The Marked

First Day Of School Pt. 2

Coming to a stop on my bike, I watched from across the street as all the students milled about on the schoolyard. Scanning the crowd, I picked up on everyone's individual feelings. I could tell by the way a group of about four girls was peeking glances at Troy, a popular basketball player who was friendly with just about everyone and got good grades, that they were all talking about him. Furthermore, by the way they were all laughing and gently shoving one another, they were most likely trying to convince each other to work up the courage to go up and talk to him.

Troy was currently unaware of the attention he was getting, involved in a conversation with Riley, a fellow basketball player. They were both smiling, and at times laughing at something the other had said, so it was fairly easy to tell that they weren't nervous at all. They were probably even looking forward to getting back into school so they could hang out with their friends and play basketball.

Most people fell into two groups: the ones who seemed ready to start school, simply hanging out and talking with their friends as they waited for the bell to ring, and those who were staring up at the brick building with disdain at the thought of the coming school year.

I wasn't sure if I felt as strongly about school as those in the second group, but I certainly wasn't looking forward to today. Waiting for the cars to pass as parents dropped their kids off, I stood to the side of my bike, feeling like an onlooker when compared with my fellow classmates. I knew just as much, if not more, about these people by staying silent and listening to what others thought of them, rather than talking with them directly.

Being the quiet kid in class, it's so easy to hear things that other people don't mean for you to hear. If you fade into the background like I do, no one spares you a second thought when divulging their secrets to their friends. After all, do you worry about your desk hearing what you have to say? Or the walls of your classroom?

Seeing an opening in traffic, I quickly moved forward with my bike, running alongside it to cross the street and reach the school. Looking up once I reached the other side, I had to admit that the school building was quite impressive. It stretched out to nearly two blocks long, and stood almost fifty feet high. It was constructed out of bricks, but the inside had been renovated two years ago. They had completely replaced all of the drywall in the rooms, and fixed all of the wiring. In a sense, they had made it into a new school with the shell of the former one left on the outside. It held three stories, with six classrooms in each block.

Looking back towards the crowd of students, I tried to find the quickest route to the bike rack inside the cement walls that surrounded the school. There were only two ways to get in through these walls, and I was looking at the first one right now. It was an opening of about fifteen to twenty feet, and the second one is on the left wall (from where I'm standing, which is at the front of the school). It's big enough that two buses can pass side by side with room to spare. This is where those who rode the bus were dropped off at the beginning of school, and picked up at the end of the day.

No one had noticed me yet, but it wouldn't be long if I just stood here with my bike like I was lost. The thing was, I actually did  feel a little lost. With all these people here, I wasn't sure where to go or what to do. Deciding that I should just go put my bike in the rack and go from there, I made my way around all of the students, gliding past them like a silent ghost. The only good thing about crowds is that you can disappear into them, if you know how to.

That being said, the longer you don't fit in with the background, the more likely you are to get noticed. As I was the only person with a bike at the moment, I knew it would only be a few more seconds before I caught someone's attention. Hurrying to the rack, I quickly put my bike in a slot next to a purple and yellow one. Shaking my head at the vibrant splashes of color, I unlocked the small chain that I had locked around the pole of my seat.