Altea High

Chapter 1: First Day of School (9/6/17)

Katie Holt stepped up to the large gathering of people on the corner of the street. With her oversized green jacket, shorts, and large round glasses, she knew she was going to be targeted by other kids. First day of high school.

Her nervousness was not helped by the fact that she was worried people would find out she was the physics teacher's little sister. She had already talked it over with him, and he said it would be okay if she used an alias and went to school on the bus (instead of carpooling with he and his boyfriend, Takashi). He said he would talk it over and have all the teachers pretend that she was not, in fact, related to Matt Holt. Katie sighed. It was still going to be a long year, either way.

To her surprise, though, nobody made fun of her at the bus stop. Granted, they didn't acknowledge her existence, but, to Katie, neutrality was better than negativity. As the bus pulled up, Katie hung her head down and walked on. As soon as she got past the driver, however, she craned her neck, looking for other freshman.

"Hey! You!" Katie whipped her head around. An older boy, who looked like a senior, was waving her over, patting her seat. Katie gulped, but sat down next to him anyway.

"Hi," she said, pulling out her phone to find solace in the glowing screen. The boy didn't stop, though.

"You a new freshman? What's your name? I'm Hunk, by the way. It's my last year at this school, and I am going to miss it quite a bit."

"Hey Hunk. I'm Ka- Pidge. Pidge Gunderson."

"Nice to meet you, Pidge. Can I introduce you to my friends?"

Katie looked confused. This was probably where Hunk's facade was going to end, where they would prank her and laugh at her and find out that she was a Holt, but, against her instincts, nodded her head.

"Cool. It's gonna have to wait though, they take another bus. So what classes do you have this year?"

"Well-uh. I'm actually taking mostly sophomore classes because my middle school allowed us to do freshman courses in eighth grade."

"They let you guys do that over at old Kennedy Glenn Middle now?"

"Oh, no. I just moved here over the summer. My brother works around here, so we moved to get closer to his job."

"Is your brother a senior or something?"

"No. He's almost thirty. I've lived with him since he graduated college."

"That's super cool! I wish I had an older brother to live with."

Pidge smiled. A genuine smile. She was so happy she had made a friend already, and he was a senior. Maybe this year, at least, wasn't going to be so bad?

"So hey, who do you have this year?"

"Well. I have Allura King for English first period, then gym second period, that says 'unsupervised', then Mindy Ryner for Algebra II third period, then I have lunch fourth period, then Takashi Shirogane for APUSH, Lubos Tatasciore, for my elective, robotics, Nyma Chabert for language studies, and lastly, Matt Holt for physics last period."

"That's really cool! We're in the same elective! Other than Lubos, I've had all of those teachers except one, Mr. Holt, but I have him for AP physics second period. You have a pretty similar schedule as my friends, though. They're both sophomores."

"You've never had Mr. Holt? Why not?" Katie feigned confusion, as she knew exactly why the senior had never had him.

"This is only his second year. I've heard pretty good things about him, but I took physics two years ago, so I haven't had him until this year."