New Girl

First Impressions

I sat through an English lesson that was actually pretty good-Mrs. Farrah tried to connect everything we talked about to ballet, which was SO helpful. It made English interesting. And we were starting Romeo and Juliet, my favorite ballet ever, so I didn't evn mind trying to figure out Shakespeares English. With 10 girls and 10 boys we were all in the same class room. I sat next to Alli and every now and then caught Josh sneaking a look in my direction. I told myself he wasn't actually looking at me, but it didn't help get rid of the flush on my cheeks every time I felt his gaze. WHY did I have to blush so easily? I was relieved when we were dismissed to go to maths. Maybe I''d be sat somewhere I could see the boys but they couldn't see me. 

Maths bored me to tears. No joke. Not even firguring out the circumfrance of a dancer's rond de jambe or the area of a 16.52 m by 10.83 m stage could keep my mind from wandering. I absentmindedly doodled a pair of pointe shoes on my note book, and was thinking about what ballet class would be like later when my name was called. My head snapped up and I dropped my pencil.

"The anwser, Julia?" Mr. Mokes repeated, looking at me expentantly. I flushed; while everyone else had been solving the problem, I'd gone off into dream land. Oops. First days were for good impressions, not screw ups. 

"Um..." I stalled, trying furiously to work out 16.52 x 10.83 in my head. SO not gonna happen. Then I saw Alli trying to mouth the anwser to me. I should have known that when decimal places were involved, that was not gonna work. I tried anyways. 

"127.10?" I tried hopefully. Mr Mokes frowned and shook his head. 

"Pay attention next time please Ms. Ward," he said and I nodded. 

"Sorry sir."

"Anyone else have the anwser?" he asked. I mouthed a thanks for trying to Alli and looked around. No one was willing to show me up by giving the anwser, which was kind of sweet. But then a voice in the back of the room called out: "178.9m squared." 

I turned to see who it was. Holly. Of course. I stifiled a groan and turned around. 

"Thank you Ms. Blackwell," Mr. Mokes said, turning back to the board. "Now we're going to talk about pythagorus. Imagine a triangular peice of set." 

I resisted the urge to face palm. 

I vowed to pay attention in History. In fact I was thinking so hard about paying attention, I didn't pay attention, if that makes sense. I slammed into someone would have falled flat on my face if they hadn't caught my arm and waist to pull me upright. 

"I didn't know Americans had bad eyesight," a familier voice teased, and I looked up to emerald green eyes and a mop of brown hair. Of course it had to be Josh.

"Sorry!" I said, trying not to laugh. "I wasn't looking." I felt the blush creeping up my neck when I realized his hand was still on my waist, and he pulled it away when I noticed. "Where are you going/" he asked, smiling at me. I felt myself relax.

"History," I moaned. 

"Ooo" he said, smirking mischeviously. 'Bad luck. Should've picked geography with me," he added with a wink. 

"Um no. Why would she want to pick geography with you when she could come to history with me?" another familier voice said and I turned to see Nate coming to stand beside me. I was relieved when I saw that he was teasing. I could not handle two good looking guys fighting over me! 

"Decisions, decisions," another voice added, and Holly stopped beside our little group. "Too bad I'm in geogrphy with Josh, huh Jules?" Yeah, too bad for him, I thought, but kept my mouth shut. "Come on Josh," she said, fluttering her eye lashes and looping her arm through his. "We don't want to be late!" 

"Sorry" he mouthed to us as he was being dragged away. "Oh and Nate," he said, pulling away from Holly to turn around. "Hands off my American girl, you here me?" He said with a wink. My stomach flipped. His girl!?

Nate grinned. "In your dreams Brit. America's a free country. " 

"Yeah yeah," Josh said laughing as he turned around. "Keep telling yourslef that mate. You're in England now!" I laughed and turned to a grinning Nate. 

"You lot are fun to be around," I said as we began walking up the steps. 

"Yeah," Nate said, glancing sideways at me mischeviously, a smile playing at the corner of his lips. "We can show you a good time."

I gasped and hit him over the head with my folder. "Nate you cheek!" I cried laughing but trying to look stern. He laughed with me. 

"You love it, you know you do!"

"In your dreams Brit," I sassed back, repeating Josh's line.

He grinned and held the door open for me on the way into the History class room. "Just warning you, Mr. Rodes is super strict. Apparently he used to wrestle big time."

I glanced at the man in the corner. Sure enough, he was huge. Looked more like a bear than a man. I clutched Nate's arm and gulped. Then turned to look at him in suprize. 

"Jeez, Nate how huge are your arms!?" I siad. My hand literally could nt fit around it. He grinned and flexed it. I rolled my eyes. 

"Showoff," I teased.

"Oh yeah? How much you bet I could take down Mr. Rodes?" 

I glanced at the enormous man. When I say enormous, I mean ENORMOUS. Like he was sat in a chair but he was so big he was spilling out the sides. It was sort of comical actually, and I supressed a laugh. But looking at the sleeves of what I assumed was an XXXXL shirt, Nate's arms suddenly didn't seem so big. I decided to bet big.

"All the Chick-fil-a in the world you couldn't do it," I said, grinning at him. That got him going. We had a masive rant about all the restaurants and stores they didn't have in England, and by the time I left history, I wasn't thinking about Holly of Josh or paying attention or good first impressions or anything. I was just enjoying spending time with Nate. But I was looking forward to ballet as I walked down the path towards the dorms with the girls. 

It was a relief to be back in the rooms again as I dumped my bag on the floor. I quickly made my way over to the mirrow and started to brush out my hair to put it in a french twist. It looked a lot more professional than a bun and gave me a much cleaner line." 

When I finaly secured the last pin and spayed a good amount of hairspray on it, I finally felt like a dancer again. I was gonna give my absolute all in this class-full out 100%. Here, there wasn't time to hold back. And I had a feeling the other girls would be doing the same thing...first impressions on the first day back? Big. Deal.