Grinstig High

Now this story isn’t about some super nerd girl who falls in love with a preppy football player then by some weird twist of fate ends up with him as his girlfriend with a happy ever after. But instead its about Jaime Winters. She’s the kind of girl who everybody goes to with his or her problems. So it’s no surprise to her that she has an average of 28.5 messages on her phone when she goes home each night. I mean, have you checked out the school psychiatrist lately? In my opinion anybody who has dead, stuffed animals in their office is not the kind of person one should go see about their problems. But let’s get back to Jaime. There’s nothing special about her life that’s out of the ordinary. She shops at Old Navy and sometimes at the local Salvation Army or Thrift Rack for her cloths, she has friends and enemies alike, and like most normal people she doesn’t live in a house down the street with a white picket fence. As to what she looks like she’s pretty much a girl next door plain Jane. With soft, long brown hair and startling gray eyes she could easily have risen to the top of the popular crowd in less than a week in she had wanted to that is. But Jaime goes to Grinstig high and while it’s not her favorite place to be, it’s her life.

Grinstig High isn’t anything special. It’s got its stuffy teachers, spoiled rich kids, and nerds. Anybody that ever went to Grinstig never went on to be anything cool, like being a big time movie producer, or a Grammy Award winning singer. But it did dish out a lot of middle class, sassy, stiff-necked, and overly opinionated citizens. Except for the nerds. Nobody quite knows what happens to them after graduation. In fact Grinstig High is just like the high school you are either in or managed to graduate from years and years ago. Sure it’s got it’s fair share of snobby stuck up preps with names like Veronica Starkson and the rest of her pom pom swishing, lipstick wearing, designer brand owning posse. And it’s also got it’s nerds with names like Canstabandara Simskardolas who takes a collage chemistry class after school hours or Winston who is in Jaime’s 4th period history class. Not to put down all of you good hearted Winstons’ out there, but do any of you have the last name: Karbobalouski? I thought not. You know how every town has that one "cool" school that everybody knows about? The one that everybody wishes they could go there instead of the one they actually go to? Well Grinstig High is not that school. Instead it’s more like the kind of school that everybody goes to so they can all mope around together wishing that they were at the other school.

Now that we’ve covered the girl and the school what about the best friend? Well she’s Martha Sanchez. She has all the same classes as Jaime and a boyfriend with the name Blake Hidlaricson who likes to eat beef jerky and wear a lot of black. Martha met Jaime in the second grade when she had spilled milk on her teacher and had been so mortified by the incident Jaime had to drag her kicking and screaming from the bathroom. Since then Sanchez grew up to be a Latino with an attitude. Sticking up for her friends and even people she didn’t even know was part of her life’s job description. Her raven black hair that was streaked with blue was cut into a boy’s cut and her normal brown eyes were hidden with bright blue contacts. Definitely not a girl to have mad at you.

Now that we’ve covered everybody that seems to be of importance who else is there? Oh yeah. The guy. Dustin Starkson. Grinstig’s most hottest guy. Well according to most anyway. I mean if you were a short green alien martian from planet Zigondanarwa, wouldn’t you be more interested in someone your own species? OK, so he’s not as popular as his sister Veronica is. But with short spiky hair, tipped with hint of bleach, all the latest styles from Ambercombie&Fitch, and a quarterback reputation to match, Dustin, or "Dusty" as the back of his jersey advertises, was a perfect clone of the popular crowd. Hey. At least he’s not a nerd.

Jaime Winter’s story starts where all good stories start. At the beginning. No not the first breath of air, screams to wake the dead beginning, I’m talking the beginning as in Monday: the first day of school. Or in normal high school speech: The last day of summer.

"Hey Jaime!" Martha emerged from one of the classrooms, slinging her charcoal black backpack over her shoulder and balancing a stack of books on the other hand.

"When and why did you get here so early?" Jaime eyed the stack of books and grimaced.

Martha laughed, "Um hello? Anybody in there? Ya gotta get here early to get the good lockers, and the new books!"

Jaime grinned. Yup to get a new book guaranteed a whole fun year of drawing horns, tails, and pitchforks on people like "The Red Baron" or "Hitler" while pretending to look interested in learning about old, fat men with pasty white faces and weird toupees. Jaime looked down the long hallway of old, beaten up lockers and the jumble of students filing through the doors and grimaced.

"School is so over rated." she grumbled before heading off to collect her books. Martha smiled with agreement before wandering off somewhere to find Blake.

By fourth period Jaime was ready to drop out of school and become a hermit in the mountains of some long forgotten island that sooner or later would most likely be studied extensively in the AP geography class. Re-adjusting her book bag over her shoulder she kicked her locker door and eyed it angrily.

"Just one year! One year to get a good locker! That is all I have ever asked, why? Why?! If I’m supposed to show up to this brainwashing every day from eight to three then I ask you. Is one good locker too much to ask?!" She punched her locker for good measure and immediately regretted it. Turning around in exasperation, Jaime smiled and greeted the entire student body who were ever so conveniently staring at her. Groaning she turned to kick her locker again when a thin, strong hand grabbed her arm and an equally thin, reedy voice hissed in her ear.

"Ah, ah, ah! Miss Winters. That will be quite enough of that. Having a bit of an anger tantrum are we? Well, I’m sure a few days of detention will be able to clear it all up"

Jaime inwardly cringed. Ms. Anthrope was said to have been around since the beginning of time. And she certainly did look it.

"Whatever you say Ms. Anthrope" A cruel smile slipped into her ivy green eyes as she directed Jaime into her small office.

Several minutes later Jaime left the cramped room, relieved she only received one detention. With a complete witch to be sure, but it was only one detention…

"Detention!" Jaime spun around at the word. Her mathematics professor was striding toward her with a look of pure loathing. But he always had a look of pure loathing so she wasn’t too impressed. "Report to my office for detention after school tomorrow."

"For what?" At his raised brow she hastily added, "Sir?"

"Wearing headphones in the middle of a school hallway, during school hours."

"They’re off."

"They provided a temptation, I will not allow it."

"Afraid I might get a mind of my own? Oh the horror." Jaime muttered blandly as he stalked away, target set on a younger boy who had just ordered a candy bar from the vending machine. Irritably she shoved them into her book bag, grumbling under her breath. Professors…

"So now I have two detentions. Consecutively."

"Bummer."

"Ditto." Blake gnawed at the end of a piece of jerky, looking at them both through a curtain of shaggy hair.