Green Day Jr.

"Jakey look at the camera!" I heard my mom say from the living room. I rolled my eyes and continued packing my lunch. I had long ago grown out of first day of school picture day.

I'm 14. My parents are busy taking pictures of my little brother Jakob, who is 11. It's his first day of 6th grade. However, it's my first official day of high school. No one cares, of course.

My parents have been really busy recently. My dad is Billie Joe Armstrong from Green Day. I hate it. He's never around. And when he is, he's spending time with his little perfect son. Not me, of course.

I packed my lunch in my bag and went to the door, but a voice stopped me. "Joey." I span around.

"What do you want dad?" I asked, and he came over and pulled me into a hug.

"Good luck today." I nodded and left the house, climbing onto the school bus.

The first person I saw was Ramona, and I avoided her eyes and shuffled to the back of the bus.

Ramona Wright was my dad's best friends daughter. So, the drummer from Green Day's daughter. I had been her best friend for most of our lives, but as the teenage hormones kicked in, girl/boy friendships were kicked out.

We hardly spoke now.

I sat down next to Cole, my other best friend. I had met him fairly recently, but he was cool. He grabbed his bag pack and pulled his schedule out and we compared.

"Awesome, we have the same lessons, basically." I nodded and smiled. Maybe this wouldn't be too bad.

Pulling up at the school, I got off the bus confidently.

Our school kinda sucked. But we had a system, if you see someone who is older than you, don't talk to them. This way, none of the younger kids got picked on and none of the older kids got bothered. To make it worse, our school was huge. You joined in kindergarten and left as a senior.

Walking to class with Cole, I tried to tune out of what he was saying.

"...So I was thinking we could just use your dad's studio and record it.." I blinked.

"Wait, what?"

"The album. We should make an album." Cole said.

"Ha, no. No way."

"Aw c'mon Joey, you could play drums. And I could play the guitar." I ignored him and went into our first class, English.

The whole of English was just Cole talking about how we could make an album and 'it would be great'.

"Do you ever shut up? God damn." I muttered, packing my stuff into my bag as the bell went.

"But please! It would be so easy, saying as your dad's famous!" Cole exclaimed, his face dropping when he realised. "No.. I didn't mean-"

"I know exactly what you meant. Using my dad and his band as a way to get famous is real low." I swung my bag on and stormed out to my next class, leaving Cole standing there.

My second class was math. Joy.

I slumped into my seat and avoided Cole's eyes from across the room, but a voice made me look up.

"Hi Joey.. Can I sit next to you?" Ramona asked. I nodded, unable to speak. Things were awkward now that we weren't friends.

She sat down and got her pencil case out, neatly organising it on the desk. I watched her before pulling a pen out of my bag and setting it on the desk too.

"So.. How's your dad?"

I smiled slightly. One thing we could always relate over: Dad's.

"He's okay I guess. Kinda stressed, but yeah. How about yours?" I asked, and she shrugged.

"Single again. Lauren walked out. Said she couldn't deal with him anymore."

"Oh. That sucks. Tell him I'm sorry and stuff."

"I will. Do you get any of this math stuff?"

"I do, actually."

Having a conversation with someone who understood was nice. Ramona got me, she gets the whole famous dad thing. She told me when she was 7 that everyone always expects her to be funny, because of Tré. I'd told her that I thought she was funny anyway.

I spent most of the day with Ramona, ignoring Cole. His fault for not keeping his mouth shut.

On the bus, Ramona and I sat together.

"Hey, Joey? Is it okay if I come over tonight? I need help with the math homework."

"Yeah sure. Just come over whenever."

Another nice thing about being friends with Ramona, she could come over and I didn't have to worry about her saying anything about my dad, or where we lived. She got it.

When I got in, said father of mine was watching the TV. I walked straight past him and to my room, like usual. And he didn't bother to call of me or ask me how my first day went, as usual.