For a moment she imagined herself riding along joyfully in a car with all her new friends, laughing and gossiping about boys.

Rachel’s warm thoughts were cut short by a buzzing coming from inside her backpack.

1 New Message:

Rachel flipped open her Motorola flip phone and saw a text from Dana.

Dana: Happy 1st day! We miss you XOXO.

Attached to this text was a picture Dana had taken with her camera phone of their entire crew of friends back home.

Rachel sent back a smiley face, even though that was anything but how she was feeling inside.

Rachel’s mom turned on her blinker and made her final turn into the driveway of the school. Rachel looked out the window and saw a large sign that said, Welcome Back AHS Students.

As the family car slowly reached the front of the school, Rachel could see groups of friends hugging and greeting each other in the school yard. The student parking lot was full of BMWs, Audi’s, Mercedes’ and Saab’s. This was nothing like her old school parking lot.

As the car sat there in front of the school, Rachel’s mom reached for her purse and fumbled around for her wallet. Rachel put her head down so nobody could see her face. Her mom slowly pulled out twelve crumpled dollar bills and handed each of them four dollars.

“Here’s your lunch money. Have a great day and make lots of new friends,” their mom said in an overly cheery voice.

Rachel felt even more out of place as her 1997 grey Station wagon pulled up to the front door of the school. She hopped out of the car fast so nobody would be able to remember which car she had stepped out of. She said a quick goodbye to her mom, shut the door, and entered the sea of new faces at AHS. She already wished this day was over.

Chapter Three

As Rachel made her way through the bottleneck of kids entering the school, she felt completely alone. Mark and Sarah had disappeared into the crowd, and she was pushed and shoved as she squeezed her way through the front door of AHS. This school was very large, much larger than her small rural Pennsylvania public school. The hallways smelled of bleach and stale cafeteria food, which made her nose burn.

As Rachel got inside, she heard yells and screams of excitement as friends reunited for the first time. She reached into her backpack, trying to find her student schedule. She couldn’t remember her homeroom number, or her locker number. Standing in the middle of the hall, she rummaged around in her bag, but couldn’t find any of it. She felt the kids breeze past her, down the hallway and towards their homerooms.

She pulled out her army print FiloFax. She flipped through the pages, searching. But her schedule and locker information was nowhere to be found.

Feeling desperate, Rachel looked around for help. Rachel saw two girls coming towards her laughing and whispering, and hoped they would stop and help her, but they didn’t even notice her.

The chatter of voices got softer as locker doors began to slam shut.

RING. The sound of the first bell.

Suddenly, a boy crashed into her, making her lose her balance and trip.

“Sorry!” the boy shouted as he ran past her, not stopping to see if she was okay.

Rachel stood there and held back her tears. She couldn’t believe her first day was starting off so poorly.

She started walking briskly, in hopes of finding the main office. As she came towards the front of the building, she squinted and saw a small inconspicuous sign that read “Main Office.” She pushed open the heavy glass door and walked in.

“Good Morning, Dear,” said a nice old lady behind the desk. “You couldn’t be in trouble already?” she asked with a laugh.

“I--I um--lost my schedule. I’m new. Rachel Wood.”

“Okay, let’s see here,” the receptionist said, as she poked at her iMac keyboard. “Ah ha—Rachel Wood: 10th grade. You’re in Mr. Allen’s homeroom. Room 102.”

She printed Rachel a copy of her schedule and handed it to her across her desk, “Good Luck.”

“Thanks.”

Rachel scurried down the bleach-smelling hallway, towards her locker. She was the only one left in the large, empty hallways and she knew that was a bad sign. She must be late. Very late.

Rachel’s bag was heavy and she needed to empty it before heading to her classroom. As she flew through the halls a calm came over her. The blue tiles on the floor made her feel like she was walking through the ocean, and the lockers were painted a cool yellow color, which eased Rachel’s mind. She glanced at the ascending numbers until she came to locker 74. She reached for the knob, opened it and put all her books in, leaving out one pen and a notebook. She slammed the door shut and put her pad lock through the hole. 36-32-26. Rachel jotted the code onto her hand with her blue Bic pen, then booked it to the room marked 102.

Rachel gulped and pushed the door open. Everyone sat quietly in their desks, facing Mr. Allen as he spoke and turned and stared at her. It was anything but what she wanted on her first day. She noticed kids in the back begin to whisper as they stared at her in the doorway.

“Ah, Rachel Wood I presume?” said Mr. Allen.

Rachel nodded.

“First day and already tardy,” he continued.

“I’m sorry-- I’m um-- new and I got lost,” Rachel muttered.

Laughter arose from the back of the classroom.

“Don’t let it happen again. That’s your seat,” Mr. Allen said as he pointed to the only empty seat in the room. It was front and center.

As Rachel walked over and sat down, the class was silent. It was an intimidating silent. Mr. Allen looked at Rachel again as if to say, I’m watching you, then continued his lesson.

“Where was I?” Mr. Allen continued, “Oh yes. This year we will be learning all sorts of things in social studies, from the pilgrims, to Abraham Lincoln to the Cold War. You will have homework every night and I expect each and every one of you to complete it.”

Rachel sat in her chair and began to tune him out. As Mr. Allen’s abrasive voice grew softer, she wondered, who was this teacher anyway? He couldn’t have been more rude or embarrassing.

Rachel wanted desperately to turn around and look at her new classmates. She resisted, in fear of being accosted by Mr. Allen. She was also nervous to see the twenty-something new faces she would see each morning for the rest of the school year.

Rachel wondered that maybe, if she sat quietly facing forward, this would all disappear. She wouldn’t have to break out of her shell and make new friends.

Rachel felt a tap on her back. She turned around.

“Can you pass this to her?” a pretty girl with blonde hair was pointing to the girl sitting on the other side of Rachel.

“Sure,” Rachel said as she reached out and stealthily took the note. Mr. Allen turned to the board, and Rachel quickly handed the note off.

The girl opened the folded piece of paper and began to read. As she read the note, Rachel could hear her chuckle, and she had put her hands over her mouth to mask the sound. Rachel noticed the girl slyly looking at her while she was still reading the note. Each time she looked over at Rachel, she laughed even more.

Rachel felt so uneasy. All she wanted to do was disappear. She looked down at her shoes, pants, shirt, and bag, and couldn’t imagine what could be so funny.

Rachel figured things couldn’t possibly get any worse and she decided to turn partially around in her chair to see who was sitting around her. She saw a mix of boys and girls. She could tell by the way they dressed that they were different than she was. Did she miss the memo that leggings and tees were not cool for the first day of school?

Rachel looked at their faces, as one after another looked back with cold stares. Rachel wondered if anyone smiled at AHS.

Towards the far corner of the room, Rachel saw an average looking girl with black hair and glasses writing in her notebook. The girl looked up and caught Rachel’s stare. She smiled briefly at Rachel and then went back to her writing.

Rachel felt much better as she sat there. A new wave of confidence filled her body, and for the first time she wondered if maybe this wasn’t going to be terrible.

Rachel peered out of the corner of her eye, and her gaze stopped on a cute boy. He was the stereotypical, all-American, jock type. He had dirty blond hair, green eyes, perfect skin and he was wearing fitted jeans and his football jersey. Number 80. Rachel couldn’t see the back, but was anxious to see his last name.

“Psst.” The girl who had just read the note was trying to get Rachel’s attention. Rachel ignored her.

“Hey you, pass it back.” The girl threw the note onto Rachel’s desk.

Mr. Allen suddenly walked over to Rachel’s desk, picked up the folded piece of paper and held it in his hands.

“What’s this?” he asked, staring at Rachel.

Rachel was silent as she shrugged her shoulders.

“Listen up: you may be new, but I know you know that note passing is not allowed,” Mr. Allen said as he confiscated the note. Rachel then saw him walk over to his attendance book, make a mark in it and then looked back at her.

Rachel looked over at the girl who threw the note on her desk, but she didn’t look back.

RING. The second bell rang.

Rachel heard the sound of notebooks slamming shut and the screech of metal chair legs on the floor. The voices grew louder as she neared the hallway, and as the boy in the football jersey passed by, her hand swiped his large bicep.

The back of his jersey read Greene. Rachel took a mental note. #80 Greene. She was going to keep an eye out for him. He was hotter than any guy she’d ever seen in Pennsylvania.

The next few classes were boring compared to what Rachel went through in homeroom. She sat through the typical first day of math, science and literature, and now found herself walking alone into the cafeteria, the four crumpled up dollar bills clenched firmly in her sweaty palm.

She stepped into the large cafeteria, which she felt was the most daunting place in the entire school. Here it was, her first “real” taste of what AHS was really like.

When she got through the two double doors that led her into the large open space, she saw long, blue folding tables, with benches attached to them. There must have been 20 of them spread out through the cafeteria in neat rows. The smell of mass-produced school food infused the already stale air. The chatter of voices rang loudly in her ears as she looked for the hot food line.