Kirkland Academy- Interracial Fiction

Kirkland Academy

Chapter 1

Tia Campbell hurried down the corridors of Kirkland Academy. She checked her watch then let out a frustrated breath. She would be late to her first class of the day if she didn't pick up her pace. The problem still remained; she had no idea if she was even headed in the right direction. The elite private school was a huge labyrinth of a building, and Tia still hadn't worked out the rooms' location. Was she even on the right floor? Was she in the right building? Everything and everyone here seemed to be blending into one clouded picture.

Much like it had so many times over the past month, frustration and sadness threatened to overwhelm Tia. She took a deep breath, and then looked to her schedule again. She needed to get to Room 158 B for her Honors American History class, as she chased the ever-increasing class numbers down the hall; she reached room 140, before hitting a dead end. The student assigned to help her navigate classes, had only been obligated to do so for the first two days, and had not bothered to extend her the courtesy of anymore than she had been mandated to.

Tia wanted to curse the girl, a stocky brunette named Heather, but she couldn't fault the girl. At a place like Kirkland Academy, Heather had enough of her own problems without Tia attracting unwanted attention toward her. The more popular girls in school, had "accidentally" bumped into Heather, sending her books flying to the ground on the first day of classes while she showed Tia around. One of the girls had made a comment to Heather, accusing her of finding the one person "weirder" than herself to hang around with. Tia knew right then that Heather would want to get as far away from her as possible.

Being on scholarship at the elite school made Heather an easy target for the popular girls at their school. Heather's weight was exploited just as easily by the super thin and ultra mean girls who ruled Kirkland Academy with an iron fist. Tia knew that befriending the new, weird, black girl was more of a hit to Heather's social standing than she could stand. As much as she wanted to blame Heather for her lack of help and her senseless wondering, Tia knew who was really at fault and she felt helpless as she retraced her path.

Kirkland Academy was one of the best schools in the state, and easily one of the best in the Nation. Its Hollywood zip code made the school notorious. The students were almost exclusively the children of producers, politicians, and A-list actors. The children of the wealthy and fabulous ruled the school just as their parents ruled the world. The "charitable donations" their parents gave out so easily to the school ensured that there was not much that anyone in the administration could do to change the behavior of the privileged children of Kirkland Academy.

Kirkland prided itself on its scholarship program, which brought up the school's diversity requirements, and allowed the school to present itself as a beacon of economic and racial peace. Tia's father had been drawn in by the lure of those words, but she was greeted by a drastically different reality inside of the school.

Tia immediately noticed that the black and brown kids stuck together in their own cliques, hoping to avoid attracting too much attention from the largely white student body. There were black athletes, who were well liked by the students, but the lines of separation in diversity were clearly defined. The minority athletes brought prominence and were the toast of the school, but when it came to who could get away with misbehavior, the lines that privileged students could cross, were well out of bounds for those who came from more humble backgrounds.

Tia looked around for an exit. She wanted to go home. Not just to the mansion she'd been living in for the past few months, but back to her real home in Chicago. Tia let out a small bark of laughter. If she couldn't find her class, there was no way she could find her way out of the building and back to Chicago.

Just as she was giving up any hopes of punctuality, Tia noticed a familiar tattered messenger bag from her first period class. She had been day-dreaming in class on the first day, and spotted the cartoons that the guy who sat diagonally ahead of her had drawn all over the canvas bag in permanent marker. In a school where every other bag seemed to be designer with a price to match, the simple and worn-in bag made her look twice. Tia decided to hang back and follow the familiar bag, hoping it would lead her to her destination. Tia wanted to ask him how to get there, but, she stopped short when she realized that the conversation he was having was with the girl who'd pushed the books from her escort's hands the day before. If that didn't give her enough of a reason to run in another direction, two of them seemed to be arguing about something by the looks of tension marring their faces. The boy's hands were balled into angry fists as he argued in harsh whispers with the girl. Tia had not made any friends in her first days, but she had made an enemy in the girl.