My Boy Hood

Phys. Ed. at a top rated school means one thing: running. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty athletic, so running wasn’t a problem for me, nor Blake, and we stayed by each other’s side until the teacher blew his whistle. We all came to a stop, catching our breath, “You’re not a bad runner, Clayton. Thinking about joining the cross country team?”

I raised an eye, “No way, I’m sticking with basketball.”

His eyes lit up, “Oh, hell yeah, dude! Now we’ll be on the same team together? That’s awesome!”

I laughed; this day wasn’t turning out so bad. Blake sort of turned out to be my friend. We didn’t have third period together, which was okay. I had Art 3D/Ceramics Sculpture class, which is not my favorite class. The teacher I could already tell was a little slow to catch onto things, and it seemed like she’d forget what she was doing five minutes earlier. Though true, but she was good at making whatever art there was.

I saw a girl that had first period with me, and she was sitting alone, so I sat with her. She smiled when she saw me and we struck up a conversation. They just got done making a plastered mask and she had to show me how to do it. It was simple enough, but not fun. The class ended quickly enough. I had lunch now, so I made my way to my locker, which was where I saw Blake putting something into his locker and talking to a guy.

“Ah, Jer, this is Nick, the new kid. Nick, this is Jeremy.” Blake said, shutting his locker.

“Hey.” I said.

The kid cocked his head, “Hi.”

Blake wrapped his arms around us, and started leading us down the hallway. “It’s crazy; we got a little dude to add into our group now.”

“Little?” I said, my voice getting cocky.

He gave me a lopsided grin, “In a good way!”

I rolled my eyes. We got into the cafeteria and boy was it full. Blake dragged us along like nothing was wrong; he didn’t even bat an eye at the people who stared. We got to a table with three other guys. I sat down at the corner of the round table. Blake was naming off who each of them were.

One guy was named Jason; he had dark brown hair and the greenest eyes I’ve ever seen, and he was also a freshman. The second was Samuel, who was a junior, and he had blond hair and blue eyes. The last guy was a senior, he had medium hair that was slightly pulled back into a ponytail, and he had the cockiest attitude out of the group. That may be true, but his name was what through me off. They called him Sake.

“Sake?” You had to be insane to think that was his real name.

“Yep. We call him that because he can really hold his alcohol.”

“Not to mention he’s a player.” Jason added.

“What?” Sake said in the most innocent voice possible, “Women are fun.”

I raised my eyes at that. I knew who I was going to keep a distance from for now on. We sat around and talked, and Blake hit my arm to get my attention that the lunch line was going down. Everyone at the table got up to go. Once we got our food we sat down and started to eat. Blake started messing around with Jeremy and Jason, and that got the whole table laughing. Lunch was forty minutes long, and when the bell ranged, Blake asked what class I had next.

“Um, Special Topics in Science.” I said, looking up from my schedule.

“You’re with me then.” Jeremy said, “Come, I’ll show you the way.”

We walked and started to talk. The guy was tall, about six four, and was lean. I was five foot nine, tall for a girl yet slightly short for a guy and I’m small. For a moment, I wondered how in the world I could pass for a basketball player, but it quickly left my mind when Jeremy asked, “You thinking of joining the team?”

“Yeah. Hopefully it’s not too late.” I said, as we walked into the classroom.

We sat down and he twisted around so he was facing me, “I’m sure if your good enough, Couch Dee will let you in.”

The bell ranged and class started. The teacher saw me and sort of explained what was going on. The class was trying to make a cannon that would shoot a softball at least a hundred feet. They went over the physics of parabolas to shoot the cannon. There were five groups of kids, and he let me join Jer’s group. At that, we had to spend the rest of the period planning a model. Lucky us, we had a guy who was in a shop class and knew what to build.

The class flew by as we cooperated with the group. When class was over, I had French II, and Jeremy pointed down the hall that leads to the classroom, he had Spanish II, which was on the other side of school. I walked down the hall, and when I poked my head in, I saw Samuel from lunch. I sat by him, and we just started talking.

I could tell he was more of a listener than a talker, and he always seems thoughtful, open-minded. I started to talk about basketball, and after a while, he said I’d do fine. Whenever the class started, there was a lot of note taking. And after receiving a worksheet, and getting it done, the class soon ended.

My next class was Geography, I hated this class from my old school, because I was with a bunch of freshmen, but when I got there, I saw Jason chilling in his seat. I felt glad to see him, even though I wasn’t expecting to have a class with him. We chatted, and then class started. The teacher had a monotone voice, and I knew it was going to be a long year in this class.