Chapter 12: High School

The first day of school has arrived, Jake is in the 8^th grade now he’ll have to apply to the specialty schools this week. Myself, along with Cindy and Mindy, Beth, and Danny, who just got out of the hospital are in high school, the new Freshman class of 2025.

First up was trying to find our respective homeroom assignments, this first week we will meet every day for 20-30 minutes to get papers sign, wavers filled out, and sign up for after school activities if one wanted to. Unfortunately, we each had a separate homeroom because of our last names, but at least I could still talk with Danny and Beth telepathically.

Beth managed to convince the twins to try out for the 9^th grade cheerleading squad, it was my prerequisite for me to join Beth in trying out as well and we even had our own routine to tryout with. While there was a cheerleading program at the school, not everyone wanted to be a high school cheerleader. Some chose academics over cheerleading, so anyone could tryout for cheerleading squads which were happening after school today.

Monday:

The first day has started we had a revised schedule because of home room and an assembly for all freshmen over at the auditorium. Danny and I got off the bus and while I was here once before, I was still in awe at the size of the campus and all the students, Danny too was overwhelmed.

“It’s like college all over again, but in a high school” Danny said.

“I know. I was overwhelmed when I got here to register for classes, come on let’s find our home rooms.”

It didn’t take me long to find out where I was for home room, I had Coach Jenson for home room, who happened to be the cheerleading coach and our weightlifting teacher. I haven’t seen her until I walked into the room she was assigned to as home room. I was hit by a wall of emotional lust from the guys in the room, and some of the girls, I turned to see what their target was, and I saw Coach Jenson for the first time. I may be Paula 2.0 so to speak, but my old self was still around and by the gods, she was gorgeous. I took a seat, most of the guys had the front rows. She stood around 6 feet tall, a lean yet toned figure, red hair just like mine and cut a bit short. Today she was wearing a full body leotard under a pair of loose shorts.

The bell rang and a few last people came in thru the door. I had to really work to keep from being emotionally overpowered by everyone in the room.

“Alright listen up! I’m Coach Jenson, not Ms., or Mrs., or even Miss, it’s Coach Jenson, got that? And to answer me, it’s ‘yes Coach!’ got it?”

“YES COACH!” the room shouted.

“Good, now this entire week we’ll be meeting here for advisement, I know it’s called homeroom but unlike middle school, homeroom is only for special schedule days. Now I have to ask, who here is not a 9^th grader?” One person raised their hand. “Go to the office and they’ll sort you out.” They left and so we started with the basics, going over our freshman classes a couple of people had the wrong math or didn’t have the state-mandated sex-ed class and went to the office to get sorted. Finally, attendance of those who were left.

“McDowell, Paula! Your name is familiar.” Coach called out.

“Here, Coach! I don’t know why Coach.” I answered.

“Oh, that’s right, your cheer squad last year broke up.” There were some snickers from the girls. “QUIET!” Coach yelled and the girls shut up quick.

“Yes, Coach. Our captain got a bit ... overzealous with practice times.” I was trying to be nice.

“Of course.” And she continued down the list of names and handed out papers to be signed and turned in right there.

“Here are your school issued tablets, top of the line this year. You are responsible for them for the 4 years you are here. They will have your digital textbooks on them when you are issued the digital code for them. If your tablet gets damaged beyond use, you will have to pay for a new tablet.”

The tablet came in a thin sleeve, I knew tech, and this was not going to cut it so I figured I would buy a beefier sleeve and case for it. The bell rang and coach told us to go to our first period class. I had to hustle a bit as homeroom was on the opposite end of gym and weight room. Yet Coach was already there, and I went straight to the weight room, no locker visit I’ll have to find out how she does that.

Coach did her speech to the class and handed out papers to be signed. Syllabus, injury and death wavers, good ol’ Cover Your Ass (CYA) documents. I’m surprised we could sign for ourselves at only 14 for such serious documents. Coach then gave us the code for our textbook and needed to fill out our stats, height, weight, physical activity, etc. as this book would track everything starting today, what we ate, how we slept, weekly weigh-ins, how much we can lift, etc.

We somehow all managed to get height and weight in before the bell rang. And the PA system came on and announced that 9^th graders were to attend the assembly in the auditorium. As we filed in we were given a code and once we got seated to put it into our tablet. The twins, Beth, Danny, and I managed to find 5 seats in the back corner, I sat next to Danny of course, I had the inside seat, the twins surrounded Beth. The auditorium had theater seating, and seats, arm rests that could move up and down, so I flipped it up and leaned in against Danny’s left side. He managed to get out of the cast for school and is in a sling now.

“Everyone settle down, make sure you input that code into your tablets so you can follow along. Welcome Freshman class of 2025 to Phoenix High School, home of the Phoenix, very original I know.” There were a couple of laughs at that. “I’m Principal John Bradberry. I’m not very formal but I expect you all know when you can call me John, or Mr. Bradberry. Over here is the class of 2025 Vice-Principal, Jane Bradberry, and that’s Ms. Bradberry to you all.” She gave a wave.

“Now, with introductions over with this assembly we’re going to go over a few state and federal law changes, as well as school by-laws and rules. Now it’s going to take 2^nd and 3^rd periods to go over all of this so when we are done, just go to the lunchroom. Now, if you all would open up the ‘Laws and rules’ app on your tablets that you just downloaded with that code. You’ll see you can search for the school by-laws and rules by using a search term...”

Mr. Bradberry didn’t quite drone on, but there’s not much excitement that can be put into instructions and rules. The school rules and by-laws were basic enough, however they were two different tiers of punishment, rules were slap on the wrist punishments, detention, in-school suspension. Then there were the by-laws, those were the heavy hitting, do not break kind of rules. If you broke a by-law, there was an investigation by the school police and if found guilty so to speak, you were either suspended, or worse, the schools jail. The school had a functional jailing area where you weren’t allowed to go home or to school just like actual jail, and we already signed our wavers to be punished in this way.

<Talk about harsh ... we didn’t have that when I was in high school> Danny though to me.

<No kidding, guess we’ll have to behave in our high school years.> I replied.

“Now with that over, I turn the mic over to Ms. Bradberry.”

“Thank you, John. Now, on to the State and Federal law’s part, starting with Federal. As you may or may not recall, the federal age of consent was lowered to 14 back in January and took effect on July 1^st. Arizona, still has on the books of 13 being the age of consent, which is why you were able to sign contracts in 8^th grade. And yes, that does mean you can legally have sex with anyone 13 or older as long as you were older than 13 and I’m assuming you all are at least 13.” The auditorium burst out in hoots and hollers and cheers. “But there are nuances to it all which is why Arizona mandated the sex-education class for all freshmen, first semester will be sexual health and reproduction, while second semester will be focusing on sex laws and the history of them.”

Danny and I learned a lot of their ‘basic’ laws, I guess we never thought to look them up figuring they were similar, but they had some wildly different laws and just weren’t talked about. The 2-hour assembly was up and we were let go to lunch a bit early.

“My god, so much to learn already and it’s not even a class.” Beth complained

“Tell us about it.” Cindy groaned. “At least we don’t have any tests on it.”

“Yeah, but we need to know the laws for our own good” Danny said.

“That’s ... a very adult thing to say Danny.” Mindy finally catching up.

“I’m starved, what’s on the menu?” breaking the cycle of complaining and lining up in the cafeteria.

We found a table just as the bell rang to let all the other classes out and in minutes the cafeteria was packed full of everyone else. These tables were large, and we took up only half of the seats when another group of students came to sit, they looked a bit older, juniors perhaps?

“Oh. My. It is you! You’re Peachy-P!” One of them practically shouted. I knew I had some big fans but never imagined actually meeting them in school.

“It is her!” Another said as they sat down.

“I didn’t know you made it big Paula.” Beth looked over at me. Mindy and Cindy were sitting back watching.

“I didn’t know either.” Turning from Beth to the new group. “Yes, I am, I’m Paula, this is Beth, Mindy, Cindy...” pointing to each one, “ ... and of course my lighting engineer, and boyfriend Danny.”

“Well, I’m Kristy, and this is my ‘little’ brother, Alex Gimble, and we’re both juniors” Kristy announced.

“By only 2 minutes, jeez.” Alex ribbed Kristy.

“A pleasure.” I added. “We’re all part of the new freshman class.”

“We figured since we caught your stream last night. Oh, we go by CottonPicker1 and CottonPicker2”

We talked while we ate during out lunch hour. We learned they lived on the other side of the county from us, they were starting their medical core classes this year, they were both going for paramedics when they graduated. They also gave us some advice, to start our apprenticeship now as freshmen so when you hit junior year, you’re well into learning your craft. All too soon the bell rang, and we were off to 4^th period Algebra.

The rest of the day was pretty much the same. Signatures, wavers, book codes and registration on our tablets. For sex-ed we had Coach Jenson again. Study hall is a different story today, nothing to sign or do so it was pretty much free time. It was however a mixed class of Freshmen, Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors.

“So any word from Freya lately? She’s been kind of elusive since Danny got shot.” I asked as we were hunched over in a corner away from the others. The twins off mingling with others.

“No, but I know she was furious with Loki about it” Beth answered.

“That was one hell of a way to help manifest a power.” Danny voiced his complaint.

“Well hope you are practicing it.”

“I’m sorry Beth, I haven’t had a chance since leaving the hospital yesterday. Would you like me to make one now and blow our covers?” Danny was impatient with how Beth was criticizing our abilities, or apparently lack of.

“Enough you two.” I sighed “Look we’re trying Beth. You’ve been really chewing us out the last couple weeks. What’s wrong Beth? I’m worried.”

“What? Nothing...” she sighed, looking defeated “ ... oh fine I’ll tell. Shortly after Danny was shot, I learned that my world is for all intents and purposes dead. An asteroid got bumped by the AO-0920 comet and collided with my earth, it’s a wasteland now. That asteroid doesn’t exist here or anywhere, so the comet went on its merry way on this Earth. I’m stuck here now, I had a chance of going home when this was over but now...”

“Jeez Beth, I, we didn’t know.” I reached for her shoulder to comfort her.

“Course not, I didn’t tell you and I can’t tell anyone else it was just eating away at me and I didn’t know what to do. I’m just a kid.”

Danny and I looked at each other forgetting that Beth really is just a 14-year-old, while He and I were 44 in a 14-year-old body.

“When it rains it pours I guess.” I whispered. “We’re so sorry that has happened, but look at it this way, you still have parents, still have friends and your still alive. Listen come with me after tryouts we’ll introduce you to someone.”

The PA went off for dismissal announcements, stating cheer tryouts were to go to the locker rooms first for changing and sizing and were to be held in the gym. A few buses were late arriving, and a correction with this week’s schedule, advisement would only be for tomorrow instead of the rest of the week.

The girls and I went down to the locker room, Beth had perked up some and was chatty with all the other girls. She had signed us up Football season, Basketball season, and even Dance Team, although she didn’t expect us to get on it as it was mostly Juniors and Seniors who got it. We all changed and there were even some men trying out, which is unusual but not unheard of.

“Alright ladies! And gentlemen” that last part said as an afterthought from Coach Jenson. “This week will be tryouts. Many of you won’t make it, especially those in the Freshmen class.” There were a lot of freshmen, this was the make-or-break time for your high school career for cheerleading. “Ok line up for measurements in your skivvies, men first and eyes front!”

There were four men, they were Seniors and probably were a shoo-in for men’s quad team, they were probably there since their Freshmen year. It took half hour to measure all the girls for their uniforms which will be handed out on Friday after the results of this week. As we filtered into the gym I saw Danny on the bleachers, he was watching all the others warming up.

“Line up everyone. This year we have only 2 Dance Team tryouts, so we’ll do those first, then the football season, the basketball season tryouts will be tomorrow, if you’re only doing basketball sit on the bleachers. Dance teams you’re up! On the floor and warm up. Junior team you have 5 minutes to warm up, Freshman team you’re on deck.”

Beth, the twins, and I were the only Freshmen doing Dance team, even though it’s a long shot, we were practicing since the first of July, I dropped out of it while Danny was in the hospital, but I managed to pick it back up again once he woke up and practically ordered me to leave and practice. We were warming up when the Juniors took the line and started, we’d be going to the same music, so we watched and learned what we were up against, and boy were they good. They had their flips down, pyramid and drops down to the beat. They only had 2 of their four slide into splits at the end. That’s where we’ll get them with our ending splits.

“Alright freshmen let’s see ... Oh, you four.” Coach was not amused. “What are you doing here?”

“We’re trying out for Dance Team Coach.” Beth took the lead, we’d let her.

“Why should I let you and your team tryout? You are all quitters.” She was tearing into us before we tried out, this wasn’t good. “And you Beth. I take it you want cheer captain?”

“No coach, I just want to cheer. Now are you going to let us tryout or not?”

Coach was taken a-back at Beth’s attitude but gave a small smirk. “Go, and this better be good.”

We went and did our full routine, flips and pyramid. I think we perfectly matched the other team, and I think our final move clenched it for us. A standing split, falling into a full split, thank the gods for the padding we put on just for this move. The Gym erupted into cheers and applause.

“Alright you 4 you’ve made it to the Dance Team, and I’ll consider that your Tryouts for cheerleading as well basketball and football if you want. Be here Friday for the results.”

We all giggled and sat up on the bleachers by Danny as we waited for the 5PM busses to arrive. Danny was already going to be getting off at my house, so we dragged Beth along. It was half past 5 when we unloaded and went inside. Jake was chilling in the living room.

“Let mom know we have Danny and Beth over tonight when she gets home, ok?”

“Sure thing sis.” Not once looking away from his school tablet.

We all went down to my room, Beth hadn’t been down here yet, but when she started to approach my bed, she fell to her knees.

“Oh, gods no, gods the pain.” She was holding her head, shaking “His anger, your fear, Gods make it stop.” One of her abilities was manifesting.

“Beth? Beth! Look at me, look at me. Open your eyes, there’s more than that here, there’s passion, love, companionship, good. They are all here, concentrate on those.”

“What’s going on?” Danny concerned about Beth.

“I didn’t realize Beth was empathic, she didn’t tell me, my room is still emotionally charged from the night Travis tried to kill us.”

“I’m ok now, I’m ok, I’m ok, I’m ok. Okay, I didn’t know I was until walking into your room. I can feel it now, the love you two share for each other. All the emotions here must have jump started my empath abilities.” Beth sighed and sat in a chair, at the other end of my room as Danny and I sat on the sofa in my living room area of the basement.

“Ok, so Beth, there is someone we know who knows about Danny and I, that we are body swappers, we haven’t told them of you yet, but if you would like, we can all meet tonight, this way you have someone besides us to talk to if needed, especially...” I let it hang

“Alright, I guess I can use another to talk to.”

<Hey Sara, can you come by Paula’s house to pick me up, and also to meet someone who is like us?> Danny thought to her.

<Sure I’ll come by now, I’ll call Jerod and let him know where we’re at.> Sara replied.

“Alright Beth, she is coming” Danny let Beth know, but she had a weird look on her face.

“You did that telepathically? Why didn’t I hear it?” Beth questioned

“Uhm. Kind of hard to explain, it’s like channels on a radio, we select a channel or channels to broadcast to. We thought you could do that.”

“No.” She shook her head. “I’ve always included you both.”

“Hey sis you have company coming down!” Jake bellowed from the top.

“Thanks bro!” I replied back to him. “Time to reintroduce yourself to Sara, Beth.”

“So who’s ... oh hey Beth.”

<Is she the one?> Sara openly though to us.

<Yes.> Beth answered before Danny, or I could which surprised Sara

“Okay, uhm, when did you swap Beth?”

“Soon after Paula recovered, the Beth from here, well, as far as I know i-is dead now.” Beth broke down again sobbing. Sara and I went over to her and comforted her.

“What do you mean hon?”

“I-I mean dead, my Earth was hit by an asteroid a few weeks ago, an asteroid that doesn’t exist in any other universe. Freya gave me the news herself, they couldn’t do anything for them.”

“I’m so sorry Beth.” Sara just hugged Beth tightly as I moved back to Danny.