Fast Times at West Hills High.

“Hey pretty lady!” I tried my best to ignore the cat calls and taunts as I moved, clumsily through the hallways (if you can call them that) of my new school. The calls intermixed with whistles the further into the school I got and the looks I was receiving from the other girls got worse and worse as my head dropped.

I’m Michelle. I just moved from Fort Lauderdale, Florida to San Diego, California. It’s been quite a leap. The school year is almost over by my mom insisted that I go to one of the top high schools in the public district; West Hills. And this was no exaggeration. But the range of students astounded me. They had everything from jocks to special needs kids. And everything between. I didn’t know anybody nor did I even know where my classes were.

It was my last period of the day and I was having some trouble finding the English building. Yes the English BUILDING. West Hills is an outdoor school. There weren’t ANY outdoor schools in the Fort. It was odd walking around outside where one could actually get a tan just by going to school.

Getting used to this would be hard.

As I walked more toward where the classroom was I’d had my head tucked down, trying to not make eye contact with anybody, somebody bumped me. And by bumped me I mean they shoved their shoulder into mine and pushed me forward with their other hand, knocking my books and binder out of my hands,

“Oops!” I knelt down to recover my things from the ground and glanced up at whoever it was, “Did I do that?”

When I looked up I saw it was a girl with bleached blonde hair standing next to a guy who was almost her exact opposite. While she was short- only standing about five foot or so- he seemed to be barely under six feet with long, black hair. Her face seemed to hold a permanent sneer, as though she’d held the face a little too long when she was a child. It’s too bad, if her face hadn’t been stuck that way she would have appeared beautiful. But too bad her bitchitude was over taking her face.

The guy next to her knelt down next to me and started to pick up my papers for me. As I tried to get my papers the boys hand brushed against mine as we reached for the same paper. My head snapped up and my hand came back to my chest as he handed me the notebook,

“Uh-uhm, thank you.” I took it from him. I was so awkward. Why did I have to be awkward around every guy I spoke to?

“No problem.” He grinned, pulling the left side of his mouth upward and shrugged. He really was a beautiful boy. He had dark hair and a chubby-ish face that was adorned with a pair of lip piercings below his lower lip and a dermal piercing on his left cheekbone. His eyes were nearly as dark as his hair and had a kind of happy sparkle to them.

I’d always loved guys with dark eyes, just with my having green eyes it made a nice balance and a stark difference from looking in the mirror every day. They had a certain elegance and a certain mystery about them. They were beautiful.

The girl from before grabbed his arm and pulled him up sharply,

“Get outta here! Slut!” She shouted at me and he stared at her like she was insane for saying that. I turned and started to move faster toward where I thought my class was, trying to not let the tears slip from my eyes.

God I guess what had been said about West Hills was untrue. I had been told when I moved here that West Hills had been the best school in this district and had the nicest students. They lied to me. Flat out lied.

“Hey, hey are you okay?” A male voice I didn’t recognize caught my ear, giving me the urge to turn and see who it was.

When I did turn I saw it was a young man- about the same age as the boy with the bitch but he was much shorter. Well okay, not much shorter, only by a few inches or so. You know enough for there to be a distinct difference. He had a strong face with a very outstanding smile that squished his face to make two dimples in his cheeks.

“Y-yeah. I’m fine.” I barely stuttered out before almost turning and leaving. But something stopped me. I didn’t know what it was but it pulled at me and told me to ask him where my last class would be.

“Oh, Mr. Acosta’s class?” He grinned and chuckled softly. “Here, follow me. I have that class too.” The mystery man put his arm around my shoulder and turned us around so we were facing opposite from before.

“Right! Of course it’s this way!” My exclamation was sudden and kind of made the guy jump. Truth be told I felt like such a dunce. I mean, the building even had the word ENGLISH written on it in big blue letters. Talk about being blind as a bat.

“So, little one, what’s your name?” He talked and walked with me from the center hallway area all the way to the English building where there was a large group of students waiting to be let into the room.

“Hey, Hime. How was the game?” One of the students approached my guy (whom I had yet to learn the name of) and started to do this weird little bro-five thing with him.

“It was good, it was good. Oh hey, Pharaoh, this is Barbie.” That’s not my name. “Idn’t she a doll?” Oh well. Okay. I can stick with being called Barbie then. The boy, Pharaoh wasn’t much different looking from the boy in the hallway. He had long black hair and they even had the same dermal piercing. The only difference was Pharaoh had these brilliantly green eyes, the same shade as mine and was a mite shorter than Hallway Boy. He had the faintest hint of a bruise on his face, probably from a fight or something like that. Other than that he had soft features, save for his nose which was soft looking and yet still had a slope that came to a point that was more upward than outward. It was kind of cute in a strange sense.

“Hi Barbie. I’m Dylan. Or as everyone calls me, Pharaoh.” He stuck his hand out politely and I shook it, awkwardly,

“It’s nice to meet you.” My voice was a low mumble as my friend started to push me into the room and to a seat. “Wait I-I need to go...” I let my voice trail off and pointed up toward the front of the class where I needed to give Mr. Acosta my schedule to validate this was my class. “Give me a second.”

I scooted, awkwardly away from them and to the front of the class where the teacher was currently standing, waiting for the class to quiet. I handed him my schedule and let my eyes wander around the room, looking at the different movie posters- student made and professional alike- that had been strewn upon the walls. I turned my head to the wall to my left where two large cardboard cutouts of the Hulk and Iron Man next to a bookshelf that had issues of various books and toys alike. Between the cutouts was a chart, using light blue paper about the different (things used when writing a fiction piece). I let my head turn to the front of the class and caught a lightsaber hanging from next to the American flag and a few caps from the military hanging on the end of the flag along with a sash that I assume he wore to graduation.

Now Mr. Acosta was a generally nice looking guy. For the most part. Maybe if he hadn’t been bigger than me I would have been less nervous about going up to talk to him. He wasn’t much taller than me but in the respects of size he looked to be much heavier than I and for some reason that kind of made me a little uneasy about talking to him. He was stout and had black as night hair, his eyes were the same and had a pair of ear piercings. Unlike my other teachers he dressed fairly casual, wearing a black jacket over a white shirt and a pair of dark wash jeans with converse. As compared to the button up shirt and tie that virtually every male teacher wore to work.

It was strange seeing a teacher dress more like one of his students than like he was a form of authority. But it wasn’t bad. Just-- Strange.

Mr. Acosta took my schedule and checked it off and then turned to me and smiled,

“The class is pretty full so you can just find somewhere a seat is open.” He looked around at the tables that had been set up around the room and stopped almost directly behind me. I stared back behind me for a second before chuckling at whatever was back there. I decided to turn back to see what he was laughing about and caught the end of the guy who “saved” me pointing (exaggeratedly) to the seat next to him. “There’s a seat next to Jaime-” So that’s his name! “You can sit there for now but if you want I can put you somewhere else.” I let my eyes wander around to the different tables, assessing the people at them and making mental notes. As my eyes scanned the room I noticed Hallway Boy’s girlfriend sitting next to the only other empty seat.

“I think I’ll be fine next to Jaime.” I smiled and nodded back toward him and Mr. Acosta shrugged going back to his desk to scribble my name into the seating chart,

“Oh, I know this may be a little late, but do yo have any nicknames, Michelle?” I turned back to him as I sat in my chair and Jaime quickly spoke up for me,

“She goes by Barbie!” What a strange character he was turning out to be.

“Barbie.” Mr. A kind of looked at me like ‘Really? Are you sure?’ And I just sighed and nodded,

“Yup.” I chuckled and put my book bag on the table staring at the front of the class. There was a lot of chatter going around the room and people were throwing things and messing around with each other’s things. What a rowdy class.

Mr. A nodded and went back to scribbling on the paper before standing up and doing this weird little clap thing that I guess was the norm in here. He would do the first part of it ‘Clap clapclap clap clap’ and the class would echo back ‘Clap clap!’ It was strange but a lot of things were strange to me. Coming from the Fort to San Diego was a leap I won’t forget.

“Hey, Jaime. How’d you guys do in the game?” Another person, someone with a foreign accent came and sat next to us. He sounded like he was from Australia or somewhere like that. He had sandy blonde hair that was cut to that vintage kind of Duck Butt style and also had green eyes. And his face was adorned with a single golden nose ring in his left nostril,

“We kicked Steele Canyon’s asses!” I’d almost chosen to go to that school. I’m glad I picked West Hills High School. This place is much more interesting, “How’d the date with Lady Bird go?” I hope to God that was a nickname made by one of them and not her real name.

“We had a blast! Oh hey I’m having a shoot this weekend if you wanna come watch and have some fun in my pool!”

“No thanks. I got practice. Maybe next time.” As Jaime and Aussie carried on their conversation I watched as a few more people wandered, late into the room.

The first to come in was a girl, medium in height with brown hair that seemed to be on the verge of being sun bleached. She was relatively tan and- from what I could see- had brilliant blue eyes. Her outfit was very strange. An all black dress with black and red pumps. She looked like she’d just come from a funeral. As she approached Mr. Acosta she sniffed and brought a hand that held a tissue to her nose, wiping it away.

I watched their exchange with utmost curiosity. She handed him her pass. He took it and asked if she was okay. She says she’s fine and turns to come sit next to Pharaoh who instantly wraps his arms around her. As though she couldn’t stop them, tears began to spill from her eyes, but she didn’t make a sound.

I looked away but kept my ear sharp, something I’d learned to do well in the Fort.

“Sssh.” Pharaoh shushed her as she cried, silently into his shoulder, “She’s in a better place.” So she was at a funeral. But whose?

I scribbled my question down on a notebook paper and tapped Jaime’s arm to get his attention. He looked at me and I pointed down to the paper, hoping he’d be able to answer me. He sighed and motioned to borrow my pencil while sliding the paper closer to him. When he finished scribbling his answer down he slid it back to me.

‘Her sister.’ Jaime’s handwriting was kind of hard to read as it was a mix of printing and cursive all smushed together. I felt for the girl and scribbled down another note beneath his, ‘What’s her name?’ We slid the note back and forth until I got all of the information on the girl, whose nickname was Birdy, that I needed and thinked I would ever need. She and Pharaoh were in a relationship, living together in fact. But they had been living together for almost three years. Pharaoh didn’t come from a too kindly family I guess and Birdy was already getting to work to make up for her younger sister’s funeral expenses. I found out that a few weeks back her sister had killed herself to be with the boy she loved. A true Romeo and Juliet story. The funeral had been today and- against virtually everyone’s wishes, it was a private service.

I looked at her, not out of pity but out of remorse that I couldn’t help her with anything. My family had more money than we knew what to do with which is why we move around so much. We’d originally lived in Texas- or so I’ve been told- and we’ve moved from there to Oregon to New York then we lived in nearly every state along the East coast until we reached Florida- where we stayed for five years. And now we moved to San Diego and I was starting to hope it was permanent.

I took the paper and scribbled down one more question I had for Jaime, ‘What’s Blondie’s deal?’ As referring to Hallway Boy’s lady friend. He chuckled and shook his head, writing down what looked like a paragraph.

‘She’s class Prez. Has the school under her thumb and will do anything to make life miserable for “underclassmen”. B-careful, she’s protective of Tony.’ Hallway Boy was Tony then. Okay. ‘What do you mean?’ ‘She’ll make it hell for you for the first month. Heads up.’ I nodded and gave him a thumbs up to thank him. He tapped my arm and motioned for me to get closer to him.

“You seem pretty chill, tonight we’re having a bonfire down in Pacific Beach. You can get a ride with Tony just be there. Okay?” “Sure.” A simple enough agreement, but what I didn’t know was what would happen at said bonfire or how it would be effecting my life so much.