"How's it goin' Crutchy?" Jack greeted his friend in the hallway. The shorter boy looked up from the book he was reading for the billionth time, and smiled. It was a rarity to find Crutchy without The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton in his hands. He'd gotten a few of his friends to read it. When questioned why he liked the book so much he usually answered with 'It speaks to me'. He discovered it in the sixth grade, when everyone else was reading Harry Potter or Twilight. And since he didn't want to pretend to be a wizard or get into Vampires, so The Outsiders was what he chose. His favorite character was Johnny Cade and some people think strange of Crutchy when he refers to the character's nickname, Johnnycake. He was on chapter 5.
"Goin' good Jack," He beamed, "how are you?" The boy was cheerful and ever-so optimistic. His crutch was something not many people would be happy with. Jack replied with good and they just sort of stood there by the lockers. Their other friends would be showing up soon. This group of boys was made from a bunch of goofballs, tough guys, and a few that lay in between the two.
Jack was, in a way, the unoffical leader of the boys. The others just followed along to what he said. Except for Spot who normally disagreed with Jack, among most people.
Walking from the main entrance was David Jacobs and Racetrack Higgins, in a light conversation that evaporated when they found Jack and Crutchy. It was one of those talks that, you can never remember how it got started.
"Hey-ya Cowboy," Race said grinning, calling Jack by his childhood nickname. The poor boy thought he'd never shake off that name, "Hey Race, David." He looked at the blue eyed boy as he spoke. Most likely distracted by his unruly, curly, brown hair. He was weird like that. At least that's how his friend's explained it. Soon, Spot Conlon joined the growing bunch. He was pissed that morning cause he had to walk to school; the bus missed his stop and it was too late to call a friend to pick him up. Everyone was talking, exchanging schedules, and watching the Freshmen walk by. They were like that once. The memory was in the past but, close enough to remember it. Just coming from middle school and what not doesn't give anyone a strong reputation. That is unless you had a cool older sibling who'd been in high school or, something along those lines. David's older sister was in high school when he entered but, she wasn't exactly cool. She just acted that way. By then Blink and Mush had arrived.
Blink saw Race's nails weren't painted anymore. He figured Race got Callie to cough up the nail polish remover. He called him out on that and all Race said in return was, 'Pink'.
The bright red eyeshadow had caught their attention first. It was the roller skate girl from Blink's apartment. She came down the hallway with Rachel Chronis looking for their lockers. Her skates were off and slung around her shoulders. Rachel was a friend of the boys since the 8TH grade. She had this thing with drawing in her sketch-book. She normally drew ravens so, that's how she became known as Raven. She was the only girl officially in the gang.
The two came to a halt in front of the boys.
"Can we help you?" Spot asked a tad more impolite than necessary. Raven was one of those people Spot didn't see eye to eye with. They always come up with a reason to argue. Once they even had a cliché fight; fighting about fighting. Raven informed the boys they were standing in the way of the girls' lockers. The whole time glaring yet, grinning at Spot. She treated the rest of them what seemed to be normal to the new girl. They moved away and the girls carried on their conversation.
"So what do you have first?" Raven said, adjusting her grey glasses. Her light brown hair was pulled back in a pony-tail and sketch-pad was placed under her arm.
"English, with some teacher named Denton." She replied, getting her locker open on the fifth try. Her appearance was frightening Crutchy a lttle bit; she was sort of rough, army-brat looking.
"I know where that is. I'll show you; I'm headed that way already." Mush then piped up he was in that class as well. That's when the new friends noticed the boys were basically observing them. The still nameless girl nodded and took off her jean jacket to put it in her locker with her skates. A majority of the guys noticed her shirt; it was a green and gold t-shirt that had the name 'REED' on the back, along with the number 44. She obviously liked the Mighty Ducks movies. But David notices something else about her. Coming from under the neck of her shirt was a drawing that appeared to look like a multi-colored humming bird. He was baffled. The new girl had a tattoo? He already made the assumption she was weird but, that was a little you know...out there.
"Bye…boys…" Tattoo chick girl said avoiding eye contact. She didn't really have a stunning personality with new boys around. Rachel, who knew all the boys, rolled her eyes and introduced the guys to her.
"Race, Mush, Blink, Spot, David, Jack and Crutchy, this is-"She was interrupted by her friend.
"Since we're going by nicknames here, I'm Duckling." And the girls walked through the crowd of teenagers. Soon after the boys dispersed, about to endure the first day of school. Either if they were ready or not.
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