As soon as the Maciel/Kingser/Barnes/Lacrosse car arrives at Redo, we run onto the pavement. The five of us go into the main office (the front door leads to the office, and that’s the only way to enter the school). Everyone says ‘hi’ to the secretary, Mrs. Otterman, I think her name was. She smiles widely to our little group.
“Hello!” she says in a sing-song voice.
“Hi, Mrs. Otterman!” Autumn grins. I was right, her name is Mrs. Otterman. I follow everyone else to the cafeteria because that’s where you go before school begins. As soon as we get down there, everyone breaks off to their friends. I scan the room, looking for someone I know. Alex’s group isn’t at the table we sat at during lunch, I can’t find Teagan and Sammi anywhere. I catch sight of Stephanie (the girl I sat next to at lunch) at a table that was occupied by boys yesterday. I can’t tell who else she’s sitting with, but I decide to join her. She was nice, even though I didn’t get to know her too well.
“Can I sit here?” I ask.
She looks up and I can tell it takes her a half a second to remember me. I’m not surprised— she saw me for the first time ever yesterday, and then I was wearing a pink shirt and a ponytail. The hair can seriously make a difference. “Of course!”
“Hey, Becca!” says the person to her left. It’s one of the girls from lunch. What was her name? Christina? I think it was Christina.
“Hi,” I smile. A lot of other people are sitting at the table and they introduce themselves as Izzy, and Tess, and Maddie, and Aubrey, and Maggie, and Annabelle, and Rachel, and a million other names I will never be able to remember. Names have never been a specialty of mine. It took me two weeks to learn all the names of the Crew.
“You know, I’m really glad you’re here. I’m not the only new kid anymore,” says the maybe-Christina.
“You’re new?” I ask, puzzled. She was sitting at the table yesterday so comfortably. I thought she’d been coming to school here forever. She certainly didn’t act new.
“I’ve been here since the beginning of the year. So yeah, sort of new.” She shrugs.
“Cool. Glad I’m not the only newbie.” I smirk.
“Glad someone else is joining the club,” she agrees.
“Okay, well, sorry to break the newbie-love-fest, but did either of you understand our math homework last night?” Stephanie interjects.
A nervous dark hole expands in my stomach. “There was math homework?”
“Are you in Honors Math?” she asks.
“I have no idea,” I admit.
“Who’s in your class?” she pushes another question.
“Um, Alex. Ari. I don’t know who else.” It takes me a second to remember who was in second period math.
“You’re in Honors!” she exclaims, “I’m not. I suck at math.”
“I’m sure you don’t.” I don’t know what else to say.
“No. I really suck at math. But it’s okay because I’m in Honors English and Honors Spanish,” Stephanie laughs. I’m pretty sure I’m not in Honors for either of those classes. I guess it’s just math.
Slowly, more and more people begin to trickle in to the cafeteria. The next of our group is Ari. She sits down to my left. Next comes Lydia and Bria, who sit across from us. The final is Gabi, who arrives minutes before the bell rings. At 8:30, we’re dismissed from the cafeteria and sent to our lockers. It was time for gym— the awkwardest class of the day.
A/N
I don't really have a caption for this so yeah.
Question of the Chapter: Is gym class going to be better on Becca's second day than it was her first?
YOU ARE READING
What We Lost In The Winter
Fiksi RemajaBecca Kingser almost died when she was eight years old. Ever since then, she's been homeschooled with her sisters. One of them is a bouncy, energetic little girl, the other is a closed-off mystery. But when Becca's mom finds a new job in Michigan, t...
