Sunnyvale High is a public school filled with rich kids who come in their expensive cars and their luxurious outfits. Angela has been in a private school her whole life, and she never thought that she'd ever be in a public school, but at least she's using her new life to try something new.
The school is swarmed with yellow buses, cool cars, teachers and students. Of course, the school is large and looks more like a mall than a school on the outside, with the water fountain that's in front.
But her main focus and attention are on the students. Different types of students, they all look and dress differently, they're not in the same outfits. You can tell what people love and what they're into by just looking at them.
There are the popular kids, the cheerleaders and the jocks. The cheerleading uniform is red and white, while the jocks' varsity jacket is the same colour.
The school's football team are called the Lions, and the cheerleaders are called the Hellcats. Angela knows this because she saw the school on the cover of a magazine while she was in the hospital. She knows some things about the school, but not a lot.
Other than the cheerleaders, there are the goths, the skaters, the comic, robot, and theatre nerds, and the artists, the artists. Is this where she finally joins the art club? Maybe she'll think about it. She never got to join her old school; she was only in the cheerleading squad. She doesn't know if she will join the cheerleading squad at this school. She has to if she wants to look good in her college applications.
Harvard is all she's always wanted to go to; one of the main reasons is that her dad went there, and it was where her parents met. It would be good to be close to them both.
Angela feels like people are staring at her. If it were the past, she would think that people were staring at her simply because she was pretty and fashionable, but now that's not the first thing that comes into her mind. She thinks people are staring at her because of two things:
She was expelled from school because of what she did to that poor girl, and two, they know what happened to her and her parents.
Great, she's either going to be known as the mean girl who caused the death of her classmate or the spoiled brat who caused the death of her parents.
She knows that her dad made sure to hide the evidence that she did anything to anyone, but it's very possible that maybe someone dug something up, and it's now out there.
Or maybe she's just being paranoid.
She gets into the school, looks at the ground, and can see her reflection. The lockers are pure white, and this school doesn't look like any public school. Well, that's because she's not just in any public school, she's in a school for the rich, so of course, the place will be well put.
She isn't even done admiring the place until she catches a group of smiley cheerleaders walking toward her. She knows she attracts pretty popular girls who wear cheer uniforms, but she didn't know it would be this soon.
Besides, she might dress well,l but she doesn't look or feel confident at the moment; she doesn't want to mess up by saying the wrong thing to people.
She's not going to be known as the mean girl at this school.
"Hey, you must be Angela!" A pretty black girl asks her in a cheerful tone, and Angela looks her up and down because she feels the black girl shouldn't be here.
Not that she thinks the black girl shouldn't be here because she's black, but because she looks like she could be an alien, she's different from the rest.
Now, Angela knows exactly why she feels this way, almost everyone or everyone rather,r is white. This is a white dominated school, and the beautiful black girl isn't the only one that looks out of place in this school; Angela also is out of place because she's a brown skinned Latina.
She should add race to the reason why people could be looking at her; she didn't know that would be a factor. Or maybe deep down she did, and at her old school, one of the reasons why she was tough was because she didn't want anyone shooting up racist microaggressions at her.
Wow.
Angela puts on a smile on her face because the girls standing before her are smiling, waiting for her reply.
Be nice, Angela, just be nice, do not make a snarky comment about anyone or anything, your smile should be genuine.
She says in her mind to remind herself that she's a new person.
"Yes, I'm Angela, Angela Hernandez," she says, shaking the hands of the leader of the group, and that's the black girl.
"Nice to meet you, I'm Grace Hathaway. I'm the captain of the hell cats, even though I think it's a strange name for a cheerleading squad, I still love being a cheerleader. I'm the president of the Purity ring club, the lead singer of the glee club and my daddy's the pastor of Liberty Baptist church," she says, fingering the gold cross around her neck.
She is pretty, she has that ebony glow, the full lips painted in pink lip gloss, and her dark hair up in a ponytail. All the cheerleaders have their hair up in a ponytail. Her eyes are light brown, the kind of light brown that if she walks into the sun and when the sun touches them, they're going to glow like magic.
She seems to have her whole life figured out, like most Christians do.
"It's nice to meet you," Angela says.
"You're really pretty," the girl next to Grace says. "I'm Kelsey Smith, Grace's best friend," she says matter-of-factly. And of course, Kelsey has a gold cross around her neck. It seems like Grace only keeps friends with Christians, and the rest of these girls are just her teammates.
Angela doesn't know why she's acting like she didn't grow up in a Catholic home. She wants to be closer to God, but she's not really in a God-loving mood right now because God didn't save her parents after that car accident.
She doesn't understand why he saved her though.
"And Kelsey is going to be showing you around." Says Grace proudly. "Ladies, you're dismissed. I'll see you later," she says to the other girls who aren't Kelsey.
"Later, Angela," all the girls say in unison as they turn around to leave. Angela hears one of them say how stunning her outfit is. Angela smiles; at least she still has it when it comes to fashion.
"Come on, so much to see." Grace brings out her hand so that Angela will link it with hers. Angela smirks, genuinely this time, and she and Grace cross hands, Kelsey takes Angela's other hand, and the three are walking together as they show Angela around.
Angela catches a glimpse of a boy wearing nice, round glasses. He looks distressed, and she suspects the reason why he's distressed is because there's a huge dark shadow hovering over him.
She comes to a halt, stopping both Grace and Kelsey, then looks closely, but the boy is gone.
"What?" Kelsey asks,
"Did you guys see that?"
"See what?" Grace asks, looking for what Angela is looking for.
Angela shakes her head. "Sorry, I thought I saw something. Let's keep walking, ladies." and so they go. Maybe it's nothing after all, and she imagined it.
Firstly, they go to homeroom to get Angela's schedule, and they follow Angela to her locker.
"Very soon, this locker will have pictures of us," Grace says, smiling, and Angela nods, because she thinks so too.
They show her the computer lab, science lab, home ec lab, dance room, library, the classes, the pool area, the auditorium and more importantly, the art lab. She stares at the art lab for a long time because she can already see herself in that lab.
They keep it moving, they show her the cafeteria, the football field, and it's also where the cheerleaders train.
"Are there male cheerleaders as well?" Angela asks while looking at the green of the football field. She's shocked at their sudden laughter.
"Of course not, the cheerleading squad is for girls only." Says Grace. "The athletic boys play football."
"We can't have sissies being in our team." Says Kelsey.
"Ugh, very ungodly."
Angela is taken aback by their choice of words. She didn't think people here would be so conservative, well, they are Christians, so it's spot on.
They leave the football field and they move to the room where the purity rings club have their meetings.
"You should join us; we take God seriously here, and we make sure we keep our bodies pure until marriage," Grace says. "Our body is the temple of God, and we should treat it as such."
Angela looks at both of them dead in the eye, and she doesn't want to say they're brainwashed, but they are. They look like someone rewired their brains.
"Okay," she simply says, and it really took a lot of strength for her not to say any other than just "ok"
The bell rings, and Angela lets out an internal sigh of relief.
"I have English first," she says, backing away from the girls.
"Cheerleading tryouts start soon. Please make sure to be there." Grace says with an eerie smile.
"I wouldn't miss it." While backing away, she hits someone, and she immediately spins to apologise, which is not something she usually does. "I'm sor-" she stops when she sees who is before her.
A handsome brown skinned boy with dark eyes, smooth black hair, a straight nose, round lips, and high cheekbones. He's wearing a black leather jacket, a black shirt underneath and black pants with black sneakers; his nails are painted black, and he has several rings on his fingers.
He seems to be the grunge type.
And Angela is in awe of his beauty, and so is he.
"It's alright, beautiful," he winks, and he walks away from her but he doesn't take his eyes off her. "Ladies," he addresses Grace and Kelsey.
"Pedro," Grace says his name distastefully. Pedro looks at Angela once again as he walks away. He scoffs and shakes his head; he's gone.
"That's Pedro Barbosa. Stay away from him, he's trouble." Grace warns Angela, and Kelsey heads to class.
And one thing about Angela is that she loves trouble.