Throughout the Years
Chapter 1: Kindergarden
It was the first day of school. I was anything but excited, but then again I figured it was better than staying home with my mom and then listening to my parents fight when my dad got back from work. I walked into the kindergarden classroom in my ripped jeans, black baggy T-shirt, and black backpack. Yeah not your typical 4 year old girl attire. But I didn't really care, these clothes were more comfortable anyway (my mother had given up trying to make me wear anything girly by the time I was 3). As soon as I stepped through the door I was greeted by a woman with too much make up on and too big of a smile. To be honest she was kind of creeping me out.
"Why hello there what's your name?" she said with a bit too much enthusiasm for my liking.
I just stared at her for a second and muttered "jade".
"well it's very nice to meet you jade!" she said putting her hand on my shoulder. I hated it when people touched me. "my name is Miss Rose, how about you go hang up your backpack and then take a seat at any of those tables over there?" that creepy smile was still plastered on her face, I had the urge to kick her and run but I figured that would be a bad first impression.
"ok" I said shrugging her hand off of my shoulder. 'next time she touches me for that long I'm kicking her', I thought. After I hung up my backpack I looked around at the three round tables in the room. One had a fat blonde boy, a boy with brown hair and a red hat on, and an Indian boy with fluffly looking hair. The second table had a 3 girls at it. All three of them had pigtails, bows in their hair, and were dressed in fancy, frilly dresses. It disgusted me. The last table had just a tiny girl sitting by herself. Her hair was dark brown and slightly frizzy and she was wearing a bright red dress. Ugh. At least she didn't have bows or pigtails. As I studied her more closely I saw that she was just looking around the classroom smiling and she seemed to be... Was she talkig to herself? Or maybe she was singing. Wow.
I looked at the other two tables and figured I'd be best off sitting with the tiny girl. I walked over to her table, being sure not to make eye contact. I wasn't in the mood for talking.
"Hi!" good god, her voice was so high pitched and loud that I actually jumped a little in my chair. I quicky shook off the surprise on my face and replaced it with a look of boredom and annoyance.
"Hi" I said shortly, not even bothering to look at her.
"My name's Cat! What's yours?" ugh, and she talked qucikly.
"Jade", I said while giving her the most intimidating stare I could muster. It didn't phase her.
"Wow that's a really pretty name! Is that your full name? My full name's Catarina but a lot of people think that's a weird name so I just go by Cat. I think it's kinda cool to be called Cat cuz I loooovvveeee cats! But I'm allergic to them so I can't be near them" she then got a look of extreme sadness on her face. I honestly thought she was about to cry, but then she smiled and started right back up again."But that's ok cuz I can still look at them from far away! I have a lot of cat stuffed animals at my house, I also have a stuffed giraffe named Mr. Longneck. He's my fav-" she was cut off by Miss Rose. Thank god.
"Goodmorning boys and girls!"
"Goodmorning" the class echoed in unison, except for me of course.
"I am so excited to have you all in my class! This year is going to be great, I have so many fun things planned for us! We're going to do some coloring today! But first we should all introduce ourselves by telling everyone our name and one thing that we like to do. I'll start: my name is Miss Rose and I love to read. Ok let's see" she paused looking around the room. Her eyes landed on the fat blonde boy. "How about you go next?" she smiled that creepy smile. Ugh idk how I was gonna put up with this all year.
The fat boy stood up "Hi I'm Cody and I like to play xbox" Cody then stood for a moment and awkwardly sat down.
"Ok well nice to meet you Cody!" Miss Rose said. "your turn sweety" she said looking at the Indian boy.
He stood up with his arms crossed. Usually when people crossed their arms it was because they were self concious or had attitude. But somehow the Indian boy did it in such a way that showed neither of these things... Instead it almost looked kind of cool. "Uh hi my name's Beck and I like to watch tv." The 3 girls at the other table giggled when they heard this. Huh. Wow even back then they were all over him.
So from this little ice breaker thing I learned that the boy with the hat was named Sam and the three girls were named Maddie, Jessica, and Stacey. Then it was my turn.
I stood up and rolled my eyes "My name's Jade and I like to play with scissors" everyone looked a bit scared at that point. Ok so I know that may sound kind of strange but what I meant is I like to cut things up with scissors. Newspapers, magazines, leaves, anything... Ok I guess it still sounds strange but whatever.
"Uhh ok well thank you Jade" Miss Rose looked concerned. Great now she thinks I'm a freak. Well maybe this will keep her away from me.
"Hi!" I jumped at the sound of Cat's voice again, I didn't notice that she had stood up. "My name's Catarina but I go by-" then that girl named Jessica interupted her.
"Your name is Catarina? What type of name is that?" she looked at Cat like she was some type of alien. For some reason it bugged me a little. The other two girls mimicked Jessica.
Cat got really red and I could see her eyes start to form tears. Great, the last thing I needed was for my only table mate to be crying. I do not enjoy awkwardness.
"No no Jessica, Catarina's name is just different and unique" Miss Rose tried to resolve things.
"Well I think it's weird, just like her", said Jessica puttng emphasis on the "I". Her little minions backed her up with a bratty "yeeaahhh". Cat's face was now redder than Sam's hat, she just stood there looking down at her feet. I saw a tear fall down onto her shiny black shoes. Next thing I knew I was on my feet.
"Her nickname is Cat ok? If you had shut your stupid mouth and let her finish she would've told you that. And I don't see what's so weird about her name, just because yours is boring doesn't mean you have to make fun of hers"
"ok that's enough everyone!" I don't want you to get in trouble on your first day of school" Miss Rose looked at me and Jessica. "Now let Cat finish"
I sat down while Cat cheerfully finished her introduction, all traces of sadness gone from her face. This girl had some strong mood swings. I glanced up at jessica's table and saw her looking at me. She stuck her tongue out at me so I gave her my absolute meanest glare (I was scary even as a kindergardener). Eventually she looked away, defeated. Haha ya that's right b-
"Thanks" my thoughts were interupted.
I looked up at Cat. "what?"
"Thanks", she said again with a large grin on her face. "For telling Jessica to stop making fun of me."
"Oh. Yeah sure, whatever"
Miss Rose was passing out a picture of a little girl and a little boy playing catch in a park. I opened up the box of crayons that were on our table and started coloring. I listened to the chatter going on in the classroom while Cat and I colored in silence. I was fine with not talking but I could tell it was making her uncomfortable. I was in an alright mood so I decided to try and start a conversation.
"What's your favorite color?"
"Red!" she said grinning the huge smile of hers.
I should've known it was red. Her whole outfit was red, same as her backpack and lunchbox. I was surprised her hair wasn't red as well.
"Oh that's cool" i said trying not to sound as bored as I was. She didn't notice.
"Whats your favorite color?"
No one had really ever asked me what my favorite color was. In fact no one really ever asked me what my favorite anything was. My mom and dad didn't care too much about what I liked and tended to ignore me. But it didn't bother me, I had gotten use to it.
"I don't have one"
She stopped coloring and looked at me with complete disbelief. "You don't have a favorite color?"
"Uhh no"
"But everyone has a favorite color!"
"Not me"
She went back to coloring but did so while wearing a puzzled frown. After a minute or so she exclaimed, "Oh I know! I'll help you pick a favorite color!"
I really did not see why it was so important to have a favorite color but whatever, I didn't really care.
"Ok".
"Yay! Ok hmmm let me think..." she put on a serious thinking face and began stroking her chin as if she had a beard. I have to admit it was kind of funny and I giggled a bit. I quickly stopped myself though.
"Ah ha! Black! Your favorite color is black!"
I started to protest. I mean black was the second most plain color next to white. But then I thought about how most of my shirts were black, how my backpack was black, and how the shortest crayon in my crayon box was black.
"Ok"
My approval seemed to make Cat even happier, she gave me a cheerful grin and went back to coloring while humming some random tune.
So far I had learned 3 things at school:
1. I did not like Jessica
2. Cat was kind of... Strange, but she was alright
3. My favorite color was black