Break the Distance

Chapter 51

Monday 17th of October, 2016

Wellington, New Zealand

Richelle Smith

'I'm ready for this,' I say to myself, 'you can do this.'

Yea, it's not really making me less nervous. Don't ask me why, but for some reason I'm extremely nervous for today. My ribs still hurt too much, but that isn't the problem. Or at least I don't think that's the problem.

I don't have much more time to be nervous because I suddenly hear the doorbell. I open the door for Katie and grab my stuff. "Good morning," she says cheerful. "Hi," I say trying not to sound nervous in which I for once succeed.

"Ready for today?" she asks. "Yea," I say and smile. I'm not really ready, but by saying I am, I'm a little more ready. I'm so glad I've Katie. She doesn't know that I'm so nervous and if she knew she couldn't do anything about it, but just her being by my side helps enough.

We start walking to school. I can't walk fast and it hurts a lot, but we'll get there in time. Katie talks about everything I missed last week and it's a good distraction from the pain. Basically I didn't miss much tests and big assignments. I just missed a lot of important information I've to know for the exams we have in a few weeks.

I hope I didn't miss too much, I just have to get straight A's. If I don't get straight A's I won't get a scholarship to an university and if I don't get a scholarship... Let's not go there. We don't have enough money, we can't pay for university.

I don't even want to know where my life will go if I don't make it into a university.

Katie shouldn't have shown up any later at my house. We arrive just a few minutes before our first class begins.

English

English is luckily one of the few subjects I've with Katie. "Great you're back," my English teacher says when we walk in. Our English teacher is a good teacher. We don't have many good teachers at our school. I mean, a lot of teachers are nice, but are just bad teachers, or they're good teachers, but just not nice at all. Our English teacher, Mr. Taylor is one of the few teachers who's nice and a good teacher.

"Did I miss a lot?" I ask him. "Yes you did," he says looking kind of worried. Well that wasn't the answer I was hoping on. "But I don't think it's a big problem, you're smart," he says. "Thank you," I say, "I hope you're right."

"Of course I'm right," he says and laughs a little, "that's why I became teacher, because I tell the truth." I laugh and walk with Katie to our usual tables.

The day is long when you're in pain. I've a hard time concentrating and I doubt if it was a good plan to go back to school.

When it's finally lunchbreak Katie and I sit down at a table in a corner of the canteen. I feel so weird. I literally feel the eyes of others burn into my skin and it makes me feel pretty uncomfortable.

Why? I'm a senior, why do they make me feel like this? "Katie," I say suddenly. "Yea," she says looking up from her phone. "Is it me, or are people staring at me," I ask. I hope Katie just tells me it's me and that there's nothing to worry about. I don't like to be in the center of attention.

Katie looks around for a while. "No it's not you," she says surprised, but confused, "that's weird." I sigh and continue eating from my sandwich. "I was only a week home right," I say.

"Yea," Katie says, "I don't know what's going on. The weird thing is, is that it are all freshmen." Great. This makes me feel better.

"Is there a chance your sister knows what's going on?" I ask Katie nervous. Now I know that it isn't just me, I keep looking around me and I only start to see more people watching. Maybe I'm paranoid, but it feels like the whole school is looking at me.

Okay I know for sure I'm paranoid, but knowing that doesn't make things better.

"Maybe," Katie says and she turns her attention back at her phone. I see her type something, but I can't read what. She impatiently taps with her fingernails on the table.

After a while she let me see her phone. 'Is it just us or are tons of freshmen looking at Richelle,' I read. Subtle, subtle, 10 point's for Katie's subtlety.

'We're freshmen, by now everyone knows Richelle 's the Richelle Noah was looking for at their show in Auckland,' Bella said.

I sigh. So that's what's going on. "Great," I say sarcastically, "I can use this."

Suddenly a little girl, I'm surprised that she's even a freshman, she looks so young(!), shows up at our table. "Excuse me," she says. He voice is shy and she sounds nervous, "can I have your autograph?"

I look confused at Katie. Things are getting weirder and weirder. Nice that Katie's sister Bella said what she said, but I still don't know what's going.

The girl holds a pen in front of my face and lays a little notebook open on the table. I'm living in a trance for a while. I don't know what to do, what to say, what to think. Why does she even want my autograph?! Reality doesn't hit me until I grabbed the pen and am about to touch the paper of the little notebook with it.

What am I doing? This is ridiculous.

"NO!" I say loud and throw the pen down on the table, "what the hell is this? I'm not doing this!" The girl looks scared. I'm never mad at someone, but I think I just sounded pretty angry.

It became silent in the canteen and everybody is looking at us. Nice. I just made things worse, I didn't even know that was possible.

"Seriously," I continue, "go!" The girl grabs her notebook, the pen and runs off. Thanks to the silence, I can even hear her cry.

I hide my head in my hands. What the hell have I done?! This is not good. "Can Richelle Nolet report herself at my office please," the intercom suddenly breaks the silence.

"Of course," I say sarcastically, "why not, I don't have enough bad luck yet."

"Hello," the principal says when I walk into her office. "Hi," I say quietly. This is the second times I've to come here this month. Before this month the only times I came in here, were because I did something good. I didn't really do anything wrong this time right. Okay, I shouldn't have talked that loud to her, but I wasn't yelling and she was just annoying me.

"Sit down please," the principal says and smiles a bit. I can't help but think it's a nervous smile. It looks like she doesn't exactly know what to do or say. I put my bag on the ground and sit down in the chair. "How're you doing?" she asks. That was not the question I expected, but I don't mind.

"I'm still in a lot of pain," I say quietly, "I doubt if it was a good idea to come to school since I've a really hard time concentrating." The principal nods understanding. "I think it's important to still come," she says, "I'm sure you pick up something which will always be more than when you're not coming at all."

"That's true," I say.

The principal is silent for a while and just looks at me. I'm almost getting the feeling that she's the student here who doesn't know what to do. "Is there something else?" I decide to ask. "Yea actually there is," she say clasping her hands on the table, "can you explain to me what just happened in the canteen."

Ah, there's the question I was expecting. Should I tell her the truth? I think I can tell her some of the truth. What I know for sure, is that I'm not going to lie! I don't like lying.

"I got a little frustrated," I say, "I sometimes kind of panic when I'm in the center of attention." "Were you?" she asks surprised, "it looked like you got in the center of attention after you yelled at that girl." I'm pretty sure I didn't yell, but okay, let's not focus on that part.

"Actually too many people were looking at me," I say, "and then that girl came and I flipped and just made things worse." "Why were people looking at you?" she asks confused, but I'm still just as confused. "I've truly no idea," I say, "but my friend saw it too, so it wasn't just me." "Weird," the principal says sitting back, "and why did you yell at that girl?"

"I don't know," I say, "I flipped." "Yea you said that before," the principal says, "what did she ask you?" "She asked for my autograph," I say and let out a nervous laugh. It's sounds pretty stupid.

The principal just looks even more confused. "Why did she want your autograph?!" she asks. "I think because of someone I know," I say, "he's kind of on a popular children's TV show." The principal nods slowly. I can see she's still confused.

"It's complicated," I say, "I don't even know what's going on myself."

"Okay," the principal says, "you can go then, but next time you won't get away so easily." "Of course," I say standing up, "I'm really sorry and I won't do it ever again."

"Good," she says. We say goodbye and I walk out of her office. I really have to figure out what's going on here.