Worthy to Think the World Of

Charlie’s goal on her first day at Seaside High was to be as unassuming as possible. But the moment she stepped onto the bright yellow school bus, all eyes were on her. Charlie ducked her head and dropped into the first available seat, sliding her sunglasses over her eyes and staring out the grimy window. To avoid someone starting a conversation with her, Charlie popped in her headphones and put on the loudest music she could find, then pulled out A Tale Of Two Cities and flipped to the page she’d left off yesterday.

Unfortunately, Charlie’s tactics failed when a girl with bold copper hair sat down next to her, smiling brightly. The first thing Charlie noticed was their difference in attire. The girl wore a yellow sundress with a pattern of small white daisies, her feet slipped into a pair of leather sandals. Charlie, on the other hand, had gone for boyfriend jeans and a loose tank top that dipped below her shoulder blades and bared her freckled back. Normally she wore a jacket or cardigan, but it was too hot out to cover up all of her skin. Out of force of habit, Charlie had rolled up a linen shirt and tucked it into her backpack anyway.

“Hi!” the girl greeted cheerfully, her tone matching her dress. “I’m Piper. You must be the Stone girl that moved into that house on the beach. The yellow one, right?”

“Um,” Charlie responded, slightly taken aback by Piper’s forwardness. She hadn’t expected news of her family’s arrival to travel that quickly.

“I don’t usually take the bus,” Piper continued. “My brother’s friend has a truck, and since he takes my brother it’s easy for me to hop in too, but I wanted to meet you before school. You’re a senior, right?”

“Yeah,” Charlie replied, after a moment of Piper staring at her expectantly. She’d pulled her headphones out, the blaring sounds they were emitting were of now use now.

“I’m a junior. But you’ll probably have some classes with my brother, Neil. He’s easy to spot, just look for the bright red curls. I keep telling him to get a better hair cut, but he insists on shaving the sides and letting the top go completely wild. He looks like a crazy person some days with that hair,” Piper was speaking so quickly that Charlie had trouble keeping up. “You’re probably wondering how I know who you are, but my brother’s friend said that he met you yesterday at his mom’s office.”

The boy with the messy hair the colour of black coffee and pale green eyes flashed in her mind. Charlie sighed inwardly, figuring she now had the reputation of being that girl who went to therapy. So much for a clean slate.

“His name’s Forrest, do you remember him?” Piper asked, and Charlie nodded. “I’d be careful around him. He’s really nice and popular and stuff, but he has a bit of a reputation for taking advantage of girls. He’s already hooked up with most of the female student body so just watch out, okay?”

Charlie had already decided she was going to stay as far away from Forrest as possible, so she didn’t have any trouble agreeing with Piper.

“I want you to know that if you need help finding anything or if you just looking for somebody to talk to, you’re more than welcome to come to me. I’m pretty easy to find at school, but I also work at Sleepy Monk. It’s the coffee house on Hemlock Street, right across from the Ecola Inn. You’ve probably passed by it.”

Charlie remembered seeing a sign outside of a quaint cafe with a large porch for people to sit, the words Sleepy Monk written in vaguely Celtic-style lettering. “Yeah, I think I’ve seen it,” she said, and Piper grinned.

“I can get you discount muffins,” she whispered with a wink.

It was only a fifteen minute drive from Cannon Beach to Seaside, and soon enough the driver was pulling up in the parking lot of Seaside High School. Piper had drilled Charlie on her basic personal information for the remainder of the ride, and now knew where she was from, why she had moved to Cannon Beach (Charlie had told a half-truth and stated the sole reason was to live in her grandmother’s house), what kind of food she liked, and when her birthday was. Before Charlie knew it, Piper was at her side and firing off facts about the school as they went through the front doors.

Piper linked her arm with Charlie’s as they strode down the halls. The redhead greeted at least twenty people in the two minutes it took for them to walk upstairs to Charlie’s homeroom, where Piper bid her goodbye and promised to find her at lunch so they could sit together.

Homeroom was a blur. Charlie spent most of it reading and not paying much attention to the chatter of the other students. She consulted her schedule for where to head next, and started toward the stairs when she saw that her English classroom was on the second floor. Seaside High was tiny compared to her old school, so Charlie knew she’d have no trouble finding her way around.

She took a seat next to the window and stared out at the trees as students filtered in from the hallway talking at top volume. The chair next to her scraped against the linoleum and somebody cleared their throat, drawing Charlie’s attention. It was Forrest, and he was smiling at her. “Hey,” he greeted.

“Hi,” Charlie replied tentatively.

“You were in my mom’s office yesterday,” Forrest said.

Charlie nodded, tucking an errant curl behind her ear. If this guy was going to ask her about therapy, she’d probably end up switching seats.

“She said you moved here from Las Vegas,” Forrest continued. “Now, when I think Vegas, I think casinos, Elvis impersonators, and showgirls.”

Before she could stop herself, Charlie laughed. Forrest grinned, pleased he’d gotten a reaction out of her. “That’s the strip. It’s just a small part of the sprawl.”

“Sprawl? Man, being here must be fucking weird for you.”

Charlie actually paid attention in English, partly because they were going to be reading The Grapes of Wrath, and also because Forrest kept on trying to talk to her. She was mindful of Piper’s warning, advising her to keep a safe distance from the tall boy. But Charlie hadn’t anticipated him to be so damn persistent about getting her attention.

When the bell rang she gathered up her notebook and rushed from the room, quickly checking her schedule to see where she was headed next. A frown settled on her lips when she saw that it was Algebra; math was Charlie’s least favourite subject. But before she could even start down the hallway a hand shot out from behind her and snatched the schedule right out of her fingers.

“Hey!” she exclaimed, spinning around.

Forrest was scanning her schedule, comparing it to the one he’d pulled out of his pocket. “We’ve got World History and Biology together too,” he informed her, then handed the piece of paper back. “And by the way, your math class is that way.”

With a curt nod, Charlie shuffled past him and melted into the mass of students crowding the halls. Ignoring Forrest was going to be a lot more difficult than Charlie had anticipated. She figured that since the school was small she’d pass by him occasionally, but she never thought that he would actively try and engage with her. The attention was unusual, something she hadn’t experienced in months.

The last boy that wanted Charlie’s attention (not including the snide remarks and mocking proposals she would receive later) had terrible timing. Maybe if they’d held off for a few more months, then Charlie’s life would be completely different. But that night at that party, Charlie was too drunk and too caught up in Dean’s flirting to care that he’d only broken up with Sarah two weeks earlier.

In Algebra, Charlie doodled in the margins of her notebook while the teacher droned on about the importance of math in everyday life. In Spanish, she was chosen to read aloud from the textbook (because she was new) and stunned everyone with a near-flawless accent. In Chemistry, she met her lab partner, Sabrina, and realized that any projects they had to do would be a hassle to coordinate considering the fact that Charlie was commuting up to Seaside from Cannon Beach.

The cafeteria was an intimidating place, despite being a third of the size of the one at her school back in Vegas. While she was waiting in line, Piper appeared next to her with another girl, who had long dark hair and collarbones to die for. “Charlie, this is Krystal,” Piper said, gesturing to the brunette. The two of them exchanged hellos and Krystal, who’d already gotten her food, went off to sit down. Despite the protests from the kids behind her, Piper joined Charlie in line.

There was no obvious ‘popular’ crowd at Seaside High, at least not in Charlie’s eyes. The jocks, despite being the loudest table, seemed to be pretty separate. Most of the students just looked normal, forming their own groups of varying size. She realized that it was not your extracurriculars that defined popularity at Seaside, but how many people looked your way when you walked past them. And by the number of looks that Piper got when they weaved through the tables, she was at the top of the pyramid.

Several people were occupying the table where Piper set her tray. A couple sat at the end, completely absorbed in their own little world. There were more guys than girls, and the two genders took up their own section of the table. Piper had sat down next to Krystal, who was mid-conversation with an Asian girl introduced to Charlie as Michelle. Charlie immediately noticed Forrest sitting on Krystal’s other side, laughing at something a boy with such bright red hair that could only mean he was Piper’s brother. Piper introduced her to those in their immediate vicinity, then listed off the names of all the boys sitting at the other end of the table.

“Oh my God,” said Michelle, glancing across the cafeteria with a smirk. “Sam and Ellie just walked in holding hands.”

Both Piper and Krystal made identical shocked faces, and surreptitiously looked over to the cafeteria line. “I can’t believe it,” Krystal breathed, her lips parted. “She only broke up with Landon last week.”

“Shh!” Piper hushed her, flapping her hands wildly. “Landon’s sitting right there.”

The boy, Landon, was one table over with the jocks — soccer, Charlie decided, by the looks of the cleats poking out of their gym bags. He was staring murderously at the couple in the lunch line, his friends whispering around him.

“I can’t believe her,” Krystal said, picking up her apple. “What a bitchy thing to do.”

Charlie used to love gossip. She would facilitate the spread of rumours and laugh at other people’s mistakes, because it was what the other girls did. But when you were the subject of terrible rumours and scathing remarks, your perspective tended to change. Charlie stayed silent, because she didn’t want to get on the bad side of these girls by telling them that by talking about somebody else like that it just made them bitches too. Her goal was to avoid unwanted attention, not throw herself into the spotlight.

“Did you see Ms. Phillips’s new haircut? She looks amazing,” Piper said, effectively shutting down the conversation about Sam and Ellie.

“Some guy tried to hit on her in second period,” Krystal said. “It was so funny, oh my God.”

“You ladies talking about Ms. Phillips?” asked Forrest, shifting his body toward them. His forearm pressed against Krystal’s, and Charlie noticed the brunette’s eyes zero in on the contact, and a small smile appear on her face when he didn’t move away. “She’s hot.”

“Easily the hottest teacher at this school,” Piper’s brother, whose name Charlie had learned was Neil, agreed.

“You’re forgetting about Mr. Greaves,” Piper said.

“Pipe has a point, man,” Forrest said, earning a raised eyebrow from Neil. “That is one good looking man.”

“You just said that Ms. Phillips was hot.”

“That doesn’t mean that there can’t be two hottest teachers,” Forrest said. “One male and one female.”

“Since all the other teachers here are over forty-five, I’d say those are the only two in the running,” Piper said, flipping her crimson hair over one shoulder.

When the bell signalling lunch was over sounded, Forrest walked around the table to Charlie. “You ready for some History?” he asked with a smile. Charlie had hoped that maybe Forrest would forget that they had more classes together, but she should have known that he wouldn’t. “Neil, dude, let’s go!”

The redheaded boy appeared on her other side, complaining about their History teacher. Apparently he had a reputation for being a hard marker. When Charlie laid eyes on said teacher, with his royal blue bow tie and thinning hair, she wondered how he could possibly be harsh. The three of them sat in the centre of the classroom, Charlie in front of Forrest and Neil on his left. For the entirety of the class, Forrest and Neil spoke in hushed tones. Their teacher, Mr. Hill, didn’t even notice.

“I hate Biology,” Forrest lamented, standing next to Charlie’s desk while she fastened the straps.

“What?”

“We have Biology now,” he informed her, tapping a finger on the schedule she’d left on her desk. “Mr. Jacobs is such a stiff. He makes everyone sit in alphabetical order.”

On their way upstairs, Forrest greeted a number of people. But he kept on glancing back to Charlie, his brows furrowed as if he was trying to figure out what to say to her. When Charlie — who was normally excellent at ignoring stares — had enough, she sighed and fixed him with an annoyed frown. “Spit it out already.”

“Huh?” Forrest blinked, his attention momentarily distracted by a boy lifting his hand for a high-five.

“You obviously want to ask me something, so just do it.”

“I just wondered why you aren’t more tan,” he stated, stopping in front of a door, where Mr. Jacobs’s name was printed on the label just below the room number. “You’re from the desert.”

“I don’t tan,” Charlie said.

“You must get vicious burns, then.”

“No,” Charlie said, and Forrest narrowed his eyes. He opened his mouth to ask her another question, but she cut him off. “I freckle. It’s ridiculous.”

She pointed to her face, where freckles spattered her skin like constellations, and raised an eyebrow. Forrest smiled, pushing open the door to the classroom. “I think it’s cute,” he said.

Charlie’s Biology partner, Angie, had a head of thick dark hair and enough snark to compensate for Charlie’s severe lack of it and then some. She also seemed to actually understand what the teacher was talking about, which Charlie was very relieved to discover, since she had absolutely no idea what was going on.

When she stepped out into the sun after the final bell had rung, Charlie immediately headed for the school bus. On board, she waited for the driver to head back down the coast to Cannon Beach, and was joined by Piper just seconds before they were due to leave. The fiery-haired junior was out of breath, pushing her long hair away from her face with both hands as she dropped onto the seat next to Charlie.

“I almost forgot that this thing leaves, like, right away,” she explained. As they pulled out of the parking lot, Piper shifted her body to face Charlie. “So, how was your first day? Sorry if my friends were a bit annoying, they love their gossip.”

“They were fine,” Charlie replied, having not expected anything else. She tended not to expect much from teenagers, after experiencing first-hand what they were capable of. “Everyone here is a lot nicer than at my old school.”

Piper smiled. “We do our best.”