MCKINLEY HIGH SCHOOL. The name just screamed boring to Anuja 'Anu' Kirshnan, a recent import to Ohio from San Francisco. Her family moved to Lima, Ohio because of her dads job, and at this point, Anu isn't fond of her dad's job at all. Anu spent her whole childhood in San Francisco, and she was starting to really like living there, she was beginning to take advantage of all the nightlife, shops, and great restaurants. And then... this.
Anu's parents really thought that Anu would be overjoyed by the new of them moving. Anu always liked change, and was starting to get fed-up with her high school. But when they told her about the move, joy was the last thing Anu felt. She already had friends. She already knew the fun places to go on the weekends. She already knew where to go for great food. But now... Now she has to relearn all of that.
Anu is from of Indian and Jordanian decent, and she took great pride in it. She looks more Indian, but something about her look just sets her the part. Her mother always told her,
"The Indian makes you beautiful, the Jordanian makes you special"
Anu really didn't know what she was getting at, but she liked to say that was her view too. A slogan for herself.
As the GPS in the car barked directions at her in a tinny voice, she took a quick look at her schedule. She wasn't too excited for pre-calculus, but she tested into Spanish 3, which will look great on her application. She decided to take AP literature, and honors history. She took a heavy schedule because she knew shed be having a whole lot less fun in Ohio.
Anu pulled into a spot in the student parking lot, and hoped someone hadn't laid claim to it. In San Francisco, if you took someones parking spot, you were in big trouble. She got there 20 minutes early, so she could find all of her classes, check in with the front office, and get all the other mundane tasks done. Anu then pulled out her phone and texted a girl from McKinley High she met on facebook. Since Anu knew she was moving pretty far in advance, she decided to add everyone in the McKinley network as a friend on facebook. One girl, Malie, was very nice. They had chatted on facebook a little, and Malie told her that she would meet Anu on her first day and show her around.
Within a couple minutes Anu got a reply from Malie that she was waiting by the main entrance, and to meet her there so she could show her around. Anu grabbed her bag, her purse, and her car keys and got out of her car. She looked at the giant school looming in front of her. It almost looked like an industrial building... Like a prison. Great, these are things she should be comparing her new school too. A power plant and a prison. Wonderful.
When Anu got to the main entrance, she was take aback by how beautiful Malie was. She had seen pictures of her on facebook, but she was gorgeous in real life. You could tell she was Hawaiian, she had soft brown skin, dark brown thin hair put back into a ponytail, and relatively small brown eyes. Her eyes really made her look less Asian. She didn't have the Asian looking eyes, they were more round, and she had more prevalent eyelids.
"Hey! Did you find your way here okay?" Malie asked kindly, a hint of concern on her face. McKinley was kind of hard to get here from some places, and she hoped Anu didn't get lost or something, that would be a great way to start off the day.
"Yeah, my dad bought me a GPS so I can get around without getting lost, so I got here fine" Anu answered politely, a small and forced smile crept across her face, she didn't want to seem abrasive, but she really wasn't happy about going to school here.
"Great!" Malie said. "Ill show you around the school and help you find your locker."
The two girls walked into the school, which looked old, dated, and rather dumpy inside. As Anu scanned the building she couldn't help but take note that it looked as much like a prison power plant on the inside as the outside.
"Here is the Spanish room, I think you said you had that first period... Mr. Schuester is the teacher, he's pretty nice." Malie went on about how she had Spanish last year, and didn't like it, but Anu was only half listening.
"Oh, you're locker 243. That's right next to mine." Malie said in a surprisingly enthusiastic way. Last year she had a weirdo in the locker next to hers and he constantly left old lunches in his locker. The smell always managed to find its way Malie's locker, and she was never happy about it.
As the time crept by more and more people started showing up in the school. Anu got everything in her locker, and she decided that it would probably be best to get to class early and see what they had been doing before she got there.
The rest of the day dragged on and Anu didn't really pay attention in any of her classes. She always found herself staring out a window or doodling idly in her notebook. At lunch she ate her left over curry from the night before, and chatted a little with Malie and her friends. Then she went back to class and did the same thing as the morning. After school, however it got more interesting.
Anu got a call from her dad saying that his car broke down, and her mom drove him to the school so he could take her car to work. He was going to have to pick her up from school, and he was going to be relatively late too. She went to the auditorium and sat in the bleachers, waiting for her daddy to come pick her up. She felt like she was in middle school. There were only two other people in the auditorium. The loud and obnoxious football player with a mohawk, and a shorter white girl with long blonde hair. The two were just chatting, until the girl walked over to introduce herself.
"Hey you're new here right? I'm Micaiah Greane. And you?" Micaiah caught Anu by surprise. She snapped Anu out of her dazed little daydream.
"Anu. Anu Kirshnan, nice to meet you." Anu said still a little rattled from being woken up from a daydream.
"That's Puck over there. You wanna come sit with us?" Micaiah didn't sound like a bitchy type of person, so Anu agreed and sat with the two.
Every time Puck spoke it was pretty dull. It was always about sex, food, or football. Micaiah however was pretty interesting to talk to talk to. She was apparently a druggie, who left school to go to rehab, and returned when she sobered up. The three chatted for a little longer until Micaiah's phone buzzed. It was her mom texting her, and she had to go.
Great. Now Anu is stuck with this piggy football player, and nobody to rescue her from the idle and boring conversation.
"So... Where did you move from?" Puck asked, trying to engage Anu in conversation.
What? What did he just say? He asked something about me! That wasn't about food, or football, or sex, or himself! This was revolutionary.
"I'm from San Francisco, my parents moved out her because of work." Anu said, hoping that Puck wouldn't turn this into a bragging session about his football, or sex life.
"Oh I've lived her my whole life, with my mom. My half-brother moved out a couple years ago, but he's still in the area..." Puck answered, a bit awkward. He wasn't used to talking to anyone alone, and he wasn't used to talking to anyone he knew. Well, at least talking seriously. He had no problem making fun of a random nerd in the hall, but talking to a random girl alone about where he lived seemed surprisingly awkward to him...
"Oh, are your parents divorced?" Anu asked with an actually hint of curiosity in her voice.
His mom and his dad were never married. He even has the suspicion that his mom doesn't know who his father was... All he knew was that his mother was the one who raised him, and there was never anyone to call 'dad' in the house. After Puck was born his mother never dated. She had new priorities, and getting pregnant again wasn't one of them.
"Yup." He said. "They've been divorced since I was like... eleven." He lied straight through his teeth. He didn't care though. Why does this girl need to know about his personal life?