It was sixth hour English class, right before lunch. I was starving, and trying not to let my eyes slide over to the boy sitting across the room from me. Aaron Odike, tall (I mean this guy was a bean pole), tanned skin and dorky hair cut. He had that nerdy best-friend appeal to him that set my crush since I first saw him. Sure, there were some guys I thought were cuter, but something about this particular one.

Anyway, I was trying to finish the grammar sheet Mrs. Wilkinson had given us. She was the usual English teacher- elderly that was far too friendly but had one hell of a temper. I hated grammar, even though writing had become a big part of my life. I couldn't tell a preposition from a subordinating conjunction to spare my life. Verbs, nouns, adjectives? Sure, that was first grade stuff. Infinitives learned from Spanish- to sing, cantar, to dance, bailar.

I was good at Spanish, or at least was second in my class. Marcos (Jeremiah actually, but Marcos was his Spanish name), who sat behind me was a genius at Spanish. I mean, he would know all the vocabulary in a day. I guess studying does pay off.

But English! Grr.I hated English class. Book reports, boring. Essays on symbolism, somewhat interesting. Grammar, torture! I never had a perfect paper; it always has one mistake on it at least. But I was pulling an A, though a low one, so I didn't complain. I wanted to go to Great America at the end of the year, and to do that I had to have straight As.

So, I was waiting impatiently, hormones going over board and trying to concentrate on direct object nouns when I was delivered celestial salvation. The bell rang. Thank you kami, god, Shiva, whoever! I stood, stuffing my grammar sheet in the purple herbal essences folder I won over the internet. Grabbing my notebooks, I tried to get one last glance at Aaron. Ah, damn, back of the head again. Why does he always have to run off like the room is on fire?

Setting the English room on fire. Not a bad idea.

The halls were crowded by the time I got out of the room, but it was a small school so I didn't have too much trouble weaving my way through everyone. But why do they all have to be so tall?! I was the shortest in the eighth grade, with an exception of Chris Cowalhand, who was about two inches shorter than me. I pitied him when we had to go to high school next year.

I made it to my locker in the other hallway without to much trouble, and stopped to chat with Adam. His locker was next to mine, and always looked like something had bombed it. Mine was neat most of the time, but I had gotten a little disorganized lately. No reason really, since I rarely had homework to do. I guess it was because I piled my textbooks up on the top after each class, and didn't have enough time to organize it before running to class.

Adam grabbed his lunch and left, while I decided to tackle the task at hand. Dumping all my things on the floor clumsily, I began to empty my locker. Textbook, spiral notebook, oh and look! Another textbook. Calculator, textbook, notebook, metal calendar Stephen gave me for Christmas, even though I'm Buddhist. My backpack, CD cord hanging out, the wooden base of my last Science project on Plutonium.

I finished, having wasted about seven minutes, and started toward the cafeteria hoping that the lunch line had become smaller by now. I hated waiting in that line, especially when something good like Pizza or tacos was served. Today was something like fish sandwich or salad bar, so I wasn't too worried.

But when I walked into the cafeteria, I was surrounded by chaos. I never expected to see what I saw.

A/n- I know it's a lot shorter than the last chapter, but I wanted to leave off there to keep y'all captivated! Hope you like it!

Oh, and I don't own herbal essences, though I do own that folder.