In Need of Earl Grey

Chapter Four

6:30 came like a hammer; dark and heavy. My alarm went off and I wake in my clothes from yesterday. My eyes burn and are probably bloodshot as hell. My head pounds and my heartaches. What was I thinking. Maybe I should apologize. But then downstairs I hear Dad's work boots clomping. He's actually preparing for work today. The coffee machine is growling. I wait in my room so I won't have to say good morning. 6:40. 6:50. I smell eggs and hear Hannah and Seth talking and head out to the bus stop. 7:00. 7:10. 7:20. I hear dad pacing, then he's gone. I walk down the stairs in the empty house, eat the leftover eggs, and stalk outside after grabbing my bag and books. Seth and Hannah are far down the road and somewhat around the corner. I walk my way down there but here comes Micah walking the opposite way.
"Where you goin'?"
"To the bus stop," I say puzzled.
"Elementary is on the left side, us middle schoolers are that way," he points behind me.
   "Oh. Well let's go." I say.
   We walk in silence to the end of the street. Micah has a mess of bedhead and the moment I notice his hair I touch my own. The sides are fine but the top is a wreck of massive proportions. I pat myself down all over looking for it. I was sure I'd left it...
   "Ah!" I say pulling my black beanie from my backpack. I pull it over my hair and position it in my signature slouchy way.
   "Nice." Micah says.
   "Thanks."
   "So what's wrong?"
   "What do you me?" I say looking at my black Converse.
   "Your eyes are red and you're not your usual chipper self," Micah said tugging at his long sleeves, "What's wrong?"
   "I had a fight with my dad."
   "About Marjorie?"
   "About Marjorie." I confirm.
   "What did he say?"
   "I don't wanna talk about it,"
   "Okay."
   And yet another silence settles on me and my new friend. The silence is, luckily, short lived. A bright yellow bus roared down on the stop and hissed. The doors flew open and Micah ushered me onto the bus. Towards the front near the bus driver were rowdy sixth graders. Even in this early hour the sixth graders conversations were loud. On down serval rows was the seventh grade section and just past them was the small eighth grade section. Catherine, Ella, Todd, and some over kids sat towards the back of the bus. Micah and I sat in an empty seat towards the very back.
   "Hey, Micah!" Someone shouted, "Who's he?"
"Brennan, why don't you ask him yourself?" Micah groaned. I turned to the last seat behind me to see a tiny kid probably shorter than Seth peeping over the seat at me. He was bright-eyed a sandy brown frizz of hair on his head. Just looking at him I could tell he was a little different. A little special.
"Hi! I am Brennan. What is your name?"
"Um, Andrew. But friends call me Drew." I say.
"Which do I say?" He leans in.
"What do you mean?"
"You said your friends call you Drew but your name is really Andrew. Which do I say? Drew or Andrew?"
"Drew is fine," I say.
"Yay! Friend!" He puts his hand out and we shake.
I catch Catherine's eye and she smiles at me. I turn away slowly probably blushing like a loon.

The bus is bumping down the highway and up a steep incline when it slows and makes a sharp turn. We drive for awhile on a smaller, more secluded road before reaching the school. The school is huge! Three stories and a track and field! Windows are everywhere and glistening in the morning sun. Never has a school looked more inviting and pleasant.
"Welcome to hell," Todd whispers before standing and slowly filing off the bus. It can't be so bad, no school this beautiful can be so bad. Besides it's my first day. Might as well make it good. But this day would be anything but.

Over the school intercom I was called to the office almost before I had step in the building. Micah led me there and wished me luck.
"Andrew... Swoosh? Swotch? Swouth?" The woman behind the secretary desk says.
"Andrew Swoush. That's me," I smile.
   "Swoush. That's an interesting name. Well hun here's your schedule, your locker number and code," she smiled tiredly, "All your classes will be on the third floor except for gym and lunch."
"Thank you."
"Mhmm."
So I found my way to a stairs, I found out that you could only use it to come down from higher stories, walked to the other side of the school and went up the right staircase. The eighth grade floor was bright and bustling with activity. The lockers were alternating black and blue on the top row and black and white on the bottom. The walls are painted with murals of kids laughing and smiling. Most of the students walked around in the halls before the warning bell and others frantically finished homework in classrooms. I found my locker and opened it I put my textbooks and binder in there that the school sent me while we still lived in my old house. Math is my first hour so I grab the text book and find the room. Just as I enter the warning bell rings and students flood into their classrooms; a minute later the tardy bell rang. The intercom beeped twice and then The Pledge of Allegiance and The National Anthem played, the day's announcement were announced, and lunch specials were listed.
"Welcome back!" A man said closing the door. He was bald and had a lot of freckles with a wispy red goatee. His blue eyes shimmered with a mischievous excitement.
"Hi Mr. Jamison!" Chorused the class.
"Gone for a week and you already forgot my one rule," he got quiet and serious. He then cracked a smile, "Call me Mr. J!"
The classed laughed.
"How may I help you young man?" He ask turning to me.
   "Um, I'm Andrew Swoush. My schedule says this is my first hour."
   He looked confused for a second, "Oh! Andrew! Hey, what's up? I'm Mr. J welcome to first hour pre-algebra!"
"Oh, Thank you."
"I've already entered your grade in the computers because you did the same work at your old school that you are going to do here. So you're starting off good with a 97.78. Congrats, man." His bubbly personality lit up even more spreading cheer through the room even though he was talking quietly. "I've put you in the seating chart and you sit here." He led me to my seat. it was in a group of four with one guy and two blond girls. "You have any questions let me know!" and then he started class with reveiw of the Slope Formula. After a while he set us off on our homework assignment. I finished the homework in the first ten minutes of us starting but there were still nine minutes left in class.
I took out some of my markers and began to draw on my arm with a silver sharpie. I began to draw a skeleton hand over my knuckes and was almost done when the bell rang. Packing up quickly I hurry to my locker and next class.
My next class was English Language Arts with Mrs. Counste. She would come to be an admirable woman but as of today...
I made it in class before the bell and she came in and shut the door before the bell rang. The murmuring stopped instantly.
"What?" She snapped at me.
"I'm new, I don't know where to s-"
"Everyone else saw my seating chart on the white board. Why couldn't you? Find your seat and sit down."
I look at the small white board in the corner with a black and white seating chart on it. I'm in the far right column in the second to last row. Thank goodness! someone I know! Micah sits right in front of me. I plop in my seat and Mrs. Counste says slowly "Okay class take out your binders and write the daily objective. 'We will learn to properly use comma, how to proper cite a quote, and not make a run on sentence'" She said. She meticulously picks up a stack of papers and systematically hands them out. She even handed one out to me. It was the one I typed for Mrs. Miller at my old school. How'd she get this?
"Look at your score! What did you get?" She said after passing out all of the papers. She stood in the center of the room, in between two rows, with a disappointed smirk.
"What you get Kelsey?" She asked a nervous looking girl in the first row.
"A zero out of twelve, ma'am," She replied shakily.
"John?"
"Two out of twelve,"
"Meredith?" She asked a crying girl with red hair.
"O-one of twelve,"
"Did anyone receive a score higher than a two? No? Why? You all know proper citing, you know how to properly end a sentence with proper punctuation. Do these scores reflect your knowledge?"
No one said a thing.
"Come on people; answer. Do not waste your time and do not waste mine. Now, do these scores reflect your knowledge?"
"No." they said. I look at my paper. Mrs. Miller had given me a 100% but Mrs. Counste had written over it. She wrote "1 of 12". I look over my paper to see what I had missed. The only things Mrs. Counste had marked are four commas and two semicolons.
"Any questions?" Mrs. Counste asked, "Yes, Andrew."
"I don't understand what I missed."
The class turned to me in shock.
Mrs. Counste walked to me slowly, taking her time. Once she reached me she scooped up my paper and looked it over.
"I circled it for you."
"What do the circles mean? Those are just commas and semicolons."
"Misplaced commas and semicolons. 'Benjamin Franklin an important history figure comma'?" She scrunched up her nose and pushed up her glass. "What's wrong with that sentence?"
I opened my mouth to tell her I didn't know but before I could she answered her own question, "You need a comma after Franklin along with the one after figure. The others I'll let you figure out." She patted my shoulder and began her lesson on when to use commas, semicolons, or just end the sentence.
"Now considering how terrible you all did I will, and only this time, allow a redo. If you start asking me for redoes all the time you can just take your Fs with dignity. Now on a sheet of notebook paper write your corrections. We'll be in the computer labs tomorrow for your final drafts."
We worked to the bell.