WWCOMMS High School

Dan arrives

I walked up to the school at 8AM and looked up at the building. The large, white building had the weird triangle logo plastered above the front doors. There were other kids bumbling around everywhere; older kids, about my age, looked grumpy, younger kids looked lost. I looked down at my acceptance letter.

Dear Daniel Campbell Smith,

You have been accepted to transfer into WWCOMMS High School, for a News and Journalism course. Please go to admin to get your student ID photo taken. You will also find enclosed your timetable and a campus map.

I opened the campus map and made my way to admin, got my ID photo taken and received my ID card. I flipped it over in my hand.

The picture of me was god awful.

End my life.

—————

I found my way to my main News and Journalism classroom and walked in sheepishly. There was certainly an... interesting mix of fellow students. They didn't look up when I walked in, so I had a quick glance at them all.

By the window, there was a kid in a dragon hoodie on their phone with another student, also on his phone, seemingly showing things to one another. On the desk next to the pair, there was a kid in a hoodie with headphones on over the hood. Behind him, another boy was doodling on paper. At the back, there was a pair of girls sat next to each other, whispering to one another and laughing at someone at the whiteboard — a kid was drawing a depressed looking man. One kid had their head on their desk, seemingly asleep. Another was working away at some sort of video on a laptop. Another girl had a DSLR camera, and was showing another girl, presumably her friend, some photos. Finally, one girl was furiously texting while shaking her head and muttering something about oregano under her breath.

I started to back out of the room, unsure if this was where I was meant to be, but I bumped into someone. I panicked and turned around to apologise and found myself being greeted by a middle aged man in a suit, who I guessed was my teacher.

'Oh-oh my god I'm so sorry I'm new here,' I spluttered.

'Are you Dan? I'm Billy, your News and Journalism teacher,' he smiled. It was slightly disconcerting. I nodded and Billy held his hand out for me to shake. I took it and laughed nervously.

The other students had quietened down and were now looking my way. I hated it.

Billy walked to the front of the classroom and shot the kid at the whiteboard a look, narrowing his eyes as the kid ran to a seat and sat down.

'Martin, what is this?'

'It's a meme, Billy. Feels guy.'

'... We don't talk about memes here, Martin,' Billy sighed as he rubbed the man off the whiteboard. 'Anyway folks, this is Dan. He's just transferred here for our News and Journalism course! Say hi to him.'

I waved nervously. The kid at the laptop gave me a 'hi' back, not looking up from their laptop. The others waved and said 'hi' my way. I awkwardly made my way to a seat at the back of the room, next to the two giggling girls. As I sat down, the one with red hair leant over to me.

'Hey, Dan. Heeeyyyyyyyyy. Daaaaannnnn.'

'... Hmm?'

'D'ya wanna know who they all are...?' she indicated the rest of the room.

'I mean, it would be helpful...' I muttered.

She scoffed. 'Anyway, I'm Juliet, but everyone calls me Juls or Jup. I do the mini media loops. My friend here,' she indicated to the girl next to her, 'is Eri. Don't fucking touch her or I'll fuck you up.'

I nodded, wide eyed.

Juls continued to introduce the class to me, pointing at the dragon kid. 'That's Ace, though a lot of people call them Delta. The kid with them is Kyle. Everyone ships them.' Juls shrugged, and continued on to point to the kid with headphones. 'That's Dave. Don't tell him to relax or he'll freak out. The boy you see doodling is Jasper. He makes a lot of posters for us. He's reeeaaalll good at art.'

Billy suddenly called out, 'Sky, wake up. You sleep in class too much.'

'Yeah, Sky sleeps in class a lot, but they're really smart,' Juls continued. 'Always gives great feedback on our work too. The kid on the laptop is Skylar. Hardest working in the class. Always working on editing our school news videos. The girl texting over there is Nina. Apparently she leads a drug gang. It's true, but don't tell anyone I told you that. She's really in with the popular robotics kids as well. Finally, the two girls over there. You see the girl with the camera? That's Gem. Photographer; takes some great shots for us with her friend Mar. The pair are really in with the photography course as well. Not really sure why they took this course but they're good at it.

I nodded in acknowledgement. This was gonna be a fun year.