And yet another semester of school had started, the whines and complaints of students to their friends filled the freshly cleaned hallways. It was finally the end of break and school was once again in session. The last of the winter breeze made Lapis shiver under her favorite sweater as she made her way to the Class List, where it displayed every student's name and their first period.

As she approached, she noticed only a girl by the name Sadie reading it. Well it is rather early, she thought to herself. It was still 6:45 and school started at 7:30. She prefered being on time and not just on time, but early.

"Mornin' Lapis! Early as usual," Sadie smiled at her as she walked up to the list.

"Good morning," she mumbled as she turned to the list and ran her fingers along the paper looking for her name. Lazuli, Lapis, 1308, AP Biology, Quartz, Rose, she read to herself. Same period as last semester.

"Looks like we'll be having 1st period together," Sadie looked at the sheet as well.

"Seems so," Lapis merely said with a polite smile. Good, she didn't like changes anyway.

"Well, see you later then!" Sadie waved her goodbye and walked away. Lapis just nodded her way.

Knowing where she would be going once the bell rang, she decided to find a place to sit and pass the time.

Her school was Beach City School, founded by the current principal Mr. Dewey, and it was a rather small school, with the number of students not even reaching twenty. Onion being the only fifth grader, Peedee the only sixth grader, two 7th graders, no freshmen, Amethyst the only sophomore, eight juniors, and four seniors; seventeen students enrolled in total. And yet the campus was a bit too big for only seventeen students (it wasn't a large campus, mind you). Being a small K-12 school, everyone knew each other pretty well enough that they could casually walk up and start a conversation as if it were nothing. Despite the fact of only having very few classmates, the students still had managed to form their own cliques.

Lapis, however, did not have her own group. Every once in while, she'd hang out with Steven and his friend Connie, but really she didn't care much for other people and only really took interest in her work. Everyone respected her, but also treated her like an old friend.

She every so often got a "hello" and "how are you?" which she didn't mind. At least it was nice to know people actually cared about her.

She sneezed into her sleeve. It was almost impossible for Lapis to read. The weather was forcing her to shiver and made it difficult to steady the book to turn the page. She sniffled and wiped her nose.

After quite some time, she'd already been halfway done with it. Lapis suddenly felt a presence next to her, but before she could look up to see who it was, her book was snatched out of grasp.

A rather irritating cackle from Jasper made Lapis cringe.

"Hello, Jasper," Lapis frowned.

"You make this so easy," Jasper threw aside her book.

"H-Hey! Easy!" Lapis tried to get up to retrieve her book, only to be pushed back down by Jasper.

Ever since Yellow Diamond and her other friends graduated, Lapis could tell that Jasper was rather lonely and sad, despite having a hideous attitude. She tried talking politely and being friends, but Jasper's stubborn nature pushed her away and made it clear that she and her were never to be friends.

"What do you want?" Lapis was getting annoyed.

"Oh c'mon, is that any way to speak to your elders?" Jasper smirked.

"With my current situation, manners would be the least of my problems," Lapis muttered.

Jasper frowned. "What was that nerd?"

"I'll repeat that again, what do you want, Jasper?" Lapis merely said. Jasper growled at her sudden snappiness, but nonetheless returned back to her "friendly" smile.

"I'd like some money, Lapis," she rested her arm on the shorter girl's head and leaned.

"Please get off me," Lapis struggled to lift the jock's arm off her.

"I would... for a price," Jasper rubbed her fingers together.

"I refuse to pay you to get off me. In fact, I would much rather suffer than succumb to your childish ways," Lapis scoffed and crossed her arms.

The bell rang, indicating that they would have just five minutes to get to class.

Jasper grabbed her by the collar. "I'll say this again, twerp. Give me your money," she spat.

Lapis struggled as she was extremely uncomfortable being lifted off the ground.

"Put .. me.. down!" she managed to croak out.

"Not until you've given me your cash!"

"Jasper that is enough!" a sharp, yet a rather gentle voice pierced the argument. Both students looked to the source of the voice, the biology teacher, Ms. Quartz.

"Jasper, please let Lapis go," she firmly commanded.

Jasper scoffed. "You and what army?"

The teacher merely glared, shooting daggers and establishing dominance over the delinquent.

Jasper, clearly unafraid, lowered the girl and groaned.

"Thank you. Now Jasper, please proceed to your first period."

"Tcht. Whatever," Jasper frowned and slung her backpack on her shoulder. She turned to Lapis and growled. "We'll settle this later." Then walked away.

Lapis turned to the teacher and gave her a grateful smile, "Thank you for that, Miss Quartz."

The teacher returned the smile. "No need for that. Now, come on. I think the class is waiting for us." Lapis nodded and followed her teacher close behind.

Nothing much happened afterwards. It was just another normal day in Biology class. After she and Ms. Quartz entered the door, class immediately started with notes and review. Lapis hoped to start out the semester as normally as possible, though however her wish had unfortunately not come true. However, she did find herself without an eraser in the middle of the lesson. It probably fell out of her backpack pocket when Jasper decided to roughhouse with her.

When the bell rang for Nutrition Break, Ms. Quartz had called for her to stay a bit after as the class quickly stuffed their notebooks back into their bags.

"So sorry to cut your break short Lapis, but this is rather important," the teacher brushed a strand of curly hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear.

"No problem, Miss. What is it?"

"This is might be sudden news to you; it certainly was to me. The school will be having a new student soon.." she gave Lapis some time to absorb. News of a new student, much less someone actually moving to Beach City, was an extremely rare thing. So rare that this is the first that the small town has news such as this.

"O-Oh..? But what does this have to do with me?" She asked. Ms. Quartz smiled.

"Well, the principal is asking you to be her guide."

"Guide?"

"Yes. We want you to just.. I don't know. Help her around? Be friends with her? She just moved in town from far away and she doesn't have any friends. We've been told that she's quite... a challenge to get to know."

Lapis felt a pang of irritation. Why would she be the one to do this? There were so many other choices in the campus.

"Why me?" she suddenly blurted out, "I-I'm sorry I didn't mean for that to sound so mean."

"That's quite alright. Because you're the school's honour student. We feel you're more.. mature and more qualified for the task." She didn't know whether to feel honored or annoyed. She didn't have time (nor the want) to babysit some teenager. She certainly didn't want someone to bring her down.

"I can tell by the look in your face that you're giving this a long hard thought process of whether you should do this or not..." her teacher pointed out. Lapis sighed.

"I'm not exactly a... people person.."

"Neither is she," the teacher was quick to respond.

"I won't have enough time to look after her."

"Well you certainly aren't babysitting her. Just be her guide, answer her questions, give advice, help her out in her studies."

"Why don't you do this? You're much more of a mother figure than I am."

Her teacher chuckled. "We feel that a person more her age would be better suited for this." Lapis was hesitant.

"You know.. I really don't want to do this," she said.

"And we really need you to do this," Ms. Quartz insisted, "Please?"

Slowly but surely, Lapis succumbed and finally agreed. She grumbled to herself as she walked off to break.

But she tried to think positively; how bad can the new student be?