Him For Her.

His Second Day.

The bell rang on the second day of school. It was late August. The beginning of first semester.
Second period was my Home Economics class. Mom's idea, not mine. As I walked into class I had a feeling of bigness because I was a senior and a good portion of the class was Freshman. Immediately, I spotted the few people I had known from last year, a couple seniors like me, and the rest were juniors. I took the remaining empty seat at their table, greeting them with a usual insult and maybe a hand shake or two.

The day began pretty quick after everyone settled into their seats. It was only our second day of the entire year and we already had an assignment due for that same day. It wasn't a difficult thing to do, but as a senior about to graduate, nothing about high school was difficult anymore.
The request from our teacher was that we would all have to put a paper of information together, fold it into 4 squares, and explain aloud the few things listed on it about ourselves. The instructions were pretty straight forward; on the front of the folded paper we would list our names, favorite foods, colleges we wanted to attend, and jobs we wanted. On the back, we had to put our siblings' ages and names, where we were born, one interesting thing about us, and something else... I don't exactly remember.

It didn't take long for class to start. The teacher walked to the front of the room and decided to start in the most practical of ways: Taking our attendance.
"Devin?"
"Jose?"
"Emeline?"
And on and on went the list of names in no particular order it seemed. Each name replied with an expected and less than enthusiastic Here. This continued until she hit the name of my friend, Travis. One look and it seemed to be more than obvious that these two have met before. A sudden rage of annoyance filled her eyes as she glared at our table. Now, I could not be completely certain, I could only guess that she was joking from the grin spread across Travis' face, he looked amused at this shred of uncomfortable silence. Nevertheless and all in good spirits our teacher shook her head and continued with calling my name.

"Carter Mendoza?" She called with a less excited tone in her voice. With this change in her, I could not help, but join in with Travis. I raised two fingers in the air, she nodded while I shared Travis' grin. She spent no time worrying about what my smirk might have meant, she took a mental photo of me as she did everyone else, to remember what I look like, so attendance would soon come easier. After what felt to be forever long, the teacher finished up calling names to know everyone, and to complete her roll sheet. Until it was finally over which led to beginning class with our folded papers. The freshmen seemed to have to go up one after another.  Perhaps our teacher was forcing them to go first on purpose. Which is both hilarious and classic. 

Of course, it had all been the same thing with the first week assignments. Our personal information seemed to be every teacher's cup of tea. And, for as much fun as it was to watch the little freshmen squirm in front of the classroom. It would not last forever, which meant that after the majority of class freshmen nearly wet themselves up front, it was finally time for someone from my group to go up. All the juniors and seniors that I knew of in the class were enough to fit only five at a table... The rest of the class? Freshmen. There might have been some sophomores  or even older grade people in there, but in my sights, they all look the same.

That was until she walked in. The first tardy on the second day of class. And, I'm pretty sure, whoever she was, she wasn't even here yesterday. She walked into class with her hair up in a ball type thing, she wore dark blue jeans, a red tank top underneath a black leather jacket, and she carried a brown leather book bag. I couldn't hear what she and our teacher had said to each other, but when they were done she took the first seat that looked open enough in the front of the class. The "who am I" paper folds continued. They were small and everyone rushed through them. The papers were no fun because all anyone wanted to do was finish, so they could leave the uncomfortable pressure of being stared at... Sissy shy freshmen. And finally, after a few more freshmen hurried back to their seats, my name was called.