What's the scariest thing a teenager goes through? No, it's not that bright red zit that appears the day before the dance. Neither is it that moment when you're writing an exam and your calculator refuses to work. It's going to a new school, in a new town, in a new state, in a new continent. Starting a new life…
Lenasia van der Burg was on her way to McKinley high school, for her first day. "Mustn't do that," said her mother, Alia van der Burg. Alia frowned as she noticed her daughter fidgeting nervously with her new backpack.
Lenasia sighed. She glanced down at the charm bracelet given to her by her friends back in South Africa. It was a silver that sparkled in the sunlight. Each of the charms meant something to her, and represented part of the life she left behind. One of them stood out more than the rest. It was a tiny picture of her and two of her best friends back in South Africa. The trio posed with a tiger at a national park in Africa. Carrise Hoffner was the only of them brave enough to touch to tiger. Lenasia had always known Carrise as being fearless. Carrice had once bungee-jumped from an airplane, while the rest of her class (Including the boys!) were afraid to.
The car came to a halt and Lenasia looked up at her mother, who smiled a ginormous smile. "Who's ready for their first day in grade 11?"
Lenasia chuckled. "I think around here they call us juniors," she said, in a pretentious American accent. She always wished she could have an accent, preferably British, but as she was South African (where they never really seemed to have a particular accent) she liked mimicking others.
Alia beamed. "Oh darling, how dare I! Of course I meant juniors." She touched her daughter's cheek. "How beautiful you look!"
Lenasia blushed. She had been waiting for this day for 3 months, and it was finally here. Her curly brown hair was pulled back in a French braid, held together with two pale pink slide-on bows. She liked it this way because when she gets nervous she would simply play with the bottom of the braid. Her big brown eyes, accented by her black-framed spectacles. Her lips curtained with a light plum lip gloss.
From behind their vehicle came the sound of a car horn. Alia glanced at the rearview mirror and noted an impatient stout woman in the vehicle behind. "I love you so much darling."
"Love you too, mom. I'll see you," Lenasia held back a tear. "later."
Alia kissed her on her cheek and bid farewell. Lenasia slipped her backpack on and opened the vehicle door, not just to a new school, but to a new life as well.
"Class, I'd like to introduce you to a new student, Lenasia van der Burg, of south of Africa," announced Principal Figgins, in front of the junior class.
"Actually it's South Africa, as in that's the name of the country," whispered Lenasia. Very few people in the class room paid much attention to her. A few boys in the back were throwing a basketball to each other; some girls with cheerleading uniforms were applying lipgloss along with an Asia girl reading a book. That leaves the wheelchair guy with glasses, a blonde-haired guy with a Justin Bieber haircut and a guy with brown hair.
"Good, good," mumbled the principal in his thick Indian accent, addressing the class he said, "Please be at your best behavior and welcome her in the McKenley spirit."
Giving the teacher a quick grin, he left the room. Lenasia smiled awkwardly at the class.
"Miss van der Burg, I'm Ms Pillsburg. I'm actually the school guidance counselor but I'll be your substitute teacher for the time being," said Emma Pillsburg, as she held out her hand.
Lenasia quickly shook it and grinned at her ginger teacher, not sure what to say.
"You can find a place to sit and make yourself comfortable."
Lenasia turned back to the class. She felt her heart in her throat as she glared at the now familiar sight. The noise level in the classroom had turned up quite a bit since the principal left the class, and now everyone seemed in their own world. She noticed an empty seat near the back of the class, and nearly ran to it.
"I'm Rory. Rory Flanagan," said the boy seated next to her. He had reasonably pale skin and brown hair. Lenasia couldn't help but to marvel at his rich Irish accent.
"Lenasia,"
"Cool meetin' you, Asia"
A rosy tint spread over Lenasia's cheeks. "Cute, but most of my friends call me Leena,"
Rory smirked. "Yes, you are,"
Lenasia frowned.
"You said cute, you know the name being cute and all… and I said yes you are as in cute... as in you're…you know," Rory looked down as he stuttered, but Lenasia hadn't been listening.
Her bracelet had gotten caught on her backpack. She unzipped her bag, causing one charm to fall off into her bag. Lenasia cursed in her thoughts and observed her bracelet, looking for which of the charms had fallen off. She touched the little photo of her with her bestfriends. Beside her and Carrise, was Adrian Crox, her best guy friend in the world. He stuck out his tongue, and had on one of his many amusing expressions. Lenasia liked that most about him; he never really cared what other people thought of him. He was cool like that.
He was very close to her family, because his mother and her mother were colleagues. When they were younger they saw each other every single day and played the best of games together. As they got older, their parents limited their time together, and once her mother, in one of her states, didn't allow him into her room. Even after her other explained her worries (Teenage pregnancies and what not.) he never came around to her house that often. But they were the kind of friends that were forever.
"Asia?" Rory scowled.
Lenasia put down the charm and said, "I'm sorry! It's just-"
And with that came the sound of Lenasia's first school siren at McKinley high.
It was already lunch break, and McKinley was turning into a nightmare for Lenasia. She hadn't really spoken to anyone but Rory and he wasn't even in all her classes. The teachers were incredibly boring, and the periods seemed to take ages.
When the siren to signal break had wailed, Lenasia practically dumped her stuff into her backpack, and sprinted out of the class. Damain wasn't in her history class, so she knew no one really took notice of her. A million things were running through her head, most of them about how different McKinley is to her school in Africa. Firstly, everyone appeared rich, which is odd considering this is a public school. In South Africa lots of the kicks couldn't afford new clothes and wore the same uniforms they word last year. All these kids can afford the latest brands!
Although back home she had her fair share of snobs, they're nothing close to the one's here. She heard about this senior, called Britney, who's dumber than a door handle.
Damain seems alright though. He isn't necessarily one of the populars, but he isn't painfully unpopular either. He's quite sweet. That and he's the only person that's paid any attention to Lenasia since she's gotten to McKinley.
They only had second period math together. Her math teacher wasn't all that strict, she allowed Lenasia to sit next to anyone she felt comfortable with. Straight away Lenasia picked Rory. Her math teacher, whose last name had already slipped her mind, had simply said, "Interesting choice, Miss van der Burg."
After the lesson was concluded, covering the fundamentals of the tangent graph, Damain acquired about the life Lenasia left behind, about her family, her friends and many more diverse subjects. At first she didn't say much because he was still practically a stranger to her, but very soon she began warming up to him. He didn't just ask questions, he listened. She could have been mistaken, but he seemed genuinely interested in her answers. He seemed genuinely interested in her.
Lenasia snapped back to reality when she bumped into a brunette girl. By this time, the corridor was filling up quickly. Lenasia mumbled an apology.
The brunette frowned, and then said, "Hi, are you new? I'm Rachel Berry."
Rachel held out her hand. Lenasia fumbled with her bag strap, it slipped down to her wrist during the collision, and shook Rachelle's hand.
Almost the entire school was in the corridor now. Rachelle gave Lenasia a quick wave and skipped along. Okay she didn't exactly skip, but she did have an unusual spring in her step. Lenasia realized her locker was only a few feet away and finding it wasn't a problem.
The locker combination did turn out to be a problem. She tried to turn the dial to the allocated numbers but it appeared that there was bubblegum stuck in it, making it extra hard to turn. In all the commotion in the corridor Lenasia dropped the piece of paper with her locker combination, and it stuck to someone's shoe.
"Shoot!" exclaimed Lenasia. She rested her backpack on the ground and tried to recite the numbers. "Two, zero, three. I mean one. Two, zero, one. Four I think. No six."
"Two, zero, one, two."
Lenasia noticed the boy in a wheelchair she saw earlier in her homeroom. He wore glasses, and looked small and fragile to her.
"That's the default combination we all had when we first got our lockers." He said. His glasses appeared slightly askew as he spoke. "I'm Artie, by the way."
Lenasia did her best to turn the dial smoothly and after the second two, she heard a click and her locker door opened.
She gave Artie her most grateful look. "Thank you so much! I'm Lenasia."
"It's nice to meet you Lenasia. Sorry but I'm in a bit of a hurry. See you in homeroom," and with that, little Artie wheeled away.
Lenasia wondered what everyone was in such a hurry for. First Rachel and now Artie. She was glad to have met a few people. She set up her locker with a few books and pens, nothing fancy, and found her way through to the quad.
She came to the realization that she didn't actually know anyone there, excepted Damain, and he could be anywhere! Lenasia sat alone along one of the few empty tables in the quad. There were however a few people sitting at the end of the table, but Lenasia was in way close enough to speak to them or hear their conversation.
That's when something odd happened. One of the girls she hadn't met yet, a plump one who she later learned was named Mercedes, stood on her table. She wore the most bold and feminine outfit Lenasia had laid eyes on. It just screamed Girl Power. To Lenasia's surprise, the girl started singing. Right there in the middle of the quad. And not just singing to herself but singing loud enough for everyone to here. As if that was preposterous enough, the orchestra played along to her vocals.
Then there wasn't just one girl singing, there were two. The same girl she had bumped into in the hallway earlier, Rachel Berry she recalled, sang along with Mercedes, perfectly synced and in tune with the music.
Before she knew it there were a whole group of people harmonizing to Rachelle and Mercedes's beautiful voices. They were all jumping on tables, walking along the stairs and some were dancing. That's when someone caught Lenasia's eye. Standing next to Rachelle, was Rory! Rory could sing. He couldn't just sing, he sounded fantastic.
At the end of the song, everything just went back to normal. It was like the whole scene hadn't even happened. Lenasia just sat there stunned.
Most of the group sat together at a table in the middle of the quad. Rory was just about to sit down with them, when he noticed Lenasia sitting by herself.
"Hi," he said, sitting opposite her.
Lenasia was still dazed. "Hi," she said, mimicking Rory's accent without being successful. "You're such a dork."
Rory looked up at her nervously. "I take it, you like dorks then."
"I like you," Lenasia paused, "Dude." She stuck out her tongue, trying her best to cover-up in a possibly awkward moment. "I'm pretty sure that answers your question."
"Yeah, yeah it does." replied Rory, "What did you think of that?"
For a second, Lenasia had forgotten that Rory just gave one of the best vocal performances she had ever heard, to over 500 people.
Lenasia grinned. "You weren't all that bad."
Rory just shook his head amused and took a bite of his apple. Lenasia was almost done with her meal, just having her milkshake left, but she sipped on it slowly as Rory ate. Every few seconds she'd take a peek at him, him occasionally meeting her gaze, but other than that the rest of the lunch break was a quiet one.
Lenasia took that time to think about Adrian and Africa. She'd been thinking about that a lot lately. Some of them were thoughts about their time together, hers and Adrian's. Others were about her school millions of miles away.
Sometimes all it took was for her to glance at Rory for all of that to go away. This was her moment, this was her life now. If only life was that simple.
"Lenasia," said Rory.
It was after fifth period math, time for their second lunch break, when Rory stood with Lenasia at her locker. Lenasia took out her geography book, before closing her locker and turned to Rory. He looked a bit impatient.
"Uhm?"
"I sort of have glee practice now," he mumbled, "If you want to come with it's cool,"
Lenasia frowned. Glee? Rory was part of the glee club! By now she had almost forgotten about the musically number in the lunch break, but now it actually made sense. Her old school hadn't had a glee club. It hardly had any club's. Of course there was FOES-Friends Of Ecosystems- but then again no one really joined it.
She'd watched enough TV to know what a glee club was. A bunch of teenagers dancing around in puffy dresses and cringe-worthy bow ties. How bazaar.
"I can't," replied Lenasia, "Sorry."
"Okay then I'll see around." said Rory.
Why was Rory still going? Lenasia was almost sure he'd offer to spend the lunch break with her, but no such luck. He'd rather be at glee practice.
"See you around."