AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I wanted to crawl into a ball and disappear as I sat in chemistry class. Who starts a new school the last week of April of their senior year?
I glanced around the classroom. Most of the other students were on their phones as the teacher droned on about element seventy-five on the periodic table: Rhenium. After a painful hour of sitting in a room full of strangers listening to material I’d learned when I was a sophomore, the bell rang. The teacher was still talking but everyone started leaving the classroom. I wanted to ask someone how I could find my next class, but literally everyone was on their phones.
I stepped out into the busy hallway, more confused than ever.
A pretty redhead smiled at me. “You lost?”
“How could you tell?” I asked.
“Well, I know everyone at this school, so I know you’re new and chances are you don’t know your way around yet.”
“Good observation,” I said.
She laughed. “I’m Christa.”
“Grace.”
“Well, allow me to welcome you to Windham Prep. Home of the rich, famous, and ridiculously over-privileged.”
I smiled.
“Where’re you headed?”
I looked at my schedule. “Room one twenty-two. English.”
She ticked her head to the right. “Follow me.”
“Thanks.”
“What year are you?” she asked as we walked through the crowded hallway.
“Senior. You?”
“Junior. It’s kinda late to be transferring,” she said, the question evident in her statement.
“My dad died, so I had to move here.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said.
I shrugged since there wasn’t much else to do when people showed you sympathy.
She stopped and extended her arm toward a doorway. “Here’s your class.”
“Thanks for this.”
“I’ll look for you at lunch,” she offered.
“That would be great. See ya later.” I went into the classroom and approached the teacher, introducing myself. She gave me a book and told me to take the first seat in the last row by the windows.
When the bell rang, she began her lecture onPride and Prejudice. Since I’d read the book at least twenty times and seen the movie just as many, I knew I wouldn’t be lost—at least in this class.
“What’s the biggest problem between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy?” the teacher asked.
I knew the answer but waited to see what my classmates would say.
When no one offered a response, she pried, “Anyone?”
“Elizabeth had a chip on her shoulder,” a familiar voice said from the back of the classroom.
