Jesse and McKenzie hustled into the white-tile floored and purple-walled cafeteria to join the rest of the caged animals to await the first bell for homeroom. Shouts, whispers, and jokes streamed through the air like firecrackers, deafining Kenny and Jesse's own thoughts. McKenzie had only gone to school with girls for as long as she could remember. Her mother told her boys were bad news, even at a young age, that she trusted Kenny but didn't trust them. Basically, her mother attempted and somewhat succeeded at making her a hermit from social interactions. An unexplainable mix of anxiety and fright flowed through her veins, slowly chipping away at her stunning personality. They swiveled defensively through the student body tiredly until they reached a clearing at the back of the cafeteria. Jesse and McKenzie took a load off at a nearby tan table surrounded by freshmen. Jesse introduced her to who she heard were Hanny, Klef and Song.
"Nice to meet you," she yelled over the fog of conversation surrounding her blindly, her hands nervously stuck in her khaki's pockets like they were filled with glue. Suddenly, the first bell zapped through the cafeteria, the sound piercing everyone's ears as they bolted from their tables, sending chairs on loud colisions with the floor.
"Relax, Kenny," Jesse told her as he lead her up the steep stairway to the left of the cafeteria. McKenzie looked up at him timidly as strange faces glided past her like she was invisable. "Why are you so uptight?"
"I guess I'm just nervous," she admitted, hating herself for feeling that way. They walked down a long hallway postered with light blue lockers and briskly headed for Homeroom 133.
"Don't be," Jesse told her, waving at a few girls that passed him by. One with black hair waved back, her smile augmenting as her 2 friends fired snickers around her. "Just be yourself. You shouldn't feel that you have to prove something to these people, be someone you're not." Jesse was a pretty intelligent guy, she concluded. He became the gentleman and opened the wood door for her. She cautiously stepped in, fear slowly leaking from her like a sprung faucet, confidence rising in her posture as she saw smiling faces. "You'll be fine," Jesse whispered as McKenzie took the initiative by the horns and went up to her homeroom teacher, confidence well supported in her strides. Jesse plopped in his usual site as Mr. Garret looked up from his black leather briefcase friendly, whisps of his chopped sandy brown hair veiling his onyx eyes.
"You must be McKenzie Jacobs?" he asked raising from his desk overflowing with papers and utensils, organization an obvious factor missing in his teaching approach. "I'm Mr. Garret," he introduced himself. McKenzie nodded slightly as he scavanged through the clutter on his desk for McKenzie's locker number. He grasped it in his hairy hands, smiling in victory. "Every one's allowed to go to their locker after Homeroom," he informed McKenzie, handing her the small piece of green paper gingerly. "Your locker should be to the left of the door," he instructed, pointing at the classroom door. She nodded in understandment, her prescense snatching the eyes of a certain guy in the last row, decked out in a purple-and-white Lacrosse jersey.
The announcements began to spill out of the square speaker at the top of Mr. Garett's white erase board by students as enthusiastic as accountains in the middle of tax season. "Please take a seat, McKenzie," Mr. Garett politely ordered, "and after the announcements, head to 1st hour!"
"Sure, thanks," McKenzie at last spoke, turning slowly and strolling up the aisle toward Jesse. Several pairs of intrigued eyes trailed McKenzie on her quest to the empty seat. She sat down, glanced up at the white clock that displayed '7:35', back down at her peers and gave them a shy smile, her mind praying on its knees that they wouldn't judge her so quickly.
She was separated from Jesse 3rd hour as she headed to Earth Science, the school a maze and her a mouse trying to find the cheese. She finally spotted Room 283 just as the bell howelled through the semi-occupied halls for all students to report immediately to class. She sprinted across the bashe-marble floor into the loud classroom. She stood in the doorway, frozen by fear as 17 heads turned her way and lazered their eyes straight through her. The lady at the desk to the right pasted a sympathetic smile on her young face and motioned for her to step in.
"McKenzie Jacobs, I presume?" the woman asked as McKenzie cautiously approached her black desk like a sheet of thin ice supported her body. "Class...This is McKenzie...McKenzie, this is the class. I'm Ms. Dickenson," she introduced herself, hoisting her shapely legs to rest on the desk, her olive knee-lenght skirt rising up to give the boys a free show, throwing all edicuit of a teacher into the brown trash basket next to her desk, "and welcome to Earth Science, the class every 10th grader loves." Moans and counterfeit yells of agreement escaped the students lips as Ms. Dickenson tossed her ebony hair behind her peach blouse. "You seem to be the only 9th grader in our mists, so I'll look after you. Now...a seat..." She glanced over the brown desks biting on her lip in thought, everyone seemed to be unoccupied by an unmotivated teenager. "Ahh," she sighed like she spotted gold, pointing to the last row. "Sit there...next to Zach. Raise your hand, Zach."
"That would be me," he stated, a bit of arrogance tainting his melodious voice as he raised his hand to clash with the air.
"He will be your lab partner, too, because his buddy landed himself in jail...again," Ms. Dickenson frowned with disaproval. Zach shrugged smugly at her remark. He had to be 5'11 by McKenzie's estimation with a strong chin, well-defined forehead, and a blonde buzz cut. He sported a purple and white Lacrosse jersey, tailored khaki dress pants, and brown dress shoes. His amber eyes followed her to her seat as she dropped her yellow JanSport backpack to the side of her desk and slid in as quietly as she could. She inhaled a deep breath and smoothed her hands over her blond half-ponytail to assure no bumps erupted on her hair's surface.
"OK Class," Ms. Dickenson yelled vivaciously, jumping to the board. "Now for some actual work." Again, the groans and yells spewed through the moldy air.
"I'm Zach," Zac whispered, thrusting his hand with friendly intentions at McKenzie. She turned her head toward him and grasped his hand loosely in hers. His cheap-imitation colongue slithered into her nasal cavitity like an unwelcome python, constricting tears to visably weld up in her eyes.
"McKenzie," she informed him, one eye clasped on him and the other on the uninteresting lesson being scribbled on the board.
"Where you from?" he asked with a sickly-sweet smile, reaching across the threshold of an aisle, touching her arm gently with one finger. "Or don't they have addresses in Heaven?" He winked auspiciously, a prudent glow secretly radiating from his empty soul.
'Oh God,' Kenny thought, looking with pity into his pathetic eyes. She faked smiling so well, she could have blossemed in acting. "I'm actually from Virginia," she told him, diverting both eyes to the front.
"Down south a bit," Zach analogiesed, running his black pen with no purpose across a page torn out of his black notebook. "Cool, very cool. This place is so second-rate these days. We need more fresh meat here."
"I bet," McKenzie muttered under her breath, rolling her eyes at his "second-rate" pick-up lines as Mrs. Dickenson presented them both with cold stares. They straightened as verticle as rulers as she went on about the fundamental topic of rocks. McKenzie viewed herself as a rock, pondering more in depth about it as she drummed her pencil on her blue notebook and slipped to the seductive beat of daydreaming. All people saw what was they thought, this ugly, weird girl who knew nothing about the world or love; a foreign animal that won't succeede or be taken seriously in the student body just because of how she feels. But the real friends in her life saw her inside, the bright, sparkling crystals which overshadowed any name or lie anyone can throw at her. She was McKenzie Ann Jacobs and proud, but why couldn't she tell her mother all she felt and all she's been doing under her nose, or more importently, Jesse?
