Unknown Name

I wake up to a familiar kiss on my cheek though it’s probably not what you’ve got in your mind. My dog Lucky is licking my cheek until I sit up, which she takes as permission to climb onto my lap. I shove her off onto my bed, give her a quick scratch on her head and then swing my legs over the side of my bed. Smelling pancakes being made in the kitchen, I hurry out of my bedroom with Lucky on my heels in the search for food.

 As I walk into the kitchen my mum looks up from the cooking pancakes on the stove. “Hi sweetie” she greets me and then seeing Lucky by my side tacks on “hey Luck”. I glance at the pancakes questioningly and wander to the fridge, “you hungry?” mum asks. “Starving” I tell her from inside the fridge “but what’s the occasion?” I ask as I sit at the bench with a punnet of strawberries, mum didn’t make pancakes very often so this was suspicious. “Can’t I make pancakes for my daughter?” she looks up from the pancakes, I raise an eyebrow and she caves. “I have to go away again this weekend but I feel bad leaving you” she admits, “mum its fine I am an adult after all am I not?” I assure her. “Well…” she trails off, “hey!” I throw a strawberry at her and she sticks her hand out just in time for it to land in her palm. I conclude that she must either know me too well or have seen the flying strawberry in her peripheral vision. Either way she gives me a sly glance as she turns back to the stove, “nice try” she comments as she pops the strawberry in her mouth. I grumble under my breath and cast my gaze down at the bench to see a plate of pancakes being pushed into view, I smile as I look up at mum and she looks pleased with herself. I feel my own smile widen to match hers, it’s nice to see my mum happy. “Now eat up or you’ll be late for your first day of year 12” she tries to be stern but when I look up again she’s still smiling to herself like the Cheshire cat.

After breakfast I put my dishes in the dishwasher and the leftover strawberries back in the fridge. I throw my uniform on and brush my teeth, I attempt to do my hair nice but end up just running brush through it and pushing it back with a headband. I look at myself in the mirror then sigh because all I can do is look average at best. After a moment of moping I look at the mirror again, lift my head up and say to myself “This is my year to be beautiful”. I smile as I walk out of my room until I look at my watch. I run down the hall pulling my shoes on as I go, grab my lunch from mum as she holds it up then hugs me and haul my bag out the door to my car. I wave to mum as I back out of the driveway and head off to school.

My school is your basic, stereotypical high school. There’s always the very clearly defined groups; the nerds, the ‘popular group’, the arts students, the athletes and so on. Just because there’s always groups doesn’t mean everyone fits into a specific clique. Like me for example, I’m not saying I don’t have friends, I do but I don’t have a ‘group’ necessarily. I have my friends but I wouldn’t say that we’re a ‘group’ at least not a group in the sense everyone else is, we’re just people who hang out together whereas others call themselves a ‘group’. My group consists of my 6 friends and myself. There’s Laurel (she’s the ‘sort-of’ athlete of the group), Katelyn (she’s our resident do-gooder), Vanessa (we call her Ness or Nessie, she’s a bit of hippie and the group peace-keeper), Natasha (all I’m going to say about Tash is she shops… a lot, her parents are rich if that explains it better) and finally there's Piper (Pip is the one with the humour though no one outside our group seems to get it). So judging from my friends you can probably tell we’re a bit of a mix, and from the company I keep I’m guessing you have an image of me in your mind. But I’m not the sort of girl that you or anyone else may be lead to believe. In your mind you may have quirky, weird or something along those lines but to quote Hazel Grace (from ‘The Fault In Our Stars’ by John Green) “I am quite un-extraordinary”. Unfortunately for me I do not have an Augustus Waters to tell me otherwise so I remain with that statement. Okay so back to school…