Beep . . . beeps . . . I eventually wake up to the sound of my screeching alarm clock telling me “Wake up . . . WAKE UP! Time for your first day of high school, summer is over now so hop to it!” but it left out all the details I will soon face. I drag my feet to the floor looking out the dark window of a blur. When my eyes focus I finally get my self dressed and out the door.


All is quiet while I wait for the dreadful, cacophonic, yellow transportation to the school of crushing all hopes and dreams. Sounds like fun. “What is wrong honey?” ,my mom asks. “Oh, nothing." but she does not believe me. “Don’t be nervous, everything will be fine, in fact I bet it will be fun.” How can I be nervous when everyone is telling me its going to be fine and not to worry, that its just high school. Simple, reality instantly strikes like a thundering bolt of lightning.


The tire treads skid across the road until the bus stops. The doors swing open like a portal into a realm of despair. “Get in your assigned seats or I’ll make you write 500 sentences!”,yells the bus driver “Ok, lets see, ah! Samantha, seat 26.” Great, well at least I know I will not have to share a seat since it’s half the size of everyone else’s. I sit as flash backs from the previous year run through my head, some worth remembering while others I wish I could just erase. I gaze out the window to see the same old scenery. The only thing different is the year. Before I know it, we are at the elementary school that I once went to and now my brother attends. The days of recess and finger painting purple giraffes are long over for me. A time comes when we stop at the middle school and I have to hold my self down and realize that I am a freshman now. Slowly we leave the past. Minutes pass and the school appears. Again the doors swing open, this time it’s like stepping out into a vacant desert where you now there is nothing left to do and you have to make the best of it, reach out for the positive even though you really know what lies ahead of you.


I stand staring at the royal blue glass doors. My mind is yelling at me “Don’t just stand there” while my feet are yelling back, “NO, NO . . . I don’t want to go!" I guess my mind over powers my feet. Colors and photos of the past pierce my mind leaving jagged shreds. In big bold letters a sign welcomes freshmen. “Yeah right,” I think to myself. Somehow I find myself in the bustling halls. Not knowing where to go or what to do I follow everyone else. It appears to be a cafeteria. People are standing on tables yelling out letters and giving out envelopes containing schedules and lunch cards. Soon I find mine. “One down two to go” My eyes wonder around the unfamiliar place in search of my friends. Finally hope is seen, my friends are standing in a corner doing the same that I was just seconds ago. They look as if they are scanning the room. When we meet eyes, we give a weak smile, assuring each other it’s going to be great. As soon as we are in a huddle, we let everything out, it’s crazy, everyone is all talking at once. As if right now it looks like everyone telling me that it would be fine actually knew what they were talking about.


The first couple of days were exceptional. I found all my classes and the teachers looked really pleasant. My friends and I all got along great! Weeks after that had minor speed bumps, but nothing major. Homework seemed to drag me under like waves crashing into the beach creating tides that were once washing sand on my feet. Summer vacation’s images mask my mind. A voice fades in, “All right class I want you to write a story, it doesn’t matter what kind, just have it to me by Tuesday.” I think to myself, “Well great, just what am I going to write about. Plus I can’t even write anything worth reading. Everything I write sounds like a 4th grader wrote it.” I feel like a meteor of hopelessness just crashed among my feet and the pieces are raining down on me.


The question boggles my mind while riding in seat 26. “What should I write?” I step down the dirty brown stairs and onto the gray road with faded yellow lines. Upon approaching the car my mother asks as usual how everything went. I reply, “I have to write some kind of story by Tuesday, but I have no clue what to write about.” “ I’m sure you’ll think of something, I have faith in you.”, she assures me. “Yeah.”, trying to find the positive in it but I can’t. Once I get to my room I throw down my potbellied backpack. I go over to my computer. Click . . . I sit staring at the blank page before me. I type a few lines, but I quickly erase them. “Everything I write sounds so stupid!”, I shout. So I take a break thinking that maybe something will give me an idea. Hours pass, but nothing comes to me. Nothing, nada, zip, zilch, no light bulb. What do I do when the out look is bad? I turn to my journal, because no one cares what I write in it because they will never see it. I start to write, and then suddenly it feels like the whole room lights up. Feelings of hope arise. Spirits are lifted. “I got it!”, I cheer. “Instead of writing about something foreign I’ll write about my feelings and what is happening to me right now.”I write all night nonstop.


The next day I can’t wait to wake up and get to school. I go to class and hand in my paper with out a doubt. My teacher smiles at me. I guess she recognizes the proudness in my eyes. Classes pass and I still manage to keep a smile. The bell rings and hurry to lunch, not for the food though. Eww. I grab a seat at the round blue table. My friends seem to notice the smile on my face.“Why are you in such a good mood?” they ask. I reply,“I don’t know, I guess it’s just because I’m at school and I’m here with my friends.”


I get on the bus to find that the gum is no longer suffocating the seat. I thought to my self, too bad I’ll be trading in seat 26 for a pink beetle bug convertible in a few years.