Impress

Chapter 7: Little Kids

The three kids names were Jade, Evan, and Raven. Camilla had told me a little bit about them. They were friend with some of the people in her friend group, including herself. Raven was apparently really secretive and a little goth, though, she didn't look it. She wore big hoodies and jeans or jean shorts most of the time. Jade was tall. He had blond hair and blue eyes. In fact, he kind of looked like a male version of me. Evan was average height, but a little bit overweight, not much though. He had brown hair and seemed a bit childish from what I saw. To be fair, who was I to judge. I still watched cartoon network.

I needed to make a plan to get into their friend group. It was the weekend and on Monday, we would be able to eat outside and sit with people outside of our STING. Unless I wanted to sit with Camilla forever, I had to get friends to sit with. I could just walk up to them and say whatever comes to mind, but I'm not the best at improv. I mean, I did theater and we did improv all the time, but this was different. In theater, there are no real consequences, it's just an act. In the real world, if I messed this up, I could be friendless for the rest of the year. So, I had to map out exactly what to say. I wished that I could just make friends the way everyone did when they were little kids. You could just say, "Hey, want to be friends?" and that was it. They either said yes or no. If they said no, you'd ask another kid.

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I had to think of something that conveyed that I was kind of awkward but also chill and nice and fun. If the kids were as much like my old friend group as I thought they were, then awkward and chill were the perfect mixture.

On Sunday, I was couldn't fall asleep. I was rehearsing my line, as if my life was a play. Over and over again, I would say it in my head (and sometimes out loud, triggering a "shhhhh" from my sister's room). I was thinking about it all night.

I don't remember falling asleep that night, but I woke up to the sound of my alarm. I turned it off and counted to ten in my head before saying, "time to get up and be a functioning human being". I had that little routine for any day that I deemed really important. I got ready for school, ate breakfast, and ran to the bus stop, filled with adrenaline.

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Monday was also my first day of having all of my real classes. It was a Blue day. In our school schedule, there were blue and orange days. On blue days, I had PE first. Oh, joy. The gym teachers had us pick our lockers. They said we could choose them next to friends. Only one problem with that... I didn't have any yet. I saw the two girls from the group that I hadn't thought was very approachable. They were the only people who I thought I might eventually end up being friends with so I chose a locker near them. It wasn't right next to their lockers, it was a few lockers away, just in case we didn't become friends.

Everyone got changed and we headed into the gym. Because we only had our classes every other day at my new school, all of the periods were longer. That also meant that I had an hour and a half gym period. The first 30 minutes were spent doing conditioning, before we got to our actual activity. We were doing sprints that day. While I was waiting for my turn, a girl caught my eye. I recognized her from my STING and remembered her name was Jordan. Before then, I hadn't realized how pretty she was. It may have helped to see her being athletic and in short shorts. My heart fluttered. My first crush at my new school. Somehow, I was so out of it looking at her that I didn't realize that she was probably one of the straightest girls in the entire school.

After PE, I had Algebra with Mrs. Gale. As if I hadn't had enough of her from the past week. Mrs. Gale was not only a bad teacher, but from what Camilla told me, a bad person. Apparently she had an affair with a past principal of our school (the current principal at the time of the affair). The board found out and said that they either had to end the relationship or one of them had to quit. Mrs. Gale refused to quit, forcing the principal to. She and the former principal had a child. Note that the two were not yet married. Then, Mrs. Gale started to have feelings for the new principal, Mr. Gale. That's right, they got married. Mrs. Gale broke up with the other principal and took the child. Mr. Gale quit for the same reason as the first principal and every since then, Mrs. Gale has had a child and taken an extended maternity leave. So, yeah, kind of insane.

Anyways, our seats were assigned alphabetically. Since my last name was Masson, I was seated next to a boy named Oscar Lubian. I sat down and started to organize my things. I put my book, pencil pouch, phone, and computer in the slot under the desk. I was opening my binder when I saw a hand trying to reach into my slot. I looked up to see that the hand belonged to Oscar.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Practicing my thieving skills" he responded.

"What?" I chuckled. "Clearly you're not very good if I caught you."

"You'll see..."

Mrs. Gale started to take attendance so we both shut up. Class went on for a while, but then we were told to work silently on a portion of our worksheet. I went to grab my pencil. It wasn't on my desk. I reached into the slot under my desk to get my pencil pouch. It wasn't there. I turned to Oscar.

I whispered, "Okay, I'll admit that was pretty good, but give me my pencils back."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes you do."

"I swear I don't have your pencils." Oscar smirked.

"Okay, fine." I grumbled. I looked around the room. There was a bookshelf behind our desks. I turned around to see my pencil pouch hidden between two books. I looked at Oscar. He was chuckling. I got out a pencil and started working. I finished before Oscar and noticed that he was pretty focused on his work. I slipped my hand under desk and grabbed his phone. I put it in my pocket. He finished his work a few minutes later. The bell rang and I handed him his phone. He looked at me with wide eyes before giving me a respectful nod and taking his phone back. I was so wrapped up in my master plan that I almost forgot. After algebra was lunch.