Downside Up

Chapter Eighteen (I Wan' Ne Be Like You - The Jungle Book)

When Tyde told me, that a video of us two dancing together was leaked after his party, I didn't care at all. 'Why would that change anything about the situation?', I thought. Oh, boy was I wrong.

The response on the Internet was overwhelming, but that was a usual thing celebrities experienced, wasn't it? If people are talking about you on social media usually no one cares. But things were different this time.

The weekend passed by quite fast and it was Monday all over again - everyone's favourite day of the week. On the school bus, everyone went quiet when I got in before bursting out into whispered conversations. I didn't dare to ask what they were talking about, but I was assuming that I had broke some sort of dress code rule or something like this. No big deal.

But I realised that something was off when I entered my first-period class. All the popular kids had gathered around my usual seat and I was already considering sitting down somewhere else when queen bee arose from her chair and walked over towards me.

"Look at you", she said, "your hair looks amazing today!"

This felt like a bad dream. I was about to add 'And my non-existing makeup is on point.' when her friends came over as well. Was I about to get bullied by these barbies? I wasn't quite sure.

"So, we thought that maybe you would like to sit with us for lunch?"

My heart was screaming 'No!', but I knew that there was only one right answer, so I nodded in agreement.

"Fine", she chirped, "I guess we'll see you then!"

They went back to their seats and I walked towards my desk as well. What had just happened? I did not want to sit with the plastics - I actually had people that I could consider my friends or whatever you would want to call Gaby and David. They were great company and I felt a lot more comfortable around them than around the gossiping ladies and their super cool handbags um, excuse me, boyfriends.

Class started soon afterwards and Mr. Draman was as excited as ever whilst I remained my nerdy self and answered almost every question he asked me correctly. In the middle of the lesson, someone slipped a note onto my desk. I could tell that it was written by one of the pink nightmares considering that there were bright pink hearts above and in every possible letter.

I quickly checked if Mr. Draman was looking at me, before reading it. 'How do u do that?', it said, 'U r so smart but u r jst n exchange student.' Trying to stay calm I scribbled my answer underneath it.

'It's jst maths - we learned about that in G ages ago.' Soon the note was handed towards the guy sitting next to me, who had handed me the letter as I thought. Sometimes I felt like I was getting arrogant and sometimes I knew it. Pre-calc was still one of my easiest classes and when people told me that it wasn't as easy for them as it was for my I often thought that they were simply stupid, but one the other hand back at home I had to learn a lot since middle school and of course it was harder for students over here, because their educational system was entirely different than the one I was used to.

Luckily the lesson was over soon afterwards and I headed to my English class. I was really looking forward to meeting Gaby and David, but as I entered the room I noticed the tension. Usually, we would greet each other and talk until Mrs McCoer starts the lesson, but David didn't even say 'Hello' and Gaby just nodded towards me.

"Hey", I greeted her, "what's wrong?" She just shook her head and then I was left alone. All of the sudden I had lost my only friends and I wasn't sure, why that was. I tried talking to them again before our music class started, but they ignored me completely and I felt a little bit lost without them.

I sat down on my own in the huge auditorium and waited for Mrs Paretti and Mr Neigel to arrive. Today we would hold the auditions for the annual school musical, which would be "The wizard of Oz". I was actually excited to perform it because I loved the songs it contained, but without my friends, it would be only half as fun - if only.