world. I hadn't actually taken much in though, seeing as I was only a baby. But as we grew up, Cobie and I just became closer. It didn't even matter to us that we were half siblings. He treated Jamie and I like we were full siblings and we treated him the same.