Freshman Year

Chapter 6: Darlene

Drew and I had PE together because neither of us play any sports. We walked in together and headed for a seat in the bleachers.

The coach began yelling at us as soon as we sat down, "Find a seat and stick with it! I don't want any movin' around now, ya hear? As long as you shut up and ya'll ain't doin' nothin' illegal, I don't care!"

He walked away, picked up a newspaper, and started the crossword section in the back. The mug he had next to him was full of pitch black coffee with no creamer.

"Coach David is such an asshole, but I still like his class because he lets us listen to music," Drew whispered, leaning in so nobody else could hear. I saw a few people giving us looks, including Andy, whom I hadn't even noticed was in this class.

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Drew and I were forced to part again as I left to my world history honors class, where, once again, I didn't know anyone. I just needed to get through this last class and then it would be lunch. Just one more class. I got this. History is one of my best subjects anyway so I have nothing to worry about.

I walked in and looked for a seat in the back, but there was only one seat available: the desk at the very front of the room.

I tucked my bag under the desk and sat down, annoyed at the position of my seat. The girl sitting next to me was closer to the teacher's desk than me and was sitting up straight and tall. I noticed her hair was in a pony tail and there was a pencil in her hand. Teacher's pet.

I guess she noticed I was staring at her, so she leaned over to introduce herself.

"Hi, I'm Darlene Shields. And you are?" she inquired.

"I'm Alex Devaux," I said without a sliver of feeling in my voice.

"It's very nice to meet you Ms. Devaux." The amount of pep in her voice made me cringe.

The history teacher, Mr. Robins, stood up and faced the class. "Okay class, today we'll be taking a quiz to-" at that, the whole class rolled their eyes, but Mr. Robbins continued. "Relax class, it's just to see what you already know. We won't start any other work this week because I have to prepare my lesson plans according to how you did on your quiz. Would anyone like to pass the quiz out?"

Darlene's hand immediately shot straight up into the air. "I would, sir!"

Mr. Robbins handed her the papers and she walked around the room, handing each student a quiz. When she was done, she sat back down and began her paper.

At the end of class, Mr. Robins stood back up and announced that he would hand back the papers tomorrow with a grade at the top.

I walked out of class and found Drew waiting outside the door for me. "C'mon fishy, let's go get some slop." We both laughed at this remark and walked down the hall towards the lunchroom.