The Not So New Student by Chandrima Saha (good books for high schoolers txt) 📖

textbooks." I raised my eyebrows. I guess Ryan saw me doing that so he told me,"We got textbooks in the beginning of the month, you need to get one from him," he said pointing to Mr. George in the back. I turned back. Tyler was sitting right beside me. He smirked when he saw my bemused expression . "Ohh I'll go and ask him for one." I gave him a grateful smile.

Ryan was a very studious person, as he was actually doing all the work. I didn't even talk to him that much. Tyler, on the other hand, was having an amazing silent flirting time with the girls. I turned towards him and mouthed, "what are you doing?" With a smirk. Now that was a lame question. He didn't reply. He just raised one eyebrow and smirked. I didn't know how the American teens normally conversed . This stuff was way too confusing. After we finished our work, we got some free time where everyone was moving to seats near their best friends.

Laura was approaching towards me. I was ready to talk, really happy that shed come here just to talk to me. I was wrong. She went near Ryan's seat and they both started talking to each other. It looked pretty cute. I had no idea what they were talking about, but Laura was blushing. I had no one to talk to. I opened my book and started to read it- "Ow !" I said after I felt something poke me. I immediately turned back and saw Tyler. He was smirking with a pencil in his hand. "What?" I said in my most 'i'm irritated' voice.

He looked sideways into my desk. "Are you seriously gonna read that?" He asked. I had no reply to that. Maybe the girls here didn't read these types of books. "Umm yeah, why?" I asked him. "No never mind." He said. I didn't talk anymore with him because that's exactly when the bell rang. We went out. I got into my history class and introduced myself to the teacher. Her name was Mrs. Stevens. In the History Class, I could see three people I knew.

Chapter 4

Well those three people were Jake, Andrew and Michael. Well, I didn't actually know them but you know, they were the closest of anyone I knew till then.  As a matter of fact, Mrs. Stevens made me sit beside Michael. To be honest, I kind of wanted to sit with him. I took a look around the class. There was Jake sitting in the middle, looking downwards (I guess he was texting). Way behind, sat Andrew. In the same row, in the fourth seat in the row sat Michael. Everyone looked pretty bored.

I took my seat and smiled. He smiled back. He had a notebook on his desk. Well, only five students had notebooks and only two were actually writing down whatever Mrs. Stevens was saying. I thought about taking out mine. From my knowledge of teen movies and novels I'd be considered a nerd or geek. I totally didn't want to be that. So I just sat there. I thought the class was pretty interesting. They definitely had a different style of teaching style than in India. This was much better than the boring lectures we had to hear.

After her class was over she gave us a worksheet. It's due tomorrow. A few people worked on it, while the others just talked. I decided to take my chances with Michael. "So um what's your favorite subject?" I asked him. "Hmm I like english." he said.

English was the subject I was the worst on. Speaking of which, it was the class where I had to be teamed with Andrew and Tyler. Anyways, after that I had tech. ed. Well, we would design a little car. I was excited about how we would make it. Plus, it would be my first ever woodwork. In India, we never did woodwork or had a class like this. 

Well Nicole and the twins(Ryan and Jake) were there. They were all sitting together. I saw that no one is never mean to the new student so I decided to give it a try. I went to the empty seat beside them and saw that they were talking about something I had no idea about. It was weird listening to them and not being able to say anything. They were talking about their hangouts. Maybe I would never hang out with them again. Maybe I would never be one of them again. Anyways it wasn't that they were rude to me or anything. They were pretty fun people. Nicole paired up with me, for our team selection. That was very nice of her. 

The rest of the class went by. Next period I had choir. I was a good singer(not boasting!) so I was pretty confident about the class. Laura met me by the door of the class and asked me to sit with her. I was about to sit with her, when our teacher Mrs. Morgan asked me to audition for my group. I had no idea what that was. In India, in singing class, we all sang in a single group. She asked me to follow what she did. She played some notes on the piano while singing them in do-re-mi form. I repeated them after her. After singing, she said,"Okay, you go sit with the Sopranos." "Sure." I said. 

Later, I learnt that there were three groups. The sopranos, altos and baritones. We were handed sheet music. The sopranos sang such high pitches! It was good altogether.

After dispersal, I sat on the bus listening to music. I played an indian song. It reminded me of my friends back in India. We had so much fun! I had finally made best friends but now I was here, to make friends all over again. I hoped I would have good friends. Well, after a few days I would find out, as everyone was nice to me because I was new. 

Back at home, I had nothing to look forward to. I opened my facebook. I had almost twenty notifications and messages. It was from my friends back in India. I realised that I would have to send some friend requests to the people here. I started searching. 

 Well, I looked over the pages of Fawn, Janice, Laura, Ashley( remember the girl who was my 'mentor'), Michael, Molly, Nicole, Zac, Dylan, Tyler, Ryan and Jake. I still couldn't find the profile of Andrew. Maybe he didn't have a facebook account. Feeling I had done enough, I switched my computer off.

Chapter 5

The next day at school, you could say I was pretty excited. Well, I sat with Annika in the bus. Then everything went okay. It was just embarrassing to talk to everyone, because I just didn't know them and it was pretty boring being by yourself . Well everyone had a best friend except me. But during biology class, I was in for a surprise. A new student came! Exactly. It's weird I know. The kid's name was Eric. I could understand why the teacher told me that I was Abby's partner for 'awhile' only.

Well, Eric looked pretty friendly to me. So for me, it meant a new friend. I sat with Eric in the first row. He smiled at me. I smiled back. He asked me what my name was. I told him my name and mentioned that I was new too. He looked pretty comfortable after that. I felt that he could be a good friend of mine.

Well, I learnt some things about him. Like he was from England , had three brothers and a sister. It was fun talking to him. I felt like I would not suffer from loneliness again.

Later onwards, during English class, I sat in my little group with Andrew and Tyler. It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. Andrew and Tyler were jocks so naturally I was the only one who worked.

They did talk to me though. Tyler was busy flirting with some blond haired freak. "So hey Kiara, how's it going ?" Andrew asked me.

I was going to reply, well , I just could not reply to him . "Y-yeah, it issss going g-good" is what came out of my mouth. I could feel the blood rushing to my cheeks. "Ohh....kay" Andrew said. Naturally I had nothing to say. Tyler broke the silence. "So you decided what poems we are choosing?" To be honest I actually didn't want Tyler to come. I sort of wanted to keep on talking to Andrew about our old days to make him remember how we used to be best friends, but I couldn't as I just couldn't talk to him. It felt so weird.

I think Tyler expected me to know the answer, because, when I said, "nope!" Popping the p, he looked surprised. Andrew looked busy tying to yank a piece of paper out of his stuffed binder. Yup, that's what these things were called. Never heard or used them before. Anyways, I think I zoned out. Seeing my ex best friend after so many years made me feel awkward. But what if he didn't feel the same way about me. Tyler understood the tension between us and shrugged. "Dude! I'll go check on Natalie..." He said emphasising on the word check while false battling his eyelashes. I had no idea how an American girl would react to this, so I did what I saw most of the girls doing. I rolled my eyes.

To be honest, I had no idea about what was going on with Andrew. He was staring at me. "What?" I asked softly. "Oh, it's uh , nothing, actually" he stuttered. I shrugged and smiled. God why was he so cute looking? But he wasn't cute for a long time, because , right then, came two girls and some guy. I think it was Zac. They just sat down beside Andrew. Andrew shrugged at me and turned around to talk to them. I tried joining their conversation, but they were talking about some girl named Emily who I had no idea was. So I went towards a little shelf where I thought I had seen a book on the works of Shakespeare. I grabbed it and got it.

By then, I saw that Tyler was back. He too was talking to them. I realized that I was going to be quite lonely. But Tyler turned around to face me. "What's that?"