DISCLAIMER: I do not own the anime Beyblade or any of its character. The lucky jerk who does is Takao Aoki, so do not sue me for anything of the sort. I only own Samantha, any other characters you don't happen to recognize from the series and the plot line

"Buh-bye mom!" Sam said happily as she slipped out her front door. It was her first day of school and she was fully dressed and ready with everything she needed. She thought the school uniform issued her looked cute, unlike what she thought it would look like, but it wasn't so cute on her. It was a size too big - which she loved, it was very comfortable - but it just didn't look good. There was a white short-sleeve, button-down shirt underneath a black v-neck jacket on over it. The school's symbol was on the right shoulder of the jacket and the shirt, and a tie consisting of dark green, dark blue, and black stripes. The skirt, which reached just below her knees, had a was black and the colors dark green and dark blue crossing each other in a plaid pattern. The skirt was maybe a little too short for her liking, but she knew that was just because she wasn't used to wearing a skirt at all.

She got to her school, walked to her first class after setting up her locker and sat down in the desk closest to the door, for lack of a better place. She reached inside her backpack that she always carries around to grab a book that she brought to school with her. She immediately dives into her book and barely notices it when more students and eventually the teacher pile into the classroom. The first bell brings her back into the real world and she looks all around her to see most of the other desks filled up. She glances around at everyone and sees that many of the people describe her very fear, many of them are very much in a different league than Samantha herself. Her heart sinks and goes back to her book to try to take her mind off it.

The morning announcements comes on and she recognizes Mr. Dickenson's voice on the loudspeaker welcoming everyone back to school and wishes the Freshman good luck at the school.

I think I'm going to need a bit more than just luck Mr. Dickenson, but thanks anyway… she thinks to herself, hoping that someone will want to talk to her.

"Hello class, my name is Ms. Kincaid, and I'll be your Health teacher for this year." Samantha looks toward the front to see a kind-looking teacher introducing herself. She had short brown hair and glasses framing brown eyes. Samantha hoped she would be able to get along with her. Or, at the very least, not seem like some stupid poor kid. "I know that most of you are Freshman, and I've never seen any of you before, so why don't we go around and introduce ourselves. I don't think we need to get into any work on the first day of school, do you?"

The class murmured in agreement, and Samantha smiled, knowing that she'd definitely like this teacher.

"How about you start, with the long brown hair in the corner?"

…Or maybe not.

"My name's Sam Starnette…" She trailed off, not knowing what else to add to that.

"Oh, that can't be all you have to say about yourself. What do you like to do?" Ms. Kincaid prompted.

"Pig out, by the looks of it…" a random kid mumbled out and the whole class burst out into giggles while Sam flushed in complete embarrassment. She blinked a few times, trying to keep from crying.

"I like to read," she mumbled, wanting to get the spotlight off of her as soon as possible.

"Now Hilary! That was not very nice!" Everyone only started laughing louder as Sam only felt her face growing hotter, a lump growing in her throat, and her heart sinking into her stomach. Ms. Kincaid quickly got things settled down and moved on to other people. Sam paid attention if only for lack of a better thing to do and forgot most of the student's names as soon as the next person said their own name. This was what took up most of the class period, and the rest Ms. Kincaid mostly spent talking about herself.

The bell rang and Sam gathered up all her supplies and put them in her backpack. She quickly ducked through the students in the hall as she made her way to her second period English I class, trying to attract as little attention as possible. Making even more of a fool of herself was the last thing she wanted to do. She walked in and found the closest seat to the door again. If anything, it'll make for a very quick escape.

Her English teacher was named Mr. Topper and he was pretty cool and funny. He had brown hair and a dull blue set of eyes. Luckily, no one in that class had an opportunity to make a comment on her slightly bigger size.

Her history class with an older guy named Mr. Thompson was okay; he was rather boring, but she could tell she wouldn't like her Physical Science class. The teacher was named Boris Balkov, or Mr. Balkov, a very scary-looking teacher with dark purple hair and glasses. He barked out orders and the normally talkative class was dead silent when he talked.

The lunch bell rang, and most kids practically ran out of the room, away from Mr. Balkov. Sam slung her bag over her shoulder and followed all the other kids into the cafeteria. She surveyed the lunch line and decided that she didn't feel like standing in one place for too long so she just figured she could pick out her table now. She sat down at one in the very corner of the room and brought out her book to read. She wasn't able to read very far, distracted by all the noise in the cafeteria, and occasionally glanced back to judge the line on how long it was. When there was only ten or so people left, she got up and walked all the way into her place in the line. She picked out a cheeseburger, an apple, and a bowl of fries and paid for it. She got some fry sauce for her fries and walked back over to her table. She dove back into vampirey goodness while shoving in a fry or taking a bite of her cheeseburger every once in a while, making sure not to drip any sauce on it. It was the town library's and she didn't want to ruin a book.

She took her time eating and reading at the time same, and read a good twenty pages before choosing to get to her fifth period class. She put her book back into her bag and picked up her flimsy disposable Styrofoam tray. As she approached a trash can and proceeded to throw it away, she felt herself trip over something and she fell to her hands and knees on the floor. She heard laughing to her left and turned toward it. A group of about six or seven teenagers sat there, laughing.

"Good one Eddy!" a redhead complimented, slapping a tall, skinny guy's hand.

"Well, you know the saying, 'the bigger they are, the harder they fall'!" Eddy bellowed out between laughs. Once again, Sam felt her face redden with embarrassment and tears filling the brim of her eyes. She didn't want to make any more of a scene than there already was, so she just picked herself and walked off. She was met with another foot in the way, and she stumbled forward a few steps before catching her footing. The laughter behind her increased in volume, and she walked off, absolutely trembling with humiliation. She kept blinking back tears, not wanting to show anybody exactly how much it hurt, although she was sure a fraction of the pain showed on her face.

This year is absolutely going to be as close to hell as I can possibly imagine…

Mariah Mitchell couldn't believe school was beginning already. She was perfectly content with spending the rest of her days in a summer paradise, preferably with a certain yellow-eyed hottie whom she'd known since kindergarten. It really was a shame that he had to spend most of his summer helping out his brother at his new restaurant. They all visited sometimes to help keep him from dying of boredom, but most didn't stop by there very often. She would've been there every day to spend time with him, but she was far too afraid of being with him alone. With a group, she was perfectly fine, but if she were to be alone with her long-time crush, she would lose her bearings and become a huge pile of mush at his feet. That was the last thing she wanted to seem like. So, she didn't see him very often. She felt bad, but at least he had gotten off the hook before school started. It was good Roy finally got a new waitress, better her than Mariah's Ray.

She dressed in the ugly uniform that utterly clashed with her hair and walked off to school. She lived down the street from Abbey, so why not just walk there? She was just glad she was in high school with the rest of her friends instead of at the junior high. Eighth grade was the loneliest year of her life. Now she was a Freshman while most of her other friends were a year higher.

She walked in the door and peered around to see if she could see Ray or even Tala anywhere. Wherever they were, the rest of their friends would be nearby. The school was so huge that she couldn't find them anywhere, and she had to go to her first period class without even saying "hi" to anyone she knew. She sighed heavily and plopped down into a random chair and braced herself for a boring speech from Ms. Kincaid. She had heard from everyone how boring Health class was, but they also said it was a very easy A as long as you did all the work. Mariah supposed she could live with the dullness of a normal classroom if it were easy.

Ms. Kincaid offered to have everyone introduce themselves and she started with this brown-haired girl in the corner next to the door. Mariah hadn't ever seen her before, so she just assumed she was a new girl. She didn't really pay much attention until she heard a statement that disgusted her.

"Pig out, by the looks of it…" Hilary Tatibana. Mariah hated Hilary. Hilary proclaimed herself princess of the school and practically demanded everyone to bow down and kiss her feet. She starved herself to fit into that size two skirt and size extra small shirt, trying to look good as best she could in it but the truth was she looked no better in it than anyone else.

Mariah turned to look at the new girl, who had her head bowed in shame at all the laughter going on throughout the class. Ms. Kincaid scolded Hilary for saying such a thing, and unfortunately, those words were pretty much the beginning of the year of torture on that poor girl.

Mariah hated that everyone in this school had to be small in order to fit in with the "in crowd" and she's glad she doesn't. She has quite a few more pounds of muscle on her than anyone else, but she manages to pull it off. At least Mariah knows she'd kick her ass in a fist fight with Hilary.

Ms. Kincaid moved on to other people and when it came to Mariah's turn, she introduced herself.

"My name's Mariah Mitchell and I love to hang out with my friends," she started out sweetly, being sure to draw it out as to catch Hilary's attention. "Let's see, there's Ray, and Tala, Enrique, Robert… Oh! And Kai too!" Mariah had the luxury of being friends with the hottest and most popular boys in school, and Hilary was totally jealous of the fact. Everyone knew she had wanted to get her greedy claws on Kai Hiwatari since sixth grade. The other names were for the sake of the Hilary clones in the class who wanted the rest of the boys for themselves. A blue-haired girl named Ming Ming in particular rather liked Tala.

Hilary turned her make-up covered face toward Mariah and shot her a weak glare. Mariah only gave her a smug smirk in return. Hilary sneered and turned back around to face the front.

The rest of the teens introduced themselves to Ms. Kincaid and then she told a little about herself for the rest of the period. The bell rang and everyone filed out to go to their second period. Mariah's next period was algebra with a new teacher named Mrs. Brown, with red-colored hair and blue eyes, not matching her name at all. She looked nice enough. Her third period was English I with Mr. Topper and then she had Physical Science with Mr. Balkov. Everyone said this was the hardest class because he doesn't do a good job of explaining how to do problems very well. She walked in the room and a certain familiar head of red hair caught her attention. His ice blue eyes were glaring in front of him at nothing in particular and his lips were curved downward into a very irritated frown.

Mariah couldn't help but smile at how cute Tala looked. She had a very slight crush on him, if only because he was sweet and funny when he wanted to be. She walked over and sat down to his right, face set in an amused expression.

"Awww, is Tala forced to be with us stupid Freshman?" Mariah asked in a baby-like voice.

"Shut up Mariah. I'm just fine all my other classes, but nooooo Mr. Balkov just has to be so confusing!" Tala barked back, complaining.

Mariah couldn't help but laugh at how pathetic he looked at the moment, and Tala shot her a very Kai-worthy glare. Kai had mastered the art of glaring and could be very scary whenever he wanted to be.

"All right class, shut up, sit down, and face forward!" Mr. Balkov boomed out, gathering everybody's attention and getting everybody to shut up pretty effectively.

"Now, I expect you all to be silent and in your seats at the bell's ring. I have to tolerance for chatters. That is what the lunch break is for. I know it may be impossible for some of you, but it is possible to go without talking for more than five minutes."

Ohhh, yeah, he's definitely scary.

Like in most of the other classes, we introduced ourselves and noted with relief no one picked on that new girl, Sam, again. Poor Tala was the only Sophomore in the class and he definitely was aware of that fact.

The bell for lunch rang and everyone ran out of the room to get away from the scary science teacher. Mariah walked with Tala to dump his books in his locker before going to the cafeteria. Luckily, being friends with him gives you the perks of being able to cut people in line without anyone complaining. The Freshman will learn soon enough. They were some of the first to get their food and sat down where Kai, Bryan, Spencer, Emily, Max, Ray, and Tyson already were.

"Soo, Tala, how was your science class?" Ray asked teasingly.

"Shut up, Ray. Don't make me beat your ass into the ground," Tala replied sharply, his tone of voice saying he would if he was prompted enough to.

"Ooo, I'm so scared," Ray replied sarcastically, taking a bite out of his cheeseburger.

"Should be," Tala mumbled, obviously still depressed.

"It'll be all right Tala, if it makes you feel any better, I barely passed that class with an A last year," Max, a cute blonde with adorable blue eyes and freckles commented.

"Max, you are so not funny!" Tala yelled at him. Everyone at the table laughed at poor Tala's misery while he tried to reach across to strangle Max.

Mariah grabbed the back of his shirt and jerked him back down in his chair. "Sit boy."

"Mariah…" Tala said threateningly.

"Tala?" Mariah asked innocently. Tala glared back at her before just turning back to his food. She giggled slightly and absently gazed around the cafeteria she hadn't ever seen. There was round tables everywhere with about eight chairs surrounding them all. They were all green, black, or blue, matching the school's colors. Everything matched the school's colors in this place. She was sick of all the colors already. The floor was hardwood, a pale apricot color, far too bright to stare at for any length of time. The lunch line was up against the far fall as you walk in and the line sort of curved around the tables and could sometimes reach the doorway.

On the other side of the room, Mariah could see Hilary, Ming Ming, a blonde-haired girl named Camille, another blonde named Cassandra, a black-haired tall skinny guy named Eddy, a bigger guy named Steven, and a redhead named Michael all sitting together at a table. These were mostly the 'leaders' of the school. There's Hilary, the most popular girl in school, Ming Ming is always the lead in the school plays, Camille is cheerleader captain, Cassandra is captain of the dancing team, Eddy's the basketball captain, Steven's the quarterback of the football team, and Michael's captain of the baseball team. They pretty much have the say on whether you can join their teams or not. There are many girls - far, far too many - who would do anything for Hilary to just be one of her friends. Neither Mariah nor most of her friends really liked them at all. All the guys were in one sport or another, and they do so while trying to ignore the captain as much as possible.

While Mariah sat staring over there without really staring at much at all, she could register the new girl walking by their table, trying to throw away her tray and probably get to her next class. Not a moment after stepping near the table, she stumbled over something and fell to her hands and knees. Everyone at the table suddenly started laughing and Michael gave Eddy a high-five.

"Good one Eddy!" Michael said gleefully, with no respect for that poor girl's feelings.

"Well, you know the saying, 'the bigger they are, the harder they fall'!" Eddy replied back and everyone laughed louder. Sam got back up without a word and tried just walking off but Michael tripped her again. She stumbled but otherwise didn't stop walking away.

"Mariah? Mariah! Earth to Mariah!" Someone snapped Mariah out of it and she finally heard Ray calling out her name.

"Huh?"

"You looked like you were plotting someone's death," Ray commented.

"Whose and can I help?" Tala offered and Mariah smiled.

"Who else? Hilary and everyone else over there," she answered, jerking her chin toward the table where they were all still laughing to themselves.

"Why? Well, I know they're all need a good kick in the ass, but what'd they do this time?" Tyson asked.

"You guys seen the new girl yet today? Long, pretty brown hair? A bigger girl? Well, they seemed to have declared war on that poor girl. They just tripped her as they were walking by, then they had the nerve to just start laughing at her. And, during first period, Hilary made this totally out of line comment because she doesn't look exactly like her," Mariah said, disgusted.

"You know, those jerks over there really need a taste of their own medicine. I could probably get some dirt on my cousin Michael at some point to spread around," Emily offered, smirking deviously at all the possibilities.

"Eh, that's far too simple and overused, not good enough at all," Tala said, then he smirked with an idea. "Besides, we need something on all of them. Glue in the hair always works."

"You are all children, you know that?" Kai commented.

"Oh, Kai, your words hurt me," Tala said dramatically. "At least we're having fun."

"Hn," Kai said simply, something they've all learned usually meant 'whatever'. The bell rang, signaling the end of the lunch hour and they all got up to throw away their trays and trail off to their fifth period class. Mariah's next class was PE, so she made her way to the gym. The rest of her friends joined her since they had that class too. They all walked in and heard something like a battle cry. Tyson had heard that same cry one too many times and cringed and tried to cower away. A wooden training sword stopped just inches from Tyson's face and he opened one eye to see what had happened. What he saw made his jaw drop in disbelief.

"Grandpa! You're the new PE teacher?" Tyson gaped at his gray-haired grandfather who used to run a dojo.

"That's right homeboy! They needed one and agreed to hire me! I already had my teacher's degree from running that dojo, and thought it'd be fun!" he laughed out loud at his grandson's obvious disapproval as Tyson slumped over.

"This is going to be the worst year of my life…" he complained, walking all the way in the gym.

Samantha trudged into the gym after suffering through that humiliating 'confrontation' with those kids. She perked up when she heard someone addressing her.

"Hello home girl! Are you in my class this period?" she looked up and saw this older guy with gray hair staring at her with a hopeful expression. She stuck on a half-smile and replied. "If you're Mr. Granger and this is the PE class."

"Yep, that's me! But call me Grandpa, I won't allow anyone to call me Mr. Granger! And what's your name?"

"Sam Starnette." She said simply. She fidgeted slightly, just wanting to sit down and wallow in her misery a little longer. He crossed her name off a list he had and turned around when he heard more people coming down the hall.

"Just sit down on those bleachers over there for right now all right? I have to go say hello to my grandson!" he ran off to the gymnasium entrance and almost hit a kid in the head with a wooden training sword. She heard them talking to each other as she did as she was instructed. She rested against the wall behind her at the top of the bleachers and stared off into space as she waited for class to start.

Grandpa, as he liked to be called, said a little about himself and the class and he sent everyone off to pick out a gym locker in the locker rooms. He was going to wait out in the gym and asked everyone to come back out once they picked a locker and grab a lock. Sam just went in and picked a random one that was about half the size of a regular one, since she didn't think she really needed all that room for a few clothes and a pair of shoes.

She came back out and told Grandpa her locker number and he handed her a lock with a goofy grin. He wrote down her combination and she went in to put it on. She came back out, went up to where she left her book bag, and took out her book again.

Her sixth period Geometry class with Mrs. Brown was uneventful, and made her way back to Mr. Topper's class for Creative Writing. She had to say she was pretty excited for this class, especially since not a lot of kids were in that class in the first place. He introduced himself to everyone again and had everyone else introduce themselves to him in a letter. Letter-writing was not Sam's favorite thing in the world to do, but at least she would be able to get to write whatever her heart desired sooner or later. She finished pretty quickly, not having too much to say about herself, and handed it to him on her way out of the door. She made her way back to her locker and made sure everything was organized and neat. She grabbed a pair of clothes she had brought with her to change into for work and carried them to the bathroom. She changed into a pair of black slacks and a plain blue button-up shirt. She put her uniform in her bag and walked out of the bathroom.

She was about to walk out of the front door when she was stopped by someone calling her name. She turned around to see Mr. Dickenson making her way up to her.

"Hello Mr. Dickenson."

"How was your day at school, Sam?" he asked politely.

She thought back to first period and during lunch, but otherwise the day really wasn't all that bad. "It was good, although I wish I had a bit more sleep last night," she joked.

Mr. Dickenson smiled. "Well, I hope things will continue to look up for you. I'm very glad you are able to come here."

Sam thanked him and bid him farewell as she walked out the door and down the street toward Roy's restaurant. She fervently hoped that she would soon fade into the wallpaper soon so she wouldn't have to live through the dreadful statements other teenagers could say about each other.

Well, here's another chapter! Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed, more cookies for you!

AND Please forgive me if this chapter isn't the best. My Beta hasn't quite been able to get back to me, I'm sure she's very busy with school, but I did want to get another chapter out to you.

I would appreciate it sooo much if more people would review though! It makes me soo entirely happy and if I get enough, I might update again during the week. :D

Thanks again, please review, Cya!