Chapter ten
My eyes snapped open as the sound of the annoying buzz of my alarm clock setting off, 6:30AM and I had to be up for school, I guess the good thing about today was that it meant we were one day closer to leaving. I walked downstairs into the kitchen to find Taylor already up eating his breakfast; my mom was stood fully dressed, cooking.
"Morning" she chimed as I sat on a stool at the table, I gave her a small grunt as a reply. She turned to face me and put a plate of pancakes in front of me. She sat opposite me, and gave me a smile. It was obvious she was expecting something from me.
"What" I said looking up from my plate, she still sat smiling at me, I smiled back and said "Thanks" the way I said it was snarky but it was the best she would get, and she knew that so she left it. I wasn't a morning person and trying to make me feel happy or generally feel anything other than, pissed off, tired and groggy was a waste of your time.
"Would you like a coffee?" she asked standing again to go to the coffee machine, I nodded while I chewed a chunk of my pancakes.
"Please" I said through my food, I kept checking the time on the clock on the wall, watching as the hands of it seemed to fly around, each passing minute felt like a second. The drowning ticking signalling the fact that I only had a limit of time that I could hold off getting ready for school.
My mom placed the cup in front of me; the smell seemed to liven me up more. I loved coffee having my first cup of coffee was the best part of my day, other than sleeping and eating. I drank from the cup, the hot liquid burning my tongue, making me screw up my face.
When I had finished eating and drinking, I ran up the stairs to get ready. I checked the time on my clock 7:00AM, I had an hour and fifteen minutes before I had to go get Cat. I showered, did my hair, and make up, then went to my wardrobe.
I pulled out a black skirt, some full length leggings, and a red long sleeved top, I dressed and checked myself in the mirror, I would pass as acceptable I pulled on my boots and took another look in the mirror, when I felt I was happy with how I looked, I walked down stairs, picked up my keys and headed out the door.
I pulled up outside Cat's house at exactly 8:15 like I had promised. I honked the horn three times, like always and as usual she walked out of the door with a huge smile on her face. She was wearing a pair of shorts, some blue high heeled shoes and a light blue vest top. She climbed in my car, and I waited until she was buckled in before I started driving.
I took extra care when pulling out of her street today after the incident with the guy who had been driving the Pontiac. Luckily today was easier and we were more or less out straight away. We sat in my car singing along to songs that came on the radio, singing, dancing and just generally having a laugh.
We got the school for 8:50, ten minutes spare time we walked into school to find the halls were full. This was always the case on the first day of school for some reason. Why could people be bothered to turn up early on the first day of school yet not any other time, what was the difference.
"Hey guys!" Tori called with a smile on her face as we neared them. Cat smiled and waved I however, didn't even acknowledge her.
"Hi!" I called Cat to everyone; this was responded to with waves and smiles. I put my head against my locker and sighed.
"What's up with you?" asked Beck, I looked at him and gave him a small shrug; I just really couldn't be bothered to do anything.
"Nothing… I'm going to get my schedule" I said pushing myself away from my locker. The others followed me, when I got up to the reception desk I tapped on the window to gain the attention of the woman who sat behind the desk. "Jade West, Cat Valentine, Beck Oliver, Robbie Shapiro and Andre Harris" the woman searched for the names and pulled out five pieces of paper. I handed them out to the person they belonged to.
"Where's mine?" asked Tori looking at me confused.
"Whoops" I said dryly, walking away from her. I read the schedule and turned to face the others "Hey who's Mr Miller?" I asked looking down at the piece of paper that I held in my hand.
"I don't know why?" asked Tori, who had now received her schedule.
"Well I have History with him first thing today at 9:00" I thought back to the end of last year. I was sure that they hadn't mentioned us having a new teacher my train of though was broke by Cat who pulled on my sleeve.
"Me too" she said excitedly shaking the paper she held I glanced at Cat's paper and back at mine, they were identical. This made me feel better.
"Oh I have him tomorrow just before lunch" said Robbie with a smile on his face. It appeared the other four of them had him at the same time as they all started smiling and checking what other lessons they had together.
The bell rang and Cat and I walked to room 46A each desk had room for two people, this was a new set out to usual, most rooms had only one seat per desk. We saw that Sinjin was in this class with us, we put our heads down to avoid being seen by him. Cat and I had no choice but to sit at the front, we picked the seat in the middle rather than on the isle.
The room was quite big, and had a white board at the front of the room with an array of different coloured pens that could be used for it. The door swung open at 9:03.
"Hello" he said, his voice was deep "I'm Mr Miller but if you do prefer you can call me James, I'll be calling you by your names so I see no reason why you can't call me by mine" he smiled. His teeth were perfect. He was tall and muscular, he had short black hair, and brown eyes, his jaw was defined he had a small dent in his chin. He was shaven but traces of stubble had begun to show through his skin.
"Okay so when I call out your name, speak and raise your hand so I can mark where you are sat, this will help me learn names for now"
He took what seemed like forever with attendance. The whole process was tedious; he finally got to the bottom of the list of names.
"Caterina Valentine" he said looking around the room. I rolled my eyes, there were only two people it could be, he could just ask us who we were.
"Here… But I do prefer to be called Cat" she said raising her hand smiling. He wrote on the paper marking her present.
"Okay then so you're Cat… and that must make you Jadelyn West" he said looking straight at me, flashing me a smile
"Jade" I said hostilely.
"Sorry" he corrected himself "Jade west". I gave him a small nod, "So, as I said" he began "I am James Miller and I'll be your new History teacher". He was about to begin the lesson but I stopped him.
"What happened to our old teacher Mrs Hale?" I asked. He sighed putting the blue pen back in its holder on the board.
"She quite unexpectedly" he said sitting down on the edge of his desk "So they held interviews a couple of weeks ago, and I got the job" he stood and walked over to the board once more "So, firstly we will be talking about the civil rights movement and acts of similar natures" he looked at the class as he wrote down this information "If you would like to take notes you can" the room filled with the sound of people looking for books and pens. Everyone but me and Cat did this.
"So" he started " We will be learning about these people, and what they did" he wrote a list of names of people or groups of people the list contained: Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, The Suffragettes, The Suffragists, and Ghandi.
I could hear the sound of pens scratching on paper as people wrote down the list of names into their notebooks. Mr Miller turned to face Cat and I "Are you not taking notes?" he asked sounding slightly agitated.
"No I don't need to, we haven't learnt anything about them yet, all we know is names, and to be honest I already knew a lot of those names" I admitted. Cat looked at me and nodded, silently saying that she felt the same.
"Fine he said turning away" he began to scribble more words down on the board. Lines coming from each name with small amounts of information coming off them he turned to face the two of us and smiled slyly "Now you do need to make notes" he said.
Cat and I bent down and searched through our bags, looking for pens and notebooks, we found them pulled them out and placed them on the table. Cat and I looked at each other, we could see that it would be hard to act the way we had last year. But that didn't mean we wouldn't try.