Sorry for not updating yesterday and the day before that, either I was studying like mad, dying my hair, or being distracted by Facebook. So I only finished part of the chapter. Another reason for my delay is the fact that it is absolutely freezing in my area, so I need to get our pellet stove working when I get home from school because it heats more than half of our house. So that can take me up to an hour alone. The pellet stove and I have this ongoing war, and so far, it is kicking my ass.
And did you guys hear? The first something chapters of ANGEL are up online. I haven't read them yet (because I am doing this) but I saved the link…I'll post it at the botom
It's been about a week since the last chapter took place, it's the first day of school for everyone. Wednesday September 1st.
You know you got a lot of sleep over the summer when your alarm clock goes off at 5:45 AM and you get up with no problem.
It was weird; I haven't been able to do that in years. Not sure if I should be happy, or freaked out over the fact that it's not even six AM and I'm perfectly fine.
I sat up in my bed, slid on my slippers, wrapped my blanket around me and went to the kitchen. It was empty.
This was even weirder because Ella was almost always up before me. So I went upstairs to her room to find her.
At this point I knew all the creaky steps and floorboards, so I made it up silently. There are four rooms on the upstairs floor. The master bedroom that my parents have, Ella's room, a bathroom, and a room that Ella and I used as a playroom when we were younger, now it's more like a dusty old room where we keep all our crap that we don't through out, but don't want lying around the house.
I slid her door open slightly to see her sprawled out on her bed, completely buried under blankets except for her feet. I tiptoed over and checked her alarm clock. It was set for 5:30, but she forgot to turn it on.
I backed up, then ran and pounced on top of her. She moved her hands around then pulled the blanket from off her face. She looked annoyed "Get up! Get up! Get up!" I yelled.
"Dude, it's so early." She said rubbing her eyes.
"Yeah, but your very first day of eighth grade starts today. Put it this way, it's your last first day of middle school. You should be thankful, middle school sucks." I explained to her trying to pull her out of bed.
"Can it be the last last day of middle school instead?" She asked.
"No. Go through eighth grade. Now get your butt outa bed!" I rummaged through her drawers and threw her clothes.
"Let's eat first." She suggested as she got out of bed and walked aimlessly to the door.
We got down and I turned on the coffee maker to make us both coffees. She looked through the cereal "Lucky Charms, Cocoa Puffs, or Raisin Bran?" She asked.
"Charms and Puffs." I responded getting the milk, bowls, and spoons.
"Both?" She asked looking at me funny as she poured herself the Cocoa Puffs.
"Yeah. Lucky Charms have the yummy marshmallows, but doesn't have give you chocolate. Cocoa Puffs has chocolate but no marshmallows. You do half-and-half and you get both." I explained.
"You really thought this through, didn't you?" Now she was looking at me even weirder.
"Remember when you went to camp for a month?" she nodded. "Remember when Fang went to Costa Rica with his family?" Another nod. "Dylan was in Texas, Iggy was at camp?" More nods. "That left Sam and J.J., who spent twenty-four/seven with each other." I explained. "This all happened at the same time. I got bored."
"So this is what you did. You experimented with cereal." She gave me a "you need help" look.
"No one was here! You try all your friends leaving you for three weeks! It's not easy." I defended myself.
"Well apparently you made friends with the leprechaun and the crazy bird." She teased.
I scowled at her, put my dish in the sink and went into my room to get dressed. I never pick out what I'm going to wear ahead of time. Simply because whatever I to pick out, I will change my mind about it in the morning.
I dug through my dresser and pulled out a pair of pants. A pair of dark skinny jeans, clean and simple. I may live in southern Arizona, so wearing pants is a little odd. But I rarely wear shorts during school. And I grew over the summer so my shorts don't really fit anymore.
Now for a shirt. I threw stuff around. Finally I settled on a loose white t-shirt with a panda on it. Ella found it when she was shopping and got it for me for my birthday. She said she thought it was cute, and she's right. When your mom's a vet, you learn to love animals of all kinds. Even our tiny yuppie dog Total.
I went into the bathroom and realized that my hair needed to be brushed. Badly.
My hair hasn't been shorter than my upper back in forever, I started keeping it long when I was about six. Now it was somewhere between my mid to lower back. I took the brush and started ripping it through my hair trying to get all the tangles out.
Washed my face, brushed my teeth, deodorant, you know the general morning routine.
I picked up my eyeliner that I had barely touched all summer and put a thin layer around the top and bottom of my eyes and a thin layer of black eye shadow on top. I keep it subtle, unlike some (alright, more than some…) of the girls in my class that look like they're part raccoon.
I checked the clock. It read 6:30. I still had another 20 minutes before I needed to leave.
The good thing about living where I do is the fact that we're last stop in the morning, so we can leave our houses the latest, but first on the way home, so we get home before everyone else.
The other plus of living in this neighborhood was that we're far enough from the school so that the bus has to pick us up, but close enough to walk if we want too. So in the morning I don't need to wake up early so I can get to school on time by walking, but on nice days I don't need to sit on a crowded bus on the way home.
Another plus was that Iggy and Fang are on my bus as well, so is Ella. Because the middle school is so close to the high school everyone from 6th to 12th are on the same bus schedule, the busses just split into waves, so half the high schoolers are dropped off first and half the middle schoolers are dropped off first.
I grabbed my bag. It was light, only containing a planner and a notebook. At freshman orientation they tell not to bring much because the teachers will tell us what they want on the first day.
The schedule was weird. We had seven, periods, each was 56 minutes long with four minutes to get to the next class, but only six periods a day. So my seventh period class, which was physical science, which I was told is basically chemistry and physics mashed into one, rotated. So On every "one day" I'd have science instead of period one. On a "two day" I'd have science instead of period two, and so on. Then on a "seven day" I had all my classes except for science.
I looked through my schedule once more
Ride, Max ID: 3643 YOG: 2014 Grade: 09
Locker C3081 : 12-14-40 Homeroom: C121
7:30 – 8:26: Period 1– Health RM: C121 Mrs. Berk
8:30 – 9:26: Period 2 – Chorus RM: D149 Mr. Robins
9:30 – 10:26: Period 3 – French 1 honors RM: A328 Mrs. Conrad
10:26 – 10:36: BREAK
10: 40 – 11:36: Period 4 –English RM: C115 Mrs. Stillman
11:40 – 1:01: Period 5 – History RM: A300 Mr. Ambrosino
1:05 – 2:01: Period 6 – Algebra RM: A311 Mr. King
Rotating: Period 7 – Physical Science RM: C307 Dr. Scannell
I liked this schedule. I knew how to find rooms; it was the same way as the middle school. The letter represented the wing, or area, A, B, or C, the first letter being the floor, first, second or third, and the last two being the room. It was the chorus room that confused me, I wasn't aware of the D-wing.
I've only actually been in the auditorium at the high school, in the back there's an entrance, you go down a set of stairs, and you're in the auditorium lobby, with the gym doors behind that. So that's all I knew. I didn't actually know where anything was. So that worried me.
Wait a second….where's lunch? They had to feed us, I know they feed us.
Where the hell was lunch?
I threw my bag over my shoulder and walked into the kitchen, and took an apple out of the bowl on the table. My mom and dad were up now.
"Max, you just ate." Ella pointed out.
"I know, but I don't see lunch on my schedule, so I better eat now just in case." I bit the apple, taking more than my mouth could fit.
"Honey, I highly doubt they wont feed you." Mom tried to calm me down.
"I know, but still, I don't know when it is, for all I know it's at the very end of the day. Or maybe they made a mistake in my schedule, and I don't eat lunch." Now I was worried.
"Then wouldn't there be a blank spot in your schedule?" She asked.
I tried to think of another reason…but couldn't think of anything.
Ella laughed at my paranoia "We should go out and wait."
Our mom gave us both hugs, took a picture, you know, the annoying "my daughter's are growing up" thing a lot of parents do on the first day of any school year.
Dad just smiled, held her back, and wished us luck.
"Is anyone else going to be here?" I wondered out loud
"Um…I think there's a few sixth graders, but the last few people graduated and are now at some college we don't know the name of…" Ella responded, unsure of herself.
And sure enough a kid I remember living in the house a few down from us shows up. "This is for the middle school right?" She asked nervously.
"Yup." I said smiling at her, "It's Cassie, right?" I think she showed up at our door once selling Girl Scout Cookies. She nodded.
"I'm Max, this is Ella." I said pointing to Ella who waved. She waved back.
A few minutes later the bus showed up. Fang and Iggy saved seats for us, and there was Nudge sitting in front of him.
"Hey! Nudge, I didn't know you started sixth grade today." I sat next to Fang. I always liked Nudge, was a little mature for her age, hell, she was probably more mature than I was. Definitely more mature than Iggy.
"Mmmhhmm." She nodded.
"You excited?" I asked.
"I heard middle school isn't fun." She frowned.
"It is, I mean, it's not the greatest time, but you'll still have loads of fun." I put on a convincing smile, not going to tell her that I hated junior high.
The ride was only a few minutes. Fang and I had four classes together, health, chorus, science, and history. Iggy was in health and science with us, and in my math class as well. This was good, I'm not very good at science, but Iggy's a freaking genius when it comes to science, especially chemistry. He knows more about elements, compounds, and reactions than anyone I've ever met.
Having health with him is good too, he'll be sure to make the class more amusing.
"Okay guys listen up!" The bus driver came on the intercom, "I drop and pick up the high school first, junior high seond." She pulled into the high school bus area and opened the doors "Have a great first day!"
Fang and I exchanged a look. Here we go.
I'm still working on what I'll do for the next chapter, when I do I will update as soon as I can.
Here's the link to ANGEL if you don't already have it: /jamespatterson/docs/angel_bookone_cover
Please review!
~XxIgnorancexX~
