Eli's POV
-inspired by the Click Five's "Just the Girl"
I was getting up for my first day at my new school. My parents told me Degrassi would be better than my last school. That seemed unlikely, but I went anyway. Maybe someone there would take pity on me and my past.
Driving Morty through this new city was... different. I wanted to go home. Home home, not the pithole my parents were renting ten blocks away from the school.
As I parked the hearse, my eye caught a girl sitting next to the digital marquee in front of the school. She had short, curly, light brown hair. She was sitting cross-legged in pink jeans and a baby-blue blouse while reading what looked like a three-hundred some page book.
She took my breath away. She also took my ability to drive away as I forgot to apply my brake and bumped into the cement block meant to stop cars from running into important things, in this case, a fence blocking off the basketball court.
I threw the parking brake on and risked a glance toward the tantalizing girl. She was looking at me with an amused smirk playing on her mouth. I looked away and gathered my backpack from the passenger side of the car.
I exited Morty and slung one strap of my backpack over my right shoulder. I double-checked that my car was locked before walking toward the front of the building.
By the time I got there, the girl had already escaped to the inside of the school. I walked up the front steps to go to the main office for my school schedule and locker number and combination.
The secretary was stupidly sweet when explaining the layout of the school and where my locker was located.
"Wait a second," she directed me. While I stood, arms resting on the counter in front of me, she rose from her chair and walked around the wall behind her. I heard quiet talking, then she emerged with the girl I had seen earlier.
"Eli, this is Clare. She is going to show you around the school and where your classes are." She flashed a bright smile at me before returning to her seated position to leave me with Clare.
I turned to start conversation with her, but she was already halfway across the foyer, walking away. I jogged to catch up with her.
"Here's the deal, I've been roped into this before. It sucks, so we are going to take one trip around the school, and you can figure it out from there. Got it?"
I nodded, taken aback by her gruffness. We began walking up the stairs on the far end of the foyer.
"We'll be starting on the top level and working our way down," she stopped and held her hand out. I looked down, confused. "Schedule." I scrambled to retrieve it from my jacket pocket and hand it to her.
Her eyes scanned over the paper, her lips pursed into a thin line. "It looks like we have a few classes together." She didn't sound happy about it.
"Uh, cool." I said, acknowledging her statement.
"Hm, she expressed, giving me my schedule back.
We continued walking down the hall. She was brisk and I was struggling to keep up. As we walked, I was hearing snippets of information I was sure I was supposed to know. I guess I'll figure it our myself.
What could only be called a tour ended in a quick ten minutes. It left me confused and discombobulated, but I was not about to ask Clare for more info.
She left me back at the front office while she skipped off to see one of her friends—an Indian girl wearing a lot of pink and jewelry. They hugged and began talking to each other animatedly. After a few seconds, they both turned to look at me. Caught off guard, I started looking around the foyer, pretending I hadn't just been staring at them. I heard them laughing, but it was drowned out by the sound of the first bell.
I was about to struggle to find all my classes. Thanks for the tour, Clare.