Chapter 3 - Great Start to High School

So here I was ready for the first day of High School to arrive.

Today dad had dropped me off at the bus pick up point. I knew this wouldn’t be a daily occurrence, but it was nice for the first day at least.

I was first to arrive. I knew I was a little early, so this wasn’t a surprise.

One thing I was a little concerned about was Rory, I know he had seemed friendly when it had only been the two of us. Would he still want to associate with me, now that he was going to be with his normal older school friends.

Chloe I could see becoming an issue. Since I had let slip about my test scores,, she had suddenly had become a lot friendlier. I just hoped that she didn’t think that because we were near neighbours, and she was the first girl I had met in the new place. That she would be granted certain academic benefits, by being friends with me.

I was looking forward to seeing Rory again. But he was going to be a sophomore this year and I didn’t know if they would acknowledge freshmen.

Although he had been the freshman football quarterback, that didn’t mean he would walk straight into that role in the Junior Varsity team.

That was the main reason I had barely seen him in the last fortnight. Apart from the early training sessions at the school practice grounds, he had been practicing with several of last season’s key skill players as well.

Gradually other teenagers started to arrive at the stop for the school bus. Most seemed older to Jack, so were most likely sophomores, he would expect juniors and seniors to have personal transport by now. Not normally shy, I was going to say hello to introduce myself. But from the looks that some of them gave me, I decided to wait until I got to know them better.

Luckily it wasn’t long till Rory and Chloe turned up. Chloe joined a couple of other girls who were waiting, Rory made his way over to my side, greeting a couple of the guys as he passed them.

“Hey Jack, ready for a new day in the big leagues of school are ya?” he called in greeting.

“Hi Rory, yeah I’m all prepared to face the joy of a bunch of teenagers posturing to each other.”

Rory decided to take me at my word, running his fingers through his hair and striking a pose. They both broke up in laughter, slapping each other on the back in greeting.

Once they had finished laughing, the bus was just pulling into the bus stop. Rory apologised when he sat with another friend who was already on the bus. I was just happy that he had even acknowledged my existence at all.

Due to the introduction and tour I had received prior to school starting. I already knew where my homeroom was, so I made my way directly there after departing the bus. Apart from Rory I wasn’t interested in trying to talk to any of the other students I had met in the past few weeks, most seemed to be jerks anyway.

The bus had delivered us to school in plenty of time, but it wasn’t that long before the first bell rang.

When I got to my homeroom I decided I didn’t want to sit anywhere which was considered a stereotypical position, front for geeks and nerds, back for the jocks and the cool crowd. Not likely to know anyone, I picked a middle of the class seat, flipped my backpack onto the desk and dropped into the seat.

The rest of the room soon filled with milling freshmen, those who knew someone else clinging together and finding seats together.

An older man entered the room; all adults look old to teenagers. But I would say he looked older than my Dad, so that is definitely old.

“Hello freshman, settle down please. My name is Mr. Philips and I’m your homeroom teacher, if you all will just bear with me, we will get through the rigmarole of the first day of school requirements.”

He ran through the attendance, as each name was called out and confirmed. The students made their way to the front to collect their student hand book, locker number and lock combination, as well as a copy of the semester schedule and a school map.

Once that had been completed, he explained we were lucky since the bank of lockers for this whole group was just outside our homeroom, some of the other groups wouldn’t find it quite so easy.

He then went through a bunch of rules and social etiquette we would be expected to conform to. All of it was in our handbooks, but he wanted to emphasize the main specific points.

Our first actual lesson was actually the second period, as the first had been taken up with the extended homeroom orientation period.

My first lesson would have been English Literature with Mrs Stone, second period I had Early American History with Mr. Temple, so I made my way to the central tower of buildings.

Mr. Temple was already waiting in the classroom. There wasn’t anyone sitting down, but there were a couple of students standing at the front of the class. So guessing he had a tendency to allocate students to seats, I joined the others waiting at the front.

As expected once the tardy bell had rung, Mr. Temple would call out a name and allocate that person a desk. The person went to the desk they were allocated, picking up a textbook and syllabus from the front table as they passed.

Turns out I would be sitting between two girls in this class. The one I was sharing a desk with was a small girl, just over five foot. She had brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, high cheekbones and from what I had seen earlier a nice smile. That was in abeyance at present as she joined me sitting at the joint desk. The girl sitting to my left on the next desk over, was a slightly taller girl also with brown hair. But this was hanging loose around her face, hiding most of her features.

Once everyone had been allocated a seat, Mr. Temple took us through his expectations for the semester. Telling us how much of the textbook we would cover, and when we would have tests and assignments based upon what we covered.

Mr. Temple demeanour led me to believe he wouldn’t be very understanding of whispered conversations in his classroom. That together with the prim expression of the girl beside me. Who from the registration I gathered was one Hailey Stiles, dissuaded me from trying to make polite conversation with my desk companion for this period.

Once the introduction to the subject was out of the way, Mr. Temple spent the rest of the period covering the first chapter of the textbook. I could see this lesson being constructive if rather bland in interaction.

Next period was to be Advanced Math with Mr. Unworthily. Luckily the classroom was near my homeroom, so I would have time to drop off any textbooks on the way. This was in-keeping with my parents wanting me to pace myself in lessons, not reading ahead etc. So unless I had homework to do which required my textbook to complete. The textbook would be kept in my locker at school.

Unfortunately for me there was something going on in the corridor leading to my set of lockers. As I got closer I could see some Jock in a letterman jacket, had cornered a girl and was asking her out.

I must admit, I doubt I would ever have the guts to just ask a girl out right there in the corridor. Anyone from the whole student body was able to watch, but I didn’t like the way he had used his considerable size to maneuver the girl into an awkward situation.

The reason for the hold up in the corridor was the students waiting to hear how the girl would answer. As the crowd moved about, I was able to see the girl’s face, it was Chloe. No wonder the jock was asking her out, even though he seemed to be several years older than her, she was easily the prettiest freshman girl I had come across so far.