New Kid in New Jersey

I slowly began to wander up along the dirty pavement, cars rushing past in the road, other schoolkids nudging me slightly as they pushed past. I'd just follow the way they were going.

I heard some brisk footsteps behind me, and just as I turned around to see who it was, I collided with a small boy about my age, except he was a little taller than me. He was wearing glasses and had scruffy brown hair, most of it covered by a grey hat. He looked sort of nerdy, but in a cool kind of way, I suppose.

"Oh my God! I'm so sorry! I wasn't looking, and I... oh, fuck - " The guy stuttered. Whoa. Calm down.

"Don't worry, it's fine..." I said casually, cutting him off.

"No, really, I should've been watching where I was -" He stopped suddenly, looking at me strangely for a few seconds. "I haven't seen you round here before. Are you new?"

"Yeah...I moved to Newark a couple of days ago..." I said.

"Hmm." He shrugged, and extending a hand, he said "Mikey Way."

"Frank Iero" I said.
He seems nice enough. We stood there for a moment, on the middle of the sidewalk, both with cheesy grins plastered to our faces.

"Uh...aren't we supposed to be at school soon?" I said awkwardly.

"Oh, yeah..." Mikey said hastily, pulling his bag back onto his shoulder. We set off along the sidewalk, not talking much.

Fifteen minutes later, and we had arrived outside the large, open iron gates of the school. I stared awkwardly at the old, two-storey building. It was redbrick, and the grimey bricks on the walls were crumbling away in places. Not the most attractive place in Newark, I guess. There was a large sign outside the building. It obviously hadn't been changed for the new term yet. It read:

East Side High
Newark's Finest Highschool
Don't Forget To Read Over The Summer!

It was covered in graffiti, which wasn't suprising, because half of New Jersey was exactly the same.
Pupils were swarming in and out of the gates. There were jocks flexing their muscles, each with preppy blonde girlfriends clinging to their arms and doing each others' hair. They looked like living versions of Barbie and Ken. Jocks and preps were pretty much all I could see. Running all over the place, shouting at each other, squealing, bitching and play-fighting. A tight gang of preps pushed past me and Mikey, hissing things like 'Fag' and 'Emo Boy'. I saw nerds getting beaten up by jocks; slutty cheerleaders jogging round with red and white pom-poms, wearing tiny skirts and tops in co-ordinating colours; and in a corner of the vast grounds, sitting under a large, shady oak tree, I saw a group of about five or six people wearing mostly black clothes, looking a bit like vampires. Like me.

Mikey was waving vigorously to them. He knew them? Wow. Maybe I'd get to meet them. Maybe I'd get to make some more friends like Mikey. Looking around at his highschool, Mikey raised his hands slightly in my direction, and proundly announced to me:

"Welcome to East Side High, Iero."