I am Human Too

Chapter One: The Brainiac

          Some say that high school is the greatest years of one's life, and others say that the best years of one's life is during college. Hi I'm Penny and I can for sure tell you that whoever said high school was the best years of your life is a pathological liar. I'm a sophomore at Gregson High School East a school in virtually nowhere land. We do have a rival school Gregson High School North. But it is literally nowhere land here.

I have a fair number of friends. I'm not the most popular in the school, but I manage to get by with those in my circle. You see I am that kid who is smart enough to skip grades and get to graduate early. This makes me the go to person when those who have issues in academia need their homework checked over or need tutoring. I didn't ask to be academically skilled or to have a brain that can literally retain anything. I just do and it can be overwhelming at times. How can it be overwhelming you ask? Well that's simple, many people often take advantage of my knowledge and I often find myself in the bathrooms crying do to being bullied just for having smarts.

Being bullied for something you virtually have no control over can be unbearable. Like I said I'm only a sophomore and I can attest that High School is literally hell on earth. Kids are mean and you have to live through it every day. Welcome to my life. I am human too, people just tend to forget that.

"Penelope! Let's go you're going to be late!" Susan called from the bottom of the stairs.

Upstairs meanwhile Penelope or Penny as she prefers to be called groans as she gets out of bed after seeing the time read 6:15AM. It was Monday morning in mid-October a month and a half into the school year and Penny was already counting down until the next extend break.

It took Penny twenty-five minutes to get ready before going downstairs to get a bowl of cereal. Her mother Susan a real estate agent smiled at her teenage daughter as she read the latest crisis in the Morning Times the local newspaper.

"Don't forget that Mr Erickson down the street asked for you to help him with yardwork after school for an hour" Susan reminded Penny

"I know. Okay I'm off to hell.....I mean school. Bye!" Penny said grabbing her bookbag and going out of the house and to the bus stop.

"Oh look who it is. The Brainiac." Sneered Walter Danielson "Hey Penny do my homework for me. You know how Jones gets if you don't have your work done when it's due."

Penny just ignored him as best as she could. Just another day she just hoped that today would be slightly better than Friday when she was given a swirly for denying doing people's work for them. What was Penny thinking, school is hell she knew she wasn't going to get what she wanted.

The first bell rang the same time every day. 7:25AM time, Penny ventured with the other students to homeroom something Penny thinks is extremely pointless. It's 20 minutes of nothing. Just boredom. Luckily Penny's best friend since kindergarten Sierra was in the same homeroom, the girls often used the 20 minutes to catch up and compare homework.

"Pen, no matter how much I go over my notes or even get help from you, nothing will get me ready for this god awful algebra test! I'm definitely going to fail and then my mom will freak out on me." Sierra said with what Penny thought was said without taking a proper breath in between speaking.

"Sierra chill out you'll be fine!! You are seriously working yourself up for absolutely nothing." Penny told her "Besides you have Fairway as your teacher. Everyone knows how easy he is on tests. You got this. Trust me. I am the Brainiac aren't I?"

As Penny walked to her first period of the day, Honors US History, she was stopped by two of the school's most popular and in Penny's opinion most ditsy girls. Both sophomore's and on the cheerleading team. Penny just smiled and continued walking as she often does just to ignore all the negativity that seems to follow her for something she has zero control over. It was obvious that the two cheerleaders knew that Penny was ignoring them so they continued to follow her until she reached the second floor where her class was.

Penny turned around "what the hell do you two dunderheads want?" annoyance clear in her voice. "Oh you know we have reports due like Thursday and we need you to write them" the head of the two girls Veronica declared sounding like she was above everyone else "Yeah what Veronica said. Do it now Brainiac or we'll have Liam and the team give you another swirly or even worse" Elliana the quieter one threatened making Veronica snicker. Penny huffed in annoyance and walked into her lesson.

As the two girls were walking away, Penny heard them and sighed "I'm really going to get it this time" she thought as she sat down in her seat and pulled out her materials as her teacher Ms Jennerson began the class. Throughout the lesson it was tough for Penny to focus as she couldn't get the threat out of her head made by Veronica and Elliana and to Penny's embarrassment, Ms Jennerson noticed.

"Penny? Care to enlighten us about the Civil War?" Ms Jennerson asked immediately pulling Penny out of her thoughts "Sorry ummm yeah so basically the Civil War divided our nation confederate and union." Penny said biting her lip "Good, try and focus more please" Ms Jennerson said softly before she continued the lecture on the Civil War.

To say Penny was relieved that first period was over was an understatement. She loved history but now a day her mind was running ten miles a minute with everything going on and the threat from Veronica and Elliana replaying over and over in her head. Penny wanted to run but knew that skipping class would go on her perfect record and she did not want that to be ruined because of some kids decided it was cool to bully her. With that mentality running through her head, Penny went to meet Sierra for their ceramics class. A class Penny often found relaxing as she liked sculpting and learning about different textures. For at least forty-five minutes, Penny could get lost in the molds of clay and paint.