I’ve never really appreciated the fantasy genre. Those long epic stories about a brave knight who travels many leagues to reach the land of the dragons and rescue the princess from the treacherous villain. I find those stories to be too self-involved, so complex in creating their own world that they forget that you can only bend human belief so far. Some people may care about the well being of the last member of a psychic race who had resided on one of Neptune’s moons until the benevolent Cyclops decided to invade. But personally, I don’t give a damn. I care more about real people, thank you very much.

So, naturally, I assume it’s out of spite, or maybe even revenge for all those times I’ve spent in Barnes and Noble without even bothering to step into the fantasy section and look around. Because, you see… I don’t really know how to say this without sounding exactly like one of those novels. Well, here goes nothing. In the world there are four tokens. Each of these so-called tokens embodies an emotion; love, hate, sadness, and happiness. How this came to be? Well, I’m not exactly sure. Something about how the tokens were placed in the center of a room which had all sorts of hallways leading off of it and the tokens then crawled to their destiny, engulfed in whatever the doorway contained.

But, here comes the really ironic thing. For some strange reason my father, the oh-so stereotypical oil company employee, decided to get transferred just in time for me to start my junior year. And, coincidentally, I just so happened to go to the same high school as they did.

Then of course, it decided to get weird. But maybe I should start at the beginning. Just so you can understand what’s going on, of course. Only for your understanding. In no shape or form am I trying to write some kind of fantasy novel. Uh-un, no unicorns or magic carpets here…

I’m not really convincing am I? Damn, now I really am a hypocrite.

---

High school, I think, is really another word monotony. Or was it mutiny? I don’t remember. But to go on with my point. I’ve been to at least a couple different high schools and, sure, they have their differences, but you can always pick out the different cliques. Sometimes you’re lucky, and the lines dividing the groups are faded and allow people to cross over them freely. Sometimes though, if you dare to step on a crack, then your mother’s back is the least of your worries. But either way, you can see the different levels of status. And sure, that’s pretty much true for Emerson High. But then, they key word is pretty much.

First off, like all schools, there’s the popular crowd. You can spot this group rather easily for they usually contain the most blondes. Oh, and they always seem to having nothing better to talk about than last Friday night’s touchdown. Of course, I don’t mean to imply that they’re stupid. No, they’re far too good at revenge for that. But that’s just the general stuff. At Emerson, they most definitely had a popular crowd. That much was true. But the weird thing was, well, Daniel. Daniel was the most popular guy at school. Yeah, you think you know what I mean. That tall, dark, and handsome guy who is an uttermost asshole. Oh, and is the quarterback for the football team. Daniel is not like that. Oh, sure, he’s tall, dark, and handsome. I most definitely agree with that. But, first off, he’s not a jock. Not even on the football team let alone any other kind of sports star. And secondly, he’s not an asshole. Okay, now you’re like, sure, not an asshole, what dimension did you just orb out of? But seriously now, everybody loves this guy. Not just the popular people but even those math club nerds with the pocket calculators and those girls who most guys try to avoid like the plague. Daniel is just nice to them when all the other popular people act as if they’re allergic or something. It’s weird. Not that I’m complaining or anything. High schools could use some nice guys now and then.

I met Daniel on my first day. I had spent the morning in the school office organizing my schedule and getting all my books so that by the time I actually went out into the actual school part it was lunchtime. And so there I was, not knowing anyone at all, having to go eat lunch. Sure, I don’t mind sitting alone but that doesn’t mean it isn’t depressing or anything. I grabbed my lunch from my locker and headed over to one of the empty picnic tables. Emerson was one of those pretty high schools; instead of having one of those gray cafeterias it had a small canteen where you could buy food and all these picnic tables outside where everyone ate. Practically as soon as I sat down, I was bombarded by a group of people. They just sat down at the table with their lunches and just continued talking, almost to the extent that I wasn’t even sure if they realized I was there. I didn’t say anything. Just sort of sat there, blinking intelligently. But then one of the guys introduced himself.

“I’m Chris,” he said pointing to himself as if to explain further which received a chorus of laughter from his friends. “This is Aimee, Karen, and Rebecca.” He pointed to the three girls respectively, two of which just happen to be blonde. Chris paused and then pointed at the guy sitting next to me who remained to be introduced. He didn’t seem to be really paying any attention to us, just sort of day dreaming. “And this dude is Xavier Martian Anderson the third.” Suddenly the guy next to me looked up at Chris.

“I am not,” he retaliates. Chris pretends to look surprised.

“You mean this whole time you’ve been lying to me? How could you, Xavier?” He turns to me. “His middle name is Martian though,” Chris whispers to me.

“My middle name is Martin,” he corrects. He turns to me. “I’m Daniel.” Daniel smiles at me shyly, running his hand through his dark brown hair absentmindedly. Oddly, something about him makes me relax. I smile back, feeling a little less awkward about not knowing anybody.

---

After lunch I compare schedules with all of them and it turns out I have a few classes with Chris and Daniel including my next class, Western Civilization. As we walked to class Chris decided to give me the 411 on all my classes and their respective teachers.

“…And Mr. Mason teaches Western Civilization. He’s a pretty good teacher, not mean or anything. But you got to watch out for his essays. They’re a killer.”

“They are not. You just can’t write anything that involves being serious.” Daniel comments. Chris just shrugs.

“Not my fault I’m a funny guy.”

“Funny, You? Are you sure you’re not mistaken?” Daniel rolls my eyes in my direction. By now we are right outside the classroom. But before we can even begin to head into class a voice suddenly appears from behind us.

“Are you just going to move or do I have to make you?” I turn around to see the girl who the voice belongs to. She’s a littler taller than me and has this bright red hair that goes down to at least her elbow. Before even waiting for us to move, she storms past us, not only shoving me out of the way but also pushing Daniel into a row of nearby lockers.

“Who was that?” I ask as Chris pulls Daniel to his feet.

“Raine,” Daniel answers, dusting himself off. “She’s kind of a-”

“She’s a bitch, that’s what she is.” Chris interrupts. Daniel just glares at him.

“That’s not what I was going to say. And she is not.”

“Right. Whatever you say loverboy.” Daniel stares wide-eyed at Chris, his face turning crimson. Nobody says anything for a moment. Then Daniel manages to recollect himself. “We should go into class,” he mutters.

“Yeah,” I say, trying to cover the awkward moment. “What are you doing in class right now?” I ask as we walk into class.

“We just finished Israel. I think we’re starting something new.” Daniel answers, leading us to three seats in the back of the class. I nod. We had been doing Israel at my last school too. The teacher hadn’t arrived yet so I took the time to look around the classroom. It looked like a normal history classroom, full of maps and diagrams of battles and other sorts of things.

“Good morning class,” suddenly Mr. Mason, or at least who I assume was Mr. Mason, walked into room. “How are all of you doing on this fateful day, the day that-” he paused mid-sentence. He looked straight at me. “You,” he said, pointing his finger at me. “I don’t know you.”

“She’s new,” Chris pointed out. Mr. Mason turned to Chris, almost glaring at him.

“I knew that,” he smiled, turning back to me. “And what might your name be?”

“Melody.”

“Ah,” he murmurs. “It’s like music to my ears,” he jokes. I smile, even though I’ve heard that joke or similar versions of it like a million times already.

“Well, today is you’re lucky day Melody because today….” He pauses for dramatic effect. “Today you are all starting projects on Greece!” He says joyfully. The class groans in unison. Mr. Mason feigns a hurt look.

“What? You don’t appreciate Greece? Well,” he laughs. “You will now.” He then begins to divide everyone into groups and assigning them topics.

“Daniel, why don’t you work on Greek architecture with Sadie over here. Chris and Kady here, you can have fun with the Spartans.” He turns toward me. “Now, I have saved the best topic for you.” He said, pretending as if it were some great honor. “You and uh,” he looks around for any other students without a topic. “Raine…You guys get to do Greek Philosophy.” I glance over at Raine. She doesn’t make any attempt to come sit over next to me so I grab my backpack and go sit down in a seat next to her.

“So,” I started, trying to think of any Greek philosophy I might have absorbed over the years. “I guess we’ll have to look up some stuff on Socrates and Plato,” I say as I finally remember a few of the important philosophers. “Do you think the library would have any books we could use?” She finally looks up from her notebook and stares me straight in the eye.

“I hate you.” Then she returns back to her notebook, completely ignoring me. Hmm, maybe Chris was right, maybe she is a bitch. Or do you think it was something I said?

---

“Yeah, because in her language Socrates is some kind of swear word. Yeah, right. It’s like I said before, she’s a-”

“Do you get turned on by calling her a bitch?” I raise my eyebrows. This is some extreme tension if I’ve ever seen it. Daniel seemed so mellow but now he was getting kind of angry. But then, maybe there was something I was missing. We were currently walking to our next class, Algebra II, and I had just finished telling them what Raine had said to me.

“Hey, I’m not calling her a bitch,” I try to calm Daniel down. “It’s just she’s….”

“Crazy? Insane? Mental? One card short of a deck? One sandwich sort of a picnic?” Chris volunteers.

“Intense.” I say finally, giving Chris a look telling him to quit it. You’d wonder why they’re friends with the way he was going on.

“Yeah, whatever.” Chris says before walking into class. Daniel gives me an appreciative nod before following Chris into class.