A/N: Back to school for Jen. I hope this chapter isn't too monotonous...I tried to make it as exciting as the dreaded first day back can be. Anyway, read and enjoy (and review)!
She's a Senior
Jen sat in homeroom on her first day of her senior year, her excitement of finally being the oldest in the school making her antsy. Her energy was dampened, however, by her homeroom teacher, Coach Rhodes, handing out schedules. Jen looked at hers and groaned. She had Calculus right after homeroom, followed by AP Literature. The second half of her day was easier: band and lunch fourth period and psychology to finish off the day. Michelle, sitting next to Jen, leaned over to compare schedules with her friend.
"Hey, we're in the same calc class," Michelle said brightly.
"Good, I can question you in here when I don't understand the homework," Jen laughed.
Michelle shook her head. "I doubt you'll need my help. If anything, it'll probably be the other way around."
The bell to second period rang and the girls walked at Calculus together. Jen saw Mary Beth in the hallway, a scared, "I'm a freshman" look on her face. The senior waved to her friend. "Mary Beth! First day of high school; how does it feel?"
Mary Beth smiled at Jen. "I don't know anybody and the hallways are packed! What lunch do you have?"
Jen glanced at her schedule. "D."
"So do I!" Mary Beth exclaimed.
"Come sit with us," Jen offered. "I'll meet you by the vending machines."
"Okay," Mary Beth agreed. "I'd better go; my class is somewhere on the 100 hall."
"What class do you have?" Michelle inquired.
"Honors World History."
"Good luck with that," Michelle said.
"See ya at lunch." Jen smiled to the freshman and continued down the hallway.
Calculus with Ms. Oleeda turned out to be a nightmare. Ms. Oleeda, as Jen and Michelle noticed from the start, was a caffeine addict. She drank approximately three cups of coffee and half a Rockstar energy drink by the time her first class walked through the door. She also had another Rockstar in each of the three following classes. Jen wondered how she could consume so much caffeine and not be jumping through the ceiling.
"Hello everyone," Ms. Oleeda greeted her students when the tardy bell rang. "I'm so glad you're my first class of the day because I'm a morning person." Geeze, I wonder why, Jen thought sarcastically. It couldn't have anything to do with that energy drink and cup of coffee sitting on your desk, now could it? "Is anyone in here a morning person?" The class' dull stares answered the question. "I guess not," Ms. Oleeda said thoughtfully. "Well, I'll help you guys get energized in here."
A sigh from the desk behind Jen greeted this statement. Jen glanced back. A perfect face met hers for a split second. Jen immediately turned around, feeling her face flush. She contemplated that face, that perfect, handsome face. He had an emo haircut, sweeping across his right eye. His face, like the rest of body, was thin, but not in an anorexic way. He's perfect, Jen thought.
"…around the room to say one thing about yourself," Ms. Oleeda said. Jen wondered what she had missed while she had daydreamed about Mr. Perfect. Ms. Oleeda zoomed in on her first victim, a quiet-looking Asian girl. "Let's start with you, dear. Tell us your name, grade, and something interesting about yourself."
The girl said to the front wall, "I'm Chelsea. I'm a senior, and I play soccer at Backlash. It's a local rec league," she added when several people unconsciously gave her confused looks.
Ms. Oleeda nodded with a fake-looking effusive smile. "Good. No wonder you have such an athletic build." She nodded to the blond-haired boy sitting behind Chelsea. "You next, sir."
The boy lounged back in his desk as he introduced himself. "My name's Chris. I'm a senior and captain of the football team."
Ms. Oleeda smiled. "I hope you'll have time for this class with your busy practice schedule, Chris."
Chris seemed to take this as a threat, judging by the shadow that briefly crossed his face.
One by one the students introduced themselves. Finally it was Jen turn. "I'm Jen," she said with a smile. "Senior. Uh, marching band takes up a ton of my time. I'm captain of the drum line."
"Wow, that's great," Ms. Oleeda said with another plastered-on smile. "And what about you, honey?" she asked Mr. Perfect.
Jen thought she heard him sigh in a resigned way. "I'm Dan. Let's see…I'm a senior and…I hate math," he said flatly.
Ms. Oleeda seemed disgruntled and her concrete smile momentarily slid. "I, uh, well hopefully you'll come to like math this semester," she finally sputtered.
Jen smiled to herself. She liked this guy more and more. He was brutally honest, not to mention his voice…. Jen! She scolded herself. Focus! This is Calculus, not Daydreaming about Hot Guys 101!
At last the introductions finished. The class was comprised of twenty-three seniors and four juniors. The juniors, for some inexplicable reason, had all unconsciously chosen seats clustered in the front right corner of the room. One of them, Grayson, was the stereotypical nerd: corpse-white complexion, backpack leaden with books and binders, a t-shirt with some sort of computer gibberish written on it. Haley, another junior, was thin with short dark brown hair. Apparently she was a football manager. The other two, Nate and Andrew, were quiet and looked like the type of kids whose parents had forced them into honors classes against their will.
"Well, now that we know each other a little better, let's get to work," Ms. Oleeda said, to everyone's disappointment. The students had hoped that at least this first day would be a free one. As Ms. Oleeda handed out pieces of bright orange paper she explained, "We're going to go over the syllabus – which needs to be returned with a parent signature tomorrow – and then we'll take some notes. And before you ask, yes, there will be homework tonight. There will be homework every night, but we may occasionally have class time to work on it." Jen and her classmates silently groaned, and many faces fell, but Ms. Oleeda didn't seem to notice.
The remaining hour of class passed in a dull note-taking manner. Three minutes before the bell rang Ms. Oleeda glanced at the clock and said, "You have a worksheet for homework. Don't forget to get your syllabus signed!" Jen and Dan sighed at the same time, to Jen's secret delight.
When the bell rang, Jen walked quickly to AP Lit on the 800 hall. She arrived to see many familiar faces around the room, Christian's among them. "Jen!" he called.
Jen smiled. "Hey!" She put her backpack at the desk to Christian's left. Since the teacher had yet to arrive, she asked, "Ready to suffer the wrath of analyzing poetry?"
Christian rolled his eyes. "That's gonna be a resounding 'no'. What class did you have last period?"
"Calc with Ms. Oleeda."
Christian grimaced. "I had her last year for Analysis. I feel your pain."
Jen whispered, "She's such a caffeine addict!"
"Oh yeah," Christian agreed. "She's never without her Rockstar or coffee or green tea."
As the drummers' conversation momentarily lulled off, Kayla, the drum major, and Patrick, the baritone section leader, walked in. "Well isn't this quite the band reunion?" Kayla asked as she and Patrick sat down in front of Jen and Christian.
"I guess there's no escaping each other," Patrick commented.
The bell rang a few seconds later and a woman wearing a glamorous skirt horribly offset by a pair of classic black Chuck Taylors walked in. Her eyes looked soft and forgiving, which the students took as a good sign. Perhaps she could be persuaded into giving them extra time on homework or projects. She introduced herself as Ms. Reyes and handed out a three-page syllabus. Jen flipped through hers and thought, well, it is an AP class.
AP Lit proved to be all Jen expected it to be: complete boredom. The ninety minute class period dragged on endlessly. When the bell finally released them, the sleepy students sprang to life and practically bolted out the door.
Jen arrived in the band room to find John already there, writing something on the board. "You look dressed up today," she commented, noting his khaki pants and sweater.
John turned around. "Well since I'm teaching this class, I figured I should try to look like a teacher at least for the first day."
Jen nodded. "What are we doing today?"
John gestured to the board, on which was written:
come in and sit in front
semester calendar
set up pit and battery
non marchers in back classroom with Mr. tows
marching music
As more and more percussionists drifted in, John called, "Read the board!"
Once everyone was seated on the floor at the front of the room, John said, "Welcome to percussion class. For those of you who don't know me, I'm John Stost. You can just call me John though, not Mr. Stost." Several of the marching percussionists waved and called, "Hi John!" John shook his head slightly before handing out a stack of white paper, which turned out to be the "semester calendar."
"The calendar will mainly be for when marching band ends and we have some class time for stuff other than marching music," John explained. "Hopefully we'll be able to get through all the scales, rudiments, and whatever else I have planned for each week."
Jen skimmed the calendar. Each week had two scales – starting with major and moving to minors six weeks into the semester – two or three rudiments, and some other technique such as four mallet grips, ethnic drumming, and drum set. There were also some activities on a website called scattered throughout the semester. Jen gulped. Anything with the words "music" and "theory" in the same sentence made her shudder.
"Now that you have an idea of what the semester looks like, I have one more thing to give you before we get set up," John said as he hand out more white paper. This sheet proclaimed Percussion Class Materials. The list was fairly basic and included: four matching yarn marimba mallets, one pair concert snare drum sticks, one pair general timpani mallets, practice pad, and mallet bag. Jen knew she already had all these materials plus some at home.
"You need to have this stuff by next Monday," John announced. "That's a full week from now, so you have no excuse to not have it. Okay?" The percussionists nodded. "Okay. Pit and battery need to set up out here and the non-marching band people are going to be in the back classroom with Mr. Tows."
The class split up to gather their equipment or practice pads. Within ten minutes Jen was tapping off Eights for the battery while the pit finished setting up. The sound of the full marching percussion section inside the band room was incredible. Jen was glad she had stashed a pair of earplugs in the pocket of her drum cover during band camp.
The drummers warmed up for fifteen minutes, the sounds of Green and Lock Jaw from the pit providing a melody against the battery's steady eighth and sixteenth notes. After loosening up their chops, they ran through the entire show before hitting the sections John considered "trouble spots."
Ten minutes before the bell rang John dismissed the percussionists to pack up. Jen and Tiffany exchanged events of their first day in the drum room after stowing their drums on the shelves. "Tiffany, you should be in my calc class," Jen told her younger friend. "There's the hottest guy in there. He sits right behind me."
"Oh, really?" Tiffany asked. Jen did not often mention her crushes to other people, so this guy must have been especially good-looking. "What does he look like?"
"Emo," Jen replied. "His hair like hangs in his face and covers his eye." She had a dreamy look on her face.
"Oh, Jen," Tiffany said. "That, my dear, is called obsession. What's his name?"
"Dan."
"Dan what?"
"I don't know."
The bell rang, and the girls walked to lunch together. As they passed the vending machines, Jen remembered the promise she had made that morning. "Oh yeah! I told my friend Mary Beth I'd meet her at the vending machines so she could sit with us at lunch."
"Okay," Tiffany said. "Who's Mary Beth?"
"A freshman I know from taekwondo."
"Cool. I'll go find a table before they all fill up," Tiffany said as she walked toward the cafeteria.
She entered the messy eating area and scanned the room for an empty table. She spotted one in a corner next to the cross country runners' table. Tiffany quickly walked over and spread her backpack and lunch over the table to save a few seats. Chairs were always short in the cafeteria, and several unfortunate souls always ended up kneeling on the tile floor. Tiffany grimaced at the thought of sitting on the dirty floor during her lunch, the fourth and final one of the day.
A few minutes later Jen walked in with a shy-looking girl with long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. When they reached the table Jen introduced her friends. "Tiffany, this is Mary Beth, my freshman friend from taekwondo. Mary Beth, this is Tiffany. She's a junior and plays second bass on the drum line." Mary Beth looked a little daunted at the prospect of eating with the upperclassmen. Jen noticed and laughed. "Don't worry, we don't bite freshmen. Sophomores, maybe. But freshmen are okay."
Mary Beth smiled and sat down next to Jen.
Other students drifted by the girls' table, but only a few stayed to eat with them. The group included two seniors, Jen and Kayla, Tiffany, Rachel the sophomore pitlet, and Christa and Mary Beth, the two freshmen.
When the bell for fifth period rang, Jen somewhat regretfully picked up her backpack and headed off to Psychology. She wasn't quite sure what to expect of the class, but since it was an elective she assumed it wouldn't be anything too difficult.
Jen's notion was right. Psychology, judging by the first day, was a slack class for upperclassmen. The syllabus said the class would cover topics such as Freud and the interpretation of dreams, classical conditioning, and the stages of sleep and sleep deprivation. It also included several "visual reinforcements", AKA movies. Easy class, Jen decided.
At 3:30 the long-awaited final bell rang and the school building and parking lot cleared out as students rushed off campus. It was only the first of many monotonous school days.
A/N: By the way, Ms. Oleeda was inspired by my AP Lang teacher, a caffiene addict to the core.