Book Day! Entry 3

Once again, saved by the book. After a sleepless night convincing me that there is indeed no rest for the wicked (another post entirely) and the wicked not being me but our dog, I am grateful to be have the book. You'll notice this part goes back a few years in Casey's life and this part is really just setting the scene for later things. I'm toying with this idea of going back and forth in her life.


The 90s

Casey slid down the wall, hugging her notebook to her small frame and feeling the hard books in her backpack dig into her back. She slumps down beneath the front office window of her new school. Who knew that high School was the gateway to hell, she thought to herself. Certainly not her parents who had decided that public school would be a good change for her. She had her doubts, but never thought it would be this bad she mused as she thought back to through her day.

Earlier that morning her mother had sent her out the door saying cheerily, “Have a great day honey! You’ll be just fine. You know Peter and Sarah and I am sure Peter will show you around. You’ll be in the same homeroom.” OK, sure she thought. She knew Peter, her next-door neighbor, for as long as she could remember. That did not mean he was going to be all buddy-buddy with her at school. They were too different. She knew that already. Sarah was still on vacation with her family and would not even be at school this first week. “Lucky girl”, she thought. Casey got on the bus that morning, another foreign thing after years of private school. She felt as if she was floating above her body. Buses really smell she thought as she plunked herself down onto a green vinyl seat and tried not to breathe in the scent of gas fumes, rubber and other people’s lunches. Being so small she had to sit on the side of the bus that held the middle school kids. The bus driver glared at her from behind her purple tinted sunglasses and barked at Casey, “B-8!” “Assigned seats on a high school bus? Who does that?” Casey thought. The driver explained gruffly that until she had her school ID card she looked just another "middle school punk".

Casey’s first day passed by in a blur. Peter was in fact in her homeroom but he immediately deemed her ‘uncool’ in the frightful plaid skorts ensemble that her mom had picked out for her. He completely ignored her and in fact did not even look at her when she slunk into her seat. Her head was beginning to throb and she just wanted to sleep. To dream this day away and out of existence. She became hopelessly lost in the hallways not understanding the standard issue a.k.a. neon sign denoting her freshman status map and got jostled in the unfamiliar streams of hallway traffic. At one point, a purple haired kid growled at Casey from beneath his shaggy mane of hair. She had jumped back startled only to bump into lockers and more people who just tossed her back into the throng of quickly moving students. Lunch was even worse. Casey, knowing no one, had to sit alone and she decided was not even remotely hungry and threw out her sack lunch.

The day seemed as never ending as the maze of hallways in the school. By the time, the last bell rang at two o’clock Casey flung herself out the first exit door she could find only to realize too late that it was all together the wrong door and her bus was nowhere in sight. There were three lines of buses behind the school. Each one looking the same as the one behind it and the one in front of it. Casey could not remember the number of her bus. Was it 2, 3, 24 or 25? Maybe nine? She broke out in a cold sweat and dashed back inside for some help. By the time she found the front office, it was too late. Her bus had left. The school secretary wordlessly handed her the phone peering down at her from her red squared shaped glasses and told her to call her parents. As Casey dialed her parents she wondered what the deal was with secretary's and those red glasses. Was she in some 80s high school movie? Casey went back out into the schools front hallway to wait for her parents. Sitting there she could feel her brand new algebra book making a nice spinal bruise in her back.