Chapter Three: A New School- Sam's First Day
"Hey, dudes! Y'all ready to get goin' to school yet?" Luna asked. As usual, morning in the Loud House was pretty slow. She brushed her hair out of her eyes. She had decided on a pixie cut, but she hadn't gotten it cut in a while and it was getting a bit shaggy, looking in the mirror. Her face had broken out again. She hated her oily skin. She used products on it with her limited money from babysitting. But she still had acne problems
She sighed and yelled up the stairs again.
"COME ON, DUDES! WE'RE GONNA BE FRICKIN' LATE!" Luna yelled. Lori slouched down, stretching as she had just finished drying her hair. She still took a while to wake up. Luna rolled her eyes.
"Come on, Lori! We have to get going!"
"Why do you literally care?" Lori asked. "You're usually the last person ready." That was normally true. But she really wanted to meet the girl that Lincoln had described. First of all, she had to return the girl's guitar. But second of all, she genuinely wanted to meet Sam. She seemed like a cool hang, and if she was as good at guitar as Lincoln described, she was definitely worth getting to know.
"And why do you literally have two guitars with you?"
"One of them is Sam's." Luna reiterated. Lori nodded.
"Why don't you just walk to school? It's literally not that far, and you look like you could use the exercise to calm yourself down a bit." Luna nodded, grabbing a piece of toast and running out the door, heading to school. Luna ran as fast as she could with a guitar and her backpack strapped to her back and the one clutched to her chest.
She got there in pretty good time, crossing paths with a short haired blonde girl with beautiful blue eyes, practically crashing into her.
"Oh! Sorry, brah! I don't think I've met you before… You have beautiful hair… I wish I could keep my hair that nice." Luna said, laughing nervously.
This girl was beautiful. It felt weird for Luna, staring at her. The girl seemed just as uncomfortable.
"Are you alright?" The blonde girl asked. Luna shook her head.
"Yeah!" Luna said, altogether too loudly. "I'm fine!"
"Okay…" The blonde girl said. She looked at her guitar, clutched to Luna's chest. Suddenly, the bell rang though, and the two girls separated, heading towards their first classes of the day.
Luna's first class was English. They were reading Oliver Twist in class. It wasn't Luna's favorite novel. She couldn't wait to start reading Shakespeare. Lori had told her that she started reading Shakespeare in 9th grade. Luna had borrowed Lori's copy of Romeo & Juliet. She hadn't had much luck reading it though.
"Ms. Loud… Could you read the next part of Oliver Twist for us?" Mr. Anderson asked politely. Luna nodded, and read the next section until Mr. Anderson stopped her.
"Thank you, Ms. Loud." Mr. Anderson said politely. Luna nodded.
"Now, what does everyone think about Dickens' portrayal of Jews in this work? Fagin was known as 'Fagin the Jew'. It wasn't exactly considered racist or even uncommon to portray Jews so stereotypically back then." The class discussed various scenes where Fagin was portrayed very stereotypically as a Jew.
His greed and cunning, but also his cowardice and unscrupulousness in 'business', gathering small boys around him as pickpockets. Can anyone think of other instances in the story?"
"The fact that he was referred to simply as "the Jew" almost 250 times." One student said. Mr. Anderson nodded.
"Good… Anything else?"
"About a year before Dickens died, he removed a lot of the racist mentions of Fagin, but there was mention of a nasally voice and hunched posture." A girl said. Mr. Anderson nodded again.
"Good. Well, that's our class for today. So for homework tonight, read the next chapter if you haven't already and be ready to discuss it tomorrow."
Finally, class ended and math was next.
-0-
Luna liked her math teacher. Or rather, He was young, a man named Mr. Ryan. He was pretty eccentric, and had some verbal tics that he didn't really try to hide. He was a really fun guy though, and he made math class fun for everyone. Even people who weren't good at math, people like Luna, enjoyed his teaching method, which was very energetic.
"Alright, everyone. Who can tell me what Pi is?" Mr. Ryan asked. A girl in the front raised her hand.
"Pi is 3.14, and it's used to determine the radius and circumference of circles." She said proudly. Mr. Scoville nodded.
"Pi…3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286208998628034825342117067." He wrote this out as he spoke the numbers, jotting it down quickly on the board. It was impressive to see him write all those numbers out like that.
Luna's mind was taken off of the new girl almost completely. The brown haired rocker was pretty sure that her math teacher was a little bit on the weird side. He had just recited while writing Pi out to the hundredth digit. And that wasn't out of the park weird. It was a little eccentric, but not completely out there. What was weird was that he didn't have a book open and he wasn't looking at any piece of paper. He had done it all from memory.
"Class, I don't expect any of you to know Pi out to the hundredth digit, or even the twentieth. That's not necessary and for most, it's not practical. However, this Friday, we'll be having a test and for extra credit, you'll get 1 point for the first five digits that you know and an additional 1 point for every three after that. If that brings your score past 100% then so be it." He said.
"I recommend though that you focus on learning the material before you focus on learning Pi out to some ridiculous digit."
"Excuse me, Mr. Ryan?" Luna asked. Mr. Ryan looked at her, smiling politely.
"Yes, Ms. Loud?"
"How did you learn Pi out to 100 digits like that?"
"Oh, well… It's a bit complicated, but the short of it is, I actually know it out to 300-ish digits. I just didn't see the point in wasting all your time writing it out that far. I have something called Ideasthesia, more commonly known as Synesthesia.
"It affects everyone slightly differently, but for me, numbers register as colors. Have you ever heard of the man who has Ideasthesia who knows over 20 languages? Well that's because the Ideasthesia causes him to see words as colors, so learning languages, even difficult or isolate languages is much easier for him. It's the same for me with mathematics." Mr. Ryan said.
"Does that answer your question, Ms. Loud?" He asked.
Luna nodded.
"Good… Now, let's continue." He said. Class went on and he continued to teach about circles and the use of Pi in determining their measurements. What Mr. Ryan had said to her struck a chord.
God, am I turning into Luan? Jeez!
But seriously, she could easily learn Pi by turning it into a chords. 0-E, 1-G, 2-C, 3-A, 4-D, and so on. She could write a song that turned Pi into music.
Who was that girl? Luna wondered. She didn't think she had ever met her before. Of course, Luna hadn't met everyone in school, and although she was fairly well-liked in school, she still wasn't friends with everyone. But this girl had an accent that suggested she was from out of state. She couldn't quite put her finger on it though. She may have just been imagining it.
She was distracted all throughout class, so when Mr. Ryan called on Luna, she didn't answer.
"Ms. Loud…" Mr. Ryan called… Luna still didn't answer. Finally, Mr. Ryan walked over to Luna and tapped her on the shoulder. The brown haired girl gasped, shaking her head.
"S-sorry, dude… I just… I'm distracted t-today.
"Ms. Loud… First of all, don't call me dude." Mr. Ryan said, sounding amused by how informal she was being. He didn't really mind, but it wasn't really appropriate to be so informal with a student.
"S-sorry, sir." She said.
"That's okay. Second of all, pay attention please. This is gonna be on your test and you need to learn this.
"I'm sure you already have a clever way of learning Pi, but you can't substitute that for learning the material. Do you understand?" He asked. Luna nodded, blushing slightly. She had expected him to at least be a little annoyed at her. But he was even cooler than she thought he was.
Okay. Let's get back to work." Mr. Ryan said. "I strongly recommend you pay attention."
The rest of class went pretty smoothly. She was having trouble paying attention. Nice weather outside, flowers were starting to bloom in early Spring, she was curious about who the blonde girl had been. She had been planning on getting together with Georgie and Ruth on Saturday to look for more band members. Maybe Sam could be one of the members.
George had a crush on her. Everyone knew that. It was hard to hide. She didn't feel the same way, and he was a bit shy, so she didn't bring up the topic since she didn't want to embarrass him. So she was happy to wait until he was ready to tell her.
-0-
Class ended, and History was next. When she got into the classroom, she gasped. The blonde girl was sitting in the back of the classroom, rubbing her arm nervously, glancing around, and trying to look small and not be noticed. Ms. Karimi, a dark skinned woman who dressed very conservatively.
"Good morning, class." She said softly. She had a strong accent, but the students were all able to understand her. Some of them had trouble at first, but they got used to it.
"We have a new student in our class. Miss Sharp, please come to the front and introduce yourself?" Ms. Karimi said politely. Sam trembled. It was the third time that day she had done this. But that didn't make it any easier to do. She still quailed under everyone's gazes.
"There is no need to be nervous, Miss Sharp. Please just tell us a little bit about yourself."
"Um… I-I'm S-Sam Sharp. I came here from C-Columbus, Ohio. It's n-nice to meet you… all… Of you…" She stammered. Luna gasped.
She's Sam Sharp? Luna thought. She should have known, Luna thought. She had the right color hair, the right color eyes. She was the right age and since Luna didn't even recognize her, it seemed obvious now that she must have been a new student.
Luna sighed. Sam was really pretty. Her choice of clothes was plain though, lacking in anything that would draw attention. She wore plain blue jeans and a white long sleeved tee shirt. Her clothes weren't ugly or dirty or even terribly worn. The white shirt and jeans looked comfortable, like an outfit that she didn't need to put much thought into.
Her hair was cut short, and it was obvious that she didn't need to put much work into it and that in fact she hadn't. It seemed slightly disheveled and she had a strange sadness in her eyes that Luna couldn't quite quantify, but was obvious when she paid attention. She had dark circles under her eyes like she hadn't slept well in a few nights.
Sam really didn't want to be there. She didn't even want to leave her room that morning. She rubbed her arm nervously. Luna was surprised she didn't rub her skin off with how fast she was rubbing. It was common for middle schoolers to feel uncomfortable. But Sam looked terrified to be there. Luna felt really bad for Sam, being forced to stand up in front of the class and talk like that.
"Thank you, Miss Sharp. Sit wherever you are able and turn to page 394 of your textbook." Sam giggled, along with a number of other students in the class.
"Sorry… Did I say something funny?" Ms. Karim asked.
"Turn to page three hundred and ninety-four…" A student said in Severus Snape's voice. The class laughed again. Ms. Karim laughed. James had always had been good at mimicking voices.
"Thank you, Mr. Ross. Sam. We're working on the Civil War. If you aren't entirely caught up, don't worry. I have after school study sessions that you're more than welcome to attend." Ms. Karim said.
Sam sat down about two rows over from Luna in the back, where she had been sitting before. Luna wrote down a note.
Sam… You met my brother over the weekend and forgot your guitar in my mom's car. I brought it back for you.
Cheers,
Luna Loud
"Hey, Dani… Pass this over to Jayce. Ask him to give it to Sam." Luna whispered to the girl next to her, taping the note to the guitar case. Dani nodded and passed it to Jayce with the same instruction. Jayce passed it surreptitiously to Sam, pointing to the note, saying it was from Luna. Sam picked up the note and read it, looking over at the girl in the purple outfit.
"Thank you." Sam mouthed shyly. Luna gave her a thumbs up. The rest of class went pretty much as expected, with Ms. Karimi going over the Civil War and talking about the causes and the various important figures during the war. Class went pretty normally after that. As the end came up, Ms. Karimi assigned the class an essay that was due in two weeks. They had to write an essay about the aftermath of the Civil War and the results, both good and bad that came from it.
-0-
Next period was Earth Science with Mr. Blackstone. The first day, he said that he knew there was an 'iron'-y to his name, and that he knew they were going to 'rock' his mind with their jokes at his expense. But that if they were going to make fun of his name they better come up with one he hadn't heard and that was actually clever, or they would get a one way trip to the AP.
One person tried. But it was neither new nor clever. So he ended up going to the Assistant Principal. After that, nobody made fun of his name. Mr. Blackstone was young and energetic. He had only just started teaching that year, and Luna's female friends said he was really handsome… Though Luna just didn't see it. Class went into how earth moved, and the natural course of geographic movement over time. He showed them a video of how the continents moved around the planet throughout history.
That the most recent and still current supercontinents are called Afroeurasia, and America, but that before that, between about 510-180 million years ago there was a supercontinent called Gondwana, and one of the largest supercontinents was Pangea, which existed between about 300 million years ago and began to break up around 175 million years ago.
The class was devoted to discussing the reasons for tectonic plates and how and why they shifted, and the effects of those shifts. There were entire fields of research devoted to volcanoes, tidal waves, and earthquakes, and their effects on the planet, and how even though they could be monumentally destructive… He cited the Toba Extinction Theory.
That about 75,000 years ago, the Toba Supervolcano erupted and spewed enough ash into the atmosphere that it caused a volcanic winter that lasted around 6-10 years and that it was theorized that it caused a genetic bottleneck. Basically, it wiped out about 90% of intelligent hominids, and that before that, it was believed that there was more than one species of intelligent hominid. However, the bottleneck caused only Homo Sapiens to survive to modern day.
However, earth's tectonics and volcanoes were vitally important, because the only way that they could stop was if earth's core cooled and then earth would effectively die, because the planet would no longer have a magnetic field, protecting it from solar radiation, asteroids would hit the planet as well as the sun becoming devastating to it.
There was a certain irony, he mused, that although plate tectonics caused devastating catastrophes to happen, from tidal waves, to earthquakes, to volcanoes, earth would be far worse off without them. That was something Luna liked about him. He was passionate about his field of study, and made it fun for the students, bringing up information that wasn't necessarily vital to their exams, but was interesting to learn and kept the students paying attention.
-0-
Class ended and Luna went to lunch. As she was going to the lunchroom, she heard a guitar playing outside though. She followed the sound and saw Sam playing and singing a song that Luna had always loved. She was playing Country Roads. Luna wasn't exactly a huge Country fan. But John Denver had a captivating presence that he brought to his music.
"Country Roads, take me home
"To the place… I belong
"West Virginia, Mountain Mama
"Take me home, down Country Roads…" Luna began to sing along with Sam.
She sat down next to the blonde haired girl and they sang together for a while. Luna had been a bit hungry, but overall, she was having more fun doing this. Finally, they stopped and Sam smiled anxiously at Luna.
"Hey… So, you're the girl that my little brother met in town on Saturday, huh?" Luna asked. Sam nodded uncertainly. Was that a good thing or a bad thing?
"Y-yeah… He and his friend were really fun t-to hang out with. They're good at dancing and they like singing along with me when I play my guitar… They helped me find my way around the town and then get back home… Your parents really raised quite a gentleman." Sam said. Luna smiled.
"Yeah… They did. Lincoln's great. He's smart too. He's not as good as me at singing, or as Luan at comedy, or as Lucy at writing.
"He's not as good as any of us at what we're best at. But he's good enough that he can do what we do and hold his own. He can listen to music and know what to listen for. He can write poems and sing songs, and tell jokes and help Leni with her fashion stuff and play soccer with Lynn. What he's really great at though is drawing and comics and video games, basically anything that's traditionally considered nerdy, he's good at.
"He plays a game called Magic the Gathering and another one called Dungeons and Dragons. I don't get any of what he's talking about with that. But he's pretty good at them, and he's only getting better as he gets older. Do you have any siblings?" Luna asked. Sam nodded.
"I have one brother… Simon. He's really sweet.
"I practically raised him, so we were really close growing up." Sam said. Luna smiled.
"Sounds like you and he really love each other." Sam nodded.
"We do. He's a little upset that we had to move away. He had a really great group of friends. They all said they're gonna come visit… I hope they do. I hope they don't just forget about him." Sam said.
"I'm sure they won't. I'm betting they'll come visit as often as they can." Luna said. They kept talking for a while. The subject varied from Sam's life in the city to Luna's experience growing up with so many siblings. The bell eventually rang though, and they had to split up for the rest of the day.
"Hey, Sam… Ya wanna join me and my friends' club? We meet after school and sometimes on weekends. We could use another guitarist in the band." Luna said.
Sam seemed shocked.
"You… You want me in your band?" She asked, genuinely surprised that anyone would want her. Luna laughed.
"Yeah! You seem like a really good guitarist, and I play lead guitar, Georgie plays Bass, Ruth plays Keyboard.
"We need a second guitar and a drummer. We'll fill you in on the deets this evening! Come check us out in Room 318!" Luna said. Sam was still surprised, so she was shocked when the second bell rang and she realized she was late.
"Crap! Crap! Crap!" Sam shouted, packing up her guitar and running to her next class.
