Nobody Will Know

I walk into third period right before the bell rings and see that the teacher, Mr. Cale, isn't here yet. Everyone in the class is sort of staring at me so I just give a little wave and say, "Hi, I'm Dawn. I'm new."

At that moment Mr. Cale walks in, "Bon matin, classe ! Je vois que nous avons un nouvel élève. Aube Kinsley?" (Good morning, class! I see we have a new student. Dawn Kinsley?)

I smile and nod, "Oui." (Yes.)

"Est-ce tout ce que vous savez de la langue?" (Is that all you know of the language?)

I smile and even though I know more french than English, I don't want to seem cocky on my first day of school. "No, but I don't want to show off. It's my first day and I don't want to make everyone jealous." That made everyone kind of laugh cause I don't really look like the smartest tool in the shed. "I just want to know where to sit."

Mr. Cale laughs and replies, "You can take a seat by Cora. Cora, please raise your hand."

A chick in the back raises her hand and she smiles as I sit down in the desk next to her. She leans over to me and says, "Hi! I'm Cora."

I roll my eyes and nod.

High School. It's one big, four year party. Most teens try making the best of they're time in this prison. They'll try climbing the social ladder or just attempt to get through with their friends. Maybe they'll sleep through it and get barely passing grades or maybe get straight As. You never know, it's different for everyone.

Hillcrest seems to be fitting the mold pretty easily. I can already pinpoint the jocks, the popular crowd, the nerds, the outcasts, etc.

So far, high school had been okay for me. I had a 4.0 GPA, tons of friends, I'd never gotten into trouble, and my parents loved me. Plus, I had been accepted into Cornell University (my dad's favorite college) with a four year scholarship.

I'd say it's pretty obvious I've changed since my father's death (I mean, duh).

I can barely remember the day we got the call saying his plane to New York had crashed into some field in Ohio. Something had gone wrong with the engine and only a few bodies could be identified. His wasn't one of them.

That had changed my life. I stopped trying so hard in school, ignored all my friends' calls, started talking back to my teachers, and I completely disobeyed all my mom's rules. I gave up my scholarship to Cornell and my life did a total 360 all because my dad was gone.

I've decided that I'm going to try and not be too mean to the teachers and students at Hillcrest, but if they're mean to me, then they deserve what's coming to them. My GPA is still really high, because I know that if my dad wasn't already dead, it would kill him to know my grades were going down because of him.

I'm sure he wouldn't be happy about my desicion to give up my scholarship, but I don't think I'd be able to walk the halls of Cornell without dying on the inside.

The bell rings and third period is over. I look at my schedule and see I have ceramics next. I smile at the thought of getting my hands on some clay. Ceramics is the one thing that's always just been my own thing. There is absolutely no connection between ceramics and either of my parents.

I gather my things and make my way to room 277. After I had left the main office this morning, I did actually walk around the school a little bit and I found all of my classes, so I shouldn't be getting lost anytime soon.

I walk into the classroom a few minutes before the bell rings and walk up to the teacher to introduce myself. This is probably the one teacher today that I'm actually going to want to like me.

She looks up from the potter's wheel she's on and sees me, "Oh! Are you Dawn? I know I'm suppose to be getting a new student today and that's always exciting, especially since this is advanced class and not many students actually take interest in this subject. Wow, I'm probably talking to much. I tend to do that when I get excited. I'm going to shut up now and let you introduce yourself." She cuts off from her rant and I just smile at her.

"I can already tell you're probably going to be my favorite teacher. I don't mean to seem rude, but aren't you a little young to be a teacher?"

She shrugs her shoulders and says, "I just got out of college last year. I'm turning 24 next month."

"Wow."

"Okay, I should probably find you a seat. There aren't really too many students in this class since it's an advance class, but I like for everyone to have a partner cause I'm going to be assigning a group project next week and I want everyone to be familiar with their partner. I think think the only person that doesn't have someone yet is Nick, so you'll probably be working with him. He's the youngest in the class, but I swear, that boy could take a pile of mud and make it a work of art."

By now the bell has rang and the students have filed into the classroom, but I don't see anybody without a partner. Where is this kid?

"Ms. Cooper, I'm soooo sorry I'm late! I was just talking to Cora about something that happened in third period and. . ." I tune out what he's saying even though I'm pretty sure he's unknowingly talking about me and I'm standing right here.

Eventually, Ms. Cooper calms hims down and introduces me to him. Then he turns a bright shade of red when he realizes that I'm "the bitch who was rude to Cora" and of course that cause me to laugh.

He takes his seat at the two-person table and I take the seat next to him.

Ms. Cooper says that we have a free day and we can do whatever we want. I smile at that and take a seat at one of the wheels. I slip in the head phones of my iPod and let the world disappear as I get to work.

I can feel a few of the other students staring at me, but I continue to ignore it.

Eventually, I realize that the bell will be ringing in less than five minutes, so I quickly put my project on a wooden board with a bag around it to keep it from drying out. The I clean up the wheel I was working at and wash my hands.

I look at my schedule to see where I go next and realize that's it's lunch time. Eww, school food.

"Dawn?"

I look up to see Nick staring at me. I reply with, "What?"

"For some unknown reason to me, you don't like me. Then you were being mean to Cora, which I really don't get cause she's like super nice. I was just kind of wondering, what about us makes you hate us?"

I smile at him cause honestly, he's really adorable. Then I say, "I don't hate you guys, that's just how I am to people. Yesterday, you woke me up in the middle of a nap and I'll be honest when I say that I can be really mean when I've just woken up. And same for Cora, I got here late today and I had practically just woken up. I'm mean when I don't get sleep."

By now the bell has rang and we're walking to lunch. Nick has a look of realization on his face as he says, "Ooh! So you're not mean, you're just a sleepy-grump!"

"Uh, yeah, sure, whatever that is."

"And we can be friends? I love making new friends."

"Sure, it's not like I have any other friends at this school." Except that kid I made out with yesterday.

"Cool! Will you sit with us?"

"Um, who's us?"

"Me, Cora, Kyle, Matt, Dave, Jase, and Joey. You know me and you met Cora this morning. Matt was with me yesterday if you remember the guy that was standing behind me and also yesterday, you might have met Jase. He said he was going to go talk to you, but he was gone for awhile so we all figured he just went out for a smoke instead of going over to your house. Kyle is Cora's twin, Dave is my older brother, and Joey is just kind of there."

I nod and figure I'll just try to remember all the name's when I see the faces. Then I say, "Uh, yeah, I met Jase yesterday. We talked for a little bit." Yeah, we talked.

Nick and I stand in line and talk about unimportant random facts like our favorites (color, band, food, state, etc.) and he took a look at my schedule to see if we had any other classes together.

"You're taking calculus?"

I nodded and said, "Smarter than I look, right?"

"Definitely. I think Matt's taking calculus this year, maybe you have it with him." He then hands me my schedule back and says, "I guess we only have ceramics and lunch together, but that would make sense cause you're two years above me. I'm only 15, so I'm a sophomore."

Does he think I'm not 15? How old does he think I'm I am?

And then as if he's reading my mind, he says, "You know, you're probably the shortest 17 year old I know. Or are you 18 already?"

Oh! He figures that since I'm a senior, I must be either 17 or 18. I completely forgot that nobody here knows I skipped two grades when I was younger.

This is it. Time for another change from who I was, to who I am now. "Seventeen, I'm 17. But I'm going to be 18 in a few months."

After we get our food, we go to his table where I take a seat between him and the girl from my French class. Because the table is round, I can clearly see everyone. Sadly, this also means everyone can see me.

Nick starts up a conversation with the boy to his left who I remember to be Matt. I think I hear Matt questioning Nick on his reasons for inviting me over here, but I ignore it.

To the left of them is some guy who looks very similar to Nick and I assume this new guy to be Dave, Nick's older brother. He's sitting very quietly, off in his own world. My guess is he's either hungover or stoned.

Next to him is Jason, who is too busy rocking out to the music playing on his headphone to realize I'm here. Screw you, Jason, I thought we could be friends.

Then there're two guys who I expect to be Joey and Kyle. One of them has his septum pierced, maroon hair, and he's totally rocking guyliner. The other is a brunette with just a little bit of dirty blond on one side.

Last, but not least, is Cora. She's still silently sitting next to me, picking at her food.

Taking her by surprise, I turn and say, "Hi, I'm Dawn," using the same introduction she used earlier (with just a little less enthusiasm).

"I'm Cora."

"Like coral?"

She rolls her eyes and tries not to smile at my lame joke, "Like I've never heard that before. I have the weirdest name in the world and Kyle here," she put her hand on the cute kid next to her, "gets something completely normal. It's not fair."

Kyle then steps in, "I think it's because our parents were only planning for me, so when Cora came crawling out of our mom's vagina two minutes after me, our parents were like 'Well, crap! What do we name this odd little thing? Let's go with Coral!' Then the nurse would have told them that wasn't a name, so they took off the 'l'."

I don't actually laugh, but I just slightly smile at him.

Cora pushes her brother away and turns back to me.

I have a feeling that this school is going to be a lot better than I though it was going to be.