The Beginning of an Era

"Splish splash I was taking a bath, long about one Saturday night. A rub dub, just relaxing in the…" I hit alarm off button. The first day of 8th grade! I was so excited I forgot I was getting up 2 hours earlier than I had been the past two months. I had no need to pick out what I was wearing because, as every girl without a uniform does, I had my outfit picked out after my last shopping trip, (two weeks ago). I pulled my green and brown tunic over my head, slipped on my jean (just barely dress code length) skirt, and headed over to my jewelry box. I put on my green dangly earr ings, new from the Blue Tulip, put on a thin brown headband and headed downstairs.

Carrie, my 6th grade sister, was up before me, even more excited about school. It was her first day of middle school and she was putting two flip-flop waffles in the toaster.

"Can you stick two in for me?" I asked rhetorically. My pink northface backpack was packed and my pink and brown reefs ready to be slipped on my feet. I picked up the piece of paper that I had printed off my email. Every year for the past 3 years, an email has gone around our grade with the teams on them, each person adding their name to what team they were on, so that we knew the teams. With 400 kids in our grade they had to divide us up somehow. This year I was on Tan, weird color, I know. I had already looked at the tan team list several times and checked off the people I knew from 5th grade, or from my team in 7th grade (Aqua). I had checked off: Megan, Beth, Sam, Grania, Margret, Lilly and Katie, I limited it only to people I would talk to. Unfortunately my best friends Charlotte and Danielle were on Green and Maroon.

I got to school and went straight up to my homeroom. Up until I received my team assignment I had been SO excited to have my homeroom on the first floor. Unfortunately for me and one other 8th grade homeroom, all the first floor rooms were taken. 6th grade was on the third floor, 7th on the second and (most of) 8th on the first. My homeroom teacher was Mrs. Ostern, she would also be my science teacher. Margret had her when she was a 6th grade science teacher and said that science this year would NOT be easy. She handed out our locker numbers and combos and we rushed downstairs to the lockers. The lockers were alphabetical by name so I was between Ken and Alex; I envied those that were between two girls! I looked at my schedule for Monday and saw I had Gym first. Not bothering to go to the locker room I went straight to the gym. The teachers gave a speech then divided us in to classes. I soon realized I, and two other girls weren't being put in classes. The teachers, however knew exactly what had happened and instantaneously so did I, I had made the same mistake in 6th grade. Today was Tuesday and I had been following in the Monday schedule!! I hung my face and followed the other two girls out. I looked at my schedule and saw instead I had Chorus.

"What do you guys have now?" asked I the girls whom I had never seen before.

"Chorus….," said the girl with dirty blonde frizzy hair who was taller than me, but not by much.

"Same," said the other girl. I recognized this Hispanic girl, wearing a bandana over her cropped brown hair to be in my homeroom.

"I'm Katherine," I said to soften the tension, "Are you guys new?" I could see them taking me in, the trendy clothing, past the shoulder length brown hair, sparkling green eyes (some days they were brown and sometimes a mix). Then the most obvious part of me, my height; I was about 4'10, one of the shortest kids in the grade.

I saw a smile spread across the blonde's face, it looked like it actually COULD spread ear to ear if she tried. "No, I was on Silver in 6th grade then Purple in 7th, by the way I'm Alexis," she said.

"I'm Danay," said the other. As we arrived at Chorus we told Mr. O'Donnell we were sorry and sat down.

My next class was French and it was in the same room as last year so I was lucky. I saw that Danay was in my French class and took a seat next to Grania. I never really knew Grania, but she came off as kind of weird. Her reddish hair always looked messy and her wardrobe consisted of jeans, colorful t-shirts and half vests. I knew she was nice though because she was in my French class last year. I had expected Madame Dzierz to start speaking only French, as rumors told she would, but instead she spoke English in a polish accent telling us we were having assigned seats. She did it off the top of her head, boys paired with girls. Thankfully there were more girls than boys so I sat in the second row from the back next to Danay. The class continued and I refreshed my French which had become rough over the summer. Summer….boy did I wish it was still summer. I daydreamed through the 42 minute class reminiscing all the events of the summer; Johns Hopkins camp at Roger Williams, time at the country club … Before long I had realized I had dreamed the class away and the bell rang.

I ran to my locker to see what I had next, Social Studies with Mrs. Sand, then Algebra with Mrs. Michael. The two were near each other so I grabbed my stuff for both. I arrived at class in record time; I had 3 out of the 4 minutes left. Although I was fast, Margret was faster than me. I sat next to her and we began talking about our schedules. She took out her's and I found out I also had science with her 6th period. Unfortunately she had study/lunch 5th period while I had lunch/study 5th period. Everyone on the Tan team had 5th period lunch along with the 8th grade maroon team and 7th grade aqua team. When I moved to Dansville before 5th grade, Margret's mom had heard I was new because she was head of the PTO. She called my mom and invited me over to her house the week before school started. Margret had also invited Claire over so I would know someone who was going to be in my class, I had Mr. Squier, but Margret had Mr. Royster. I became instant best friends with Claire and Margret; in the time before school started we had a sleepover every 2 out of 3 days. Even though I wasn't on either of their teams in 6th or 7th grade, we were still really good friends.

As soon as she came in late from talking to Mrs. Michael, coffee in hand and a grin as wide as could be, I knew Mrs. Sand would be my favorite teacher. She told us that we would be studying American history this year and asked about us. She also told us we would watch some fun movies from this website she found, play jeopardy and possibly watch "Red Badge of Courage." She then handed out a worksheet with questions we had to ask our parents for homework and write down their answers. One of the questions was, "When you were my age what was the newest cool gadget." The class seemed to wiz bye and before long it turned 10:40 and the announcements came on.

"Okay everyone, message center announcements! I'm surprised how many of you forgot your lunch at home! It's only the first day of school! And in 6th grade we have..." I droned out our principal's sister's voice until they reached 8th grade "….And in 8th grade we have…..Katherine and…." All I needed to hear was my name and I would go to the message center during lunch. 10:42, the bell rang and I went looking for 163.

After searching a little I realized it was right next to my Social Studies room, how convenient. I got to class and saw two empty seats, one next to Katie the other next to Beth. I chose Beth just because she was closer. Beth had always been my height, every since 5th grade, but she was quiet. We didn't talk, but instead we listened to Mrs. Michael talk about the importance of TOCs and what we would do this year and yadayadayada. Finally the bell rang and I went over to Katie to ask what lunch she had. She had study/lunch. It was 5th period and I had NOBODY to go to lunch with! On the way back to my locker I saw Danielle at hers. Danielle was on the Maroon team!! That meant I might have lunch with her! It was almost as if she read my mind and she asked me what lunch I had. I told her lunch/study; unfortunately she had study/lunch. Slowly trudging to my locker I asked everyone I could what lunch they had. Finally 10 lockers down from mine I saw Bethany looking around not sure what to do once she had her lunch. I decided to ask her what lunch she had and she replied, lunch/study, but you probably have study/lunch. I told her I had lunch/study to and it was as if a barrier had been broken.

At lunch we decided to sit with people we kind-of knew such as Gabby Yukon and Elizabeth Lemur. We talked together while I ate my Oreo yogurt and she ate pasta out of a thermos. After 20 minutes of eating and talking they cafeteria the cafeteria monitors said it was time to go to study hall.

"What study hall are you in?" asked Beth.

"Wesphalt…" I replied.

"Omigod! Me too!" exclaimed Beth. We walked down the hall to a science room, my next period class.

6th period with Mrs. Ostern, Margret had her in 6th grade and said it was the hardest year of her life. I sat down next to Margret and across from the two girls I didn't know. The rest of the day went by in a haze of "how was your summer," and "have you seen so and so? OMG she is such a freak," and so on.