The day of resumption finally came, Nora woke up as early as she could to dress up. She wore her uniform and a lovely black polished leather shoes with a bow in front, she sat in front of her mirror and applied a pale pink lipgloss and packed her hair in a ponytail. She went downstairs and saw her mom in the dinning room, they ate before before they set out in the chauffeur waiting outside for them. Mrs Smith was following her daughter to school to drop her, she had finished whatever procedures that needed her attention before Nora resumed.
"Bye, Goodluck, you don't have to be nervous you can do this Nora," she said raising her thumbs for Nora.
The car drove away and Nora turned around to take in the school with her eyes. Different cars packed as students went into the school gate. Nora nodded to herself to encourage herself before entering with the other students.
The school building was very high, huge and wide, there was an open space that was filled with students. Nora walked to the main entrance and became confused, she didn't know where the principal office was, she looked around looking for a door with a tag of some kind. A boy seemed to notice her confusion and asked if she needed help.
"Oh, yeah, I was looking for the principal office," she said softly.
"Ok, let go, I'll take you there, if I direct you, you might get lost," he remarked smiling.
"My name is Andrey by the way," he said. "I'm Nora," she replied. They walked through a couple of stairs and corridors before reaching the principal office.
"Here we are," Andrey said pointing at the door with a tag that said 'Principal Office'
"Thank you very much Andrey," she said, he nodded before leaving her.
Nora knocked on the door and entered when a voice behind the door said "come in."
"Good morning sir," Nora greeted when she entered. "Good morning to you too," the principal responded.
"You must be Nora Smith, right?" He asked going through some papers after taking a quick glance at her. "Yes sir," she answered.
"Very well, I'm Mr Laurence," he said finally looking up. The man was not really old but some gray hair was growing among his dark blonde hair and his pale green eyes where behind rectangular shaped glasses.
"Here are your cafeteria card and student card, have a nice day. I'm sure you will enjoy Havenwood High," he said smiling subtly before diverting his attention back to the stack of papers before him.
"Thank you sir," Nora mumbled before leaving. She walked pass some classes on her way, it seemed they were yet to start any lessons since the bell had not been rung yet. She was enjoying looking around when she noticed two girls looking at her, she decided not to look at them. She turned her back to them and started walking away when the two of them came to her front, she was startled at first and looked at them quizzically.
"Hi, I'm Jasmine and this is my friend Zoe, nice to meet you, you must be a new student because I've never seen you before," one of the girls with wavy brown hair and sea blue eyes said jovially.
"Of course she's new Jasmine," Zoe, the second girl with long jet black hair and emerald green eyes said softly as she rolled her eyes.
"Hi I'm Nora," Nora said smiling back.
"What grade are you," Jasmine asked as they started walking.
"I'm in 11th grade," Nora said looking around.
"Hey that's great it means we are all in the same grade but I'm not so sure about the class though," Jasmine said hooking her hand with Nora's own. Nora looked at her and smiled, it felt strange but she liked her already.
She was still looking around when she saw a familiar figure walking into a class from the walkway upstairs. She blinked and looked again but the person had vanished. Nora looked around "I must be going crazy, how can I be thinking of him right now especially in the school," then she looked at Jasmine beside her who was saying something.
"There's something you should know about our school, this school has three categories, they are the richest one those that their parents are CEOs of big companies and you will know them by some strange purple ruby they put on their ties, they say it stand for royalty or something like that, and then there's the average ones though the first category calls them the bootlicker, they are those ones that work under the CEOs then the last one are the ones that entered by scholarship others called them the bullied, because well you know how people are, Jasmine explained.
"We also have three classes but different categories, we have class A, the class with the smartest students then class B, my class and also Jasmine's class is for students with average grades, some students are actually trying to get into class A like me and then class C is for students with poor grades especially those that are rich and don't care about their grades," Zoe added
"I must say, I wasn't expecting this school to be weird because only good things are told about the school on the media, so if I don't meet the required score I can't be in class A and according to my student card I'm in B and I get at least 70% just like you guys," Nora remarked.
"Wow you are good, 70% that's nice," Jasmine said with a smile.
" 85% is the lowest in class A so you can always try your best to reach 85% like me and don't think it's easy our exams are always so hard and we have to work really hard that's why they are a lot of students in class C and B. Jas always gets 60% or so most of the times and she never improves," Zoe said shaking her head.
"Please spare me, you are only trying your best because your boyfriend is in class A and you are just trying to reach his standard but he's in 12th grade, what will you do if he leaves this school, commit suicide or what," Jasmine playfully remarked, smiling and winking at Zoe.
"Shut up, Jas," Zoe said irritably and Nora couldn't hold her laughter, her new found friends were fun to be with. Looked like Jasmine was the talkative and playful type while Zoe was a calm and quiet type.
"Here we are, 11th grade B and that class at the end other side beside the stairs is A and, C is at the other end then the labs," Zoe informed, pointing at each of the classes and then the bell rang indicating the start of lectures and the three of them went into the classroom.
The classroom was filled with students talking about their vacation, when Nora entered with Zoe and Jasmine. They all turned to look at them, Nora in particular, some continued their conversation but others were looking at Nora and whispering to each other. The teacher entered and they all settled down.
"Good morning, students," the teacher greeted. "Good morning ma'am," some students muttered while some just snickered.
"You all are looking good and fresh..so, oh, it looks like we have a new student, please come out and introduce yourself," the teacher said spotting Nora. Nora stood up and went to the front of the class. "Hi,my name is Nora Smith, I'm looking forward to learning a lot from you guys," she said softly with a smile. They all smiled, some even waved at her.
That's lovely, I'm Miss Piper, your literature teacher. You can go and seat. Nora nodded and returned to her seat.
"Ok, open your textbooks everyone, let's do a little revising and then tomorrow there will be a test," Miss Piper said and there was murmur of disapproval from some of the students.
"I can see you are all excited about it," Mrs Piper remarked sarcastically, grinning at them.
A lot of period went by before the bell rang for lunch time and the present teacher left the class.
"I can finally leave this class, sometimes the teacher's lecture are always so boring, I just doze off," Jasmine said facing Zoe and Nora who were seating at her back. "We should all go for lunch cause I'm starving." Zoe stood up rubbing her stomach and they all stood up heading to the cafeteria.
"More like u r starving to see your boyfriend, you are just eager to see him since you haven't seen him for some hours, I wish I had a boyfriend," Jasmine said pouting and Nora smiled.
"Wow, this cafeteria is so big , it's like five classes joined together," Nora looked awestruck as they entered the cafeteria and walked to the counter where they will get their food.
"I know right Zoe and I were as fascinated as you when we first got here and to make it even better we have two cafeteria, this one is just closer to our class that why we came here," Jasmine informed her.
"It's pretty crowdy today, let me go get a table for us before it's all booked." Zoe said to them looking around. "What would you like to have, Zoe?" Jasmine asked. "The usual," she replied before leaving their side.
"You guys must be really close did you guys become friends when you got to this school or have you known each other before then? Nora enquired as they joined the queue to get their food.
"We are childhood friends, our moms were also close friends so we became close naturally too," Jasmine answered.
"That must be nice," Nora muttered.
"I know right, look it our turn, I would like some Mac and cheese with apple juice in two places with the other dish with grape juice." Jasmine said
"I would like to have french fries and an hamburger with orange juice," Nora said and they were given their meals on a tray before they started looking for Zoe.
"Over here," Zoe waved at them, she was sitting with a guy with dark curly hair with grey eyes and fair skin. "I thought we will never find a seat, hi, Zach, I can't believe you left us for your boyfriend Zoe," Jasmine said smirking. "You talk too much Jas," Zoe said not denying that she left them for her boyfriend.
"So Zach this is Nora, Nora this is Zach, Zoe's boyfriend," Jasmine's introduced them to each other as they sat down. "Hi Nora, nice to meet you, Zoe was just talking about you," Zach smiled at Nora.
"It's my pleasure to meet you too," she replied.
They ate their lunch with jasmine mostly doing all the talking for the three of them.
In between their lunch, Nora looked around as she stuffed some fries in her mouth and her eyes caught a familiar face and one of the fries fell from her mouth.....