One Step Ahead

Queen?

Aliyah's POV:

This is the first day, btw.

I woke up at 6:30 A.M. excited for school and seeing my friends! I don't really care about popularity I hate to break it to y'all, but I enjoy talking to my notebook. For me, it's just living life to the fullest. That includes making friends and having a fun life full of happiness. That basically means I must be happy at school and not get in any trouble that will make me miserable. I heard about suicide stories of teenagers getting bullied. That won't be me. I like being myself. I don't want to become someone escaping life. I want to be one living.

In my old school -- well, all my friends were popular. I mean I do speak ,especially when I'm on the court. I just want to make school number one and then sports and then whatever else. Well, isn't that everyone? So I guess I'm a "good girl", am I wrong?

What else can I say? I love music. So I just turned on the radio to FM 173.5, the radio that plays all my favorites. Today DJ was playing the most well known song right now "I Know Places". That's also my favorite.

"Baby, I know places we won't be found, and they'll be chasing us down tryna track us down...," I sang on. I love that song.

What shall I wear? Hmm... Ah ha, my pretty dress I bought from the night market in some part of Asia. There were flowers on it. For jewelry, I wore the necklace that I got when my besties bought me when we went to Great America.

Then a thought came into my head. Why am I trying so hard? "You're not trying to impress. You're trying to learn," conscience told me. Then I knew what I should wear. That's right, my KK jeans, my basketball shirt (it's like a souvenir shirt for getting on the team), and Nike Free Runs 5.0 was what I wore. I still wore my necklace that my friends bought me. I put on my Varsity jacket. Perfect. I'm a jock? Maybe. But that was comfortable.

I bid goodbye to my sister, Rachel, and my parents. Soon, I ran to the bus stop. Way too early for the bus to come. I sat and wait and played on my phone. Put on my Beats headphones. Soon, one of my besties Jasmine came.

"Hey, Aliyah!"

"Sup, how's it going?" I asked. I was so glad to see my best friend.

The bus soon came, and we two hopped on.

"Where the heck is Kylie?" we both said in unison. As I turned around, I saw a short cute girl running towards the bus. Full sprint. And that is when you know it is Kylie. Always late.

Kylie hopped on the bus panting.

"Woah, girl, look at your clothes. Sassy," I said. Kylie was wearing her most fashionable clothes. The fanciness level was about the same as the one I was going to wear. I knew she was going to try to make her way to the top as we were last year. Well, I don't actually try. I just hang out with the popular people.

"I know. But look at you, Aliyah. Aren't we going to the top together?" Kylie said.

There you go. Indeed, she was making it to the top.

"Well, I have like PE like third period. These are easy slip-ons and slip-offs," I defended.

"OK then, girl," Kylie said.

Jasmine's outfit's fanciness level is between Kylie's and mine. She wore jeans and a shirt with a cut-out at the shoulder. She wore UGG boots.

Soon, we arrived at school. We had some classes together, but I only remember one. And that was first period, science (Biology 101 Honors). We went to the lockers we were assigned, and they are literally 10 miles away. Lucky us. We walked together to Classroom 167.

"Alright, good morning, girls. I'm Mrs. Maryia. This is Biology 101 Honors. Are you girls freshmen?" the tall teacher sitting at her table asked.

"Yes," we answered.

"I have assigned seats for you guys. We will be sitting with three per table. But you guys are pretty early so take a seat wherever you want right now," Mrs. Maryia said.

She sounded pretty nice so biology shouldn't be that hard. We sat in the middle column and middle row for now. We talked about our classes, sports, etc. for everything was about high school.

"Do you guys think we'll be popular?" Jasmine asked. There, finally someone blurted it out.

"I don't know. What do you think, Kylie?" I asked her.

"Depends on the people --" the bell cut off Kylie.

"Alright, I am Mrs. Maryia. Your Biology 101 Honors teacher. I have assigned seats for you guys. Please go stand in the back of the room," the teacher instructed.

We three took our backpacks and went to the back. Here are the seat arrangements.

x are people I don't really know.
o is no one.

x x x x x x x jasmine x x x x
x x aliyah x x x x x x x x x
x x x x x x x x o x kylie o

Well, way to go for us. Sitting completely different places.

We started learning right away. For, we had a test next week. Yay for us. We learned about asexual reproduction in organisms. At the end of class, we had to do group activity.

"Alright, you guys will be working with your table to work on this lab. You may start getting your supplies at my table."

I looked around to see if my lab partners were getting the supplies. Nope, they took out their phones and started playing it. Wow, ok then. I went to the table and picked out the supplies. When I came back they were talking to the people in front.

"Samantha, copy everything we need onto our notebooks," the girl who sat next to me said to the nerdy looking girl sitting in front of me.

"Also do mine," the girl who sat on the very left of me said.

"Ok, ok then. Just don't bother me," Samantha said. She picked up her supplies and started doing the experiment.

I ignored them and did the experiment myself. For I knew that the two girls wouldn't help me, but I still decided to talk to them. Is that good?

"Hey, I'm Aliyah. I sit right next to you. But umm... do you want to work on the lab or no?" I asked awkwardly.

"No. You can help Samantha," the girl next to me said, still shaving her nails and not even looking up at me.

"Ok then...," I said, "may I catch your name?"

She looked up and said, "Jessica and that's Felicia." She pointed to the girl who sat on the very left.

I went on doing my lab for quite a while when Samantha turned around and said, "Sorry, Jessica, I don't know how to do this part and answer the question."

Jessica looked up, rolled her eyes, and said, "Let me see."

Well this definitely has caught my attention.

Samantha read, "What is mitosis? What the heck? We never even learned this."

Suddenly, I blurted out, "Mitosis is nuclear division plus cytokineses, and produces two identical daughter cells during prophase, metaphase, anaphase, and telophase." Why did I help them? I don't know. That definition is installed in me ever since seventh grade.

Jessica was in awe and said, "Come shopping with me on Sunday. It's a command, you pixie. (Pixies basically means freshman in high school.) Are you a nerd who wears jock clothing and looks pretty? Because that ain't happening in my world."

Felicia started talking, "A nerd is a nerd. A queen is a queen. A jock is a jock. ,A loner is a loner. There is no divergent."

Soon, class ended. Felicia came running my way when I started packing up. She gave me a slip, and it said, "You better listen to Jessica. She is the Queen of the School. No one can ever be above her. She is only sophomore and is queen. Your next four years will be ruined if you don't. My friend learned it the hard way."

Well, Aliyah, your days of "ships" are gone. Welcome to high school.