"Okay people, listen up. I'm Dr. Willson, and I'm one of the assistant principals here at Central High. We're going to split you up into groups and take you on a tour of our school," she said flipping through a notebook.
I said a prayer that I would be in Ashanti's group since I was so anxious and felt like I would faint if I had to go on the tour by myself. Mr. Russell was supposed to be my parent for the night, and if they put us in separate groups, I'd be all by myself.
"Please listen as I call off the group numbers," Dr. Willson said. "If your student packet number falls between one to eighteen, then you're in group one."
Student packet number? So not alphabetical order? Oh happy day! I made a promise to do my prayer journal entry at night in gratitude. My prayer had definitely been answered, and Ashanti and I were in the same group. Devon was in our group, too.
"I'm glad you girls are together," Mr. Russell said. "I didn't even think about them splitting you two up. I would have had to put you guys in the same coat and say you were Siamese twins."
I thought Ericka was going to throw up. "Thalia should be in your group," Ashanti said to her. "Thirty-five and forty-seven aren't too far apart."
Unfortunately, Ericka's group began with "thirty-five" and ended with "forty-six," so they weren't going to be on the same tour. Oh well, at least I wouldn't be alone. After all, at least Ericka had her dad with her. I was sharing a dad for the night. Dr. Willson told us to get into our groups, and I stayed glued to Ashanti's side.
"Hi guys, I'm Angelina, and I'm your tour guide," said a tall girl with dark hair down her back. I figured she was a teacher until she said she was a sophomore. Did the public schools have growth hormones in their water, or did all the Hillcrest kids just look hopelessly young? Well, except for India and Devon. I had only seen Devon for a second, but she had worn all black and was dressed pretty sophisticated in dressier pants and a scooped-neck top. Her hair was half up, and she had dark eyeliner on, too. I wished I had worn makeup instead of just my cherry cola flavored lip balm.
Angelina handed us each an information packet with a course guide, application forms, and a scheduling form. The forms were complicated, so I tucked them back in the envelope and figured my mom could take care of it. Angelina took us through the school, and I noticed how big everything was. The lockers were taller than the ones at our school, and the hallways were enormous. It seemed like there were a thousand wings, and I didn't know how anybody found their way around the place. We went into the library, which could have fit three of the Hillcrest library inside it. It seemed even bigger than the public library. There was a section with beanbag chairs and a row of computers along one wall. They even had something called "study carrels," which were little individual desks all sectioned off.
Next, we walked through the cafeteria, where a group of teachers had set up booths to answer questions. I was starting to relax when a girl ran up to Ashanti and hugged her.
"Oh, Ashanti," the girl squealed, and I saw Ashanti shoot her father a look. "I am so glad to see you. This is so exciting. Did you see all the hot guys that were in the gym?" she asked.
"I know, they were so cute," Ashanti said. "Gigi, I want you to meet Landry — "
Gigi interrupted her to point out some guy in a football jersey walking into the cafeteria. Ashanti tried again to introduce me, but Gigi saw someone else she knew and took off. She never even made eye contact with me. I tried not to look embarrassed, but it was obvious that I wasn't worth Gigi's time. Oh well, it couldn't be a school full of Gigis, could it? Mr. Russell took me over to the English department's table, told one of the teachers that I was a "gifted writer," and asked about the creative writing program. One of the teachers gave me a sheet on her creative writing class, but I couldn't take it until I was at least a sophomore. The teacher seemed sweet, and Mr. Russell asked her which freshman English class I should take, since there were two to choose from. She said that English 100 was mainly grammar and technical, but English 101 involved more literature than essay writing.
"English 101 is for students who have an interest in literature, while English 100 is just the basic freshman class," Mrs. Deckroe said. "I'm teaching 101, too."
I decided that I would sign up for English 101, although Ashanti thought that sounded boring after Mrs. Deckroe gave us a list of the books we'd be reading. Next, we went over to the math table, and Mr. Russell asked about the different math classes. Ashanti was a math genius, so she was advised to take the advanced algebra class. I wanted to ask what kind of math class they had for people who just wanted to "get by." Mr. Russell worded it better by asking which math class was best for a student who was "more creatively minded." I thought that sounded a lot better than, "can barely add." Smooth; I would have just asked which one was the "math for dummies" class. The math teacher suggested the math lab, where they explained the assignment and had lab assistants to give one-on-one help in class.
"Okay, where to next?" Mr. Russell asked. "There's the intro to physical science table, the foreign language table, or…"
"I wonder if they'll make us give speeches in the foreign language classes," I said. "You know, out loud in front of the whole class." Hillcrest only offered one semester of French our seventh grade year, and I had spent that time passing notes and mouthing the words to "Alouette," so I wasn't exactly fluent.
"Good question. Let's see if we can find out," he said.
"You ask, Dad," Ashanti said. "Otherwise it'll look like we're trying to get out of it."
Mr. Russell started talking to the French and Spanish teachers, casually working the speech question in. Madame Potter said that she didn't believe in subjecting her students to public speaking, but Señora Hark said the midterm and the final were a five-minute speech. Adios Señora Hark, and bonjour Madame Potter.
Devon and Peyton came over with their parents. Devon's mom saw the cheerleading coach and took off. She said her mom was still hoping she could be an alternate on the cheer squad.
"Landry, which classes are you planning to sign up for?" Mrs. Urich asked. "You girls should fill the schedules out together so you'll have a chance to be in some of the same classes."
Ashanti and I told Peyton and Devon that the French class didn't involve giving a speech.
"I think I might take Spanish anyway," Devon said. "I hated French class last year."
"I was going to take Spanish, but I'll sign up for French if you are," Peyton said to me. "I'll die if I don't have any classes with you guys."
"During my junior year I took calculus, and all my friends took the regular algebra two class, and I ended up in an all-freshman lunch hour. All of the guys in my calc class had a free period before class, so they had already eaten and I was all by myself. That's how I met your mom, Ashanti. I sat with her and her friends for the whole year," Mr. Russell said.
"I didn't realize you and Jordan met in high school," Mrs. Urich said. "I met Will my sophomore year when one of his friends hit me in the face with a Frisbee. He took me to the nurse's station and stayed with me until my nose stopped bleeding, and then he asked me out."
"Ew, Moth-er. That's disgusting," Peyton said.
"It worked out for me, because my friend got detention for two weeks for hitting her, and I was off the hook since I took her to see the nurse," Mr. Urich said.
"Just think, Ashanti, maybe you'll meet your future husband in high school, too," Mr. Russell said, winking.
"That is so disturbing," Ashanti said. Everyone knew that Ashanti was holding out for Brad McMillian from the soap opera, As the Days Roll On. She had his fact sheet memorized. Ashanti even called a psychic hotline, which pretty much confirmed that she'd be marrying an actor with the initials "B. M.," and they'd live in New York, where the show was filmed. I also liked an actor from the show, who played Colin, but I already knew he had a girlfriend, and the chances of him wanting to go out with me weren't great.
My parents had met in college and gotten married right away. They only dated for six mont
hs, which, my Grandma Albright frequently pointed out, "wasn't a very long time." Ashanti had told me that her parents waited until they had both graduated from grad school before getting married, and I knew that Mr. and Mrs. Urich had waited until they graduated from college before they got married. Maybe that was my parents' problem — they got married too fast. My grandma always said my parents were "young, dumb, and in love," which always annoyed my mother. But maybe Grandma was right. Maybe if they had waited to get married — or waited to have me — they wouldn't have fought so much, and we'd all be living together. It wasn't fair that Devon, Ashanti, and Peyton got to live with both their parents while I barely saw my dad.
Peyton's family left, and Devon went to track down her mother, who had cornered the cheerleading coach. Ashanti and I walked around, and she saw some people she knew, but I didn't know anybody. I didn't even see any Hillcrest students. The school was bigger than I realized, since we didn't even run into Ericka and Thalia. We did run into a million girls who wore tons of makeup and clothes like they wore on Hot Videos Now. Those girls all seemed so much older than my friends and me.
We ran into India before we left. India's cousin, Valine, was in high school, so I guess she had met some people through her. India was hanging out with a group of girls with highlighted hair. I didn't know any girls my age who had been allowed to dye their hair. Peyton always talked about putting blonde streaks in her dark red hair, but so far her mom hadn't let her do it. I wondered if her mom would change her mind when she got to high school. My hair was already so light I wouldn't need highlights, but I did dream of making my hair a nice golden shade instead of its pale color. My modeling agent told me my hair made me unique, but sometimes I didn't like feeling so on display with it. I wanted dark hair — like Devon's and Hana's. I did see a couple of girls at the high school with hair lighter than mine, but they had obviously bleached their hair.
Afterward, Mr. Russell took us to Ignatowski's for a hot fudge sundae.
"So what did you girls think?" he asked.
"I can't wait," Ashanti said. "There are so many more people there than at Hillcrest. It's going to be so much fun."
Mr. Russell asked me what I thought of the school, and I just shrugged and said it seemed big. The truth was I had no idea how I was going to handle it. It seemed like there were twenty-thousand students at the freshman info night, so what would it be like when all four grades were there together? Plus, I only knew people from Hillcrest. I didn't meet one new person that night, and the only other high school student I knew was Vladi, and he had broken up with me, so he wouldn't want to hang around with me next year. Plus, he'd be a sophomore and, by then, would probably be an even bigger player on the varsity team and would have even more girls after him.
Mr. Russell said he owned several of the books on Mrs. Deckroe's English 101 reading list. "Why don't you come over after school tomorrow and pick them up, Landry?" he said. "That way you can get a head start."
How could Mr. Russell think that I'd actually be able to make it in high school? Those kids would eat me alive. I was like a preteen acne ad in a sea of cover girls. There was no way I would survive there. I might as well join a convent and save myself four years of humiliation and fear. Maybe I should have Mom check into whether or not the Carmelite sisterhood accepted fourteen-year-olds. They might make an exception if they saw what the other high school kids were like. If they could see what I was up against – a bunch of girls who dressed like they were thirty and the guy with the "hate" tattoo –they just might let me in to save me.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The next day, no one said a word about being completely scared out of their minds after going to freshman school info night. In fact, a bunch of people talked about how excited they were for the coming year. Kyle was telling Yasmin how he couldn't wait to try out for the basketball team. I thought he was too short to make it, but I wasn't going to tell him that. Yasmin didn't say anything, and I wondered if she was worried about fitting in. She and Arianna were the most popular girls at Hillcrest, but they weren't anything like the girls I saw yesterday. Of course, I can't look cute when I was wearing a Hillcrest uniform with the colors that made me look like a dead goldfish. I figured Thalia would be a little nervous about next year, but even she was excited.
"Did you see the girls there?" I asked. "And some of the guys were like adults or something. One guy even had a mustache."
She shrugged. "Yeah, but there were some hot guys, too. The ones here stink. Well, other than Hakeem. He's kinda looking cute lately."
I told her I was terrified about starting high school, and she pointed out that I had gone to the basketball games with the older kids.
"You could always go to the private high school," she said. "They have a lot more rules and stuff, so maybe it would be a little less scary."
I did think about going to St. Faustina's high school, but all my friends were planning on going to the public school. St. Faustina's was farther away from home, and it was downtown, which made it a little scary, too. Plus, they had stricter rules about grades, and they didn't allow jeans. Tori and Ericka were the only ones I knew who had considered going to private school. I decided to sit with them in social studies so I could ask if either of them had decided which high school they were going to.
"My parents want me to apply to St. Faustina's — especially after yesterday. My dad said he had never seen so many weirdos. He's afraid that I'll end up dressing all trashy and dating some loser," Ericka said.
"My mom wants me to go to St. Faustina's, but the Cougars have a better soccer team, and my dad thinks I'd have a good chance to get a scholarship if I went to Central," Tori said.
Peyton dropped a note on my desk on her way to the pencil sharpener.
Landry,
Why are you sitting with them today? Are you mad at India or me?
-Peyton
I shook my head with a smile. She waited for me after class, and I told her I had been asking them about St. Faustina's.
"Are you thinking about applying there?" she asked. I shrugged and told her I was a little nervous about going to Central.
"Me, too. I almost had a panic attack yesterday. Those girls could have passed for, like, thirty or something. I told my mom I wanted to be homeschooled when we got in the car," she said.
"I was going to call a convent and reserve a spot," I said.
"Reserve one for me, too," she said. "Do you want to do something tonight? We could do a movie marathon or something."
I nodded, feeling better that I wasn't the only one about to wet my pants over high school.
Peyton called me after school, and her parents said I could spend the night if I wanted. As I packed my favorite puppy pajamas, I wondered what high school girls wore to sleepovers. They probably wore those little strappy tank tops with shorts like on the underwear commercials. They probably didn't bring their stuffed animals with them either. Maybe Peyton and I could be homeschooled together. Of course, my mom couldn't homeschool me with her late hours at the office, although I probably could get her to think about if I had taken a picture of that scary-looking guy with the black nail polish sitting next to Ericka's dad the day before.
I started to feel a little better once I got to Peyton's house. Her parents were easy to be around. She always said it was because her older brother and sister, who were in college, "wore them down." During dinner, Mrs. Urich asked me what I thought of the high school tour.
"I'm so nervous about next year," I said. "I just can't picture myself going there."
"Peyton wants me to homeschool her," she said. "I just couldn't believe how some of those girls were dressed. I'm surprised India's mother let her go out like that. I used to drive that little Valine Sachs to dance class. She used to be such a sweet girl."
"It's all those music videos," Mr. Urich said. "Did you see that new singer, Farah what's-her-name? She's sixteen, and they have her acting so trashy. That's not right."
I had actually b
ought Farah's new album, because I liked her newest song, "I'll Be Your Love Slave," but I guess he was right about the video.
"What surprised me was how Valine had a tattoo," Mrs. Urich said. "She came over to say hello to me, and I saw it when she walked away. She was wearing those low-cut jeans, and her underwear was sticking out. Well, if you want to call that underwear. It was a hot pink string, and she had a little daisy tattoo right above her underpants."
I wasn't even allowed to get my ears pierced, and India's cousin had a flower tattoo? Maybe all the girls in high school wore thongs and had tattoos. What if I didn't fit in because my mom made me wear big granny panties and kept my skin ink-free? High school was sounding scarier by the minute.
After dinner, Peyton and I changed into our pajamas and went into the family room to watch a movie. We sat on opposite couches and put the popcorn bowl on the table between us. She and her dad had rented a bunch of new releases from the video store, and she had everything from Figure Skating's Funniest Bloopers to Ghost Panther: The Final Revenge. At least I could have one worry-free night where I didn't have to think about high school. I was comfy on the couch, and Mrs. Urich had brought us fleece throws to cover up with. They were still warm from the dryer, too. Everything was perfect until the phone rang. It was India wanting to know if Peyton wanted to go out for pizza with her, Valine, Devon, and some of Valine's high school friends. Peyton told her I was spending the night, and India said I could come, too. It was nice to be invited, but the last thing I wanted to do was to hang out with high school girls.
"Maybe some other time, India. But thanks for calling," she said as she hung up. "You didn't want to go, did you?"
I shook my head. We went back to the movie, but I started thinking how they were already including Peyton in their plans. The next year Ashanti would have her cheerleading friends, Tori would have her soccer friends, and Peyton would meet all those cool high school girls through India. And I'd have no one, except maybe Ericka and her snowman sweater. Even Thalia's parents hadn't decided where she was going for sure and, with my luck, they'd send her to private school. Then it would be me and Ericka making her little comments about my hair for four years. Fabulous. Couldn't wait.
Best Friends...Forever? Page 14
