Kindle Edition
Amazon
Category:
Young Adult/Teen
ISBN-10: 1499195338
Type: Fiction
Pages: 269
Copyright: May 2014
Price: $3.99 (eBook)
Drew Hotchner has survived middle school, but she has now become "fresh meat," aka a freshman, which could be every bit as awkward.
It's just another extraordinarily ordinary year in Drew Hotchner's world, and one she faces again with wit and sarcasm. Freshman year is the only thing that just might be more horrific and awkward than middle school, and Drew cannot avoid it. Thankfully, she is not alone and still has her support crew of friends, because some things never change, no matter the setting. Old enemies return and new distractions abound, such as a new crush, even while she holds onto the old, the advent of the grunge music movement, helping to plan a wedding, and the creepy neighbor boy down the equally creepy rural road. Drew must again learn to hold her own in the unknown and to stay true to her identity while also learning that doing the right thing is not always the easy thing and may take a degree of maturity a fourteen year old often doesn't realize she has.
Excerpt
And so It Begins
As the casket slowly lowered down into the grave, tears were dabbed from damp faces with pristine, white tissues, stark against the corresponding black dresses. From my vantage point in class, I could watch entire funerals take place in the cemetery next to, and down the hill from, Florntayor High School. I wondered who these people had been and whom they had left behind. I found myself making up dramatic stories in my head about their lives and tragic deaths. This was the second funeral during this class period within the first two weeks of school. How fitting that it was during my math class, the most dreaded of all subjects for me.
Jolting me from my daydream, a hand reached back and grabbed my left ankle, which I had apparently been jiggling as I had crossed that leg over the other. This proved to be too much temptation for Chip, the huge redneck who sat directly in front of me and asked me out daily. The overgrown senior turned and smirked, not letting go of my ankle. I mouthed silently to him that he better let go, but he just held on tighter and shook his head, his frizzy mullet rustling over his plaid flannel collar and bare, yet Chewbacca-fuzzy shoulders (the flannel sleeves had obviously been ripped off to allow for a more functional summer shirt), so I used my other foot to kick him in the butt, just missing his can of chew. “Ouch!” he howled, drawing attention from Mr. Bunson, my worst nightmare.
“Mr. Dicksen, what seems to be the problem?” Mr. Bunson inquired, peeking over the oblong glasses that had slid down his nose.
“She kick’d me!” Chip whined as he pointed his thumb back my way.
“Is this true, Ms. Hotchner?”
“Only because he grabbed my ankle and wouldn’t let go,” I stated as matter-of-factly as I could.
“There is no reason to resort to violence, young lady,” Bunson reprimanded as he tried to get his lab coat unhooked from something sticking out of the table in the front of the room. This was pre-algebra. Why did he wear that thing anyway? It’s not like we were mad scientists mixing chemicals. We were just trying to solve for x and y, or in my case, trying not to fall asleep. In the very moment he unhooked himself the bell mercifully rang. “You keep your feet to yourself, Ms. Hotchner. Ladies do not kick, and I will not hesitate to write you up if it happens again.”
“But he grabbed my ankle. It was self-preservation. Why doesn’t Mr. Dicksen get in trouble?” I asked, almost a bit too mockingly. Realizing I probably should have kept my mouth shut, I quickly added, “I promise I won’t do it again, if you could just move him away from me. He bothers me every day and I’m afraid he’s hindering my ability to learn.” Maybe I could change my sass to a plea for help. A sort of “Help me, Mr. Bunson; you’re my only hope” type tactic.
“Is that so? I’ll consider that. Do not be as late for your next class now as you were for mine.” Ouch. I had already been late for Mr. Bunson’s class two times in as many weeks, quite possibly coinciding with the days of the funerals, though I could not remember for sure. I had to race all the way across campus after changing from gym class, and I had to stop at my locker because there was nowhere to keep my math book in the locker room, so even though I’d been halfway in the classroom at least one of those times, Mr. Bunson had written me up for being tardy both times. One more tardy would equal after school detention for me. The worst trouble I’d ever been in before was two days kicked off the bus and two weeks of bus probation when I was in middle school, which incidentally, was also an unjust punishment when I had stood up for someone. I could already tell Mr. Bunson did not care for me any more than Mrs. Nelson, my bus driver, cared for me.
I wished I could start this school year over again, maybe with a different schedule, or in an entirely new location. High school was supposed to be better than middle school, but being a freshman sure didn’t feel like a step up. I was content to not stand out in any way for the rest of high school, as I was certain it would be easier to survive that way. For this reason, I was glad my friends and I had chickened out of our original plan to make an impression on our new teachers and fellow students…
Just two and a half weeks earlier, right around this time, my best friends Adrienne, Nadine, Carmen, Anne, Shane, and I had been eating lunch at Joey’s Pizza Palace after returning to town from seeing Terminator 2 in Remington, and were hatching our plan for kicking off our high school years. This was the group that had adopted me in when I moved 3,000 miles from Burnthill, California to Florntayor, Virginia. Both towns were nothing but specs on their respective state maps, but they were separate planets to me. I had quickly alienated myself from the popular crowd, then been almost reluctantly dragged at least partially into it, only to then make yet another conscious effort to turn my back on the shallow back-stabbers. In so doing, I had gained and then lost Violet, a former friend who now despised me. But this crew stood by me through all of it, and Shane had started hanging out with Adrienne, Nadine, and me over the summer, since we were all sort of stuck in the same neighborhood of dirt roads miles outside of town. He had lived out of state with his mom during most of middle school and the two of us had never met before. I could tell he had a huge crush on Adrienne, but she pretended not to notice.
That had been an interesting meeting of the minds:
“I don’t think the all black thing is such a good idea,” Nadine said thoughtfully.
“Yeah, it’ll still be hot on the first day of school, and we’ll look so morbid,” offered Carmen, using one of her new favorite words. “I heard the school was locked up over the summer for asbestos removal.”
“No, weirdo, I mean, we are starting our career as high-schoolers, and I don’t think we should make ourselves look bad from the start.” Nadine rolled her eyes a little as she said this, ignoring the additional comment. Sometimes Carmen’s ditziness was a bit much for the genius of Nadine.
“Besides that, we’ve kinda done that already,” I pitched into the conversation, referring to our all-black day the previous year, and added, “And I heard there was too much asbestos to actually clean out so they decided four years of exposure was acceptable.” I didn’t quite agree with Nadine’s judgment in ignoring such an interesting topic.
“Yeah, and so many of the kids are already smokers that they figured their lungs were already ruined,” added Anne.
Carmen seemed genuinely concerned as she asked, “But what about all the kids who don’t graduate in four years?”
“Most of them just end up dropping out anyway, so it all evens out,” I answered.
Silence took over our corner booth for about thirty seconds. We had strayed from the original conversation, much to Nadine’s focused dismay, so Adrienne brought us back. “You are all thinking about this way too much. I just thought it’d be cool to do something to show a little individuality and let people know we don’t care what they think or about being all pretty or whatever. We’re about to start high school.” She paused, and when no one reacted, she added, “But do whatever you want. I’m not limiting this to the first day. This is me now.” It was true. Even in the hot and humid temperatures of August, Adrienne had taken to wearing all black, even long sleeves sometimes, letting her hair get mussed up, and ripping even more holes into her jeans. The one exception was her version of the t-shirts we had designed earlier that summer that read, “If you don’t smoke, I won’t fart,” in permanent marker.
“But, I do sort of want to be pretty,” admitted Anne. “I don’t want to be like everybody else either, but I want to wear makeup, and I don’t want to be on any teacher’s bad side right away.”
“If we plan to be unique in order to show how much of ourselves we are, are we really being ourselves? It’s cool for you, Adrienne, because this really is you. Not all of us pull it off naturally. Let’s just each do what we’re comfortable with.” I had recently noticed my face breaking out more than usual, and I was not about to leave my house without makeup. Stupid puberty and hormones. Besides that, most of us were standing somewhere between glam rock, heavy metal, and The Cure, musically speaking, and we weren’t ready to commit solely to any one style. There were too many choices.
“You’re all beautiful as you are, so do your thing,” added Shane.
“Which one of us are you kissing up to, Shane?” Anne laughed as she nudged him, but his eyes were focused on Adrienne the whole time. Poor Anne. Apparently she’d had a crush on Shane since elementary school and was the most excited when she found out he had moved back from Maryland, finding every chance she could to come hang out at my house or Adrienne’s since he lived right by our road. Anne wasn’t completely off base either. Shane was cute. Not gorgeous, but cute. He was tall, had brown eyes and was a ginger, but we didn’t really use that term then. I just wished he’d clean his hair more often. He was easy to get along with, but quiet. Maybe he was easy to get along with because he was quiet.
And so it was settled at Joey’s Pizza Palace. Nothing out of our own ordinary, which for most of us was…well…ordinary.
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