How Typical

Chapter 4

Bas showed up to my house at about ten minutes to eight o'clock. Twenty minutes later, the two of us were getting out of his car and heading toward the main building of Burlington High School.

The campus was buzzing with friends reuniting from the summer and people trading schedules. Every so often, I could detect a freshman or two just trying to stay out of the way and figure out where all of their classes were. Freshmen are always so innocent at the beginning of the year. By the end, I usually hate them all.

The school had that atmosphere of prosperity and happiness that it always does on the first day of school. I shook my head, wondering why everyone always came into school with the idea that this would be the year that everything changes.

No. Things change when you make them change.

Bas and I were walking into the courtyard where all of the upperclassmen gathered. One of the many unofficial rules that we Burlington students abide by was the turf rule. Freshmen gathered outside of the main building, sophomores went to the gym, juniors and seniors came to the courtyard. It's just the way things happen.

Usually, I disliked the idea of students dictating how things happen, but this was one of the few student-set rules I liked. It kept population flow easy and most people have the majority of their friends in the same grade so, as far as I'm concerned, it was beneficial for everyone.

After walking around for a few minutes, we finally found Lia. She was talking to her theatre friends, probably already obsessing over the Fall Musical. When she saw us, she took a few moments to end her conversation and made her way over.

"Hey, guys!" she exclaimed, hugging each of us.

"Gosh, our school is so cliquey." I said looking around. My eyes roamed over all of the groups that had naturally formed around us.

First, I saw the cheer team. They were all attractive and all fairly dim-witted. At least I can say that the curriculum at Burlington is above average all around so our cheerleaders would probably be considered smart at another school. But not here- at least not to me.

Then there was dance team, enemy of the cheerleaders. They were congregated on the completely opposite side of the courtyard. Most of them were smart but they were also stuck up. I don't know if they're all individually like that but they're terrible people when they're all together.

Next, there were the AV kids. Bas was one of them. They're nice, but incredibly antisocial. They keep to themselves for the most part. Most of them are a lot like Sebastian, although Bas isn't nearly as socially awkward.

Lia was one of the theatre kids. They tend to be really weird but really nice. Honestly, that's about all I can say to characterize them as a whole. They're fairly different and all have other hobbies besides theatre considering there are only three shows a year.

There were the jocks, most of whom played varying sports, so they all just hung out together. Among them were the crew kids. They're pretty nice but I'm quite biased, being one of them. There were also the football heads, the soccer team, swim team, and the basketball team, who referred to themselves as the 'ballers'. Tyler was one of them. All of us jocks have good grades because there's a grade requirement to be on a team at our school.

Of course, I saw Tyler in that crowd.

I couldn't help but wonder how he was doing. He was in a pretty bad place when I left him yesterday. After having left yesterday, I decided I would tolerate him as long as he didn't completely brush me off.