Impress

Chapter 8: Pacing

I dropped my stuff off in my locker and ran towards the cafeteria. Unless I wanted to wait in a really long lunch line, I needed to hurry. I got to the line and picked up my food. Starting that week, students could eat their lunch outside. I headed towards where I had last seen Jade, Evan, and Raven - the playground. Sure enough, they were sitting on the spider web. The spider web was basically a net of ropes that were supposed to be used for climbing. No one used the playground for actually playing, though. We were high schoolers.

Anyways, I saw them. I was about 20 or 30 feet away. They weren't looking at me. Well, I mean why would they? They didn't know me... yet. I tried to take a step forward. My body wouldn't let me. My foot was glued to the ground. I tried to take a step to the side. It worked. I moved. I once again tried to move forward. No luck. All of a sudden my stomach fell to my feet. Because I could only convince my body to move to the side, I paced back and forth. I did this for a good five minutes, trying to psych myself up.

Finally, I remembered something that Asher had said to me,"Don't try to impress anybody".

While pacing I muttered it three times to myself. "Don't try to impress anybody. Don't try to impress anybody. Don't try to impress anybody." I took a step forward. Then another. And another until I reached the spider web. I was close enough now that all three of them were looking at me. I looked at Jade. He seemed the most approachable.

I directed my little speech at him, "Hey, I'm Olivia, the awkward new kid, and I was wondering if I could hang out with you guys." I sighed with relief before adding, "Man, that is the most outgoing I've ever been I'm my life."

Jade smiled before saying, "I'm pretty sure you just accurately described all of us" He laughed. I sat down next to him on the web. The rest of lunch was pretty uneventful. The tree of them had conversations with me sort of just listening in. Although, I wasn't really paying that much attention. My mind was swirling questions and mental pats on the back.

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After lunch was over, I went to my next class, Civics. I got into the classroom only to see Jade sitting in a seat towards the back of the room. I started to head back there to sit next to him when I noticed little sheets of paper on the desks. I stopped to look at one of them. Andrew. There were names on the desks, which could only mean assigned seats. There went my chance to get any closer to Jade. I found my name on a desk between a Megan and Dan. I sat down. Soon enough, both the seats next to me were filled. Class went by quickly. Civics was interesting and the teacher, Mrs. Boman was really nice. The bell rang and I reached for my pencil pouch. I pulled out my schedule and looked for 4th period. I had Language Arts next. I got up and started to head towards the classroom when I realized that I had study hall before my last class. Great. More quality time with Mrs. Gale.

I got into study hall and sat down next to Camilla. She opened her school computer and went to Chrome. I pulled out my book. Since I didn't have any homework, I had planned on reading.

About a minute later, Camilla tapped me on the shoulder and whispered, "Do you want to watch with me?" She held out one of her earbuds. I looked at her screen. She was on Youtube and the video pulled up was called vines that really butter my eggroll. I smiled and took the earbud. For the rest of study hall, there was muffled laughter heard from our corner of the room.

The bell rang and I packed up my stuff. Too bad study hall was only 20 minutes. I handed Camilla her earbud back. We both said see ya later and then headed to our next classes.

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The walk to Language Arts seemed longer than other classes. Probably because it was. For some reason, all of my classes were in one hallway except for Language Arts. When I finally arrived, I saw a teacher with abnormally large hips and a classroom full of tables. Not desks. Tables. What was this, elementary school? I mean, at least we got to pick where we sat. I looked for any empty seats. Any chair that didn't have a person in it was fine by me. Especially because I didn't have any friends yet. There were three open seats. One next to Dan, who I sort of knew from Civics, one next to someone I didn't know, and the last next to- no way! It couldn't have been. Jade! How hadn't I seen him immediately? I walked towards the empty seat next to him. As I got closer I realized that his hat had thrown me off. He wasn't wearing it last class.

I sat down next to him and the last two people found their seats. The teacher started off by having us do introductions around the room. Pretty standard stuff. You'd say your name and something you like to do. When we were done with that, she said to get out a piece of paper. I took one out of my binder.

Jade must have seen that I had plenty of paper because he leaned over and asked, "Hey do have a piece of paper I could use?" I nodded and handed him a sheet.

"The world today has a lot of closed minded people." Ms. Rovin started. "A lot of people have certain prejudices. I've created a little exercise to see how growing up in this world has affected your minds." Okay, it sounded really creepy, but the exercise was pretty simple. We had to draw a picture of a doctor on our paper. When I finished, I turned to Jade and we met each other's eyes. I raised my eyebrows and gave him a questioning look (referring to the exercise). He shrugged back. Ms. Rovin asked if everyone was finished. Everyone nodded or said yes, so she moved on.

"Is your doctor white?" she asked. Everyone exchanged confused looks. Finally, someone spoke up.

"Our pictures don't have color." he pointed out. Others in the class started nodding in agreement.

"But you all know what you were picturing." Ms. Rovin responded. "No need to be embarrassed. Raise your hand if your doctor is white." A majority of the class raised their hands.

"Now how many of your doctors were male?" A few fewer people raised their hands, but it was still a majority. "Don't you think that might be a little racist?" She asked.

"But it's not our fault! Like you said, it's the world that we grew up in!" One kid exclaimed in a whiney voice, trying and failing to not come off as defensive.

Without thinking, I leaned towards Jade and whispered, imitating Ms. Rovin, "Picture a criminal. Is your criminal white? It is?! How very progressive of you!" Jade started to chuckle and soon had to cover his mouth before he was too loud and got yelled at. I started to laugh, too. We sat next to each other, covering our mouths and shaking uncontrollably.