High School With Hemmings

Chapter 1

I shiver as I sit in the cold hallway waiting for my mom to enroll me into a new high school, thousands of miles away from the place I used to call home. I never wanted to leave New York City; I love how busy it was all the time. There was always something interesting going on. Now I'm stuck in Sydney, Australia, sitting on a hard, uncomfortable bench eavesdropping on my new principal talking to my mom about how great the school is. "We'll just see about that...," I mutter under my breath.

"What was that?" asked a boy who was tall and thin, with dark brown hair and eyes. I never even heard him coming.

"Oh it was nothing. I just really don't want to be here is all," I reply. He sits down next to me.

"And why is that?" He looks at me in a way that I can tell he is genuinely concerned. "My name is Calum by the way," he adds.

"I'm Marilyn, you can call me Mari."

"Okay Mari, what is the problem here?"

" Well I'm going to be a new student here and it is hard for me to adjust to new things."

"Oh I understand. If you ever need anything, I'm here for you! I'm usually wandering the halls because I hate going to class."

"So that's what you're doing," I laugh. He seems like a very cool guy.

"Listen, I have to go now, but meet me tomorrow morning by the entrance of the school. I'll introduce you to some of my friends," Calum says with a smile.

"Okay, that sounds great! I'll see you in the morning Calum!"

"See ya Mari!" he yells back, as he turns a corner and is gone. I already made one friend and my first day hasn't even started!

My mom opens the door slowly, leaning her head in the office to keep the conversation going with the principal, but giving a hint that she wants to leave. Eventually, they say their goodbyes and we walk out of the school. I take a look back to observe the hell I will be in for the next three years. It definitely looked old, but still looked pretty clean and kept up with. The landscaping needed a little work though...

My mom interrupts my thoughts, "Honey, your new principal seems great and I think you will really like it here! I know you will make new friends and adjust well."

"Sure mom, it's not like I had to do it two other times," I say, rolling my eyes. Yes, you heard that right. This is my third school that I transferred to, all because of my mom's work. My mom works really hard and I love her for that; but sometimes she can get involved a little too much. That's why my parents split when I was around five; my dad couldn't handle her crazy work schedule, but here I am, forced to live it.

"Marilyn, I know you will like it here. Just give it a chance, for me?" she says as she fumbles with her car keys. She presses the unlock button and the car beeps.

"Fine, mom," I reply as I open my door and close it, just a little too hard.

^-^

I walk up the front steps to our new house and I take the key and unlock the door. When I'm inside, I drop the keys on the front table and run up the stairs. I run to my room and jump on my bed, or my mattress. I never really got a chance to unpack my things yet, so I decide to start with some of my clothes. I would say I have a preppy, somewhat casual style. I don't really follow a lot of the trends; I just find what looks best on me. I unpack a few plain t-shirts and fold them into my dresser and then pull out some dress pants and put them in the drawer below. I hang some of my nicer shirts and dresses in my closet and fold the rest of my clothes and put them in categorized drawers. I take my comforter and sheets out to make my bed, and then add a few throw pillows to show some style. Then I take out old pictures and hang them around my room. I put up the blue drapes over my windows and add christmas lights across them. I take a step back and admire my work. "My room looks somewhat normal now," I say. I am pretty happy with my results, so I lay on my bed and go on my phone. I scroll through Twitter for a couple minutes, but I'm not really in the mood to tweet anything. I put my phone down and walk down the stairs to see if my mom made dinner. Turns out my mom never made dinner so I microwaved a macaroni and cheese bowl. I ate it downstairs and then went to my room to go to sleep earlier than usual. It was hard for me to fall asleep because I was worrying about my first day. So I just closed my eyes and started to think about how nice Calum was and that I was meeting his friends in the morning. The next thing I knew, I was asleep.