A Year in Tenth Grade

Day 1

A pleasant morning, the birds chirping, the sun shining and I enter the class with a smile.

Yeah. Like that’s going to happen.

I am dragging myself up the stairs, literally walking like a hungry grizzly bear with three bags full of books. I keep telling myself:

Almost there.

Almost there...

And then I did the most dreadful thing. I looked back. Two steps. That is all I had climbed.

After what seemed like the World War three with the stairs, I reached the class and dumped the bags on the table. Now I turn to see if we have any new classmates.

No. No. Not there, or there. No wait! No. Nothing.

(sigh) The same old class with 19 students. So I go join three of my friends who are occupied with some random talk that I can’t make out. The three of them are:

Kate Beckett, my best friend. A fun loving, easy going( at times hot blooded) person.

Molly Sweet, nerdy but sweet.( excuse the pun!)

Lillan Scott, well what can I say, she is more or less a 'cat person', but fun none the less. 

As I tune in with their chat, there comes the party pooper, the teacher.

We slip into our seats and the teacher starts saying something which I was not paying attention to. I began doodling in my notebook. It’s not like I was purposefully not paying attention. OK, maybe it was purposefully but I have a very short, teensy span of attention. You can’t blame me for that.

I hear some whispers arising from the seat behind me and I unknowingly turn to see Jack Walton pass a piece of paper Michelle Jones. Reading it she smiled and nodded. They've been together for more than a year now. Usually a note like this means another sporty date.

“Miss Watson!” calls out the teacher’s sharp voice.  

I quickly turn back and stand almost falling with my face flat.

“Yes ma’am?” I say.

“Could you be kind enough to tell us what I was speaking about?” she says with her hands on her waist.

Oh no. What was she speaking about? Think Jade, think!

“Umm... you were talking about... the um... the... fishes in the Arctic Circle? No? Okay.”

Oh fish!

I heard the other girls giggle. I mentally face palmed myself. ‘Fishes’? That’s the best I could come up with?   

The teacher sighed and said “Sit down Miss Watson and please pay more attention in the class.”

I sat down and buried myself behind my book. Wait a minute, which book am I reading anyway? Oh great! Here I go again. Zero attention span.....

After the teacher left the class, I continued with the previously interrupted talk with Kate and others, while walking down the hallway. I had a new bracelet on my hand that day, which I adored. I was getting a positive feedback about it too until ‘Tiffany’ happened. Tiffany Horran along with her two worshipers, Victoria Brown and Daphany Horan, came our way.

“Is that new?” said Tiffany in her fake squeaky voice.

“Well, yeah...”  I replied, “I just got it from...”

“-A garbage bin.  Isn’t that what you were going to say?” She mocked and Victoria and Daphany giggled. I rolled my eyes and walked away. I was in no mood for a fight, but things turned out otherwise.

“You can’t just walk away on me!” she shrieked and attracted the whole classes’ attention.

“Yeah? Watch me.” I said and turned back again.

She rushed towards me and pulled me back from my shoulder. I shoved her away. She looked down at her hand with a how- dare- you- expression.

“Oh I’m sorry. Did I knock off your nail?” I mocked in a fake caring voice.

“You.....” She growled. But before she could do anything else, we saw the principal approaching with his 'eagle eyes', or so he calls them. I pretended like nothing was happening. It won't be good to get detention the very first day. 

Just so you know, our principal's like that, he would put you in detention just for accidently scratching the door nob of the janator cupboard. 

I turned and walked to my locker. I could actually feel Tiffany’s glare (yes I could make out whose glare it was) boring into my back.

Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to angry Tiffany.

What a great first day of tenth grade.