Jill grinned back. “Sounds interesting,” she said.
As it turned out, there wasn’t a seating chart. Jill was glad she’d be able to sit by Kat, but one of Kat’s other friends was in the class too, and they seemed really close, so Jill was afraid she’d be the odd one out.
Oh well, she thought as she made her way to her locker before geometry, at least the day is going better than I expected! And I have two hot guys in that class! She grinned to herself. Todd Blake and Tyler Bennett. Todd was the surfer one, the one she liked best, and Tyler was the one with short hair. She couldn’t wait to tell Hillary and Lorylyn. She was glad she had geometry with Lorylyn next.
***
Lunch was in the middle of geometry. Jill was thankful to have the class split up, because she wasn’t used to these ninety-minute classes yet. Brinkley-Caldwell was on block scheduling and had alternating green and gold days, with four different classes each day. It was a lot different from BJ, which had seven forty-five minute class periods a day.
Jill and Lorylyn hurried to the cafeteria from their geometry classroom, which was halfway across the school. They were nervous about getting a good table and finding good people to sit with.
“There’s Hill!” Lorylyn said as they rushed down the hallway. She pointed to where Hillary stood in front of a bench in the commons outside the cafeteria.
“Hey, guys!” Hillary said eagerly. “Lindy and Andy were just going in, and they said we can sit with them!” She bounced up and down a little and clapped her hands.
Jill’s and Lorylyn’s mouths both dropped open in surprise at being asked to sit with sophomores, and they stared at Hillary as excited smiles broke across their faces.
“Come on!” Hillary said, pushing one of the doors open and leading them inside.
Lindy waved them over from a prominent table right in the middle of the large room. Andy, Brady, Hilton, and – Jill couldn’t believe it! – the short-haired guy from her English class were already sitting at the table.
Jill elbowed Lorylyn. “That’s one of them!” she whispered, her eyes wide. She’d had time to excitedly whisper to Lorylyn before geometry started that she had two hot guys in her English class. “Tyler!”
“Oh my gosh, he’s so cute!” Lorylyn said, and she and Jill quickly followed Hillary over to the table.
“Hey, girls!” Hilton said, smiling brightly at them. “What’s up?”
“Uh oh, I think I know you guys,” Brady said in his sexy voice, flashing a playful smile at them as he tried unsuccessfully to blow his curly hair out of his eyes. “Hey, do you guys know Bennett?” He smacked Tyler across the chest. “He’s on the freshman football team. First game Thursday, right?” Brady grinned again and nodded and winked in the general direction of Jill, Hillary, and Lorylyn.
“Hey,” Bennett said with a small, almost bashful smile and quick nod at the girls.
“I think you’re in my English class, right?” Jill said to him.
“Oh, really? Second period? Mr. Grayson?”
“Yeah,” Jill said, feeling stupid because he didn’t recognize her from class. Must’ve not stood out much, she thought disconsolately, and some of her fears about not being cute enough and not fitting in rushed back. Oh well, she told herself. He was talking to all his guy friends…it’s no big deal. She felt a little better.
“Hey, so how are you guys’s classes going?” Hilton asked, and Jill pushed the awkward moment with Tyler out of her mind. Her first day of high school was really going wonderfully.
***
After geometry, Jill had health with Hillary, and as soon as class was out they rushed back to their lockers together before heading to the gym for cheerleading practice.
“So what’s your cute boy’s name?” Jill asked, eager for details. She and Hillary hadn’t really had a chance to talk yet.
“Dirk,” Hillary whispered, sighing dramatically and batting her eyelashes. “Oh my gosh, Jill, he is so hot!” She stood looking around the hallway distractedly as Jill put her health book in her locker and pulled out her duffel bag with her stuff for practice. “I so hope I have another class with him tomorrow! Hey, I should ask Hilton if she knows him! I wonder if he has a girlfriend...”
“Oh, man, that would totally suck!” Jill said as she slammed her locker shut. She hadn’t thought of that. She hoped Todd or Tyler didn’t have a girlfriend. Probably Todd. He was hotter, and she felt weird about Tyler now after lunch. But they were both hot. She wouldn’t really have a problem with either one.
***
“Oh, yeah, Dirk Dodson?” Hilton said in the locker room as they got ready for practice. “He’s so hot! He used to go out with Blake Bishop though.” She wrinkled her nose.
“You don’t like her?” Hillary asked eagerly. She lowered her voice, glancing around to make sure Blake wasn’t anywhere close. “We heard she’s kind of a bitch.” She glanced at Jill, who nodded, then back at Hilton, hoping to hear something interesting.
Hilton rolled her eyes. “She just thinks she’s all great ‘cause her mom’s a doctor and her dad’s the prosecutor and they have a lot of money. But she’s a slut.” Hilton pulled her long hair back into a careless ponytail. “At a high school basketball game last year, we were all in the upper bleachers, you know, and she gave Garrett Daniels a hand job with people sitting right next to them. They just had a coat over their laps.”
Jill, Hillary, and Lorylyn all dropped their mouths open in shock. Jill couldn’t even imagine giving a guy a hand job at all; she had only even kissed two boys before playing spin the bottle at Landon’s, and they were both awkward, slimy kisses that grossed her out. She knew Hillary and Lorylyn had never done more than kiss a guy either. Actually, Lorylyn had never even kissed anyone. Jill wondered what Hilton had done with a guy before.
“But yeah, he’s really cute. He plays basketball and baseball, I think,” Hilton was saying to Hillary as she put her shoes on. Then she sat on the bench to wait for the rest of them. “So what lunch do you guys have tomorrow?”
“I have A,” Cassidy said.
“Me too!” Jill said. She was excited, because Hillary and Lorylyn and Sam all had C. Now at least she’d know someone. She’d been dreading going in and trying to find a table by herself.
“I have A too,” Hilton said. “Let’s all sit together. Let’s try to get the table we had today, Jill. Meet me in there tomorrow.”
“Okay!” Jill said excitedly.
***
“So...how was your first day of high school? Tell us all about it!” Jill’s mom said when she picked Jill up from cheerleading. Jill’s younger sister Winnie was in the car too.
“Yeah!” Winnie exclaimed, clapping her hands together from the backseat. “Were there lots of hot guys?”
Jill grinned. Winnie was in second grade, and she’d always looked up to Jill, almost worshipping her. Jill loved her to death, even though she got annoying sometimes.
“Yeah, there were tons!” she said, looking back at Winnie with a wink. “Actually, there’s a really hot guy in my English class. Todd Blake? He’s soooo cute.” She sighed dramatically, placing her hand over her heart.
“What does he look like?” Winnie asked eagerly.
“Well, he has kinda long hair, like past his ears, and it’s like light brown, kinda sandy or something. I wasn’t close enough to tell what color his eyes were. But he was so hot! Oh, and it was so cool, ‘cause Hillary and Lorylyn and I have the same lunch as Hilton and Lindy and Andy! And they invited us to sit with them! And Brady sits there too! He’s one of the guys from Landon’s parties I told you about, remember, Mom? And then there’s this other guy who sits there too; his name’s Tyler, and he’s in my English class too. They call him Bennett ‘cause that’s his last name.” Jill was going a mile a minute. When she finally stopped, her mom laughed, and when Jill turned around to look at Winnie, her younger sister looked completely enraptured. “Oh!” Jill said, remembering more to tell. “
I thought bio was gonna be really bad, but my teacher’s like, so cool! He’s like really young and has a ponytail and he’s really funny! I think my lab group might kinda suck though...” and she was off again, talking the rest of the way home and repeating it all at dinner for her dad’s benefit. Talking about it all again made her even more excited than she’d been before. High school rocked.
***
“How’s your day so far?” Hilton asked Jill the next day at lunch as they sat waiting for Cassidy to arrive. They had gotten here in time to claim the table they wanted.
“Oh my gosh, my gold day is gonna be a blow-off,” Jill said. “I’ve had world history and careers so far, and next I have gym. And then SRT.” SRT stood for student resource time, and the whole school had it last period on gold days. It was basically a study hall, during which clubs sometimes met and students could go to other teachers for help.
“I have gym next too!” Hilton said with a smile. “Where’s your SRT?”
“In 708. Right across from the commons, I think.”
“Oh my gosh, me too! That’s awesome! This is gonna be so fun!”
Just then Brooke and Ashley Cassleman came up to their table.
“Hey, girls,” Brooke said, raising her eyebrows sassily and flashing them a grin. “Can we sit with y’all?”
“Sure!” Hilton pulled out the chair next to her and Brooke dumped her bag on it, then plopped dramatically into the next chair over, flipping her shining brown hair over her shoulder.
“So there’s like no one in this lunch,” Brooke complained with a pout. “No guys, that is.” Then she looked around the table and smiled. “We’ll have some good girl time though! We can tell each other all our boy stories.” She grinned mischievously just as Cassidy joined them. “So,” Brooke said, still wearing the impish grin, “have we met any cute boys yet, girls?” She looked around expectantly.
“We’re sitting with Brady for lunch on green days,” Hilton told her. “And Tyler Bennett.”
“Awww,” Brooke said, pursing her lips into a pout again. “Brady. He’s so cute. I wish I had lunch with you guys. Do you have A on green days too?”
“No, B.”
“Oh, I have D. It’s me and Ash and Amy and Blake Bishop and a bunch of other girls.” She looked at Ashley. “We should’ve sat with boys, Ash!” She and Ashley laughed.
“Damn it!” Ashley said. “We should ditch them all tomorrow and sit with guys instead.”
“Oooohh, let’s do it!” Brooke giggled, and then their table was dismissed to go get their food.
***
After gym, Jill changed back into the clothes she’d had on before, jean shorts and a fitted T-shirt that said Logan Twisters, the name of the club gymnastics team she’d competed on during junior high. Hilton changed from her gym shoes into flip-flops but left on her gym clothes, a wife-beater and boxers. Jill envied her for being confident enough to go to another class wearing that, and Jill wished she could look as good as Hilton did with a messy ponytail and workout clothes.
“Why are you changing?” Hilton asked Jill. “We just have practice right after school.”
“Yeah...I guess I shouldn’t have; I just didn’t even think about it. But I’d feel gross in my gym clothes...”
“Well look at me, it’s not like I look good!”
“Oh my gosh, Hilton, you always look cute!”
Hilton shrugged and laughed. “Well, all the guys I like are sophomores anyway, so they won’t be in our SRT!”
Jill and Hilton left the locker room and headed down the hallway. Just as they were about to turn into the main hallway leading away from the gym into the rest of the school, the surfer boy from English class passed them. He was walking with another guy Jill didn’t know.
“Oh my gosh!” Jill whispered excitedly, grabbing Hilton’s wrist without thinking. Then she felt dumb; she didn’t even know Hilton that well, and she was surprised at herself because she had been about to tell Hilton she thought that guy was hot, and she’d grabbed her arm like she would’ve Hillary’s or Lorylyn’s or Sam’s. Normally Jill was much more reserved with new people. She dropped Hilton’s arm.
But Hilton was interested. “What?!” she asked, peering around the corner as they came to it and looking toward the two boys. “Do you like one of them?”
“Um,” Jill said, feeling a little shy about it. “The one with the kind of light brown hair? Todd? He’s in my English class.” She looked at Hilton with a bashful giggle, hoping Hilton would know something about him.
Hilton looked at Jill with a knowing smile. “Todd Blake. Yeah. He went to Caldwell. He’s a hottie! I love his hair. He’s cool. He’s actually friends with Dirk, the guy Hillary likes!”
“Really?! That’s awesome!” Jill and Hilton were walking toward the commons, to their SRT room, and Todd and the other guy were still in front of them.
Jill could hardly believe her luck when they turned into room 708.
Hilton grabbed Jill’s arm this time and gave a little bounce. “No way!” she squealed. “That’s awesome, Jill! We have SRT with them. It’s so perfect. You can talk to him all the time!”
Jill and Hilton grinned at each other, and Jill was extremely glad Hilton was in SRT with her. Hilton could maybe introduce her to Todd, and plus, she was so much fun. Jill felt like they were becoming really good friends already.
Jill fell behind Hilton and let her enter the classroom first, hoping she would sit by Todd. The room was almost full already though, and Todd and the other boy had taken seats in the middle. The only two seats left together were in the front corner, so Jill and Hilton sat there.
“Damn,” Hilton whispered, rolling her eyes in Jill’s direction. “That sucks.”
Jill shrugged and tried to hide her disappointment. She was dying to turn and look at Todd and see if the other guy was hot too, but she was afraid of being too obvious.
“Maybe we’ll have free time and we can go talk to them,” Hilton said reassuringly.
As it turned out, the whole freshman class had to attend a convocation in the auditorium, at which the principal gave a long speech about the importance of academics and living up to the high expectations BCHS had for all its students. Jill had hoped she and Hilton might somehow start talking to Todd on the walk to the auditorium and sit by him, but almost as soon as they left their classroom, three other guys came and joined Todd and his friend. The five boys strode quickly ahead of Hilton and Jill and ended up entering the auditorium way in front of them and sitting a few rows up. Jill and Hilton found Cassidy and Sam and sat with them.
***
That night Hillary came home with Jill after cheerleading and had dinner with Jill’s family, then the girls locked themselves in Jill’s room to fill each other in on their first two days of high school.
“So, did you see Dirk any more?” Jill asked eagerly. She couldn’t wait to hear more about him.
“Yeah! I’ve been dying to tell you all day! I looked for you at the convo but I couldn’t find you. But anyway, yeah, he’s in two of my classes today! And he’s in our lunch, and he’s sitting like two tables over from me and Lorylyn and Sam! And today we went and got our lunches at the same time and he was right behind me in line, and he bumped his tray into mine and then he was like, ‘Oops, my bad.’ And then he laughed, and oh my gosh, Jill, he has the cutest smile!” Hillary pressed her hand to her heart and fell over backwards on Jill’s Little Mermaid comforter. It was the same comforter she’d had since she was five, and she still loved it because it always made her feel safe and happy, like a little girl again.
“Ahh!” Jill squealed, bouncing on her knees on the bed. “That’s so awesome! So did you talk to him in any of your other classes?”
“Well, he sat right behind me in SRT! And I had, like, no one in there I knew, and he came in after I was already sitting down and took the desk right behind me. But I didn’t wanna like, turn around, you know? ‘Cause I didn’t know what I
should say to him or anything, and he was with a friend. And then we went right to that stupid convo. And I lost him in the hallway. So I don’t know. What do you think?”
“I bet he likes you! He sat right behind you after he flirted with you at lunch!”
Hillary rolled her eyes. “Yeah right, I doubt it!” But Jill saw the flash of hope and excitement behind the sarcasm. Hillary kicked her legs in the air, then rolled into a tight ball on her side. “Ahh, I hope so! That’d be so awesome!” She giggled. “So, what about you? Have you met any hot guys yet?”
All of a sudden Jill felt strange, and almost guilty, because she realized she hadn’t even mentioned Todd or Tyler to Hillary yet. She’d told Lorylyn as soon as she could, and she had even told Hilton, but she hadn’t mentioned it to Hillary in two whole days. And they’d even had health class together and walked with each other in the hall and stuff. Normally she would’ve rushed right to Hillary and told her, or at least waited to tell her before telling anyone else. After hesitating a moment, Jill shook off the guilt.
“Yeah, there’s actually two really hot guys in my English class. Well, one of them is Bennett, the one from lunch yesterday, remember?”
“Yeah! You didn’t tell me you had class with him! Lucky!”
Jill grinned. “I know! And he has this really hot friend too.”
Hillary drew one of Jill’s pillows into her arms and hugged it, closing her eyes and sighing contentedly. “I love high school!” she said with a smile on her face, and Jill couldn’t help smiling back, even though Hillary’s eyes were closed.
Me too! she thought.
chapter 2) ups & downs
By Friday Jill’s excitement level had tapered off. The year had gotten off to such a great start and had held so much potential and promise, but it was already starting to seem as if she had reached the high point and things were plateauing. She still sat with Bennett at lunch on green days, but he didn’t really talk to her – he basically just talked to Brady – and he hadn’t talked to her at all in English class either. She sat by Kat and her friend in English but always felt a little left out of their conversations. Her biology lab group was made up of people who didn’t talk at all and didn’t seem too bright, and Jill was dreading the first actual experiment they would have to work on together. She hated world history because she had no friends in there, and careers was pointless and boring, but at least it seemed like it’d be a blow-off. Geometry was good because she got to sit by Lorylyn, but health, in which she’d expected to be able to talk to Hillary all the time, sucked because they had a seating chart and she and Hillary were nowhere near each other. Gym and lunch on gold days were fun, and she’d really been looking forward to SRT on Thursday, because maybe she and Hilton would finally be able to sit by Todd. Instead, Jill was let down when Todd didn’t even show up. She and Hilton sat in a row along the wall, and every time the door opened, Jill stole a quick glance to see if it would be him, feeling more hopeless every time it wasn’t. What if he had switched sections?