The World Beyond Me

Chapter Three: Morning

I woke up the next morning feeling tired. I didn’t know why until I remembered the conversation with my mom last night. I’d spent most of the night crying and had eventually dozed off at some point. I suddenly felt the urge to duck under the sheets and start crying all over again, but suddenly saw something out of place. Something that hadn’t been there the night before, was a bright neon pink post-it note. It read:

 Good morning sunshine! I know you're probably still mad at me but I still wish you the best of luck on your first day of school :) Your uncle will be driving you to school since work starts at 6:00 am for me. He will come to pick you up at 8:00 am.

 I put all your schedules in your new backpack and saved you a trip to the principal's office.

-Love mom

 I stared at the note in disbelief, reading it and re-reading it over and over again. I had completely forgotten that today was my first day of school! I quickly glanced at my alarm clock and gasped in shock. IT WAS 8:20 ALREADY!!!!! I hopped out of bed as fast as I could and quickly got dressed, which took me at least 20 minutes. When I finally came down the stairs, I saw a strange-looking man wearing a leather coat and a large mustache in my house reading the newspaper. At first, I was a bit startled, but then assumed he had to be my uncle. “You're finally awake, sleeping beauty, boy, you sure are a deep sleeper! Your mom said your lunch was in the fridge along with your breakfast, hurry up and get in the car. kiddo.” With that, he left me alone in the kitchen. I gulped down my breakfast, grabbed my lunch bag and new backpack which my mom had packed last night, and dashed outside. It was one of those mornings when it was sunny but still had a 

cool breeze, I went on and took a seat in the back. During the whole ride to school, it was complete silence. I was grateful  I didn’t have to keep up a conversation while internally panicking. My uncle dropped me off at the front of the school, I was too embarrassed/shy to ask for him to come in with me, and I did feel really bad for making him wait an extra 40 minutes. Today I styled my honey blonde hair into a french braid, wore my favorite blouse and sneakers, and my favorite blue sapphire pendant. If it caught the sunlight just right, it shot teeny tiny blazes of sunlight everywhere, it was the most beautiful sapphire pendant I had ever seen and my favorite because it was the same pendant my father had gotten me from his trip to Thailand. I always liked to keep it close because it reminded me of him... As I walked into the school I was overwhelmed by how big it was. It was probably ten times bigger than my house and a hundred times bigger than my room! My stomach started to feel queasy just thinking of how many kids could probably fit inside this building. I decided to distract myself by not delaying any further and started taking out my schedule. They looked similar to the ones my mom and I had made at home but yet still different. After that was done, I suddenly realized I had no idea where my first class was, and I was still way too nervous to ask anyone. I glanced behind and saw that my uncle had already left. 

What am I going to do now? I wondered. 

“Hey!” said the voice from behind me.

Startled, I stumbled back, dropping my schedules, scattering them everywhere. 

“Oh my gosh! I’m so so sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you! Are you okay?” The voice said once more. 

I turned around to find a girl that reminded me of a literal strawberry. She had beautiful, emerald, green eyes. Her hair was a very bright, cheerful, strawberry, red color that was neatly tied into two even

ponytails, she wore jeans and the coziest lime green hoodie, and her face was dotted with freckles that reminded me of strawberry seeds.          

“Lemme help you with that,” said the strawberry girl. She quickly picked up the papers and presented them to me in a neat pile. I reluctantly picked them up as she said, 

“What are you doing here? Classes started a while ago- Are you new?! It's really nice to meet you, are you lost? Oooh, I know! I could help you find your class and give you a tour! Luckily you found me, huh? Let’s see which class you're in.” All I could do in response was nod, my tongue felt as though it’d been tied in a knot. The strawberry girl quickly glanced at one of my schedules and exclaimed “Yay, your first class is with me!” With that, she bounded off cheerfully starting the tour. I hesitated at first but then decided to follow. After all, it would be useful since I knew little to nothing about this school and would probably end up getting lost anyway. Strawberry girl happily skipped through the school pointing to various rooms. “There’s the gym, there’s the stage, there’s the music room, that door leads outside to the field, there’s the office, there’s the nurse’s office, There are the grade 6 classrooms-” Like that the list went on and on until she finally came to an abrupt stop and said, “here’s our classroom.” My legs felt wobbly and every inch of me wanted to get out of there, I thought about bolting but it was already too late.