First Day of a New School

Simone Kurland

School has never just gone very well for me. So when my mom told me we had to move I was not prepared to leave my small private school. When I say school never went well for me, I don't mean I got bad grades, I mean I wasn't very good at making friends. I mean I wasn't a complete loner, I had my few but generally I wasn't well known. This became very clear to me when my teacher last year told me I had to get a visitors pass if I wanted to sit in on his class. I had been in his class since the first day of school. Like really? Seriously, how does that happen? All I could do was hope that at my new school I wouldn't be so invisible. 

As I woke up on the first day of my new school I felt really nervous. Meeting new people was not something I looked forward to and I was scared about how behind in the classes would be. As my mom pulled in front of the school to drop me off I could feel everyone staring at me and the old gray mini van with the forest green hood and white right door. My mom made me sit there as she rattled off a complete list of what to do if I had any problems the first day. After listening to her for what felt like over an hour she grabbed my face kissed my check and I fumbled out of the car. I could tell it was a mistake to get dropped of in front of school as soon as one kid yelled to me "Wow dude you still get dropped of by your mom?! Who are you?" He looked to his friends and they all began to laugh. I could tell it was going to be a fun day. I walked into my first class of the day, English. I stood near the front of the room hoping the teacher would notice me since I definitely didn't see her or him I wasn't sure the schedule only said Whitman, no Mr. or Ms. I stood there watching the kid in sweatpants play some game on his calculator, the two girls in the back comparing hair length, and the round guy in all black who looked like he wanted to hurt me. "Hi my name is Ms. Whitman, what's your name?" startled I thought about it and stuttered out 

"N-n-n-ick, Nick Boller" 

"Alright welcome Nick, you can sit anywhere you want. Today we are discussing the first half of Enders Game by Orson Scott Card." I looked to my left to see a girl leaning towards us, both eyes fixed on me. 

"Um, yea, I read that before" I glanced back at the girl, she was still staring. 

"Well great then, you can add to the discussion." Ms. Whitman walked to her desk and the girl leaned closer.

"Uh...hi?" I nervously asked.

"Can I call you NICK NASSSTAYYY??" She asked and then proceeded to grunt, looking me up and down with a smile. "

I sat down as far away as I could from her, next to the kid in all black. 

My first day wasn't quite going as well as I had hoped but I really had no choice other than staying. I walked into my second class of the day, science, to see that no one was in there. I sat in my seat with my back pack on my desk, staring at the clock. Nervously tapping my foot against the desk's leg I realized that the class must have gone some where. I slowly got up and quietly walked to the door as if someone was watching me, or that I wasn't supposed to be in there. I then left the room hoping someone in the halls would be around to tell me what to do. I after passing back and forth in the hall I tiptoed down the stairs, again I'm not sure why I thought I had to be unheard. No one was in the hall, no one was down the stairs, feeling more alone than before I walked back to sit in the classroom. As I turned the door knob I saw a bright yellow paper taped to the door. 

COOKING CLASS TODAY! 

MEET IN ROOM 303

-MR. YANK

Feeling hopelessly embarrassed I suddenly was very thankful I hadn't found anyone in the halls to ask for their help. I picked my backpack up from off my desk and headed to room 303. It took me much too long to find the right room, I must have walked past it four times before I realize that there is a large glass window so you can see straight in to the room. Which means they must have seen me walk past it four times. I took a quiet step into the cooking room, praying that coming so late wasn't as big of as a deal as it was in my head. The entire class including the cooking teacher stopped and stared at me. "Hello..." I said as my voice cracked. 

"Welcome Nick, grab a knife and sit down in group 5." Mr. Yank said with a look and a tone making it very clear he wasn't happy with my delayed arrival to class. I sat down in the closest only empty seat I could find, how was I supposed to know where group 5 was sitting anyways? I turned to the kid next to me and in a whisper I said "Excuse me, what group"

He interrupted me with a loud "Shhhh" without ever taking his eyes of the cooking instructor. Great. I already could tell I was going to dread second period the rest of the year. At that point I was completely behind everyone, I didn't understand what we were cooking and I certainly didn't understand why we were in groups since no one was talking and each person had to make their own food. All I saw in front of me was a bowl of vegetables, raw chicken and a row of spices I've never hear of or seen before. 

Panicked, I grabbed the recipe instructions and attempted to catch up. I stared chopping all vegetables in front of me. Cutting the chicken wasn't working so I began ripping the meat off the bone and tossing both put into the huge pot of cold water. My idea was simple, roughly chop the vegetables and chicken, as long as they were in the water they would cook, but carefully measure the spices so it would still taste right. I then very carefully measured each individual spice. 1/2 teaspoon rosemary, 1 tablespoon oregano, 3/4 teaspoon pepper, pinch of dill, 2 teaspoons salt, and so on. I grabbed the ridiculously heavy pot and turned to walk it to the stove. I toke a step, maybe a step and a half, and the pot slipped out of my hands. I stared as the pot slowly crashed to the ground, having the jumping water rush across the floor. At this point I didn't even move I stood there staring at the pot on its side, contemplating how incompetent I must look. I was given a mop and a bucket of water. The mop I'm sure had sat in that same water for months, if not longer, because of the smell. The entire bucket of water was a light green and the mop looked as though it would only make the floor dirtier. I stood there slowly mopping up the spilt water as other students walked around me keeping a safe distance of 10 feet. Thankfully I cleaned up the mess just before the next bell rang, I was terrified of being late to another class. 

I reluctantly walked to my next class, French. When I was younger I could talk to my cousins in French but at this point I had lost any French I once had. I took a small desk in the back of the room, planning to hide the entire class. Scratching my pencil on my paper I looked around watching the students come in and all sit in the first three rows near the white board. "Non! Non! Non! Vous devez vous asseoir plus près de l'avant jeune homme!" I heard the teacher yell. I slowly looked up, praying to every god there was that she was not yelling at me. But of course, she was. 

Having no idea what she had just said I spit out a pathetic, "Uhh, me?"

"Oui, vous devez vous asseoir plus près" I sat there staring back at her still unsure of what I was supposed to do. "I said, no you must sit closer to the front young man." I grabbed my books and my back pack and rushed to the front before she had something else to correct me on. "Since you have your book open, how about we start with you young man?" I thought I was going to throw up I seriously was that nervous and why did she keep referring to me as 'young man'? After five minutes of butchering the first paragraph, she finally called on the next kid. I sunk into my chair and didn't speak the rest of class. 

I assumed lunch was going to be just as bad, if not worse than how my day had started off. I decided the only way to survive it was to find a place to sit outside and quietly eat my packed lunch. I walked outside to find compete chaos, I went straight for an empty wooden bench. I sat down and unpacked my lunch, ham sandwich, fruit leather, carrots, and barbecue chips. As soon as I was done laying out my lunch four girls walked toward me. "Excuse me" one of them said.

"Sorry, I'll move" and I began to pack my lunch back up. 

"Thanks!" I slowly scanned the the courtyard trying to find an empty spot. I squinted my eyes and as I was looking to the right a basket ball smacked the left side of my face, causing me to drop my books. "Woah, dude sorry! Didn't mean to hit you!" 

"I'm fine" I replied, basically telling myself since I didn't say it nearly loud enough to be heard. Lunch was still going much better than it could have been based off my last classes. Eventually I found a group of guys playing cards in a circle, I'm pretty sure they were playing with Magic cards or maybe it was Dungeons and Dragons. I really didn't care which, I was just glad they didn't make me move. It was mind numbingly boring to watch their game but I was even more miserable when the bell rang telling us to go to our next class. 

"Hello class! I'm Ms. L!" A high pitched, shrieking voice called out. "I'm the sub for today, and your teacher has left a movie for you to watch!" she said as she struggled to read the letter from our teacher even with her glasses. 

"What are we watching?!" A boy behind me yelled.

"I don't know! Sit down! I'm going to take roll!" She waddled with her cane over to the roll sheet. It took her about fifteen minutes, but she did make it through the whole class. Although she didn't call my name, I didn't say anything, I just sat there, patiently waiting to see what movie we were watching. Ms. L then waddled over to the television, placed in the corner and held up just like the ones in hospitals are. The t.v. was practically touching the celling, she took her cane and began pushing at the buttons on the VHS player, hung right under the t.v. The class sat there watching her fumble with the cane, the buttons, and her glasses. She continued to push buttons on the VHS player suddenly and the tape came shooting out of the player with such force that it hit Ms. L right in the head and fell to the ground. The class couldn't contain their laughter and Ms. L slammed the tape onto a girls desk ordering her to figure out how to start it. The girl grabbed a chair, placed it under the t.v. pushed to tape in, pushed two buttons and a documentary came on about World War II. At that point there was barely any time left to watch it, plus the whole class was much to riled up to stay quiet. 

I looked down at my schedule to see calculous was my last class of the day. At least I was good at math I told myself, in an attempt at optimism. I walked to the door to be greeted by a younger looking man in a blue button up and a grey tie. "Hi, welcome, I'm Mr. Regant, who are you?" 

"My name's Nick, it's my first day here"

"Well that's what I thought since I've never seen you, pick a card and find the person with the corresponding problem"

Mr. Regant said as he held out a fan of cards with various calculous problems. Oh. crap. I thought to myself. Group. work. Those two words scare me more than anything. I do not work well with people, I do not work well in groups, I do not like meeting people, and I do not like this idea of finding my match. I sat down in the desk close to my new teacher. I began writing all over a scratch piece of paper trying to solve the problem on my card. I knew I had done ones like this before but some how I was stumped. As I stared at the numbers I heard a voice close to me, "Hi, do we have the same card? I can't find anyone with it." I looked up at her at handed her my card. "Yep, it's the same, my name's Leah by the way." Without hesitation she grabbed the desk next to me and sat down and stuck out her hand. 

"Hi, I'm Nick, " I said as I shook her hand. 

"That's cool, so I guess we have to figure out this problem. Oh, look you already started," She reached over and grabbed my paper. 

"Yeah, um, I'm no sure why but I can't finish it."

"This is why," she pointed out a spot on my calculations, "you subtracted instead of dividing the whole sum."

"Oh, right yeah, I didn't even notice that I did that. I keep looking at it and I knew something was off but I couldn't find where so I kept getting error on my calculator..." I carried on babbling about my notes. 

"So your like new or something?" She asked. 

"Yeah, it's my first day."

"Sweet you made it through a whole day, you should be proud it's not easy to do." I looked up at the huge smile on her face and realized that I finally had competed my first day, I couldn't have been happier.