In this story Becky will be wearing red glasses and two pig tails with bangs likes wearing dresses. Rebecca has her hair down with bangs likes wearing pants and is a goth. Becky will wear contacts later on. They are both beautiful.
Here we go, Becky Hopkins thought as her mother's car pulled away from the curb.
Becky stood on the sidewalk and smoothed the wrinkles of her light pink dress for the millionth time. She usually felt her best pink, but for some reason it wasn't helping at all this morning.
Becky wished she didn't feel so nervous. After all, it wasn't like this was the dance nationals or anything. It was just her first day of the 9th grade at a new high school. In unfamiliar city. Where she didn't know anybody. She was totally freaking out. If it wasn't for her dad's new job, she'd be skipping into regular school with Kotori and Luna and her old dance team, instead of being the friendless new girl who shows up out of nowhere five weeks into the school year.
But, whatever, Becky was determined to make the best of the situation. This would be just like the first time she ate sushi. It would be weird for a second- unfamiliar and slightly funny smelling but then she'd grow to love it. Besides, what was she going to do, cry until adult hood?
Becky stood up straight and clapped her hands twice. Then, her mouth set in a smile, she made her way bravely toward the front entrance.
Her old school had been a modern box, painted a combination of ugly beige and ugly brown, but Domino High School was different. It looked a thousand years old. Anzu dripped from the huge entryway columns, and beyond the enormous oak front doors was a hallway so big you could make a sixteen-person pyramid across it. Becky's old school was plastered with inspirational posters with sayings that made no sense, like LIVE EVERY DAY LIKE IT'S TODAY!
Here, black-and-white school photographs hung on the walls dating back to practically ancient egypt. She passed one picture with a plague that said CONVOCATION 1912. It showed a bunch of serious looking students in black robes.
At least the sound of everyone rushing to their first class was familiar: lockers clanging, sneakers squeaking, people talking. Becky made her way through the bustle. There seemed to be more Goths here than there had been at her old school. They were as black-and-white as the photographs on the walls: black clothes, pale skin, heavy black boots.
Becky caught her own reflection in a display case. Her pretty dress floated, ghostlike, in front of tarnished trophies and a dark banner that said GO, DOMINO HIGH! She tried to keep smiling, but her heart fell. She looked like a lollipop in a graveyard. What if she never managed to fit in here?
"Rise and shine," a voice interrupted her thoughts. Startled, Becky realized she was standing right in the way of a Goth girl. A prickly bun atop the girl's head was held in place by a wooden spike-Cool, Becky thought, a chopstick!- and she wore a black dress with a neat slanted hem that started just above one knee and ended at the opposite ankle.
Becky stepped to the left, trying to get out of the way, but the girl had the same idea. They both stepped in the other direction. Then they both stepped back again. Becky laughed apologetically, but the girl just looked at her in a weird way. It wasn't mean or anything. She just looked curious, sort of like an inquisitive black cat.
"Do I..." the girl began, frowning. "Are you new here?"
"How can you tell?" Becky asked jokingly.
"So you're probably looking for the office, right?" the girl replied, with the faintest of smiles, as another Goth in a black t-shirt that HOP, BUNNY, HOP! in pink letters pulled up, a didital camera hanging around her neck. The first girl nodded to her friend before pointing to Becky in the right direction. "To the end, around the corner, office is on the right."
Becky had been going the wrong way completely. "Thanks," she said sheepishly. "I probably would have been wandering the halls looking for the principal's office until I got sent to the principal's for wandering the halls!"
To her relief, both Goths cracked a smile. Then the one with the stick in her hair looked at Becky like she was trying to remember something. Finally she shrugged. "Well, good luck." And with that, she and her friend walked off down the hallway. The office was exactly where the girl said it would be.
"Have a seat over there," the gray-haired receptionist said. "Principal Morita will be with you in just a minute."
Becky turned around and saw a chair, next to where a girl with long, curly blond hair was sitting, reading a thick, battered paperback. The girl wore dark blue jeans and a light purple T-shirt, and on the floor at her feet was a one sleeved brown bag (like the one she had in duelist kingdom).
Finally, Becky thought, someone who isn't wearing black! She walked over and held out her hand.
"Hi. Becky Hopkins."
The girl lifted her eyes from her book. She looked confused. "No, actually, my name's Mai. Mai Valentine."
Becky laughed. "No. I mean my name's Becky," she explained. "Nice to meet you, Mai."
Mai made an I'm-such-a-dork face and shook Becky's hand. "Sorry. I'm just really into this book."
Becky sat down. "Isn't that the best? When you get so caught up in a book that you're, like in a different world?"
"I know!" said Mai eagerly. She held up the cover of her paper: Random Access by Coal Knightley, The Second in The Cyborg Trilogy. "Ever read it?"
"Nope. Is it any good?" Becky asked.
"Are you kidding?' Mai cried. "This is my third time through!"
"That's exactly how I am with the Count Vira books." Becky sighed. "You know-vampires, bloodsucking, frilly collars. They're sort of my secret vice."
"Don't worry." Mai grinned. "Your secret's safe with me. As long as you don't tell anyone I can speak the Cyborg Beta Language."
Becky laughed. "It's a deal!"
The principal appeared, looking young with brown hair.
"Becky Hopkins?" he said. "Welcome to Domino High."
Rebecca Hawkins could have bitten her best friend, Akiza Izinski, for abandoning her as they got to social studies. So what if they were almost late? That didn't mean Akiza had to rush to her desk the moment they arrived, leaving Rebecca zombified in the doorway as the second bell rang. Rebecca clutched at the dark emerald ring hanging on the charm around her neck, hoping it would ward off her fear like a magic amulet. As if. It had been 3 weeks since Ms. Chono assigned seats, and Rebecca still felt like she was caught in direct sunlight without any sunblock. Sitting at a desk next to handsome Yami Muto each morning was torture. Quite enjoyable torture, admittedly, but still.
She forced herself to put one foot in front of the other, shooting Akiza her meanest look- the death squint- as she crept past. Akiza rolled her eyes.
Rebecca is straightening out her hair, then peered out at Yami from behind a curtain of blond hair. He was utterly Goth gorgeous in every way: light tan skin(like yugi's), black hair with red/purple rims and blond bangs, handsome face, and built up body. Her heart convulsed. She was sure she'd turn to dust if they ever exchanged a single word. He was writing with his pencil.
I'm going to fail this class, thought Rebecca. How can I concentrate on a single thing when he's so close?
A singsong voice interrupted her thoughts.
"After I win the dance tryouts and become captain of the dance team, I'm totally going to the best dances ever!" said Bulla Briefs.
Kill me now, Rebecca thought. Rebecca could think only one thing more painful than unrequited love, and it was hearing Bulla Briefs babble on about herself.
"I am already so much better than my big sister," Bulla twittered, "and she's, co-captain of the team at West City College."
"Maybe I'll be your co-captain!" one of Bulla's minions said brightly.
"Maybe I won't have a co-captain,"Bulla replied coolly.
It was one thing to get assigned a seat next to Yami Muto and die of embarrassment. But it was another thing altogether to get seated behind Bulla Briefs and die of boredom listening to her endless, dumb, mean-spirited chatter. Bulla and her lemmings had been yammering on about dances tryouts nonstop since the first day of school.
When Rebecca was done with hair she pulled out her note book(her hairstyle is when she was in waking the dragons). She angled herself away from Yami- if she couldn't spend eternity with him, she could at least use the time productively- and turned to the back page, where she jotted her ideas for the school paper.
"Former Domino High Dance Captains: Where Are They Now?" she wrote. "Let's see, she thought. There was Carli Spith, who was now a cashier at KN Store. And Melinda Willsocks, who got crowned Miss Revoline at the auto show last year but still lived with her parents and couldn't get a regular job. And...
Rebecca realized that the room room had suddenly gone quiet. She stopped writing.
"Class," Ms. Chono stood the girl in the pink dress. Rebecca got this weird feeling she seen this person before- deja vu mixed with indigestion.
"Her name is Becky Hopkins," Ms. Chono explained. "She just moved here from the coast."
Rebecca put her hand on her necklace and twirled her ring as she watched the new girl at the front of the room. Becky's long blond hair was pulled into 2 pigtails. Her dress was seriously pink. She wasn't the kind of person who would normally attract Rebecca's attention. So why did Rebecca feel like she was looking at someone she had met before?
Becky was given a desk right near the front, probably because, once again, Ms. Chono was determine to ruin Rebecca's life using the ancient curse of assigned seating; no matter how she craned her neck, Rebecca was unable to catch another qlimpse of the new girl's face.
In between trying to learn about the legislative branch of government and trying to look more cool and beautiful in case Yami was looking at her, Rebecca tried to figure out how she knew Becky Hopkins. She decided to list all the possibilities in her notebook: Kindergarten? Elementary? Middle School? Summer retreat? Burger World? Mall? Finally, desperately Rebecca wrote... TV?
There weren't many people Rebecca knew who Akiza wouldn't recognize as well, so Rebecca tore a blank corner from one page and passed a note back to her friend while Ms. Chono was writing on the blackboard. Akiza's response came to at once: "R u kidding? She's 2 pink 4 us 2 know!" She drawn one of her bunny cartoons at the bottom. "Love your fur!" one bunny said. "Pink is totally my natural color! replied another, which had a ribbon in it's hair.
Rebecca tried to cloak her laughter with a fake cough, but the resulting rattle was seriously grave. Yami probably thought she sounded like a cat coughing up a fur ball.
Rebecca saw Becky raised her hand to ask a question. "Do we have to type an assignment?" Even her voice sounded familiar. Rebecca was more certain than ever that there was something strange about the girl in the pink dress. When the bell rang, Rebecca waited for Yami to before she got up. She and Akiza were headed for their lockers when Akiza nudged her arm and said, "Looks like the new bunny's about to be roadkill."
Down the hall, Becky Hopkins was standing by the bathrooms, surrounded by four boys in black heavy metal T-shirts.
Oh no, thought Rebecca. It was the Hirutani's gang(Joey is not in the gang).
Before she knew what she she was doing, Rebecca was rushing toward the gang.
"New meat," she heard one of the boys said.
"Yead, dude.' Another member chuckled. 'Like with ketchup. I wonder if she likes horror stories." They all guffawed.
For the first time, Rebecca saw Becky without a smile on her face. Their eyes met over the boys' shoulders. Becky looked half confused, half scared.
Rebecca clenched her teeth. As night was her witness, there was no way she was going to let this girl be eaten alive by the biggest Goth losers at Domino. "Buzz off and die, beasts!" she growled, shoving them aside and stepping in front of Becky. "Go haunt a convenience store parking lot."
"What's your problem, Hawkins?"
"You're my problem, you rat. Now put a stake in it." Rebecca unleashed her death squint. "I said buzz off!"
The Hirutani gang laughed uncomfortably before slinking away down the hall.
"I am so happy you showed up," Becky blurted. "I don't even know your name, and you're already my favorite person!"
Rebecca introduced herself. "And don't worry about the Hirutani's gang," she said. " They're harmless. They act all grave, but they're not nearly as scary as they smell."
"You sure seem to know how to handle them," Becky remarked.
"Yeah, well, I'd better," Rebecca said. "I'm going to have put up with them forever."
Becky laughed. "Anyway, thank you, Rebecca Hawkins. I'm really grateful."
The strange feeling rushed back over Rebecca with a force so powerful she nearly stumbled. All at once, she realized why the new girl looked so familiar. She looks a lot like me, Rebecca thought. More than a lot- she looks almost exactly like me! A wave of nausea hit her, and knees trembled. She was either going to throw up or faint in the middle of the hall. Yami would see her splayed out on the linoleum floor, her face whiter than bone, her black-stockinged legs twisted like a doll's.
Becky was still talking, but the roar in Rebecca's head was too loud for her to hear.
"Later," Rebecca croaked. And, quick as bat, she flew into the girls' bathroom.
End of chapter 1.
