The First Day
           Nerves. Nervousness rushed through me as the sound of lockers opening and closing startled me. First hour was beginning shortly. My hands were sheaned with sweat, I could see people walking, knowing where they are supposed to go, and then there was us. Not sure where to go, looking like we came from outer space, I mean, to them we might as well have been from space, England is a long way from here. More and more thoughts raced through me; would people accept us? Would they make fun of us? My sister was right next to me, looking at the exact same notebook and new school supplies I was. I took a slow, deep breath, and got ready for the first day at this new school.
           "Are you ready, Lucy?" I asked my sister as we walked towards each other. Our first hour class was beginning shortly, and almost everybody was out of the hallway already. The odd silence was making me even more anxious. I looked towards my sister, her hands slowly started to slip out of her tight grip on her notebook. As she readjusted her hands, she smiled at me and nodded. We gradually took a step into the almost full classroom.
           Stares. That’s all that was happening, stares. Why? Out of all the things that they could have been doing on a school morning; it had to be staring, right at us.
           "Good morning students, welcome to math!" The teacher broke the silence. She began talking like it was a normal school day, the plans for the hour, what we will be working on, how her morning has already been awful. To almost everybody in this room it was a normal Friday morning, but not for me or my sister. For my sister and I it was the first day in America, and our first day in this school. All of the other people in this class, this school most likely, don’t have to go through this same struggle, and the only thing to make it worse is that it’s hard to understand everybody with their weird accents, and we arrived in the middle of the school year.
    "As you have all realized by now, we have two new students, Lizzy and Lucy. Would you like to introduce yourselves?" My face went as red as a tomato, my heart started beating as fast as a bullet.
    "Well, I’m Lucy, and this is Lizzy. We just moved here from England for my dad’s work, and, umm, that’s about it." I could hear her take a deep breath, her hands rapidly moved over her skin tight jeans as she turned to look at me. Her bright blue eyes matched her perfectly fit t-shirt, she swiftly brushed her light blonde hair out of her face.
All of a sudden, bursts of laughter, pointing, staring, gossiping and whispers filled the air; I could immediately tell that this would be a long and hard school year. With a mean glare and gesture, the teacher yelled at them to stop and gave us a spot to sit. More murmurs filled the air as we took a seat right next to what looked like a kind, and sweet girl.
    "Why do you sound so funny?" She asked us. Not knowing what to respond at this sudden embarrassment, I just tried to ignore her by slowly moving my head around the room until I saw the teacher out of the corner of my eye.
    "Umm, would you just leave us alone? I mean it’s not our fault that you sound funny to us now is it?" Lucy finally responded to her as she sighed and looked directly at this rude girl. A group of people started to laugh behind us. As my face went from pale to red, my ears got hot as the teacher walked over. She looked down at us, and pointed at another open spot next to a different small group of girls. All that I was hoping was that this girl will be a lot nicer than the other girl. The bell finally rang for class to actually begin as more and more ideas and impressions raced through my brain.
    "Hi!" The girl said to me, "I’m Cassie, and that mean girl you were just by is Shelby, she’s not the nicest of us all, but anyways I think it’s cool that you have an accent and you are both from England!" Not sure of how to respond, I tried not to think of how straightforward and awkward that was and turned my seat back towards the teacher.
    "Thanks, I guess." Lucy finally responded to break the odd silence. Cassie just smiled with a little bit of uncertainty, and looked back at the teacher. Once again, I brought  my attention back to the teacher.
    Bringing my attention away from the teacher again, Cassie asked us if we wanted to sit by her at lunch. A grin came over my lips while I nodded my head, and then turned only to see Lucy with an even bigger smile, and nodding her head even more enthusiastically than usual. I brought my attention back over to the front of the room, only to find myself staring at the wall behind the teacher.

    Lunchtime. All that I could think about was lunch. The hunger, the thirst, the spots to sit, who to sit by. Thoughts came over me harder than metal, never did it occur to me that lunch wouldn’t come for another five minutes. I couldn’t wait. The roaring of my stomach was louder than an angry lion, distracting me, and everyone who was sitting in front of me. It was getting our attention away from what was really important, school. But the anticipation, the dry mouth I was getting from all of the classes that I had to introduce myself was starting to ache as I wished for a drop of water. My gum wasn’t enough to hold me back for three more minutes. I was going to die of thirst, and hunger, my life was over, this was it. Then, all of a sudden relief rushed through the air as the bell finally rang for lunch. I rapidly gathered my things and headed out the door in a hurry.
         “Hey Lizzy, are you coming?” My sister looked at me as I turned the corner with my brown paper lunch bag gripped tightly in my left hand. I picked up my pace to get closer to Lucy, I saw Cassie as she slowly moved her hand up and waved for me to come by her. Not sure what to do, I switched my grip on my lunch and tapped Lucy on her shoulder to follow me towards Cassie. The loud and exasperated noise circled around me like it was a tornado, and I was the center of it. I looked for Cassie, but she was nowhere to be seen. Then I slightly turned my head to look for Lucy, and at that moment I took a deep breath as I realized I had just lost them both in the large crowd filled with students. Anxiously, I looked around and tightened my grip on my lunch bag once again. All of a sudden, waves and yelling from one table caught my attention as I could faintly pick out Lucy and Cassie sitting at a small lunch table.
         “Lizzy, were over here!” Lucy called out to me. My ears got hot as the lunch room got extremely quiet. More staring, more whispers to each other’s friends. I suddenly forced my stiff and hard to move body from my standing position, to walk over towards their table. A small smile crossed my face as I looked at my sister, and right next to her there was one empty seat left. I slowly sat down as the room started to go back to its usual, loud and obnoxious volume. I wiped my sweaty hands on my tight, and ripped skinny jeans and started to open my lunch bag.
         “Wow, why are the two new girls sitting by them?” I suddenly turned my head, only to see Shelby and her whole group sitting at their table looking straight at us. I turned my head towards her table and all of her group started to uncontrollably laugh as if something funny actually happened. I felt like I could curl up in a ball and protect myself from this girl right then and there, but I didn’t, instead I turned my head and tried to ignore her as I should have done in the first place.
         “Why don’t you just leave us alone? We’ve had it with you, I mean, so what if your family is rich, it doesn’t mean you can let other people feel bad just because you want them to.” Amazement filled me while Cassie looked over to Shelby like she has been waiting to say something like that in her whole life. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Shelby flip her perfect brunette hair over her shoulder as tears were starting to fog her eyes, like she was about to burst to tears in any second. Lucy looked at me and looked amused, I didn’t know what else to do, so I laughed in return.
         “I’m really sorry about Shelby, she can be really mean most of the time.” A big smile spread across my face while I looked towards Cassie. She looked back at me, turning both of our once curious looks into a competitive staring contest. My eyes were starting to burn. I tried even harder to force myself not to blink, but all of a sudden, comfort came over my eyes for a split second.
         “Hah! I won!” Cassie yelled. She quickly moved her finger up and pointed towards my ever so dry eyes. “You blinked!” Cassie said, again, wishing I didn’t blink, I turned my head to open my lunch. Cassie looked towards Lucy and I. I reached my hand into my brown bag and pulled out a smashed sandwich, then a juice box, and finally a bag of chips, then I took a slow sip from my juice box. I started to chow-down on my chips. I could immediately feel the delight of cold food rush down my stomach as I started to swallow my next bite.
         All of a sudden, something startled me from my gaze, “So, do you guys want to hang out with me this weekend?” Cassie asked while looking towards me and Lucy. I immediately turned towards my sister, and tried to read her mind like on those freaky T.V. shows, nothing. I then tried to fake cough to get her attention, nothing. I whispered her name so we could secretly talk about it, she blinked. Unable to communicate with Lucy to talk about the question she had just asked, I struggled making the decision.
         My thoughts got interrupted by yet another question, but I was thinking too hard to hear it clearly, “What did you say?” I asked  Cassie and Lucy.
         “Do you want to come too?” Cassie looked at me, and then glanced back at Lucy.
         “Umm, sure.” I finally confessed while a small, yet noticeable grin came over my face. With uncertainty in my voice, I tried to keep quiet while I looked over to Lucy, only to see her indulged in a conversation with Cassie. Warmness filled me once again as I realized that this might not be such a bad and a long school year after all.