Chapter 7: Junior High Begins

Oddly enough, nothing was said when Cookie told her father about the boxes of clothes that came for her. He just looked into her closet and grunted a sound of disapproval but then walked out of the bedroom without a word.

This was so strange but just added to the mystery of it all.

One thing was for sure; the fact that he didn't object to them gave her de facto permission to wear all of it.

The first day of Junior High school was what they called "Orientation Day". It was just a half day and it was set up to let the students find their classrooms, meet their new teachers and hear an overview of what they would be studying that year.

Cookie, wearing a new, pretty, yellow dress that fit her perfectly, walked to school with her brother Corey who helped her find the hall locker assigned to her and directed her to room 38 before leaving her to go to his first class.

Mr. Gilley was a slightly built, younger man with glasses and short, dark hair. He bade the students to find a desk and take a seat as they came in. Unlike grade school, the desks were actually tables that would accommodate two students each with regular, wood and metal chairs pulled up to them, arranged in rows across the room with an aisle up the center.

Cookie took a seat, behind a desk, near the front and toward the door and watched as the other students entered the room, as she had, and sat down.

Once the room was about full of students, Mr. Gilley slapped his hand on his desktop and told everyone to be quiet.

The room chatter died down just as a second adult came into the classroom and stood by the teacher. He was a taller, curly red-haired but balding young man and Mr. Gilley told the class, "This, people, is Mr. Sharp. You may have seen him listed as your fifth and sixth hour teacher for English and History."

Mr. Sharp Spoke now. "But we're new to teaching and want to try new methods so we're combining our classes and you'll be here, with both of us, for your first two and last two hours of each day."

"These may be your Math and Science and English and History classes," Mr. Gilley informed the students, "but we'll be covering all of those subjects together along with current events and whatever you students are interested in."

Cookie thought that this all sounded so interesting and exciting and she was sure that she was going to enjoy her new school and these seemingly intelligent, young teachers.

Glancing around as they spoke, Cookie could see that her classmates included three of the kids who attended Stokley Elementary with her last year. Eric Coleman sat across the room from her and Janice Busch was sitting just in front of her. Wendy Banes, a quiet, studious girl, was sitting one row over and behind her. Cookie had never had any problems with any of them and was sure that they wouldn't make her a subject of conversation with these new students.

Each class session was to last only a half-hour today with the first regular school-day to be tomorrow. Because this was a two-hour block, they were together, in room 38, for an hour.

When the bell rang, Cookie got up from her desk and made her way to the gymnasium for the orientation for her third hour gym class.

The gym was a very spacious room (big enough to hold the entire student body at assemblies) with bleachers folded up on both sides, under high windows near the metal-braced ceiling. At the far end was a large, low stage with a drawn, blue curtain and at the other end a brown brick wall with two sets of double doors labeled GIRLS LOCKER at the near end and BOYS LOCKER at the far.

Cookie followed the straggle of girls, who were coming in to the gym with the boys, to the girls' locker room and was now in a large, beige-tile room with grey metal lockers and wood benches. There was a glassed-in office at one end of the room and a slim, freckled, curly red-haired woman, wearing green shorts and a yellow t-shirt was talking to a girl inside. Cookie sat on a bench and waited until the room was full of chattering young teenage girls and then the woman from the office came into the room and took the shiny whistle that hung from a chain around her freckled neck, and blew it loudly to silence the room.