Repetition. That word summed up Kate's life at Gordson High, her school. Her mom told her everyone has their place in school, but Kate didn't want to be the school loner. She wanted a normal life with a boyfriend and a group of friends. She knew that this year wouldn't be any different then Grade 10, 9 or any other year but she still got changed for school. Kate's thoughts were cut short by her mother's yell from downstairs, "Kate the bus comes in 5 minutes." Kate put the thoughts of being a loner in the back of her mind, once again bottle up her loneliness and put a smile on before picking up her school bag and went downstairs for what she thought to be yet another year of repetition.
Once Kate got to school she sat down on her usual bench and plugged her iPod in. As Walk Alone by Jack Johnson played in her ears she looked around at all the people catching up with friends about their summer and sharing stories. To her right was the popular group, the girls with their perfect blond or brown hair straightened and all clad in Abercrombie and Hollister with their boys who looked like they could be models and were obviously the school's Football and Rugby stars. In front of her there were the Geeks and the Gothic's. A sea of Black hair and clothes, Star Wars Shirts and glasses filled her view so she turned and she saw a boy sitting alone on a cement bench with his iPod and earphones. Kate saw a couple people sitting alone but usually they were original either in style or look but this boy looked like he could fit right in with the popular guys, with his buzzed brown hair and tanned skin. He unlike the popular guys, who wore jeans or khaki shorts with some sort of Abercrombie or American eagle shirt or Polo's, was wearing a fitted white plain tee shirt showing of his broad shoulders and muscular chest with navy and white board shorts with sandals, he was a surfer which answered why he was not part of the popular group which was populated by the Football and Rugby Stars. BRRRRINGG BRRRINGG, the school bell rang and Kate noticed she had been staring at the new boy so she got up and started to walk to her first class which was Biology with Mr. Ranstien, a short teacher with a balding head and who was so full of himself, she wasn't looking forward to it.
As she went into class and sat down and watched people start filtering into her class when she noticed the same boy she was staring at in the school yard come into the class and sit at the desk in front of hers. She was close enough to notice that he smelled faintly of the salty ocean and to her it was intoxicating. Kate was so interested in the boy sitting in front that she did not even notice that Mr. Ranstien had entered and started the lesson for the day. Mr. Ranstien loved to start the year off with a bang, "Class this year I am going to split you into pairs and you and your partner are going to be given a ecosystem and you will have to research and make a model of the ecosystem, your projects will be due in a month, make sure to include the biodiversity your ecosystem, examples are found on page 23 in the Bio textbook.." A collective groan swept the classroom, first class of the day and they had work. "Now for partners…" Ranstien said and began to pair people up when he came upon Kate he put her with 'the new boy'. The boy turned around and smiled showing his white teeth and dimples, Kate could see some freckles sprinkled across his nose and cheeks, "Hey, my name is Jack Sheppard. What's yours?" Jack said. "H-Kate." She stuttered and played with a stray piece of brown hair, she had never been good with boys. Jack just smiled again at her making her even more nervous and he asked "So we are doing the rainforest?" she looked into his eyes which were the colour of dark chocolate then remember he asked her a question, "Uhh.. yea…" smooth move.. I wish I could be more comfortable around guys she thought to herself. "I was thinking, well there is a good library by my house and my mom is an Art teacher at another school so we have lots of materials at my house so how about on Wednesday we can go to my house and work on the project." He said with another smile. "Ok." Kate replied. "It's a date." Jack joked as a pink blush crept into Kate's cheeks.
The rest of Kate's day went normally until her Drama class with Ms. Gelbertson. Since the first period that day Kate had only seen Jack at lunch and in her Art class. When she walked into the Drama room she saw him once again. He was sitting on the carpet floor by himself while the popular group sat together on the other side. When he heard the door open he looked up and saw Kate walking in. He gave her a smile that made her knees weak and beckoned her over. Kate happily obliged and went over to sit beside him. Ms. Gelbertson stood up and took attendance then went into her normal first day introduction. "Morning Class. Welcome Back. I hope you had interesting summers. I decided the first task of the year will be a play that we will perform in November at the Arts Day Ceremony. You know I usually like my comedies so once again we are doing a comedy but this year it will be mostly a romance story with some humor in it." The whole class stopped chatting and looked up at Ms. Gelbertson, it was very unlike her to pick romance plays but their confusion was cut short when she continued talking, "I have decided to pick Kate Austen as the main female character and since we are so lucky to have Jack Sheppard in our class he will be the male character. Now if you did not know Jack has performed in many plays in his old town and is quite the actor and we are actually using a play that he wrote for this year." Kate turned her head and looked at Jack. "You wrote the play?!" she whispered in awe. "Yeah… I hope your okay with being a 'couple' with me in the play." He whispered back. "I feel honored that you chose me." She flirted to him without even knowing it. He just smiled at her and turned back to face Ms. Gelbertson who was now passing out the script. When she came over to Kate and Jack she passed them the script then said, "If we are supposed to be ready by November then I will need afterschool practices from you two. If you can come in on Monday, Tuesday and Friday for an hour that would make the play run a lot more smoothly. Thanks." Then she walked away.
At 3:45 that day Kate went back to the Drama room to have the first practice. Ms. Gelbertson was not there yet but Jack was sitting in the same place as earlier that day and he was listening to his iPod. Kate decided to walk over and sit next to him. As she did so he looked up, smiled and took out one of his headphones. "Hey! You're early too." He said. "Yea. What you listening to?" Kate asked, this time without stuttering. "Green Day… you wanna listen?" he replied back and held out the head phone he took off. Kate smiled at him and put the headphone into her ear so that Green Day- Time of your life started to filter through her ears. It wasn't until half way through the song that Kate noticed how close she was sitting to Jack. When she breathed in she could smell his smell of salty ocean and faintly of cologne. She slightly turned her head and drank in his handsome features, short cropped brown hair, brown eyes that seemed to sparkle and tanned skin. Kate's personal show was cut short when Ms. Gelbertson came into the room, "There you are. So Sorry I am late, I had to talk to Mr. Delson about costumes and props so we can get a start on that." Kate just smiled at Ms. Gelbertson because she knew that Ms. Gelbertson secretly had a crush on Mr. Delson. Jack turned and gave Kate a look. She whispered back to him, "I'll explain later." "Ok. So Kate and Jack you know that you are the most famous part of the play. Here is the layout of your two parts." Ms. Gelbertson said as she passed out a paper to them.
As Kate slowly read through the layout of her character and the play she let her mind wander a little bit and noticed she had been wrong earlier this morning this year was definitely not a repetition of the last, and she was so glad about that!