Are You Questioning My Badassness?

I made my way up the crowded hallway, pushing through groups of cheerleaders and jocks. It seemed like they took up most of the population at this school. Joy, I thought to myself.

It was mine and my step-sister, Ashlyn's first day of school at William McKinley High. I struggled to find Ashlyn in the crowd. She said she was going to the office to get her schedule, but she was probably dead by now.
So, instead, I searched for my best friend, Mason. He'd been a student at WMHS for a year, so I was hoping he'd be able to show me around.

I turned a corner and felt a cold, wet sensation on my face. It took me a few seconds to realize that I'd just had a slushie thrown in my face by some asshole with a mohawk. Mason had already explained the whole slushie concept to me, so I shouldn't have been so surprised, but I was.

I was standing in the middle of a hall with cherry slushie dripping from one of my favorite outfits. People were standing around me, but they didn't seem to notice or care about what had just happened. I found this a little odd. In a normal school, people would laugh about something like this for days. In this school, people didn't give a second glance.

I ducked into the nearest girl's bathroom, but was a little confused when I saw a boy in there, standing in the mirror, wiping grape slushie off his scarf. He seemed to be having the same problem as me.

I walked over to him. "Hello there." I didn't bother to ask him what the fuck he was doing in a girl's bathroom.

He sighed, but looked over at me with a small smile. "Welcome to William McKinley High." His voice made my curiosity about why he was chillin' in the girl's bathroom immediately go away.

"How did you know I'm a new student?" I asked, a little taken aback.

"You're Nova, right?" I nodded. "Mason told me to look for the chick with the bad fashion sense." His eyes drifted down to my horizontal striped sweater, extremely tight jeans, and my super high tops that didn’t match with what I was wearing at all. He clucked his tongue. "Honey, you just broke like ten fashion rules."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, Mason. How much more has he said about my style?"

"Not too much. What you're wearing says it all, though." He shook his head in disgust.

"Alright, enough with the fashion jokes. Who are you?" I raised an eyebrow.

At that moment, the bathroom door opened. Ashlyn walked in, took one look at the red and purple mess, then at me and the male in the wrong bathroom. Her eyes widened and she simply walked back out.

"I'm Kurt," he held out a sticky hand for me to shake. I did so, and that was the beginning of a friendship. I made a friend standing in a female washroom, wearing red-stained horizontal stripes. Way cool.

The bell rang. I nervously looked at Kurt, who was now on his way to the hand-dryer with his sequined scarf in hand.

"Aren't you worried about being late?" I asked him as I made my way to the bathroom door.

"Getting slushied is the perfect excuse to be late for class," he replied.

"Oh. Well, it's my first day, so I don't think I want to be late, regardless of the excuse. Seeya around, Kurt."

I exited the bathroom, noticing that the halls were even more packed than before. Eventually, I located the office, and went inside, hoping I'd be safe in there for a few minutes.

A Bambi-eyed redhead greeted me as I entered. "Good morning," she smiled. "Can I help you with anything?"

"Yes, please," I nodded. "I'm a new student here, and I need a schedule."

"Oh, wow. You're our third new student today. Could you give me a second please?"

I nodded again, and she went behind a desk and typed a few things in on a computer. "Name?" she asked. I gave her my name and a few minutes later, my schedule was printed and in my hands.

"Have a great first day." She obviously didn't notice my matted hair, sticky skin, and the color red splattered all over my clothing. "I'm Miss Pillsberry, by the way. I'm the school guidance counsellor. Stop by my office at anytime."

"Thanks," I slapped on a fake smile. To be honest, I had a funny feeling I was going to be seeing Miss Pillsberry a lot this year.

I looked at my schedule as I wandered the now almost empty halls. It was amusing how it could be packed one minute, and the next minute, a tumbleweed could roll on by.

According to my schedule, I had Biology first period. I had no idea where my classroom was, so I just roamed around until I stumbled across a room with a poster that read "BIOLOGY" in big block letters. I assumed that this was the Biology room and knocked.

A few seconds later, the door opened, and stood before me was a short, awkward-looking middle-aged man with a grey-brown combover and a matching moustache.

"Hello there," his big blue eyes popped out at me as he sized me up. I was a mess, so I couldn't blame him. "Can I help you with anything?"

"Sure. I'm a new student, and I think I belong in this Biology class." I whipped out my schedule from my pocket and pointed out the Biology slot to him.

"Yep, you're in the right class!" he smiled and held out his hand for me to shake. "I'm Mr. Grover. And who might you be?" He opened the door all the way and moved over to let me in.

"Nova," I mumbled as I walked in. I made eye contact with no one, and took a seat near the back.

"Alright, dear. I'll check to see if you're on the register yet." He went to his classroom computer and typed in a few things.

While waiting, I decided to check out who was in my Biology class. I noticed a few familiar faces from the hallway, but the one that stood out the most was the idiot sitting directly in front of me. The same idiot that threw a slushie in my face just twenty minutes before.

I could tell he was a douchebag just by looking at the back of his head. First of all, he was rocking a mohawk, and any guy who can attempt and succeed in pulling off a mohawk must have a huge ego.

Second, the way he was sitting was making me wonder who he thought he was. He was leaning back in his chair with his hands behind his head, and his feet were resting up on the desk. I had an urge to tip his chair all the way back or possibly scream vulgar language at his face.

He was hot, no doubt about that. But this fact would stay buried in the depths of my mind. His ego did not need to be boosted any further.

I groaned in disgust, and he must have heard me, because he turned around and flashed me the cockiest grin I've ever received in my life. "Red's your color."

"Go fuck yourself," I told him, simply.

"I would if I could," he replied, not losing the grin. I just wanted to wipe it off his face. He then held out a hand. I rejected it, and pretended to look for something in my binder.

"I'm Puck," he informed me.

I looked up at him with a fake and sarcastic smile. "Hi, Fuck! I'm Nova. It was a pleasure meeting you this morning."

"It's a pleasure meeting me every morning," he corrected me.

I mouthed the word "WOW" and looked back down at my papers.

Another knock came at the door. Mr. Grover made his way to the door and opened it, letting Kurt enter.

"Sorry, sir. I was washing the grape out of my scarf," Kurt explained himself, glaring at a guy at the back of the room, whom I assumed was the culprit. I heard a few people in the room pretend to cough, and mutter "faggot" under their breaths.

Kurt, who was probably used to all of the teasing, ignored it and enthusiastically walked back to where I was sitting. He took a seat behind me.

"What'd I miss?" he asked me.

"Nothing yet," I told him. "But I think we're about to start."

And I was right. Mr. Grover marked Kurt as late, and moved to the middle of the room.

"Okay. Good morning, class. Before we start, I'd like to give our new student the opportunity to introduce herself. Will you please come up here and tell us about yourself?"

"I'd rather not," I shook my head.

"Come on! I'm sure there are interesting things you could share."

I decided to get it over with. I stood up and walked to the front of the room, facing the class.

"Well, as you can tell, I'm not very presentable today, and I suppose I should thank a certain classmate for that," I threw Puck a massive glare. "Anyway, I’m Nova. I transferred here from Carmel High, and-"

I was cut off by a "thick" black girl sitting in the front seat by the classroom door. "Blessed Lord, don't tell me you're like them."

"I'm not," I assured her. Most of the reason why I had transferred was because of the people at Carmel. Mostly everyone there enjoyed making other people's lives hell, and I was sick of it. I needed a change, and so far, this school wasn't giving me much of one. The only difference was that people didn't make as big a deal of it here.

"Well, I enjoy writing...and I'm a music junkie," I added.

"Any particular kind?" Mr. Grover questioned.

"Metal," I grinned.

A few idiots laughed, but some of the class seemed to have a little respect. I even heard a few "woo!"'s in there.

"Well, thank you, Nova. You can take a seat now. If you have any questions or trouble, you can usually find me here at lunch. And I'm sure your classmates here wouldn't mind helping you out," Mr. Grover explained.

Kurt snorted a little behind me. He knew that I would probably have to beg for help from students. Or do nasty, nasty things to get it, I eyed the jerk sitting in front of me.

The rest of the period consisted of note-taking, which worked out great for me, because work wasn't really my thang.

When the bell rang, Kurt and the girl who asked me if I was like the people from Carmel, were the only ones who stuck around to help me out.

"I'm Mercedes," she introduced herself. "A strong, independent black woman," she added with a smile.

"Nice to meet you, Mercedes. That’s an awesome name," I told her.

"I know," she agreed.

Kurt got called to the office, so Mercedes brought me to my next class, which happened to be World Geography. I tried to secretly walk into the room, hoping the teacher wouldn't notice me and make me introduce myself a second time. It was humiliating enough the first.

I saw familiar faces in the room, from the class I'd just had, but the one I was most glad to see was Mason's. I took a seat next to him, and Mercedes took the one in front of mine.

"Wow, Nova, you look...hideous. As if the horizontal stripes weren't bad enough. I told you to look good on your first day. Maybe then, you'd have a chance at not being slushied," he bitched at me. To be honest, I wasn't offended. I just nodded and pretended to listen. Mason's and my friendship was pretty much based on criticizing each other. It was normal for us.

One thing that you should probably make note of is that Mason is extremely flamboyant. He knows more about fashion than Tyra Banks and carries around hair products and combs in his bookbag, which we refer to as a "man purse". All he listens to is music from Broadway, and Barbra Streisand is his Jesus. His eyelashes are longer than a drag queen's on a Saturday night at a gay bar. Get my point? Okay, let's move on.

"I know, I know." I nodded, regretting not taking his advice. "I didn't take what you told me about the slushies seriously enough, and now I'm paying the consequences. Silly me." I slapped my forehead.

The teacher, whose name was Mrs. Legge, was ready to start the class, but before she did, two guys strutted into the classroom. And they were none other than Puck and his cute, but probably asshole friend.

"I think there should be a fire extinguisher in this room to put that guy out!" Puck pointed to Mason before taking a seat on the other side of the room. Everyone laughed, including Mason, but I was furious. The "flaming homosexual" jokes were getting old, and I was going to make sure Fuck was aware of that.