Note: A week has passed. And this takes the point of view of the kids as soon as they get into school.

Natalie walked into the boy's bedroom and stood in the doorway, staring at the three boys. Then she shouted, "Get up boys! Time for school!" The boys stirred in their beds, and Jordan rolled a bit too far and fell out of bed. He was fully awake when he landed on the floor with a loud thud. While the boys whined about the time, Natalie chuckled and left them to their complaints and headed downstairs.

Kelsy and Luana were cooking some breakfast...well, Luana is more of helping than actually cooking, and Kelsy is showing her how the recipe works. Jennifer was chasing Amy around the dining room since they were playing tag. Jen finally caught Amy, and Amy tagged Jordan when he came into the room and wasn't looking. Jordan grinned and followed Amy, who was giggling adorably, around the table repeating the phrase, "I'm gonna getcha." After several minutes Jordan ended up tagging Hunter, who chased Jennifer. All of them were laughing, and Natalie smiled.

"Can I help with anything?" Natalie asked her sister and friend. The two women turned to look at her and smiled.

"Good morning Natalie," Luana chimed. "We got it, you can sit down and wait." Natalie sighed and walked over to the dining table and sat in the farthest chair and watched the teenagers chase the little five year old around the room. Natalie waited for Amy to walk by her before she scooped her up and set her in her lap as best she could.

"How come you're up so early Amy?" she asked the toddler.

"I wanted to see Jenny and Jordan and Hunt and Nate go to school," the little girl replied. Said children smiled at the five year old.

"She woke up to Jordan's thud," Jennifer answered. She easily dodged her brother's fist and playfully punched his left cheek. Jordan took a step back and cursed silently, but his sister could read his lips. The boy wagged a finger at her.

"I will get you back sis," he warned. Jennifer smiled innocently and walked into the kitchen where Kelsy's voice rang out calling them in for breakfast.

* * *

"Have fun kids!" Natalie shouted from the passenger side of the mini-van as her four children stepped out of the car and began to walk down the sidewalk toward the main building of the school. Jennifer, Nathan and Hunter waved at their mother, saying their goodbyes as Jordan simply nodded in acknowledgement of his mother. When the van pulled away from the curb and was a good ways down the street, Jennifer smacked Jordan upside the head. "Ow! What the hell was that for?!" Jordan demanded.

His older sister answered simply, "You are such a blockhead. You think you're all 'Mr. Cool' and not have to show any care for Mom. Why must you act like that when we're at school? We've only been here for three days!"

"I don't like being labeled a Momma's Boy," Jordan said.

"You know," Hunter stated, "Momma's boys are very sensitive and caring, and girls like that in a guy."

"Well, most of the time," added Nathan. Jordan rolled his eyes and walked ahead of his siblings.

"I'll catch you guys later," he said. He turned a corner and began walking toward his first period class, which was English class. He was a few minutes early (ten to be exact), but he didn't care. He knocked on the closed classroom door, ignoring the clique of girls nearby who were ogling him and giggling as quiet as they could. After a minute the door to Jordan's English class opened, and he walked inside. There were the usual three early-birds sitting at their desks while the teacher was writing the warm up on the whiteboard. As he walked further into the classroom, the English teacher turned around and looked at the young Johnson.

The English teacher was a woman who looked to be in her late twenties or early thirties. Her brown hair was shaped with large curls that glowed in the sunlight. Today she was wearing a light green collared shirt with a khaki skirt that reached to her knees. Her hazel green eyes were seen behind small elliptical lensed glasses. The teacher smiled at Jordan, her perfect teeth showing. "Good morning Jordan," she greeted.

"Good morning Mrs. Bailey," Jordan answered with a nod. He walked down the thrid aisle to the fifth row and sat down in his assigned seat. He pulled out his binder and opened to his English class tab and began to work on the warm up. Once he finished that in three minutes, he pulled out his mini-sketchbook and opened it to a blank page. He began to draw on outline of a face. Carefully with his pencil, he etched light marks to form the face of a girl. Using darker lines, Jordan created the drawing's jaw-line and neck more definitely. He lightly sketched the ear of his three-fourth profile of the head and started on the features of the face. Light lines forming the start of the nose, eyes and lips and then they were retraced with darker, more confident lines. The boy then began to draw the young woman's hair -- nice, long and soft looking. After the drawing's hair passed her shoulders, Jordan drew in the hair's highlights. Once Jordan finished the sketch he added a few more details.

The bell rang soon after, and the rest of the students of Mrs. Bailey's class filed into the room. Jordan had looked up to see the other kids walking into the classroom, and then he looked back down at his drawing and started shading it in. While in deep concentration, Jordan didn't notice a girl with light blond hair stroll over and stop beside his desk. She looked down at the sketch and watched the boy shade it in. The girl stared at the drawing's complete details, fascinated at the boy's artistic talent. After a minute she decided to comment. "That's a really good drawing you made," she said.

Jordan jumped at the girl's quiet, yet confident, voice. He looked up and was staring into the girl's sky blue eyes. The boy then looked down at his sketchbook and smiled at it. "Thanks," he said.

"Who's the girl in the drawing?" the blond asked.

"Oh, believe it or not, it's my mother when she was young, in her teens really." He chuckled at the girl before him furrowed her brows and stared at the picture. "I know, hard to believe."

"How would you know what your mom looked like at the age of fifteen or sixteen? Did you look through her yearbooks or something?" Her tone of voice wasn't either sarcastic nor was it teasing. It sounded like she was truly interested.

The boy answered, "Yeah, I looked at her family photos. But what really helped me remember her face at this age was the way my father described her."

"That's cute," the girl said. "Your parents must love each other very much."

"You have no idea," Jordan laughed. "It's really crazy." The boy then realized that he hadn't seen her face before, so he asked her, "Are you new to the school?"

The blond seemed to blush slightly. "Yeah. I moved from San Jose."

"Ah." The two had their conversation cut off when the tardy bell rang. Mrs. Bailey noticed the new student stand in the middle of the room beside Jordan's desk, looking for a seat.

"Miss Melissa, would you care to take the seat next to Mr. Johnson?" the teacher asked. She waved her hand to the empty seat beside Jordan.

The new girl, Melissa, nodded. "Thank you," she said. She walked around the boy's desk and sat at the desk to his left. Mrs. Bailey could tell that Melissa didn't want to be introduced to the class, so she let it drop and instructed the class to begin the warm up. Five minutes had passed in the class when the intercom turned on, signaling the morning announcements. All the students stood up and began to say the Pledge of Allegiance along with the student announcer. After that the announcer said reminders:

"~The spring dance is coming up. Get your tickets at lunch from today, March 31st, to Friday, April 4th. Tickets before Friday cost ten dollars and fifteen the day of the dance, Friday.
~Spring picture day is on April 11th. Make sure you wear that Hawaiian T-shirt!
~Track and fieldmtryouts: Are you up for running, throwing, and jumping? Then go to the tryouts for the track and field team after school from Tuesday to Thursday this week and Monday through Wednesday next week. See Mr. Roberto for more information.
~Seniors: Make sure to turn in your community service forms before Tuesday, May 4th.

Now for the quote of the day: 'You only live once, but if you work it right, once is enough.' Thank you and have a marvelous Monday."

Once the announcements were over, Mrs, Bailey went over the warm up with the class. She called on students to give two synonyms for the word "dictate". After that she asked a student to say dictate in a sentence. "Melissa, can you give me a sentence for 'dictate'?"

Melissa looked down at her paper where she wrote down her warm up. "The people were tired of someone constantly thinking that they could dictate them like he was the king of England," she read her sentence in a loud voice for the class to hear.

"Very good Melissa." Mrs. Bailey then handed out the reading log and a vocabulary packet. "This packet is due by Friday everyone. Remember: it is better to turn in a partially complete packet for some credit than turning in no packet for zero credit." Once the whole class had a packet, she walked to the front of the room again and picked up two stacks of papers. "I need two volunteers to help me pass out the worksheets. Two students in the front row raised their hand and were handed one of the stacks of papers.

"The first worksheet that has to be turned in by the end of the period is the worksheet about the poem that we will be reading in class. The other sheet, which is about patterns in poetry, can be done for homework along with page one of your poetry packet." The teacher then shifted gears. "Okay everyone, open your textbooks to page 786. The poem we will be reading is 'The Secret Heart'. Now, we are all going to read in unison the first time for the entire poem. On the count of three: one, two three."

The class spoke in perfect unison:

"Across the years he could recall
His father one way best of all.

In the stillest hour of night
The boy awakened to a light.

Half in dreams, he saw his sire
With his great hands full of fire.

The man had struck a match to see
If his son slept peacefully.

He held his palms each side the spark
His love had kindled in the dark.

His two hands were curved apart
In the semblance of a heart.

He wore, it seemed to his small son,
A bare heart on his hidden one,

A heart that gave out such a glow
No son awake could bear to know.

It showed a look upon a face
Too tender for the day to trace.

One instant, it lit all about,
And then the secret heart went out.

But it shone long enough for one
To know that hands held up the sun. "

"Very good," Mrs. Bailey said. "Now, I want a different student to read a different stanza and paraphrase it. The worksheet I gave you is about paraphrasing several stanzas of the poem. Take a minute to write down four stanzas before we start." She waited while watching her students write on their papers. Once the majority had their pencil down, she spoke again. "Rachel, why don't you start us off?"

A girl with long brown hair nodded and stared at the page. "Across the years he could recall / His father one way best of all." She looked up at the English teacher and said, "The son could remember one memory of his father better than others?"

"Excellent Rachel. Now, Chris, read the next stanza." The class ticked by with that activity, and once that was finished Mrs. Bailey told them to work on the second worksheet. Everyone in class whispered to each other to help out, since their teacher allowed that at the time.

Jordan was breezing through the pattern worksheet, thinking to himself "piece of cake". He looked out of the corner of his eye to see Melissa staring at her paper. The boy turned his head fully in her direction and asked, "Having trouble?"

"Oh...kind of. The limerick part is giving me issues."

"You mean completing the last line?" When she nodded he smiled. "It's easy, just think of something related to the story it tells and make it funny. Heck, you could make it random if you wanted to."

"Okay, thanks...um, what's your name?"

"It's Jordan, Jordan Johnson."

"Melissa Garcia." The girl smiled at him, and he had to smile back. The two then went back to work in finishing their worksheets. "So..." Melissa started, "What do you have second period?"

Jordan answered, "P.E. You?"

"Science." Melissa pulled out her schedule and looked at the line describing her second period class. "I got Mr. ...Chan."

"Cool, so you can give me a heads up in that class. I got him fifth period."

"How about third?" Melissa asked.

"Social studies."

"Same here. ?" When Jordan nodded she smiled. "Fourth period math?"

"Yep. So we got first, third, and fourth together. What do have sixth period Melissa?"

The girl looked at her schedule. She answered, "French. How about you Jordan?"

"I have art sixth period."

"That makes sense," she said with a smile. "Was that sketch of your mother part of a homework assignment in your art class?"

Jordan shook his head. "Nah, I just felt like drawing it. The image popped into my head and I decided to draw it onto paper."

"Well, you are a very good artist Jordan."

"Thanks Melissa." The bell rang, and the two students mimicked their classmates and began to pack up for running off to their next class. "See you third period," Jordan said.

"See you," Melissa replied with a wave. The two parted ways to the opposite ends of the hallway, each person disappearing within the large throng of high school students.

Hmm...Melissa Garcia...a very nice person Jordan thought. He began jogging through the crowd to get enough time to get to the locker room before the older students lock him out like the other freshmen.

Hope you guys liked this chapter. Please review! Thankies! ^^