Today was Joana's first day of school at Degrassi High, she wondered what they would say about her, if she would make any new friends, or if they would find out why she had come to Degrassi in the first place.
Her mother dropped her off in front of the school as she usually did, but before Joana could get out of the car her mother had to give one of her little speeches, "Joana, please don't get into any trouble at this school, you know what the judge said if you get in trouble one more time you'll probably goto..."
Joana rolled her eyes and interrupted her mother, "I know, I know. God, why can't you just trust me for once?"
"We already tried that game a long time ago, and you blew it," and after saying that, her mother took off, leaving Joana all alone in front of the school.
Joana walked slowly to the main office, she knew she had to make this work. She was tired of disappointing her family, she silently made a vow to herself that she wasn't going to get expelled from this school.
She asked the secretary for her schedule, "What's your full name?" replied the secretary. "Joana McCarthy." The secretary handed her schedule to her and went back to work. Joana looked at it and seen that Mr. Simpson was her first period teacher.
Joana walked into class as Mr. Simpdon was talking about a new program on the computers, he stopped when he saw Joana. "Are you the new student?" He asked. "...Yeah I am. Sorry I'm late, I had to get my schedule." Joana replied back nervously. "Oh, no problem I understand, just don't let it happen again. Hmm.. you can sit next to Manny over there." Mr. Simpson pointed to where Manny was seated, Joana looked over at her and seen her putting on her lipgloss, she automatically thought, "Oh god, she's looks just like the bitch I beat the crap out of last year, great." She walked over to the desk and sat down.
Manny looked over at her and whispered, "Your the girl that got kicked out Martin Luther King High, aren't you?" Joana frowned, how did she find out? Hesitantly, she whispered back, "Yeah, I guess am..."
The whole period was a blur to Joana, she didn't listen at all. She just kept thinking about what others were thinking about her. she had always been paranoid throughout her life, but she had to be, she always had atleast one enemy to watch out for.
Ten minutes before the class had ended, Mr. Simpson has assigned a project. "Today I'm going to be nice, so I'll let you pick your own partners." As people were walking to their best friend's desk be their partner, Joana sat there silently looking around, "Maybe someone will come up to me..." She thought. She looked over across the room and saw a nerdy looking kid with dark hair and glasses sitting all alone. "I bet he's smart, I might as well go up to him and ask, I need to get good grade in here." She thought to herself.
She got up and walked slowly over to the nerd's desk. "Hey, I'm Joana what's your name?" The nerd looked up, "My name's Toby Isaacs." He looked up at Joana, and thought to himself, "Wow, she's pretty up close, dark hair, blue eyes, freckles, and big..." His thoughts were interrupted by Joana's response, "Uh, well Toby neither of us have partners, so I was thinking, maybe we could possibly pair up?"
"Yeah, that would be cool." The bell rang and Mr. Simpson yelled to the students, "Make sure to tell me who your partner is tomorrow so I could write it down! Have a good day!"
Joana and Toby walked out of class together, "So, Joana since we're gonna be partners how about you come to my house after school so we could work on the site, and stuff."
Joana smiled and replied, "What stuff? Go rob a bank, do you, what?" Toby's eyes got wide, "No, No, No I didn't mean it like that! Just like watch tv or you could go home, I don't care, whatever you want to do!" Joana laughed, "Toby, your so innocent, I was kidding around, relax."
As they were reaching the corner, Toby's friends, Emma and J.T. arrived to pick up Toby to go to class. "Hey Guys, this is my.... friend? Joana McCarthy." Toby said quickly, he knew Emma and JT weren't used to seeing Toby walking with a girl since Kendra and him has broken up.
J.T. starred at Joana from head to toe and then smiled, "Hello there, I'm J.T. Yorke and..." Emma interrupted J.T. and said, "Yeah, and I'm Emma Nelson, Toby we're going to be late for class, can we hurry up?"
Joana immediantly took that hint that Emma wasn't comfortable with her walking with Toby, "Yeah, I have to go to class too, I'll see you after school. Bye Toby, nice meeting you two."
Toby looked at Emma angrily, "Why did you have to make it seem like you didn't want her here?"
Emma sighed, "Because I don't want her here, Toby I don't know if you've heard the rumors or not but she's bad news, okay?"
"What do you mean she's bad news, she looks really, really nice to me." J.T. replied with a smile.
Emma rolled her eyes at J.T., "She got expelled from her old school for fighting with some girl, and from what I heard she beat her to the point of putting her in the hospital, there's other rumors too but I'm not going to go into that."
"Well people change, Emma." Right at that moment Manny walked by, "See, look at Manny, man has she changed, right J.T.?" Toby laughed at his own joke.
J.T. starred longingly at Manny, once again daydreaming about her until Emma interrupted his thoughts, "Whatever Toby, just be careful when she goes to your house after school, okay?"
The three finally reached their classroom and took their seats, Toby wondered if what Emma said was true, and if he should be worried, but then at the same time he couldn't wait until after school.