Bad Reputation

Bad Reputation (1)

Chapter 1

The Supreme Academy of John Albert Robinson was a magnificent building. Located half an hour drive from the city center, it had a large campus. The green fields littered with the occasional picnic tables reaching all the way down to the water.

And in the middle of it all stood my school. It was a large brick building, painted white. The roof was made of black granite and it stood tall, four stories up in the air.

It used to be the home of the Robinson Family up until 1867 when John Albert Robinson turned it into a boarding school for the rich and successful. Renovated in 1958 and opened again as a normal, private high school, where I now attended.

Although the interior of the school had changed completely fifty years ago, the principles of the school remained the same. This is where you went it you wanted to amount to something. Most men and women who graduated from this academy turned into world-famous lawyers, doctors or politicians.

Those were the most common jobs to take after graduation here.

Most students were legacies. Their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents had attended this school before them.

It was a prestigious academy, with strict rules and serious students.

My name is Melissa Miller, daughter of the national-known politician Robert Miller – who was running for mayor in the next election – and Lydia Miller, the best lawyer in this state.

Both of them attended the Supreme Academy of John Albert Robinson when they were teenagers, it was only normal for their only daughter to go there.

And I loved it.

I had friends here who wanted the same as I did. It was nothing like my public junior high where the only ones who wanted to achieve something was me and my best friend, Reagan Hill.

Most students here took school seriously. We respected our teachers, and didn’t break the rules. If, by any chance you did break the rules, it counted as social suicide around here. But that would never be a danger to me.

As I said, my best friend was Reagan Hill. While I did have the highest GPA in my senior class, Reagan was the student body president. Elected first in our sophomore year – as the first sophomore ever – she has had that position for two and a half years. And with that title, followed respect to her and her closest friends. My social life here at the Supreme Academy of John Albert Robinson was secured by that title.

But how did I know that not following the rules led to social suicide?

Well, we had those who didn’t care about school or their education.

Not many, but we did have a few of them.

They acted out in our first week of freshmen year, and well… They were never accepted again.

Reagan made sure of that. She didn’t want any slackers in this school, but the only thing she could do was make sure they couldn’t influence other students with their bad habits.

I only knew the name of one of them.

Riley Lewis, the only one of them who basked in the attention she got from her inappropriate behavior.

At least, she was the only one of them I noticed.

She liked getting attention for her bad attitude, while the others seemed happy just skulking in the shadows.

Riley Lewis was the girl most around here loved to hate, but still feared.

She drove a motorcycle. She smoked cigarettes and maybe something more. She drank alcohol – which was highly inappropriate in my eyes – and she had no respect for other human beings.