Chapter One: Just the Beginning
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Allison Kunze stopped as the shadow fell over her face. This was it. It would be her first year attending the brick building. She smiled as she gazed up at the lettering spelling out West Valley Junior High. As she stood in front of the red-orange double doors, she felt a medium sized hand squeeze her small left hand. Her best friend, Brian Beck, smiled down at her. She tilted her head and asked, "Are we ready to start a new (and hopefully very different from 7th grade) school year?" Brian thought for a second, but as he opened his mouth to speak, the low voice of a girl behind them said, "Of course we are! This�ll be our best year yet! Hello, Mah-haah!" Allison and Brian both grinned as they faced their friend. Sam was smiling from ear to ear as she saw them together. She raised one eyebrow at Allison slyly. Hearing familiar footsteps, she turned to see the fourth member of the group of friends, Jared, join them. This time it was Allison�s turn to laugh. She nearly gagged trying not to laugh. "Choking on the moment, eh, Allison?" Jared asked as he raised an eyebrow. "Just some spit going down the wrong way!" Allison snorted and coughed her reply. Everyone started laughing at her antics, then Sam glanced at her watch and exclaimed, "Oh my gosh! We�re going to be late for the welcome class speeches!" She ran through the doors and the other three followed. They jogged down to the auditorium and found places to sit before the assembly started. The first speaker, the principal, seemed to drag on forever. He took so long that almost everyone was whispering or poking each other. Allison had begun fiddling with her glasses, Brian unfolded and refolded his socks twice, and Sam let Jared play with her watch as she absentmindedly started twiddling her thumbs. Feeling desperate, Allison pulled out her special note-passing, hard bound book with blank pages, and four differently colored pens. She tapped the others on their knees to get their attention and motioned for them to choose a color. Sam chose black, Jared got green, Brian picked blue, and Allison received the remaining color-red. Allison started the notes with a message that read: "Oh my gosh! This assembly is SO boring! Can you believe how many regulations and punishments there are? Not like we already know them!" Then she passed it to Sam who added: "No kidding! And to think this guy is going to be our principal! Uggh! He�s such a Waddles! I�m glad that I don�t have any reason to get detention. I mean, who really cares for hearing his great and wonderful speeches during their lunch?!" And so the notes went. After the entire first period was wasted (in their personal opinion), the four friends, along with the rest of the students at the junior high, got half an hour that was spent waiting in line to get their first trimester schedules. "This is taking forever! Why don�t they have like six people working to find names and each having a certain set of last name first letters?" Brian complained. "Obviously they aren't smart enough to know to do that, Brian. Don�t you remember who our principal is? You know, Mr. Talks-too-much-and-states-the-obvious?" Allison smirked as she made her facetious statement. Everyone rolled their eyes at the joke. Then Jared asked no one in particular, "Hey, have you guys heard anything about what happened to Emily and Jessica? Not that I really want them here or anything, I�m just wondering." Brian and Allison both shook their heads no, but Sam said, "I�m not positive, but I think that because neither of them got into AP math, they have almost totally different schedules than us." Brian asked immediately, "I get what you�re saying about Emily and Jessica, but remind me, what does AP stand for?" "Advanced Placement, or in our case, 9th grade math," Allison supplied before Sam. "Oh look, Neil! It�s Zondo AND Zondo-Lover! The dynamic duo!" Sam and Allison both slapped themselves in the forehead as Brian glared at Neil Cantral and Tyler Crabb. Jared half-grinned, but only because he and Ross Kamimoto (the second chair saxophone) gave Allison the nickname Zondo in the 7th grade. "Tyler, shut up will you? What do you want?" Allison said, rolling her eyes. "Oh, nothing really. As far as I can tell, I�m doing the same thing as you. I�m waiting to get my new schedule." "Next!" the schedule lady called out. Allison was next in line so she stepped forward and said, "That�s me, I think." "What�s your name? Last name first, please." "Kunze (pronounced Coon-zee). K-U-N-Z-E, Allison." She spelled out. "Okay, here you go. Have a great year. Next!" the lady told her monotonously as she handed over the schedule. The other three got their schedules also and they found an empty corner where the stood to compare classes. "This is so odd! We don�t have any classes together except for Band except that Jared and Allison both have Language Arts 6th period and Allison and Brian have German together! Even our lockers are on opposite sides of the school! This hasn�t ever happened to us before!" Sam exclaimed. "Well, a good explanation for the locker situation is because we�ve never had lockers before. Any way, we�d better find our lockers and get to second (or is it third?) period or we�ll be in big trouble!" Brian pointed out.
