In Too Deep

Chapter One

The bell rang signaling that it was time for homeroom. I grabbed my binder from my locker and scurried down the hall. I didn’t want to be late, not because I was some nerd; no I almost wish it were that. I had been going to my new school for a full semester and still managed to get myself lost on the regular basis. I had to give myself extra time in case I turned down the wrong hall or wound up in the teacher's lounger or something ridiculous like that.

I shuffled down the scuffed tile hallway taking in the posters lining the walls. Some announcing sing ups for the school play, others announcing the Snow Ball dance. I managed to make it to my homeroom without taking a wrong turn. Mrs. Jameson was sitting at her desk in front of the ancient blackboard leafing through papers. The blackboard behind her read Semester 2 Schedules, how exciting!

I rolled my eyes and took a seat in the back, I had managed to make about five friends, none of which were in my homeroom, and waited for the rest of the slightly familiar strangers to pile into the plain white rectangle of a room. A girl, whose name I thought was Brittany, was the last one in and the bell rang as she sat down.

That caught Mrs. Jameson’s attention. “Good morning students. It’s good to see you all again. It’s been what? Since last grade card went out?”

A few kids from the front mumbled a reply, but the majority of the room just stared at her waiting for her to get on with it. Most of us were ready to get to our new classes. Not to learn, but to see who all was going to be in their classes.

“Alright, kids. I will pass out schedules like normal and then when the bell rings you are dismissed,” Mrs. Jameson said dryly. Apparently our lack of enthusiasm had deflated her early morning cheerfulness.

She began doling out the little rectangular pieces of stock paper, saving me for last. I looked at it and joined the chorus of groans. I had thought scheduling all of my ‘fun’ classes first semester was a good idea and was now loaded down with all core classes. Statistics, Chemistry, College Prep English, and Civics. Boring. It made me look like a total brainiac. Which I was not. I was a solid B student at best.

I stared at the card willing it to switch print with Brittany’s. Guess what, it didn’t. Instead the bell rang and I hauled it to room 48 for a little bit of Statistics torture. I made a few wrong turns through the halls until I finally looped back and made it right before the bell rang. I took the last seat in the center of the room and grinned in relief to myself as I took in the fact that there were two familiar faces in the class. Lesley and Jackie. Lesley was my best friend, but Jackie, well, Jackie was okay to pass the time with.

Lesley was the three L’s, long, lean, and lanky, with long black hair past her shoulders that was smoothed into a single braid on her left shoulder. She was tan with a complexion most girls would kill for. She had two rows of perfect, ultra-white teeth that somehow always glinted in the light.

Jackie was the three S’s short, stocky, okay so maybe I can’t think of another ‘s’ word, but you get the idea. She was blonde haired and blue eyed. With fair skin that never seemed to change shades. She kept her hair pulled back into a ponytail for the most part. And boy was this girl busty!

Out of the two Lesley was my favorite. Jackie had an in your face, stalker-y type personality. She wanted to be in your business twenty-four seven. While Lesley was more easy going, soft spoken, and sweet. She was the kind of girl you wanted to be around, but the two for some reason played off each other and tended to stick together.

My attention was snapped to the front of the room when the students started cracking up at Mr. Green. I put on my listening ears and found out he had said something entirely too sexual for the nimrods I went to school with. I reached into my pocket and dug out my pencil and started doodling on a blank sheet of paper from my binder.

I continued drawing until the endless stack of papers reached my desk. I was a senior in high school and still had to take papers home to have my mommies sign them. Yes, mommies. As in I am a child of a lesbian who civil unioned another lesbian. Try explaining that one while trying to make new friends.

After I sorted through the papers Mr. Green dove straight into his lecture on what he expected from this class and how we were all upper classmen and we had better act like it. I yawned and picked up my pencil again, tuning him out.

For me the first day of the second semester was always worse than the actual first day of school. You have been in the groove for a whole semester then one day they up and switch your routine and start treating you like its fall again. It always screws me up, but I guess I won’t have to worry about it anymore. As long as I didn’t somehow fail, which was very unlikely considering I rarely made below a B in any of my classes. My mommies wouldn’t allow me to be a screw up.

“Blakey, why are you being so quiet today? Do you not like your new classes?” Jackie asked leaning forward so that her breasts hung out of the top of her shirt. They sort of left a sour taste in my mouth.

“I just hate the first day. They treat us like we are babies,” I said in a huff.

It was the truth. Last time I checked I was edging up on eighteen, not fourteen like the babies are. I know I sound pretty condescending referring to the freshmen as babies, but I don’t mean it that way. I love helping out the freshmen with their big wide frightened eyes scanning the maps at a furious pace. As lame as it sounds at my old school I always volunteered to give them tours at the beginning of the year and I signed up for the buddy program where I would offer any assistance needed to assorted new kids.

Ironically enough no one really offered to help me when I first got here. They would point me in the right direction if I got lost, but no one took the time out to help me learn the school. And I’ve said it before I’m not retarded it’s just that this school was like a labyrinth. Many of the halls looked exactly alike and are interconnected with other twisty halls at some point. Whoever designed the school must’ve had a field day with it.

“Oh hush you like the babies. I see the way you look at them all mother hen like. It’s kind of cute,” she said, breasts still skimming the top of her shirt. If she leaned forward anymore I’d have a perfect nipple shot. I shuttered at the thought.

Just because the woman who birthed me liked girls didn’t mean that I did too.
“Mother hen? Is that supposed to be funny?” I asked with a slightly irritated inflection in my voice.

Her eyes widened. “Oh, Blakey, I didn’t mean it like that,” she apologized, reaching out and placing a hand on my arm. Her shirt dipping even lower.

I cast my eyes down and looked at the dirty floor instead. “Whatever, it doesn’t matter,” I said bored with the conversation already.

I wanted Lesley to join in the conversation. I could only handle Jackie in small doses. And once again as if Les could read minds she came to the rescue.

“So, Blake, what classes do you have next?”

I swear I thought I heard Angels singing.

For some reason Jackie’s poor choice of words and overly voluptuous breasts had really offset my mood. But Lesley was a change of pace. She had enough sense to not stick her foot in her mouth, unlike a certain blonde sitting next to me.

“It’s a rather boring line up,” I said pulling out my rectangle of card stock and handed over to Lesley’s manicured hands.

Her face pulled into a grimace and she tried to hide it by biting her lip. “Ouch all core classes. That happened to me my junior year.”

“They shouldn’t do that to us, it’s not right,” I whined knowing full well I was stupid enough to do this to myself. It was not the councilors fault. It was all yours truly’s.

Jackie was about to open her mouth when the bell rang. So I opened mine instead, “See ya tomorrow.”

I picked up my binder and hightailed it down ‘the long hallway’ and out into the trailers. Yes, our school, as twisty and confusing as it was, had classrooms in trailers parked out back. Two classrooms per trailer and six of them lining the back of the school. If that didn’t scream backwoods I didn’t know what did.

That class went by much like the first only I was forced to share one of those long desks with a very immature junior who kept laughing at random times during the period. Needless to say I filled three pages of blank paper with doodles.

Thankfully the lunch bell rang and I wandered into the cafeteria being among the last to arrive. It didn’t matter though, very early in the school year I made friends with an office aid who had permission to leave campus during lunch to get the people in the office lunch. I’m sure all the takeout’s not good for me, but I did sometimes opt for a salad from Wendy’s. Like today.

My lunch was waiting for me at my usual table in the back of the cafeteria. I sat with under classmen that really didn’t have anything to do with me. And I didn’t really have anything to do with them. It was a perfect set up. I ate my lunch and then sketched for the rest of lunch. Which is what I did today.

After lunch was College Prep English. The room was a hop skip and a jump away from the cafeteria so I was able to actually choose the seat I wanted. The teacher was an old black man who was rail thin and seemed to be very wrapped up in his book. His glasses were clichéd-ly pushed down on his nose and his grayed eyebrows were drawn together in interest. He never looked up until the bell rang.

Neither did I really, I was too busy watching him to notice the other students filing into the classroom. And I know that makes me sound like some creepy pervert old man watcher, but I’m not. I am a people watcher, preferably a young boy watcher. And I noticed there are a few of those in this class. Hallelujah.

“Alright class, I am Mr. White. I have been an English professor for the past thirty years at the local community college, but last year I decided I needed a change of pace, and viola here I am,” the teacher began his speech.

I sort of lost it when he said his name was Mr. White. Mature right? A few of the other students did too so I didn’t feel as bad.

Mr. White went through the role and alphabetized us, like we were babies. I was seated beside a couple. They were both blondes. The girl was tall, but was average, in every way imaginable. Average eyes, average smile, average build, average weight. She wasn’t someone you’d look twice at. Which made me wonder why the boy was with her.

His name was Luke and he was pretty close to perfect. Beautiful green eyes, I was a sucker for green eyes, a big dazzling smile, I was a sucker for white teeth, athletic build, boy did I like the athletic type.

He must have noticed my staring because he flashed a dazzling grin and said, “You’re the transfer student right?”

“You run the school right?”

He chuckled. “Fair enough. Nice to meet you. This is my girlfriend Anna,” he said pulling Anna closer to him by her waist.

I wrinkled my nose before straightening it out. “Hello,” I said with forced politeness. I knew who she was vaguely. She and one of my friends had gotten into it over Luke before. I had never formally met her, but I already didn’t like her. In fact I vowed I’d back up Ashley if she ever wanted to fight Anna. Not that I would actually hit her, but I’d be some excellent moral support.

She flicked her eyes across me in a way that Luke didn’t see. “You’re Ashley’s friend aren’t you?” She asked with fake innocence.

I nodded. “Yeah, why?” Two could fake innocence.

“Oh, I was just curious.”

“You’re Ashley’s friend?” Luke asked, his interest was clearly piqued.

“This is getting a bit redundant isn’t it?” I questioned.

“Fair enough. I guess you must be the one she always talked about. I just never connected the dots.”

“It’s okay we can’t all have brawns and brains,” I chided.

Anna harrumphed causing Mr. White to look up from his slide show of class rules. “Is there are problem?”

“No,” we all said way too fast.

That pretty much ended our conversation for the rest of the class period. None of us wanting to get on the teachers bad side the first day. We sat quietly, bored, at our desks pretending to pay attention. I didn’t even dare take out my notebook.

Class ended entirely too slowly for my taste and then I was off to Civics. It was back inside the main school in the “History” wing. Oh, yes this school just gets better and better. The walls had this cute attempt at trying to be decorated to suit the wing. Different Presidents, World Leaders, and Ruthless Dictator’s photos lined the halls with little quips to go with each. If it wasn’t so poorly done I might like it. I stopped to look at the scroll beside room 30, when someone bumped into me.

“Hey, watch it,” I grumbled, rubbing my arm before turning around.

“Sorry, I couldn’t help myself,” Luke said with a crap-eating grin and strolled into class.

I just stood there a little shell shocked before following him in. The room had filled up considerably with my lolly gagging in the hall so I was forced to sit beside Luke. He gave me this cocky grin before turning his attention back to his friend Steven. I had classes with Steven last semester so I was familiar with him. He and Ashley were friends and I had a feeling before I came along there was some sort of romance between the two.

As the bell rang the teacher decided to stroll in. He was fabulously tall, tan, and toned. His black spiked hair somehow managed to look neat and his smile was a twenty watt. His black crisped pants and blue and black pin stripped shirt really fit him well. I could tell that this was going to be an interesting class right away. With Luke, Steven, and Mr. Hotpants all being in the same room.

I slumped down on my desk and began practically drooling over Mr. Hotpants and he began laying out ground rules. We were supposed to call him by just his last name. I preferred Mr. Hotpants. He was probably the most boss teacher in the school. We were allowed to text and have our iPods out. He said we would play jeopardy before every test to prepare for it. We were allowed to have food in the classroom. And we were going to be partnered up to do work two to three times a week.

I could tell this was easily going to be my favorite class no questions asked.