The New Kid

Chapter 1: The First Day

Raindrops slowly made their way down the car window as my dad pulled into the driveway of my school. I let out a sleepy yawn. It's the first day of senior high, and I was not in the mood to go back to studying. Summer was fun, and as usual, it ended way too soon. Goodbye to late nights, late mornings, and living your days carefree. Now it's June and we're back to textbooks, quizzes, projects, and stress. Needless to say, I was not excited. My dad stopped as soon as the car pulled under some shade.

"Alright, son," he said, unlocking the doors. "Enjoy your first day!"

"I'll try, Dad".

He raised his fist, and I raised mine to meet it as a goodbye. Those little fist-bumps were a staple of ours ever since I was still in pre-school. I stepped out of the car and into the sea of people flooding their way to school. The energy was up: people greeting each other, hugging, giving out high-fives. I said hi to a few other students that passed by, all of them younger than me. That's something you need to know about my school: it's the first time they've ever had senior high school, and my batch is the first set of students to be under it, essentially making us the school's uncontested seniors for the next two years.

I made my way to the second floor hallway as I looked for my classroom, stopping before a door that had a piece of paper that read Grade 11 - Wisdom taped to it. Must be it, I thought to myself as I opened the door and entered the room. It was cold and only half of the lights were turned on.

"Morning, Tyler!" greeted Elaine enthusiastically. Of course she'd be one of the earliest to go to school. Elaine was the model student: class president, member of all the school clubs, and most of the time an overachiever.

"Morning," I reply sleepily, finding a seat to put my backpack down.

"So, you guys excited for the first day?" said Drew. He was seated near the whiteboard. He's this guy that tries to be everyone's friend but somehow messes it up, either by trying to force himself into a conversation or by just invading the other person's personal space. We try to ignore it, and he's a pretty fun guy when he's not trying so hard to be cool.

"I don't think anyone is," said Steff, "well, except for Elaine." Steff was this rich kid. That's it. She's cool to hang with, but there's really not much to it other than that.

"Hey, I get to see you guys again!" said Elaine.

That part was true though. I did miss my friends over the summer, and getting to see them again made me happy. Now if we could only do something about the school work.

"That's the only good part here, I guess," I laughed before noticing somebody sleeping a few chairs away from me.

It was Bo Seon, our Korean classmate. He's really fun to be with, though sometimes he tends to get a little too sleepy. Too much League last night, I guess, I thought to myself. I couldn't blame him. I didn't get much sleep last night either. A bad mix of a messed up body clock and that little anxiety tingle you get the night before a big day. I was actually a bit too sleepy to notice the girl sitting next to Elaine. She wasn't anyone I recognized, and that's saying something considering that I'm studying in what could be the smallest school in my city.

I was about to ask who it was when the bell rang. "Flag ceremony, guys," Elaine announced. I tapped Bo Seon a couple of times to wake him up, and the six of us made our way to the school gymnasium where the flag ceremony's always held.

We sat on the bleachers: Elaine, the girl, and Drew chatting together, Steff on her phone, and Bo Seon sleepily wiping his eyes. The rest of my friends were late to school, so they didn't make it flag, and that honestly isn't as bad as it sounds. We and watched the gym fill up with students, from elementary students to 10th graders, some of them looking excited, some sleepy. They started to fill up the lower rungs of the bleachers, while my class, a solid section of less than 15 people, occupied the top row. Below us, you could hear the chatter of old friends seeing each other after two months of summer break, and the conversations of new students slowly being welcomed. I remembered that we actually had a new student in our class, but that thought quickly slipped out of my head when I heard our principal on the microphone starting the ceremony.

Needless to say, it was boring. Just a welcoming speech and a few other programs that I didn't pay attention to. I even caught Bo Seon dozing off a couple of times. Afterwards, everyone made their way back to their classrooms. When I got back to ours, the rest of my friends were already there.

"Hey bro," said Jesse, extending his hand for a high five. He's the class jock, a true-blue basketball addict. He's also a real good friend of mine.

Jack, one of my other friends, was seated next to Jesse, and beside him was Carlos, the dude I'm probably the closest to out of all the boys.

"Sup man," he reached out to me and gave me a high five.

"So, skipping flag ceremony on the first day, huh," I said as I took a seat next to the three of them. They all laughed.

"Well, nothing happened, right?" asked Jesse sarcastically.

"Did you really need to ask that, Jes?" laughed Jack.

"Yeah," I chuckled with them, "I guess you guys didn't miss out on anything."

Carlos nudged me in the arm. "Hey dude, who's that?" he pointed to the girl I saw earlier.

"New kid, never seen her before," I reply.

He was about to ask another question when the teacher's door opened and Ms. Candace walked right in. She placed her class records down on the table and scanned the room.

"Alright, Grade 11," she said, "welcome back to school."