“I hate this.” I said as I rounded the corner, on my way to school.” It’s like 12 degrees outside! Of all the places in the world, why the hell did we move to Nebraska? Never in my life did I think I would actually be walking to school.”

“It’s like 65 degrees out here, chill out Jules. We only have a few more blocks to go, anyway.” Ayden Scarborough, my best friend, said with a chipper smile.

“Well, nobody asked you.” I snapped at him.

It was freezing out but Ayden didn’t seem to care. He had a wide smile across his face and his deep black hair was tousled over his forehead. His bright blue eyes were sparkling as looked down at me, laughing. I, on the other hand, was chattering my teeth like a chainsaw and my entire body was shivering. Nebraska was not kind to me. I had just moved from “The Sunshine State “to “The Cornhusker State.” My parents had just gotten a divorce and my mom said we needed a fresh start at a new place. I thought, ‘This is great! I bet we go somewhere cool, like New York or California!’ No. We go to freaking Nebraska. Way to go, mom.

I had been in the wonderful River Grove, Nebraska for about three months and I was still adjusting to ‘life in the farm land.’ (The ‘wonderful’ stuff is total sarcasm. Nebraska is crap.) I never really understood the whole “River Grove” thing, because there was neither a river, nor a grove for miles around. The only thing that this town has going for it is Harlow Academy. (That’s were the Nebraskans send all of their Breakers.) I didn’t have a clue of what breakers were until we moved up here. I had seen movies and things about them, but I thought they were just another mythical creature, like vampires and Frankenstein. I was under the impression that they were just a bunch of whacked out crazies that could read minds. They weren’t a big deal in Florida, because there weren’t many of them down there. Florida just sent their Breakers up to the school in Georgia.

You probably don’t even know what a Breaker is. The government is doing a pretty good job of keeping them a secret. If the public found out about Breakers, the government would have a total riot on their hands. Even the weakest of Breakers are able to read minds. The stronger a Breaker is, the more they can do or at least that’s what I've heard. Harlow Academy is where they send the Breakers from around here. Most of the Breakers at Harlow are young, anywhere from about 13 to around 16 or 17. When the instructors think that the Breaker is "mature" enough, they are sent to Llewellyn Academy. Llewellyn is more like a college for Breakers. Harlow and the other Breaker schools are like a place to keep them until they are old enough for Llewellyn. Ayden told me that Harlow was made to "disapline" the new Breakers, whatever that meant.
We got to school way before the bell rang, which was normal. Ayden liked to call us “over achievers” for it. I just call us dorks, and so did the jocks that were standing in the hall. We weren’t very social people and I guess other people could tell. The jock kids just stared as we walked past them, on our way to our lockers. River Grove High School was a particularly small school, so avoiding people like the jocks was nearly impossible. At my old school, with over 1,000 students, it was a little easier.
I could tell that Jeremy Terra, the appointed leader of the jocks, wanted us to hear what he was saying about us. He was always doing stuff like that. He was such an a**hole. He thought that just because he can throw a football, that it made him The S***. All the cheerleaders fawned over him because they thought he would be in the NFL when he got older. He wasn’t even that good at sports; it’s just that the rest of the team was so bad.
We walked away from the sounds of the snickering juiceheads, over to our group of friends. My friends weren’t exactly the most popular people in school, but they were the coolest people to me. I know that sounds lame, but they were actually the only people nice enough to talk to me on my first day of school.
One of my friends, Lizzie, waved us over to the round metal table. The rest of the group was huddled around Cooper, listening to another one of his stories. The guy had a story for everything. He thought they were hilarious but they all ended the same way, with no one but Cooper laughing.
We walked up just in time to hear Cooper saying “I guess you just had to be there.” Everyone knows that if those words come out of his mouth, that he just failed at telling his story.
“How was the walk today, Jules?” Lizzie asked as I took my seat next to her.
“She whined the whole way…again.” Ayden said with a chuckle.
“I believe, she was talking to me, thanks.” I snapped.
“So did you guys study? I heard Mr. Deanda’s test is a killer.” Lizzie asked.
“Yeah, I’m so going to ace this.” Ayden said with a flash of his white teeth.
“Oh crap. That’s today? You have GOT to be kidding me.” I said as I whipped my backpack around so I could find my Animal Science text book.
“How many is that now?” Ayden said with a chuckle.
“3 this week, 12 in all,” Lizzie laughed.
“Not cool you guys. How am I supposed to memorize 2 chapters by first period?” Then the bell rang. Great, this is exactly what my 63 average needs, another failed test. The group dispersed to their first period classes.
The only reason I was even able to uphold my D average was Ayden. He was my tutor. He is by far the smartest guy I have ever known. He remembers everything. I can’t believe he didn’t tell me about this test. He knew I would forget. I always do.
When we walked in, the rows of desks were empty and, as usual, there wasn’t teacher sitting behind the giant mahogany desk that sat at the front of the room. Mr. Deanda was never on time to our class, sometimes he didn’t show up until the middle of the period.
Ayden had helped me cram almost the entire first chapter before Mr. Deanda walked into the classroom. I was hoping he would pass the tests out before I forgot everything that Ayden had just covered. Mr. Deanda handed out the tests and started the timer when he sat back at his desk. “Alright class, you have 45 minutes,” Mr. Deanda said, mid-yawn,” You may begin.”
The words on the paper looked like they were in a different language. Gregarious? What does that mean? I knew I was going to fail this test. I glanced across the room at Ayden, who was breezing through the test. I could see his blue eyes fixed on the test paper. He had one hand intertwined in his thick black hair and the other scribbling his answers down. The guy behind him was totally freaking out. He was biting the end of his pencil and I could see sweat dripping down his face. As I watched the boy, I thought about how I had never seen Ayden even remotely like that. Ayden was always under control. He was my rock, my one stable person. I knew I could always rely on him.
I watched Ayden put his pen down and scanned over his paper one last time, before getting up to turn it in. I looked back down at my own paper. I was only on number 6. The test had 45 questions. I glanced up at the clock, I had 10 minutes left. I was so done for. How was I supposed to finish in 10 minutes? I went down the answer document, marking random answers.
I finished just as the bell rang. “Okay, looks like your times up.” Mr. Deanda said to me.
The desks were gradually emptying as I walked to the front to turn in my paper. I lookde around for Ayden. He was leaning against the wall waiting for me.
“How was it?” Ayden said as we were walking out the door.
“Horrible! 3 Tests in one week? This blows.”
Ayden just laughed at me as we walked to our lockers.