School Mate

What Kind of Nurse Are You?

Chapter Two: Sandra  (the next day)

I freakin' hate school. Well, I mean I did like it until my parents dragged me away from all of my friends.  They decided that it would be fun to up and dump me into a barren wasteland of a place that I like to call Pennsylvania.  I mean seriously?!  Who moves here?

I wake up to feel some small body bouncing on me.  "What the?" I exclaim, waking up to see my brother Jacob.

"First day of school!  First day of school!" he chants, continuing to bounce.

"Owwwwwww! Jacob!"  I complain grouchily.  I shove him off the bed and sit up, mad that he would bring up an absurd subject like school so early in the morning. Realizing that nobody wants to see my "beautiful self" in the morning like this, I hop in the shower to tame my mane, before quickly braiding my hair into a Dutch braid, and walking down the stairs.

Breakfast is as chaotic as usual.  My little brother is running around in his pajamas.  My other brother is arguing with my dad about sports.  My mom is banging pots to make my dad an omelet.  And I am just standing here smiling, looking around at our daily routine.

I walk to the pantry to find a box of stale cheerios, and pile a mound high in my bowl of milk. Ahhhhh!  Breakfast!  I dig in, enjoying the slightly stale taste that is much like cardboard.

My mom places my dad's omelet on the table before turning to us kids with a creepy smile.  "Good morning! " she says, taking out her torture device.

"Mom, no!  No pictures!  We don't need pictures!" I whine, not happy with what is transpiring.

She seems to pout,"but it is your first day of school in a new state." And still took pictures of us.

Before I know it, my brother is dropping me off at high school. Thanks mom and dad for moving on my senior year of school. (You should just imagine me doing sarcastic jazz hands here...)  

"Okay I will be here at three so if you want a ride come on time," my brother warns me.

I mock salute the time freak.  He always needs to be on time, everywhere he goes.  

"Bye," I say, watching him pull out of the drop off zone.  I turn to the school, expecting something from High School Musical to happen like where everyone stares at you, but in fact it was the exact opposite.

I scan the grounds, noticing the distinct cliques spread out before me.  I saw the skaters, the nerds, the hippies, jocks, band nerds, and what seemed like the popular people sitting at the entrance to the school.  I wouldn't be surprised if they were football players and cheerleaders because they just reeked of stupidity and arrogance.

Uncomfortable in my situation, I choose to walk up to the nerd group, knowing that's where most of the misfits are.  But on the way up there, I notice something different: their t-shirts.  Most the people in the small groups were wearing badminton shirts saying, "Eat, Sleep, Badminton," and, "We put the Bad in Minton."  Or my personal favorite, a shirt with "Bad" and "Minton" separated by an arrow pointing at "Ass," so the whole slogan read "Bad-ass-minton."

"I love your shirts!" I complement honestly, hoping they won't ignore my comment.

The group all turned around with confused expressions plastered to their surprised faces. It is very obvious that I interrupted a very intense discussion in which I obviously wasn't welcomed.

"Uhhhhh," I say awkwardly, "I didn't mean to disrupt your discourse on the molecular structure of a metal fulcrum."  

I am surprised of myself.  I didn't know it was that easy to recall information that quickly.  I continued talking as if they were just letting me speak.