Hey! I’m Kellie Cooper. I’m eighteen years old and I just moved to the outskirts of New York City, New York. My family had settled into our new house. The next day I was to start at my new high school.
It was finally the first day of my tenth grade year in Boston. I got to school and went to the front office. “I’m new at this school and I was wondering where I get my schedule,” I said.
“Name, please,” the clerk said dully.
“Kellie Cooper.”
“Kellie Cooper, Kellie Cooper, ah, yes, here we go. Your homeroom teacher is Ms. Allen. Go down this hall and take your first left and the classroom is on your left,” the clerk said to me.
“Thank you,” I took the schedule and looked at it. Wow! I have Spanish second period, awesome! I thought as I walked down the hall. Then all of a sudden, I bumped into someone. My notebook, reading book, and binder flew out of my arms. Without looking up I said, “Sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was going.” I bent down to pick up my books.
“Oh, it’s alright,” the person replied. They bent down to help me.
I looked up to see this girl in front of me. She had blonde hair that was in a ponytail and she had really pretty blue eyes. “Thank you,” I replied.
“No prob, by the way, my name is Devin,” Devin smiled.
“Nice to meet you, I’m Kellie,” I told her.
“Are you new here, ‘cus I haven’t seen you before.”
“Yeah, I moved here a couple of days ago.”
“What grade are you in?”
“Twelfth, you?”
“Eleventh.”
Right then the bell rang. “I guess I’ll see you around.”
“Yeah, see ya!” Devin said, and she turned and walked the remaining of the hall and out of sight to the right.
I turned and finally found my homeroom. As I walked in, the first thing I noticed was the bright colors of the classroom. On the walls there were posters of green, blue, yellow, purple, orange, red, pink, and white with inspiring messages. There was one poster on the wall in the back that I’ll never forget. It was red and had in big, bold black letters, the words: Your heart understands what your head cannot yet conceive; trust your heart. That message appealed to me the most.
I sat down in an empty seat in the back. I looked around the classroom. Everybody seemed to be in groups. I scanned them, when I noticed this guy. He had a great smile and had brown hair with blonde highlights cut in a shag look. The bell rang and I shook my head as if coming back from a trance.
I looked at my schedule and I saw I had English first. I got up and followed a group of girls out of the classroom and down the hall. They were talking intently about something.
“Did you see that new girl in homeroom this morning?” the first girl said.
“Yeah, did you see what she was wearing?” the second girl replied.
There was a pause in which the girls laughed. The third girl turned and looked back and then whispered, “Kate, she’s behind us!”
“So?” Kate laughed.
As I heard this, a tear rolled down my cheek and splattered onto my books. Finally, the girls parted to their first period classrooms. When I came to my English class, I walked in and went immediately to the back and sat down. I looked down at my clothes. I looked at my black tank top, then at my black cargo pants. Is it really that bad?
The teacher started to talk to us about what we were doing first term. “Hello, I’m Mr. Alexander and I will be your English teacher for this year,” he paused and cleared his throat. “We will be writing, doing writing contests, learning the process of publishing, studying the art of poetry, and of course writing poetry.” My mood got better as the class went on. “I want you to write a story about anything you, to be turned in next Wednesday,” Mr. Alexander said as a girl raised her hand. “Yes?” he asked.
“How long does it have to be?” she asked.
“No limit, I just want to see how you write. Any more questions?” Mr. Alexander paused, “Okay, class dismissed.”
I got up and went to my second period class, Spanish. It went quite quickly, but it was very interesting. Next, I had lunch. I walked down the hallway toward the lunchroom when someone brushed past me. It was a warm shoulder and it felt good against my cold skin. I looked up at the person and I noticed it was the guy I was staring at in my homeroom. I stared for a second and went inside the lunchroom to eat.