Chapter 3: A Full Day at School

Tuesday pretty much started the same as Monday, and it would set the pattern for most of the school year. Wake up, get ready, and stumble down stairs for breakfast. Today I was just a little sore from my adventure, but that was nothing to worry about. I was used to a little muscle ache the day after a good workout. My mother was making coffee and reading the newspaper as I made a bowl of sugary cereal and milk. Not the most healthy way to start the day, but at 14 no one thinks about that.

I noticed Mom was looking at the help wanted section. She usually has a job of some kind. I don't think we need the extra income, she just likes to work rather than sit home. Sometimes she would volunteer if she thought the position would be interesting, but she never kept a job for too long. I think she just got bored after a while and wanted to move on to something new.

"See anything for me in there?" I asked with a smile.

"Sure, says here they need someone to scoop poop at the county dog pound. You should be real good at that!" She teased.

"That's great!" I exclaimed. "Oh, darn those rules! I'm not allowed to get a job till I'm 16 ... I was going to be the first millionaire Doggy Pooper Scooper!" I laughed.

"No, this is a volunteer position! It says here, you can start as young as 14 since it's not paid."

Oh no! She's not serious I hope! "Ummm ... somehow, I don't think I'm going to be able to fit that in with all the homework I'll need to do. This is a new school after all, and I have to keep up my grades."

"But, I didn't even tell you the hours yet..." she laughed.

"Yep, definitely not going to work out!" I replied as I grabbed my books and headed to the door. I could still hear her laughing behind me, but I wasn't slowing down. Leave it to me to put my big foot in my mouth and get suckered into a non-paying job. I'm pretty sure she was just joking. There probably wasn't even a job like that in the paper, but just in case, I'll walk a little faster.

I got to the bus stop a little earlier today and only Grace and Robert were there. I thought Grace might know what Kelly's problem was. If I could talk with her, maybe she could help settle the issue with Kelly, or at least clarify it. As I walked up, I said hi to Robert and we shook hands in greeting.

"What's up Robert?"

"Hey, how goes it?"

"Good question!" Then I lowered my voice, and I told him I was going to try and find out.

I slowly walked over to Grace, and I swear it looked like she was going to take off running when she saw me.

"Hi Grace, I'm Mike," I started a smoothly as I knew how.

"I know who you are! Kelly told me all about you!" She nearly screamed.

"Grace, calm down," I said holding my hands out in a peaceful manner. "I'm trying to figure out what Kelly's problem is."

"Maybe you should quit STALKING her then!"

"What are you talking about? I've only seen her at school and on the bus." I replied

"You're saying that wasn't you yesterday, outside her house checking her out in her swim suit? You must have run around the whole neighborhood, looking for her house. What about yesterday on the bus? Did you really take typing class just to be with her? Why can you just take NO for an answer?"

I was just trying to figure out which part of that to answer first, when she flounced away toward the approaching Kelly. I turned around and noticed that Joe and Greg had showed up as well.

"Hey Greg, Joe," I said as I walked over.

Joe just gave me a microscopic nod and a bit of a glare.

"Dude, you trying to piss off all the girls?" Greg joked, but actually looked a little concerned.

"I don't know what the deal is. I went for a run yesterday, up and down almost all the streets in the neighborhood. I was just trying to make up a good running route. Toward the end, I saw someone go into their house in a swim suit. It might have been Kelly, but I didn't even really see her. I surely wasn't stalking her."

"Was it a brown house? Top of the street right before park?" Greg asked.

"That sounds right. I finished that loop, got a drink at the park and started running trails."

"Must have been her place. You didn't stop and stare or take a rest right there?"

"Man, I didn't even break stride. What's up with that girl?"

I could tell Joe was listening to all of this intently. He finally decided to break in. "What happened on the bus yesterday? You weren't running down her street then."

"Nothing happened on the bus! The bus has assigned seating. I sat where I was told, just like everyone else. All I did was introduce myself, and she ignored me. I figured she wasn't interested and shut up." I explained as the bus arrived.

"That's not what I heard," Joe said.

"What did you hear?" I turned back toward him. "That's what I've been trying to figure out."

It was too late to continue the conversation as we loaded on the bus, but I damn well was going to pick it up again as soon as I could corner Joe. I really wanted to know what he heard, but he moved to his seat in the back. Kelly waited until last to get on and had an animated conversation with the driver. Afterword she came back and sat down, while the driver stared at me intently until the bus began to move again.

None of this made any sense. From what Joe said, someone, I can assume Kelly, has made been telling people what happened on the bus yesterday. The only odd thing that happened was that a couple of Kelly's buttons came loose. Surely, she wouldn't announce that to the world, and what would they care if she did? I mean, it was a thrill to me, but you could see more at any beach in the country. At this rate, I'll be the school pariah before we get through the first week.

At Amy's stop I was surprised to see Kelly slide out and motion her to the middle seat. Amy hesitated, but then shrugged and slipped past her. Like yesterday afternoon, Amy sat with her shoulder slightly in front of mine and leaned back against me. I made sure to minimize contact and keep my hands in my lap, but Amy didn't seem to have the same issues as Kelly.

"Ready for the first "real" day?" she asked.

"I was ready yesterday," I laughed. "I didn't know it was a half day until we were already in the classroom. That was a rather pleasant surprise"

"I bet!" She said. "We have to take those short days whenever they'll give them to us."

We kept up the light banter all the way to the school. By the time we got there my mood was much better and Amy seemed to be a little more chipper as well. As the bus unloaded we wished each other a good day, and headed our separate ways.

Greg was waiting for me. "So what happened on the bus yesterday?" he pounced.

"Nothing, just like I told you. We didn't even talk, I don't know what Joe's talking about." I thought again about telling Greg about the buttons, but I just couldn't imagine this being about that. I also didn't want to be accused of starting rumors, even though it seemed someone was starting them about me. I glanced around, but I didn't see Joe anywhere.

"Where's your home room?" He asked

We already knew we shared several classes, but not home rooms. It turned out they were next door to each other, so we continued to talk as we headed to our first class.

"Did you hear what she asked the bus driver?" He asked

"No, I was already in my seat. Did you hear her?"

"I only caught part of it, but she wanted to switch seats because you were "harassing" her."

"Whatever ... good. Maybe that'll be the end of it then."

"Not good. He won't let her switch, unless she makes a formal complaint, or something like that. I bet kids are asking to switch seats all the time."

"Assigned seating is stupid anyway, they should just let us sit where we want.

"When did running turn into stalking? Is she that full of herself, so that anyone that just happens to be in the area must have been looking for her?" I asked. "I mean, I know it was her house, but I ran the whole neighborhood. I wasn't just doing laps around her block."

Greg kind of looked around before answering. "Personally, I think she's 100% pure bitch. But, you didn't hear that from me. She's good looking, and she knows all the right people, and all of that. She's one of the most popular people in our class, and maybe the whole damn school. She also has a big boyfriend, which I think is going to a very large problem if you can't get this story straightened out."

"Straightened out? I can't even get the whole story! If the bus story is like the stalk ... What the..." I stammered as I fell back against the lockers. At first I thought I was being attacked, but it turned out that the slamming efforts were directed at freshmen in general. Well, I guess I really was being attacked, but it wasn't just me as Greg and several others were also slammed into lockers.

A rather large group of seniors (I assumed) where making the way down the middle of the hallways yelling at the freshmen to keep the center clear for "their betters". I guess, I was seeing some of that hazing the principal was talking about. They must have made too much noise, as a couple teachers poked their heads out of their classrooms and the seniors quickly got quiet, followed by the bell ringing, and everyone scrambling into their first classes.

At Elm Grove, the schedule was broken up into six classes, plus a fifteen minute home room. The home room was just to take morning attendance and make announcements. I question the need for this, simply because every class takes attendance and any class could make announcements. So why exactly did we need a "Home Room"? (I'm sure some educator can tell me)

As a freshman you didn't have a lot of class choices. The four core classes math, English, science and civics, could be either "standard" or "advanced". You also had a mandatory gym class, which left one, and only one, elective. If the school didn't need a band I think they would find a way to take that elective away. Some folks from other areas would find this really strange, as they have seven or eight or even nine classes. At Elm Grove, they claimed it was to give each teacher more time with the students and that was a better learning experience, than constantly changing classes. That may or may not be true, but I think the driving force was that fewer classes allowed the school to have fewer electives, fewer class rooms, and fewer teachers. That saved the school more money, which undoubtedly was funneled into the "right" pockets.

I am being a little harsh on the Louisiana school system, as this is only one kid's experience. It might be worse than I thought. This was a time before standardized tests, so teachers didn't teach "to the test". Unfortunately they didn't teach much at all. Kids that are transferred from northern schools to southern schools get to take a break while the school teaches things that they've already been taught. When the reverse happens, be prepared for lots of studying to catch up, or some really bad grades.

When I was registering for school last week, I was asked what elective I would like. I was quickly informed that industrial arts, auto shop, and 4H were already full. I had to ask what 4H was, then realized I didn't care that it was full. I would have been interested in mechanical drawing, but that wasn't offered to freshmen. I guess we can't be trusted to hold pencils and rulers at the same time. Since I turned down band, and choir (really?), the choices dwindled down to home economics or typing. Of the two, typing class seemed the least offensive, so a deal was struck and I had my elective, which also was my first class for the day.

After the bell rang, ending home room, I quickly made my typing class. The teacher stared at me as I made my way into the room and sat behind a desk with an electric IBM typewriter. At least, that's what the cover said it was. I saw Kelly enter and she stared at me too. What's with all the staring? She picked a desk as far from me as possible, which was fine. I was beginning to wish I had never met Kelly, she's already caused me more trouble than anyone I know, except maybe my sisters.

"Mike? You didn't get your schedule changed?" the teacher asked.

"No Miss Prim, I transferred too late, so there weren't many options." That might not have been the most politically correct statement to make to a new teacher. During our short meeting the day before she made several comments about me going to the office to get the "mistake" on my schedule fixed.

"Well, I'm not going to let you just sit in here while the rest of us learn!" she exclaimed.

"I know, I'm here to learn." I tried to recover a little composure.

"We'll see," She finished.

As the class filled in and the bell sounded, I wasn't really surprised to be only boy in the room. Even if the subject wasn't as bad as Home Economics, the teacher obviously had a bias. Soon Miss Prim was into her day one speech. She looked and sounded like she had been doing this for thirty years or more. By the end of the hour we still hadn't taken the covers off the typewriters, but we had several pages of home work to do.

Elm Grove was a pretty large school, but I knew I couldn't avoid Krieg forever. I didn't even avoid him for two classes. While walking to the math hall I felt myself get hit in the back again, and I went flying, yet again. This time I went flying into a grassy courtyard, which was much preferable to flying into other students. My unplanned landing was going pretty well, until I slid next to a wall and partially into a mud puddle. I quickly extracted myself, but the damage was done. There was mud all the way down the outside of my right pant leg. That's just fantastic, I thought.