Casper High wasn't like any other school I'd been to. In fact, not just the high school, but the entire town of Amity Park was strange. I've lived all over on account of my father's career. He is a very important part of a nationwide company, traveling to each new branch and helping to get them on their feet. Once he's confident in their ability to succeed, he moves onto the next branch. Sometimes it takes a year, sometimes a couple years. But never longer than three years, I've noticed. Thankfully I'm a junior in high school, meaning that I may actually have a chance at staying at Casper High until I graduate. However, Casper High was a school I'd have to really get used to. Sure the staff was nice enough, the students weren't that bad, and the curriculum was pretty easy compared to other schools I've attended, but…
It was the ghosts that I had to get used to.
I'd never considered ghosts as a problem before. In fact, I rarely ever heard much about ghosts at the other places I've lived. But somehow, Amity Park was crawling with ghosts. And unknown to me, Casper High was a ghost hotspot. On my first day sitting in English Literature, there was a loud explosion outside our door and screaming. The class seemed to grow increasingly anxious every second that passed by after the noise. Fire alarms started sounding off, the loud ringing killing everyone's ears. A couple people were brave enough to get out of their seats and look out the window of the door to see what was going on. I was too shocked to even move, but from the whispers I heard that a ghost had somehow possessed a sophomore girl. They said she had caused an explosion- with what nobody seemed to be sure- and they found her body charred and still alight, screaming and slamming her head bloody against a locker. Apparently, there is a family called the Fenton's who live in town and specialize in hunting ghosts. I guess they were called in, because the awful sound of the girls head hitting the locker stopped, and I heard a couple people outside the door, struggling to hold her down.
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I walked back into the high school the next day, a little more prepared for an encounter. I wasn't too big on religion, but I had a rosary stashed away in my room- a gift from my mother- and decided it might not be such a bad idea to slip it on. It was hidden underneath my flowy black shirt. The first day I was here, I was already under the impression that I would probably be the only goth at Casper High. Not that it bothered me too much, as that's how it usually was. So taking my gothic appearance in stride, to accompany my black shirt I wore black leggings and my tried-and-true black Doc Martens.
My locker was on the first floor, about halfway down the hallway. I somehow got lucky enough to have my locker put next to a classmates, although we haven't spoken yet. After the fiasco yesterday, they shut down the school and told us to go home- it wasn't safe for us to stay. So at my second attempt of a "first day" I wanted to start off on the right foot and try to make some friends. And it seemed like the stars must have aligned for me that morning, because sure enough my locker neighbor was walking my way. He was walking with a friend, it seemed- talking away and laughing at whatever the other said. They seem nice enough. They reached their destination and opened the locker next to mine. I stared into my locker and thought out my approach for a moment. How exactly does one make friends, again? Surely it couldn't have been that foreign to me.
But somehow my classmate read my thoughts. He closed his locker and looked over at me. I must have still been lost in thought because the boy tapped my shoulder and greeted me with, "Hey, you alright?" I stopped staring and awkwardly glanced over at him and his friend, who had a worried look on his face. "Oh, uh yeah! Sorry, yeah I'm fine." I tried to flash a friendly smile at them. Both of the boys smiled and sighed with what seemed like relief. "Yesterday was your first day, right? Man… I can't imagine that happening on my first day. If I were you, I would have ran screaming in the other direction. You're brave, I'll give ya that." The friend in the red beret said. I sighed, "Oh trust me when I say that it really did freak me out. But, I get the feeling that things like that happen pretty often. It's just going to be something that I'll have to get used to." My locker neighbor's bright blue eyes scrunched up when he winced. "Well yeah… But nothing to the extent of yesterday… That wasn't the norm. It was pretty bad. Most ghost incidents here are pretty tame, like last week we had some flying textbooks…" His sentence trailed off and I couldn't help but laugh a little. I closed my locker and leaned against it, raising my textbook in my hand while I spoke, "Yeah, I'd agree. Flying textbooks is pretty tame compared to.. well.. yesterday. By the way, is that girl okay?" The two friends solemnly looked at each other, then to me. "Well…" the African American started, "I know they got the ghost out of her. I'd imagine she's at the hospital now, recovering I guess. She probably won't be back for a while. Third degree burns and head trauma takes a long time to bounce back from, I'd assume."
There wasn't much I could say in response to that, so to move on from the gloomy conversation I mentioned that class was about to start. "Oh crap I'd better get going!" The blue-eyed boy's friend said. But as he began to dash away, he quick turned around and held out his hand to me. "By the way, the names Tucker. Tucker Foley. Or Tuck. Or whatever suits your fancy." He gave me a sarcastic wink and I shook his hand. "And I'm Sam Manson. Nice to meet you!" I couldn't help but laugh at his failed attempt to be charming, but I held it back as best as I could. He waved goodbye to his friend and left me with him.
"I guess I should introduce myself too. I'm Danny." He smiled warmly and I smiled back. "Nice to meet you too. You're in my first period class right?" He ran his hand through his black hair and jerked his head lightly to the side as if motioning me to join him in walking to class. "Yup, English Lit. Oh boy, I'm so excited." He said, though his voice was dripping with sarcasm. We passed groups of students chatting and rounded a corner. "Well it obviously sounds like English isn't your favorite subject. So tell me, what is?" Danny rubbed the back of his neck and chuckled, "Oh it's not the subject. I actually like English. It's just the teacher."
"Ah. Well warn me now, what am I getting into here?"
"Strict. Gives a lot of work, not a lot of teaching. And boring, I cannot emphasize that enough."
"Oh he can't be that bad. He seemed okay yesterday. For what little class we did have."
"Eh well on Monday's we usually review or start something new, so there was a little more conversation. But today it'll probably be just a reading assignment and a packet."
I nodded. We continued on and talked about my schedule. Apparently we have most of our classes together, which I admit was a relief. It felt so great to already have someone to help show me the ropes, rather than to have to learn it all by myself. And from what it seemed, he was pretty nice. Just seemed like your average guy, not popular and snooty. Which was a good thing.
We reached the classroom and took two seats next to each other in the middle of the class. Mr. Lancer, the English Lit. teacher, asked Danny to help catch me up in the novel they were reading, which was Pride and Prejudice. I sighed in relief when he said it was that book. I'd already read it a couple times, even outside of school just for fun. So catching up was fairly easy, just knowing what part of the book they were at. While everyone in class grouped and partnered up for reading, Danny and I sped through the reading portion and worked together on the packet. It was only first period, but by far today was exponentially better than yesterday. Hopefully the rest of the day will be just as good as it has been so far.