Off The Trail

CHAPTER TWO: **Grand Water Middle School**

Connie got up the next morning just in time breakfast. "I made bacon, pancakes, and fried eggs," said Mrs. Ilwaco.

"Thanks Mom you're the best," said Connie with her mouth full. Mrs. Ilwaco made the most delicious bacon in the entire world. It wasn't floopy bacon but it wasn't burnt either it was perfectly crisp. Crisp in the way that the bacon fat just melts right in your mouth. Even if they weren't the best pancakes in the entire world, Connie still loved her mothers pancakes. But Connie loves all pancakes so she isn't the best judge. Mrs. Ilwaco put choclatechips in her pancakes and always left whipped cream, butter, maple syrup, and hazel nut chocolet spread on the table as topping options. Connie loaded her plate high with food and quickly ate it all too. "Bye Mom, I gotta catch the bus," she called as she went out the door and ran to the school pick up zone.

As Connie approched the pick up zone the bus pulled up and its doors opend wide to collect her and the other kids in her neighborhood. "Wow Connie," said Mrs. Tea, "You and that watch of yours could get anywhere at any time."

Connie laughed. "Mrs. Tea, you sure are one bussy lady. Driving buses day and night,"

"What can I say, I love me job Connie."

Connie smiled and sat down near the front of the bus. She placed her backpack beside her to save the spot for Jeane who got picked up a little later. Connies neighborhood was always the first to get picked up for school so she had a lot of time to just sit and relax before class started. Normally she would take a short nap until Jeane got there, catch up on some homework, read a book, or eat a snack but today she just looked out the window. Grand Water, Washington was truely a beautiful town. The buildings were all small and neatly made and you could see the ocean from the main road. The towns tourist season had just ended with the school year now in sesion and that was how Connie liked it best. She always thought it strange that a bunch of random people would crowd her small ocean town, and she didn't like the feeling of not knowing the people she saw walking on the streets. Now Grand Water was calm and quiet again, and the people could relax and enjoy the cool ocean breeze.

When the bus stopped again Jeane and her sister Anne walked on. Jeane pushed Connies bag off of the seat and sat down, while Anna went further down the bus to sit with her other sixth grade friends. "Isn't it weird," said Jeane, "that Anna is now going to the same school as us?"

"Yeah but only for one year until were juniors in highschool." answered Connie.

The bus drove on until it picked up the last student and took them all to Grand Water Middle School. Before entering Connie and Jeane stopped to look at the building again. "This is it," said Connie, "Our last year at Grand Water Middle School. Do you think it will be fun, so far it's been alright?"

"Fun? No way, but we can get through it. At least I think we can get through it. Next year Danny will be going here."

"Yeah and next year we will finally get out of here. They just remodled the highschool and it just looks so pretty now, I wish the middle school looked half as good. But we can't get too far ahead of ourselves its only the secound week of school."

"Yeah but I'm ready for it to be the last."

The girls walked in and headed to their first periode class, English 8. English class was hard, the teacher was strict and had a crazy tough grading system. Connie sat in the veary back row of the classroom as the other twelve of her classmates came in. Grand Water was a very small town with not a lot of families that still had school aged children so Grand Water Middle School was a very small school with only thirteen kids in the eighth grade. The teacher, Mrs. Rex, came in and told every one to start reading on page one-hundred-seventy-three, the chapter in their grammar book about semicolons and when to use them. "Your homework will be to find a sentence from your favorite book that uses a semicolon. Write out the sentence in your notebook and then illistrate what it says. Make sure you add color or you won't get full credit," said Mrs Rex.

Connie put her hand up but even before she was called on she started to speak, "Mrs. Rex, why do we have to draw pictures and add color? I don't think that will teach us anything about English."

"You add color so I can tell you care about and take pride in your work," answerd Mrs Rex.

Connie frownd and muttered, "I think I walked into the wrong class, I didn't sign up for art first periode," under her breath.

"What was that Connie?" Asked Mrs. Rex

"Nothing."

"That's what I thought."

Connie went about the rest of her day still a little frustraited that she had to do artsy stuff for a class that is not art. Until science class, Mrs. Aqua is one of Connies favorite teachers. She is tall and beautiful with long blonde hair and blue eyes. Her eyes were not a bright color, but more of a dull or even dusty blue. Mrs. Aqua had intersting classes and she taught her students lots of different things and Connie really enjoyed science class. Mrs. Aqua was also the Grand Water Middle School basketball coach. Connie loved having her as a coach, and Mrs. Aqua really helped her improve her skills and keep her calm when the games got intense. In science they all learned about the differnet cells in plants and what they do, Connie didn't love cells but Mrs. Aqua made them fun.

The rest of the week of school was pretty similar to Monday, with Mrs. Rex's annoying assignments and Mrs. Aqua's wonderful classes. But because labor day was coming up Connie and Jeane had no school that friday or the next monday, meaning it was time to get prepared for the Ilwaco-Walters anual camping trip. After school on thursday Connie rushed home to start packing up. She layed out everything she would need for the adventure ahead of her. She packed five shirts, three pares of pants, toothbrush, toothpaste, flawce, hair brush, a new pack of hair ties, deoderant, a survival book she found at a thrift store, and more. After checking and re-checking if she was satisfied with what she had layed out to bring, she put it all in her duffelbag and went to sleep. Tommorow was the start of an adventure she would never forget.