Chapter 4

  I wake up to loud sound of one direction blasting through my phone. Oh wait a sec,it's my first day of school! I'm going to be late! It's already  7:59!

I jump out of bed, literally. I run into the bathroom and brush my hair. I decide to just leave it down in its natural waves. I don't need to worry about makeup, because I hate it.

So I run back into my room and pick out a fast, yet cute outfit. A white t-shirt and a worn out blue button up shirt, some black jeans and to top it all a pair of blue worn out converses. I know what your thinking. Why is this girl wearing jeans, in the beginning of September? I know right, for some reason Mother Nature is angry at us, and making it cold out.

I then grab my bag, full of my brand new school supplies, in one hand and my phone in the other. I run down the stairs to find just Lily at the kitchen table, colouring with crayons again. Oh right, Nate left for college last night, I totally forgot. Wait that means I have to drive Lily to school and still feed her and myself breakfast in a matter of 20 minutes!

Somehow I manage to feed us breakfast in five minutes. Lastly I rush upstairs to brush my teeth. Two minutes later I run downstairs to find Lily waiting at the door, her coat on, shoes on and backpack on.

"Okay let's go have our first day of school, little sis." I say to her as I lock the door. I manage to drive Lily to her elementary school, luckily on the same side of town as North wood high school.

"Bye Lily, have an amazing day of school, find Grace if you can. Love you." I say to Lily, as I check the time. 8:20. Okay school starts in ten minutes, I can make it.

"Love you too Jess." She replies, then closing the backseat car door.

I then drive off, remembering the directions to the school, since Nate told me them last night.
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  A couple minutes later I pull into the parking lot to North wood high. It was a beautiful school. It had a sitting out in the front to the left, with lots of trees to sit under. I didn't really have time to stand there and take all of it, though.

  I speed walk into the front door, ignoring all the creepy stares I was getting. What have you never had a new student?

I walk to the receptionists desk to the, that is at the right side of a huge hallway. I see a pretty looking middle aged woman sitting behind the desk.

"Oh you must be the new student, your probably looking for your schedule and locker number." She says cheerfully.

I hope everyone here is this nice.

"Yep, how did you know?" I reply, while nodding my head.

"We don't get new students often." She says smiling. She then hands me a sheet of paper, with my locker number and schedule on it.

"Okay, thanks miss.." I reply, not knowing her last name.

"Mrs. Brown." She finishes for me. "Have a good day, you might want to get going now." She adds. Oh right!

"Thank you." I say, then turn around. I then look at my classes.

      AP English-Mr. Davis. Room 214

       AP physics-Miss Murphy. Room 420

      Visual arts- Mrs. Gonzalez. Room 360

                     Lunch
    
       Physical education -Mr. Bennett.

      AP calculus- Mrs. Bailey. Room 315

I really need help getting to these classes, I think to myself as I start walking well looking down at the schedule still. I suddenly bump into something. I look up. Oh it's just a girl.

"Oh my gosh I'm so sorry, I'm so clumsy." She says to me. "Oh your the new girl. Hi I'm Emma. " she adds, smiling. She has dark brown hair and welcoming hazel eyes. She's short like me, but not as short. I'm used to that though.

"Hi I'm Jessica, but everyone calls me either Jess or Jessie." I reply, smiling back to her.

"Do you need any help getting to your classes. Can I see your schedule?" She asks. I nod, handing my schedule to her. 

"Oh wow, you're really smart. I have English, art and lunch with you."

"That's alright I guess, I just won't know anyone in the other classes." I say. I was really hoping I wasn't alone in all my classes. Oh well, just some I guess.

"That's all right, I'll introduce you to my friends at lunch. Come on, we really have to go to class." Emma replies, linking arms with me.

We walk down the hallway for awhile, pushing our way through the crowd. I continue to get stares, as we walk down the hall. One guy even wolf whistles, and says wow hot new girl. Gross.

So much for everyone here being nice.

  We then turn into a classroom. It's fairly big, with some desks filling it. We walk down the rows of desks. First row, full of nerds, I used to sit there, during the end of last year. Second row, averages, Emma sits there, I sit down in a open spot beside her. I turn around. Third row, jocks and cheerleaders. And lastly fourth row, the scary looking people, over the top goths and the cliche bad boys. It's mostly empty though, those people are probably the ones who show up late.

I roll my eyes, this school is so cliche already. The first bell rings and the teacher walks into the classroom. He is a large middle aged balding guy. After the national anthem and announcements, he starts taking attendance. I guess he hasn't noticed me yet.

"Sarah Arts." "Here." A girl in the second row says.

"Mathew Brooks." "That's my name." a guy in the third row replies smirking. Yep jock for sure.

"Beckett Danson" " Here." A shy guy in the first row says, through his braces.

"Emma Foster." "Here." Emma shyly exclaims.

"Spencer Gold."

Silence. Mr. Davis grumbles something under his breath.

"Spencer Gold." he says again. Suddenly the door opens and in strolls a random dude.

"Here sir, and totally not ready to learn." The guy by the name of Spencer Gold says, strolling to the back row of the class. Well doesn't he have a positive attitude.

   Wait a second. He is the guy from the park!He is the jerk that I beat! My eyes widened. Holy crap. Yep it was him, with the soft brown hair, that made it look like he just got out of bed, yet gorgeous hair. And the mesmerizing emerald green eyes. 

Mr. Davis turns red with anger, but he continues reading the names.

"Paige Jeffreys." "Present." A girl in a cheerleading uniform says.

"Jessica Michaels." "Here." I say and smile.

"Oh, your the new student, welcome to Northwood high. Stand up and tell the class about yourself." He says, clearly happy there's a new student.

I stand up."Um hi, my names Jessica,-"

"No duh." A jock guy in third row says and a couple of people laugh.

"As I was about to say, before I was rudely interrupted." I say glaring at the dude. He srinks back into his seat. "but you call me Jess or Jessie. I just moved from Georgia in the summer, and I love soccer, school and reading." I finish, then sit down again.

"Excellent  Jessica. Now we have another person to put these students in their  place." Mr. Davis says, referring to me snapping back at the jock.

He continues to do the attendance. Once we are done Mr.Davis then starts to give instructions.

"Okay class turn to page one in your textbook." We rush to turn to that page. "Okay now turn to page 30." We turn to that page. Oh I know where he is going with this. "You will be reading page 1 to 30 for homework, you may start now." He finishes.

The whole class grumbles. Except for me and Emma, I guess she likes reading too. I'm fine with the homework, honestly it's better then reading the same books over and over again, like I've been doing all summer.

The class begins to break into whispers, as we are suppose to be reading. Mr.Davis, doesn't seem to care though, he is probably used to it.

"I'm guessing you like reading too?" I whisper to Emma.

"Yep, I'm sorta a book freak." She says sheepishly.

"Me too." I say grinning.

"This is a beginning of a beautiful friendship." She says laughing. I join in.
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  After class I show Emma my locker number, currently she is leading me to it. She is also talking about all the school clubs I should join.

"Well, the debate team is pretty good, but I don't think they are looking for members." She exclaims.

Suddenly I crash into what fells like a brick wall and fall to the ground. "Ow" I look up to see a guy.

Spencer Gold, to be exact. Ah, the jerk.

"Watch where your going, nerd." He snaps, glaring at me. Two can play at this game mister.

"No, you watch where your going, jerk." I snap back at him. Hopefully he recognizes me. Time to bring up the soccer game. "I know you." I add accusingly.

"No you don't." He hisses.

"Yea I do, I beat you at a soccer match, remember." I say a bit louder so people can hear me.

"Whatever, watch your back nerd." He finishes, then stomps away.

What an actual drama queen.

"What was all that about?" Emma asks, well helping me pick up my stuff.

"Nothing to worry about, I'll tell you at lunch." I say, as she leads me to my locker.

"Oh it is, you just got threatened by Northwood Highs local bad boy." She whispers to me, with fear shining in her hazel eyes.

I pretend not to be shocked.

Once we reach, my locker I unlock it and put all my stuff in it.

"I have to go to class." I exclaim,walking away from her. I find my way to the AP physics classroom, with multiple thoughts clouding my head. What does he mean by watch your back? He is the bad boy of the school? Why should I be afraid of him? And why is it such a big deal, that I beat him at soccer? I've beat many boys before, so it's not a big deal?

I sit down in a random desk like all the other students. This class isn't as cliche as the English class. All the students are scattered everywhere. I take out my physics book and my school supplies.

A young pretty looking teacher, Miss Murphy walks into the classroom. Immediately she notices me. "Ah, class there is a new student here, her name is Jessica, we welcome you to our school with open arms." She says cheerfully, looking directly at me." Say hi to Jessica everyone" she then orders the whole class. They reply with. "Hi Jessica."

AP physics whizzes by pretty fast. Quick and less eventful as AP English too.
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Emma and I sit beside each other on again in visual arts. It was a fairly easy A for me , like all my other class. I have dozen of sketchbooks filled with my visions of characters and creatures. My dad bought me my first sketchbook at the age of 10 and I haven't stopped since.

Visual arts class passed by quick as well. Right now, Emma and I are walking to the cafeteria. She said her friends already know about me somehow.

"Yea, everyone is the school is talking about you. Since the accident with Spencer earlier, your all the latest talk. I have geography with him, he was fuming the whole time." She rambles on. Oh joy, I just love being gossiped about, through the entire school on my first day here. Yay! Sarcasm deeply used there.

"So how exactly was all of the spread throughout the whole school in only two periods?" I ask her.

"Oh, our school has a gossip club, that regularly informs all the students on their phones hourly." She answers me.

"So your school practically has a gossip girl club." I exclaim. This school is seriously messed up!

"Yea I guess so!" She replies laughing.

We then reach the cafeteria,as we enter all the heads turn our way. Some faces look at us in awe. Some look at us with full on death glares and some even look just plain confused. Confused I turn to Emma.

"Why are they are all staring at us?" I ask her, completely forgetting about this mornings accident in the hallway.

"Not us, you. They are all looking at you." She answers with a small smile on her face.

We then walk into the lunch line, waiting to choose our food. All of a sudden a guy in front of says to me. "You can go in front of me Jess." 

"Um no it's okay." I reply,with a confused look on my face. This school is so strange. I've probably thought that at least 100 times already today and it's not even 4th period yet!

"No seriously, you have to." He says, not giving up. Fine. What in the world is his problem.

"Um I guess so." I reply, still confused. "Okay, Emma let's go." I say, turning to Emma.

The guy stops us, suddenly. "No, sorry, just Jessica."

I turn to her. "It's fine, Jessie, go ahead." She says, trying to reassure me. I sigh. I walk in front of the guy.

In one quick moment, a different guy, in front turns around and I come face to face with him.
Spencer Gold. "We need to talk." He whispers to me. The look of hopelessness evident on his face. Oh so it was his plan, with the weird guy letting me cut in front of him.

Suddenly my eyes soften. It's not his fault either that this is spreading around the school like crazy.

  I say fine. I follow him as he leads me to a table in the corner of the cafeteria. There is only one guy sitting there. Then I recognize him as Spencer's best friend.

"Wait I don't have any lunch." I say turning around to go wait in line for some food. I don't ever plan on skipping any of my meals.

"Here have my pizza." Spencer exclaims handing me a tray with 3 delicious looking slices of pepperoni pizza on it.

"Really?" I ask, my eyes widening. He doesn't know how much I love pizza.

"Sure, now come sit down." I sit down. Facing the two boys. I stuff a slice of pizza in my mouth.

  I look over to see the two boys looking at me, clearly amused. I ignore them. I slowly swallow then say to Spencer's buddy. I should make friends with him, since he is probably nicer than Spencer.

"Hi, I'm Jessica, but everyone calls me Jess or Jessie." I cheerfully say to him.

"Hi I'm Parker. Parker Barran. Nice to put a name to the girl who beat Spencer's sorry butt."

I start laughing at a realization of something. They stare at me confused.

"Your names. Spencer and Parker. They are sorta the same, you know."

"Huh, I never thought of that before." Spencer replies.

"So why do you need to talk to me?" I ask him, getting straight to the point. Emma's supposed to be introducing me to her other friends right now, but instead I'm talking to these two idiots.

"Well, everyone has been talking about how you beat me at soccer, and that is a problem because I am the captain of the soccer team. So if I can be beat by a tiny girl, then people might start to question if I'm good enough to be the captain." He exclaims, wait did he just call me a tiny girl?

"I am NOT tiny!"I shout at him, pushing my chair back and standing up.

"Um you sorta are!" He shouts, standing up to prove his point. Well he is super tall, that's not fair. "And is that all you seriously got out of what I just said!" He adds, running his fingers through his hair, sighing.

I sit back down, suddenly silent.

Parker comes to my defence. "Look Spencer, it's not her fault this is happening, don't take out all your stress on her." He exclaims, trying to calm him down a bit.

"I know." Spencer replies, sitting back down. I continue to munch on my pizza.

"I understand your problem and all, but how am I going to even help you? And why would I?" I question him. It's true, how would I even help him.

"Your going to help me by versing me again, in a soccer match after school. And you will help me because I'm amazing." He replies smirking. Here comes his ego the size of Russia, to the rescue.

"Um, no." I say, standing up with the table, with my pizza in hand. I'm going to go find Emma. "Thanks for the pizza though. "

"Hey, get back here, you are going to help me, either like it or not you will." He shouts at me, as I continue to walk away from the table.

"Nope!" I say grinning,as I continue to walk away.I notice all the students are watching us. Have they been staring the whole time. Why is it such a big deal? I see Emma walking over to me, with her lunch in her hand.

"How did you get pizza?" She asks me.

"Spencer gave it to me." I reply dryly. Although that was very nice, he is still a jerk.

Her jaw drops."Holy guacamole!" She exclaims, astonished.

"What's the big deal?" I ask her, once again confused. This school is seriously messed, how is it still running?

"First of all, Spencer hates literally everyone in this school, except Parker. Secondly, he never shares anything at all, so I'm extremely surprised that he gave you a lunch. " she exclaims, as I follow her to her friends. Huh, hates everyone.

We reach her table, where one girl and one boy sit.

"Hi guys, this is Jessica, she's the new girl here, that's everyone's been talking about." She introduces me to them, catching they're attention.

"Oh, your the girl that beat Spencer at soccer, right?" The guy says. He has dark blond hair and light brown eyes.

"Yep, I'm the girl. By the way, you guys can call me Jess or Jessie." I reply smiling. I then sit down beside Emma.

"I'm Jace. I think it's awesome that you can beat the soccer captain, at his own game." Jace says.

"Thanks, I was the soccer captain at my old school. " I reply to him, cheerfully.

"Hello I'm Nova. I think it's good to have a person in the group that can beat a guy's ass." The girl says. She has black hair and dark eyes. She is also wearing all black clothes and has black eyeliner around her eyes. I would've been scared of her, but I'm not since she just sorta complimented me.

"Glad to join your group then." I reply and we all laugh.
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Lunch flies by quickly, and we all learn new things about each other. I follow Nova to the gym since we have it together.

"Mr. Bennett is a bit mean at times, so beware. He also yells a lot too." She says, replying to my earlier question, is he a good gym teacher.

"Okay, I'll just try not to get on his bad side." I exclaim, giggling.I then ask her. "What sport does he do first?

"Usually volleyball, but one the first day we just practice our serves and volleying." She replies.

We then reach the gym p, along with a couple other students. We sit down on the floor, criss-cross apple sauce, like the other students. A large, bulky looking middle age balding man enters the gym.

He then says looking bored out of his mind. "Today we will be practicing our volleying back and forth, find a partner." I immediately turn to Nova, she turns to me as well. We give each other the look.

All of the students then go to the rack of volleyball and grab one for themselves and the partner. We all then split into partners across the gym. Me and Nova start volleying it back and forth. This is so boring. I look around the gym to find students, also having a bored expression on all they're faces.

We do that for about five more minutes, when Mr. Bennett stops us. "Okay that's enough volleying, let's just have a scrimmage. The team captains are Clarissa and Spencer." He says, then goes and sits back down on the bench. I look to see the orange skin girl from Lily's friends, Graces house. Oh crap, I think. With her and Spencer as captains I am sure to be picked last.

Clarissa picks first. She picks one of her friends. Then Spencer picks, he picks Parker. Clarissa then picks a jock looking dude.

Spencer's turn again. I hear him say my name. Huh, what's going on? I walk to his side, surprise clearly evident on my face. Spencer notices and says. "Don't be so surprised, sweetheart." He says looking down at me. I roll my eyes at the last part.

When the teams are all picked, we go to one side of the net and Clarissa's team goes to the other side. Spencer mostly picked some guys and the extras, like me and Nova and some other averages. On the other hand, Clarissa picked all of her friends, the girly girls and the jocks. Well this is fair.

The game slowly progresses with it being tied for the most part. It's the last set and the score is tied. I'm up the serve. If I serve it over and get a point, we win and if I don't we lose. No pressure, there.

I throw the ball up and over hand serve it over to the other side. It comes flying down, on Charissa's face and hits her right in the nose. Ouch that's gotta hurt. She then screams so loud all of Eberly can probably hear it. I slowly walk over to the area where she is screaming. I go to apologize, but Nova stops me.

Clarissa then spots me and walks over to where I am. "You Bitch! You will so pay for this!" She yells at me then stomps away, with her sidekicks running after her.

"Um, class dismissed." Mr. Bennett says uncomfortably, breaking the silence. We all rush out of the gym.

Spencer then catches up to me, as Nova and I enter the hallway.

"Nice job, by the way, getting us that last point and all." He states, scratching the back of his neck, while sending me a small smile.

"Thanks, I still feel bad about hitting Clarissa in the nose and all." I reply.

"How can you feel bad for her, when she called you a bitch and threatened you." He says getting slightly angry, I don't now whether it's directed at me or Clarissa though.

"If I remember correctly, you threatened me just this morning too." I reply, proving a point.

"I know, um I'm sorry about that and all." He states, still nervous.

"It's okay, I forgive you.I got to go to class now though. Bye Spencer." I say to him sending him am encouraging smile.

"Bye Jessa." He replies. I immediately freeze.

"Please don't call me that."I plead, sending him a pleading look.

"Why not Jessa?" He says smirking.

"Just don't call me that okay?" I say then turn around and start walking down the hallway, tears threatening to spill down my face.
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AP calculus was okay, I keep to myself for the rest of the day,  Emma keep giving me questioning looks and trying to talk to me both before and after class. I don't want anymore drama. I don't want to be the centre of attention here.

I just continued to do my work until the bell rung, signalling the end to the day of school. Finally time to get out of here. I rushed out of class and straight to my locker. After getting all my homework out of my locker, I headed to my car. I still have to pick Lily up from school.

I drive to her school. I then park my car in the parking lot and walk to the school yard, where the other young students were, to find Lily. I find her talking to Grace. Sam and some other kids. She notices me and says a quick goodbye to all of them.

She runs into my arms, giving me a huge hug. "Hi, sis how was your day of school?" I ask her, bending down to talk to her.

"Awesome, my teacher, Mrs. Tony is really nice." She says grinning. "How about you Jess?" She adds.

"Good, I made some friends too." I reply, giving her a smile. "Okay let's go home now." I say and we walk to my car.
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Once we get home, I make Lily a snack, then go straight to my room to start my homework. About an hour later I'm done. I get up and stretch, my legs still asleep. I then walk over to my window facing the neighbours house, wondering who even lives there. The house is way big then ours.

I look through the window to see who is in the room straight across from mine, and see a figure talking on the phone. Spencer Gold, talking on the phone to be exact. I quickly duck down, hoping he doesn't see me. You've got to be kidding me. This is so unfair. The towns local bad boy is my neighbour.
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I pretend nothing has changed the whole night, as I make supper, have supper with Lily and tuck her into bed.

I flop into my bed, later that night, once I've done my nightly routine. I get settled into bed and start to think about today's events. Making new friends (Emma, Nova and Jace) and making new enemies (Clarissa). Also Spencer. I don't know if he is my friend or my enemy though.

Those are my last thoughts as I drift off into a peaceful sleep, where I don't have to worry about going to school tomorrow.