Living in Power (First Draft)

Chapter Five: Luciana

I felt the eyes in the bus turn towards me and and the rest of the Forza "clan". We take up four seats in the back, with each of us ending up uncomfortably smashed in a group of two or three. Me and Danica sit together near the back, with Danica sitting comfortably, her backpack on her lap, leaning her head back against the seat, earbuds in. I was, for lack of a better term, panicky. I don't know how Danica could be so calm about this, uprooting our whole lives in Italy, all that we knew, and coming to America, in a small town no less.

After an excruciatingly painful bus ride, me, Danica and our brothers walked into a small central office, the boys going off into one marked "Guidance", me and Danica stay in what seemed to be the headmasters office.

"I'm Mrs. Deaner," She spoke softly, smiling. "And you both are?"

"I'm Danica Forza." my sister said, then looked to me, "Luc."

"Luciana Forza." I answer softly, as I begin to feel my face going red.

"It's alright, Luciana." The headmistress says to me, "If I'm going too fast just tell me." Mama must have told her about my limited knowledge of the english language. Mrs. Deaner continues on for a few minutes about our homeroom, room 108, and then tells me and Danica to sit and wait in two chairs opposite her desk. Somewhere, a bell rings, people begin to move around in the hallway, we wait another half an hour, Then, a girl appears in doorway of the office,

"Sorry I was late Mrs. Deaner."

She is medium height, medium build, mid-length brown hair, matching brown eyes. Average, painfully average.

"I'm Andrea." She extends her hand,

"Luciana." I stutter anxiously,

"Should we head out Mrs. D?" she asks

"Yes." and we head out, leaving my sister behind.

Once we climb an atrocious amount of steps, my guide speaks

"So this is World History with Halstead." Andrea said, pointing to the door with a picture of the pyramids on it. "It's your first class right?" I nod quickly, wanting to move past and finish my tour as soon as possible.

"His class is easy as long as you know the most basic things about history. It's the pop-geography quizzes that tank your grade."

"So when do classes switch?" I ask politely,

"When the bell rings." she starts, "which will be soon, so we better go to avoid the class-change-traffic."

"How many teachers do you guys have?" I ask shocked, if it's enough to cause traffic, we must be dealing with a very large school.

"What do you mean?" she asks, looking at me like I am crazy.

"You must have many teachers if they cause traffic when they move to each class."

"Oh, yeah." she realizes, "in Italy, your classes move around you. Mrs. Tan told me that."

"Mrs. Tan?"

"Yeah, tan is boring, so is she."

We walked down a straight corridor then turned left onto a staircase. At the bottom, there was a blue door with different mathematical symbols painted on it, inside a man was talking about polynomials.

"That's Mr. Smith." My guide tells me, "Everyone likes him."

"Is he very strict?" I ask quietly. It wouldn't be out of the ordinary because that's how it was in Italy, all your teachers were strict and unfriendly.