Youngblood | Lonely Hearts Club

Chapter 3 - Under the ocean and through the clouds

 "Are you guys ready for the first day of school? Because I know I am! I've only been waiting for this all summer long!" Jasmine giggled as they entered their fourth-grade classroom. This hadn't been the first time that they came into the classroom. They'd been in here once before, about a week ago, to get ready for the first day of school. So now that it was the first day of school, they were actually ready to start. As usual, Jasmine and Monet were placed in the same class, as required by the divorce rights, and everyone knew it would be that way until middle school. And now, for the third year in a row, they were also joined by Mark, who would probably be in class with Jasmine even in middle school. The reason for that was actually pretty straightforward. Jasmine just seemed to focus better in class when she was with him, and when she was off task, Mark was the one to bring her right back onto it. Since they'd figured that out, it became a must that Mark was in her class.

"I don't wanna be going back to school," Mark frowned slightly, shaking his head and fighting back a yawn. "It's way too early to wake up. And now that we're back at school, we can't play all day either." Monet nodded her head and hung her jacket and backpack on her hook after searching for a good minute to find her name on the labeled hooks.

"You know what's sad?" Monet asked, turning to face Jasmine as the blonde girl looked for her own hook. "That they put your name as Ender now, Missy. I think Jasmine Ivory sounds a whole lot better." Ever since the divorce had been finalized, Jasmine's last name had been put as Ender, since it had been their mother's maiden name. It wasn't weird when they talked about her movies or people called her name from down the aisle at the grocery store but when they were at school and Jasmine introduced herself to people, it was a strange thing to come out of her mouth. It was just another painful reminder of what had happened a few years ago and all of the pain that they had gone through over the past few months.

"Yeah, I guess it is," Jasmine sighed and stared at her hook for a second. Then, she placed her things on the hook and grabbed a few things out of her backpack before turning to her friends and smiled at them. "Let's go find our seats again, okay?" Jasmine giggled slightly and without waiting for a reply, turned away from them, and headed over to the desks. Each of the desks had been placed into pods of four and there were four pod groups together. Considering their town size, a class of sixteen was not uncommon. That was just the way that it always had been. Once Jasmine found her seat, she placed her folder on top of her desk and sat down in the chair. Then, glancing at the name next to her desk, she patted the desk, motioning for Mark to sit down next to her. Monet wasn't at her table, much to her disappointment. Instead, she was the next pod over, just behind Jasmine, actually. That way, if both girls had turned around, they'd be able to talk face to face.

"Do you think this year is going to be fun?" Mark asked, turning to face his two friends as more children started to enter the room. They weren't the first ones in the room at all but they had been early enough to be there before most of their class. Mark and Monet lived close enough to walk to school every morning so they were always early and Jasmine got dropped off by her aunt early in the morning so that she could be there with them.

"Obviously! It's fourth grade, duh!" Jasmine replied, turning around in her seat so that she was sitting in the chair backward. She crossed her legs over each other, sitting cross-legged in the chair, and laid her hands over the back of the seat like it was the normal way to sit in one of these chairs. "Fourth graders are almost as cool as fifth graders! And then, in two years, when we're sixth graders, we get to start switching classes! Isn't that awesome?"

"That just sounds like a lot of work," Monet said with a sigh, turning in her seat to face them. She kicked her feet back and forth against the carpeted floors while brushing her two dutch braids over her shoulders. Mark only shrugged his shoulders slightly in response, leaning against the back of his seat with his arm.