Jodee

Chapter 2 - School and Friends

I crowded the door with everyone else as we waited for the bell to ring, signifying the start of lunch.

I'm not popular at my school - not even close - but I do have some really great friends so I do enjoy lunch as probably one of my favorite parts of the day.

I was exciting Mr. Schooler's 5th period Geometry class now, which had to be one of my least favorite classes.

I wasn't good at math or really science, history and english were my things and I was fine with that. But Mr. Schooler wasn't. For some reason my 5th period math teacher had always had a dislike for me even though I tried my very hardest in his class, like many others.

I was a very good student, getting straight A's and taking higher course levels in English and choosing to volunteer at the library for my elective.

When we chose electives I knew right away that I wanted to be a Library Aid. At first, I did not want to be any sort of aid - office or teachers because I just don't like being put in that spotlight that much. But when I heard there was a library aid that reasoning went straight out the window!

RING!

The bell sounded from the red medal circle on the wall, showing us that we were free to leave - the bell doesn't dismiss you.

My gym teacher, Mr. Hough's voice rang in my head. I shook my head, a small smile on my lips as I thought of Mr. Hough because lucky for me Mr. Schooler had an entirely different rule: the bell is your cue to come and leave my classroom.

"C'mon!" One of my friends Jessica - or Jess as she liked to be called - said to me, grabbing onto my hand and pulling me through the door.

Jess led me to our lockers at a fast pace to keep from being trampled by the rowdy students trying to get to the lunch line. We were fine waiting until the line had died down to get our food.

My friend was sort of popular. Well not really, the invisible popular where she knew everyone and everything - including the gossip - but not many people paid attention to her.

Jess was super bubbly and always wanting to be doing something. I was beginning to think she had ADHD with how much she couldn't stand being bored for even a second a day.

I pushed my math textbook and notebook into my locker before hiking my backpack higher on my back and following Jess into the lunch room and over to the table where me and my friends always sat.

In my school cafeteria the backside was unofficially the "popular side" and the front/entrance side was the nerds and nobodys.

We sat at the front of the cafeteria at a random table, not in the corner, but not in the middle. Perfectly out of view - invisible.

"Hey," Justin muttered to Jess and I, seeing as he was already at the table - I gave him a small smile in return.

I had four friends which made our group of five.

Jess was the first one and we'd been friends since I moved here on my first day of 3rd grade. She had very long blonde hair which I knew she got colored even though she always claimed it was her natural look. Although her hair was stick straight, naturally, she always curled it into beach waves as she called it. Jess was pretty outgoing, probably the biggest one in the group but she said that she still likes to have a small and close friend group like ours. Which I'm grateful for because she's probably my best friend. Jess is always smiling, making her dusty blue eyes glow and her hair wave around, something many people in our grade are jealous of. In fact, a couple boys have asked Jess out before but these "relationships" only last for a little before my friend gets bored or the boy messes up as she says.