The Little Hansen

Firt Day (continued)

"Ok let's start with Haley Chin," the teacher said and looked up to see a small Asian girl stand up and walk up to the front. "Tell is a bit about yourself."

The girl talked for a good five minutes.

"Thank you," the teacher said before looking down at the paper. "Elizabeth Hansen. You're up next."

I just sat there in my seat for a few seconds, everyone looking around the room. Zoe motions for me to stand up. I rise out of my chair slowly and slowly walk to the front of the classroom.

"You may begin," the teacher says and looks at me.

Everyone is looking at me and I just freeze. I don't say anything. I look at Zoe who is a few feet diagonally behind me. I don't know why I looked at her. For help I guess. I'm mean she doesn't know anything about me so she can't help. But she does. She steps forward.

"This is Elizabeth Hansen," Zoe starts. "Her brother is Evan Hansen?" She looks at me and I nod. "She's 14," She does the same thing and I nod again. "As you know she's a freshman and she clearly likes jazz band. I saw her at the concert last year with her older brother."

Some kid sitting in the middle throws a crumpled up pit of paper at me. "She can't even talk. How is she supposed to preform?" He laughs.

A tear rolls down my cheek. Zoe looks at me and starts walking outside of the classroom, gently holding my arm.

The teacher watches us leave and calls the next student as Zoe closes the door.

We stand outside the classroom and she turns me to face her and looks me in the eye. She wipes the tears off my face.

"You ok?" She asks.

I answer with a shrug. She's already helped me a lot and I can't even mumble anything to her.

"It's fine. High school's rough. You'll get used to it. I promise. If you need help come find me," she pauses. "Hey isn't your locker right next to mine?"

I nod.

"Cool. Talk, or um, come see me whenever you need help. What instrument are you playing, or hoping to play?"

"Guitar," I mumble barely loud enough for her to hear.

"I play guitar for my jazz band. Do you have one yet?"

I shake my head.

"Here," she hands me her phone. "Type what you want to say into this and it will read it aloud."

"I want to play guitar but I can't afford one," the phone says after I type.

"I have my old one you can have. I'll bring it to school tomorrow."

I nod and hand her back her phone. We walk back into class and she sits next to me in the back as we listen to people talk about themselves.

Finally the bell rings and I grab my bag and start to leave.

"Come find me if you need anything. Ok?" Zoe says.

I nod and walk off to my next class.

After more classes and teachers talking about what the school year is gunna be like it's time for lunch.

I'm pushed into the cafeteria by all the other students eager to get to lunch. I find an empty table and sit down and within a minute Evan sits down across from me.

"How's your dad been so far?" He asks.

I shrug.

He immediately knew something was wrong. "What happened?"

"Well our teacher made us give presentations about ourselves in jazz band," I'm mumble.

"You got into jazz band? How cool," he doesn't reply to what I said. "How are you gunna get an instrument? You know we can't afford one."

"Zoe Murphy is giving me her old guitar," I said looking up from my food.

Evan blushes at the mention of her name. "That's great," he says.

Zoe walks over to our table. She smiles at me then turns to Evan. "Hey I'm sorry about my brother. I saw him push you earlier. He's a psychopath. Evan, right?" She says.

"Evan?" Evan responds making me giggle.

"That's your name..." Zoe says.

"Oh. Yes. Evan. It's Evan. Sorry"

"Why are you sorry?"

"Well, just because you said, Evan, and then I said, I repeated it, which is, that's so annoying when people do that," Evan rambled.

"I'm Zoe," Zoe holds out her hand out to shake.

"No," Evan reaches his hand out to her's, "I know," he takes his hand away from her's and wipes it on his shirt like it's sweaty, even though it's not.

"You know?"

"No, just, I've seen you play guitar in jazz band. I love jazz band. I love jazz. Not all jazz. But definitely jazz band jazz. That's so weird, I'm sorry."

"You apologize a lot."

"I'm sorry," he catches himself. "Or. I mean. You know what I mean."

"Well, I'll talk to you later."

"You don't want to sign my...?" Evan says in the middle of her speaking.

"What?"

"What. What did you say?"

"I didn't say anything. You said something," Zoe said confused.

"No. Me? No way," he paused. "José."

"Um. Ok...José," and with that Zoe left and I started laughing.

"What are you laughing at?" Evan asks playfully.

"N-nothing," I say, controlling my laughter.

Soon the bell rings to signal lunch is over. And a long while after that the school day ends.

I wait outside the front of the school while I wait for Mom; Evan's in the computer lab. I wait ten minutes and my mom hasn't shown up yet. She had scheduled a therapy appointment for Evan and I after school.

Soon Evan came out of the school on the phone. He hung up once he reached me.

"Mom has to take another shift so we don't have our appointment and we have to walk home or take the bus if it hasn't left yet. She won't be home till late," Evan said.

The bus hadn't left yet so we hopped on a ride home.

When we got home Evan went to his room and I went to mine. The night went like most nights when we were home alone. We didn't order dinner.

The next few days were a lot like the first day minus presentations about yourself, and Connor and Zoe haven't been at school.