Freshman Year Read Online Free PDF Page B

their faces, this older crowd finds everything irritating and boring, not exciting like us. So, to fit in, we stop squealing and shuffle grimly along like orange-jumpered, shackled prisoners.
    At 7:43 I finally reach the front of the line to receive my locker assignment and my first-semester schedule. But instead of listing a class in my Period One slot, it says See Counselor . I show Kate, who already has her schedule and is comparing it with Marisol’s and Sarah’s, but she just shrugs like it’s no biggie.
    â€œGod, Abbey, you’re already in trouble?” Sarah teases. “Nice.”
    â€œShow me,” Marisol says and grabs my schedule. “ Chíngale! Sucks to be you.”
    â€œBut I’m supposed to have Algebra 2.” I grab my schedule from Marisol and flip it over. “Where is my Algebra 2?”
    â€œAt least we all have PE together,” Sarah says.
    Then the bell rings and my friends disappear down the hall like we’re playing hide-and-go-seek and I’m it. Now I’m alone.
    Someone with a kind heart has posted directional signs all over the walls to help the new kids like me, but then some jerk turned all the arrows down and wrote Go to hell, Freshmen on them. This explains how I nearly walk into the boys’ bathroom, running into Jake Simpson with my giant size-ten feet. Jake Simpson, Mr. “I’m So Cool I Go to Concerts on School Nights,” is a year older than me, which is why we have never spoken before now.
    I cover my face quickly and back up into the hall, as soon as I realize where I am. “Oh my God,” I say too loudly. “I’m so sorry.”
    â€œIt’s all good. I’m decent.” Then he laughs, but not at me, which is nice of him. “Where are you trying to go? I mean, I’m guessing you didn’t mean to walk in here. It’s Abbey, right?”
    â€œYeah, I’m Abbey Brooks.” I show him my schedule like a lost tourist. “I’m supposed to go to the counselor’s office,” I say then look over my shoulder, hoping for some reason that Kate might walk by and see me talking to him.
    He pushes a lock of his curly black hair behind his ear. “Cool, I’m going there, too. Come on. I’ll take you on your first official high school field trip.”
    The hallway is clear and we walk side by side without having to avoid all the short people in our way. And when I talk to him, it’s at eye level. This is new for me, since the eye level of most boys in eighth grade was right at my barely there breasts.
    We arrive at the office and he opens the door for me. And for the first time ever, I feel kind of girlie. I decide high school boys might be slightly more evolved, not like the middle school boys who used to follow me around making Chewbacca sounds.
    Other students are already in line for the counselors and are nonchalantly leaning against the wall like they’re waiting for a bus, so I join them, trying to look just as cool and aloof. Then I turn to say, “Sure is crowded in here,” or something equally dumb, but Jake is already talking to some friends in the front of the line. I pick at my cuticles instead.
    Thirty minutes into first period and the line outside the counselor’s office is ten students longer and we haven’t moved an inch. I’ve already memorized the inspirational poster (Teamwork Gets the Job Done), the suicide hotline number (800-WE-SAVE-U), and counted the pieces of gum stuck to the bottom of the principal’s bulletin board (three pink, five yellow, ten white, fifteen gray). To make matters worse, I still have to pee. The smart thing to do would be to keep my mouth shut, but instead I turn to Jake, who is now standing next to me, and say, “Cool shoes.”
    What follows is a brief conversation about his flame-covered Converse. And when that topic runs its course, I ask, “So, are we, like, going to get a first period at