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

He asked me. "Oh, it's just a book that has the poems I guess." I said. He looked interested. "Okay, look this is straightforward but Andrew is NOT smart," he said quietly,"so we are gonna do this ourselves." I nodded . I remembered that I was the one who used to help Andrew in these subjects. "Yeah, I remember..." I added. Andrew's friends went away so he turned around. "Got anything?" He asked me. "Nope. You can help." I said, hoping what I said didn't sound sarcastic.

Then we decided our poems. I wrote one down. I didn't feel like talking anymore. I felt like I should just keep quiet. But I realized I had to ask one question. "Hey Tyler, who's your best friend?" The moment I asked it, I felt like I shouldn't have asked that question. "I am." Andrew said. So Andrew was listening to us. I was silent. Somehow I uttered the words "ohh good.." I realized my friend Andrew had moved on. Even , his new best friend was Tyler. Well I didn't know if it was new or not.

Anyways, I realised that two of MY closest friends were also players. Well, I found that out during lunch when I was asking my friends about them.

"Do you know Andrew Menches?" I asked a girl, I think her name was Alice. "Andrew Menches the jerk?" she asked me. "Maybe. You see the guy in the blue tshirt? Thats the Andrew I'm talking about." I explained. "Yeah, he's not a good guy. You should stay away from him. Wait....Do you like him?" she asked me. Then all the girls turned towards me. "Huh? No! N-Why would I like him?" I asked her. "Oh, I don't know....yeah you are right..why will you like HIM?" she said. Then they all started talking about him. "You know what? Andrew asked me out this day..... I found out he was just having fun. I actually went to the mall and saw that he was there. With his friends all laughing at me. It was so humiliating!" She said. I was kind of shocked. How

could the sweet and nice Andrew I knew do this? "Oh and there was his bff Tyler with him. I guess he felt bad or something, so he apologized for him. He said it was some sort of joke the guys had." Tyler was cute.

But these weird feelings about Andrew would never go no matter how popular he was. It was just too weird. I looked over to the 'popular' table or so as it was called. There were almost all my old friends sitting over there gossiping and flirting or whatever. I just felt that I didn't belong there. So I listened to what all the girls were saying. It was so foreign to me, they were talking about things I never understood . I hope I will gradually adjust to all this.

After lunch in my algebra class, it was hard. Not just the things which we were learning but also focusing on my attitude difference from the other girls. The good news was that Eric was in my class. So I kind of felt better that I had someone to talk to. But according to what I saw, Eric was popular already.

Well I accept I was a bit jealous of him. Why would he not be popular???? British accent, football player, he also did swimming. In America, these were somethings popular guys needed. I have no idea why, but the American girls love British accents. They pounce on guys like him, I just realized. He got in a minute after me. He took the seat beside me. I smiled at him. From behind me, I could hear some girls whispering , probably about him. "Well, look at you, you're popular already," I told him. He smiled. "Well, it's not in my hands." He said.

I personally didn't like British accent. Even in India, I was the only one who disliked British accent. "You know what? I just found out rugby is football." "Yeah." I said and sighed. He was smart too. Nicole was in there too. She came up to me and him. I said hi to her. After she said hi to me, she started to flirt with Eric. I was annoyed. Didn't she have a boyfriend already? Why the heck was she even near him? I frowned and carried on with those hard problems we had to solve in math.

Nothing exciting happened today ...except for choir class. Today I heard Michael sing. Alone. Well we are doing this song for our concert, so the auditions for the solo were going on. I heard Michael try it out. Gosh, was he amazing! I mean, it was perfect. I thought it was a perfect singing voice and he should definitely have the male solo. I would have auditioned for it if I knew the lines.

So that's what happened. In the bus, it looked like Annika wanted to sit with me, so I grabbed a seat beside her. She was listening to music, but she took her earphones off. We talked. Back at home, I checked my Facebook account . It was filled with 'miss you!'s from all my friends back in India. Also, many people accepted my requests. I sent some more today. After all that stuff, I opened my binder and took out those math problems. Boy, those were hard! I wonder what's gonna happen in school tomorrow. Well I am excited for school!

Chapter 6

It's been a month since I joined the school. Let me tell you what's going on. Well, our English project went okay. We got a B on it since Andrew had no idea about the thing when we presented. I guess our research wasn't very good either. I got really close to Fawn, it's like she's my closest friend here. Also, I get really bored in lunch. Everyone talks to themselves but me. I mean they do, but, it's pretty boring. Andrew's 'on and off' girlfriend is Nicole. They are fighting now. I think they'll break up..

I also think very soon I will get the classification of geek. I am pretty good in my classes and I suck at anything related to sports. Maybe I would have been better if I actually lived here because I remember being really good at basketball. Basically I would play with Andrew and Tyler. In India, the only sport I played was badminton. There were other classes but no such craze as here.

I joined the science club. Well, Nicole, Eric and Michael are there in that too. I don't talk much with Andrew or Tyler anymore. Eric is a cool guy and well, Michael is too quiet for me. I mean I love his singing voice but I am a very talkative person, and well, he's not. Molly..... I think I kind of forgot about her. She's not the nicest person in the world. She hates the world, she says.

I found out some stuff about Andrew. He still plays hockey, and also football I guess. He has a group of best friends who are all the popular people and majority of them were my friends in third grade. I heard all the girls who are his friends are 'biatches' , but they've never been rude or anything to me yet. It's probably because I'm new.

I look like his stalker but everyone knows all this stuff about him. Tyler, on the other hand is a baseball player. He is currently dating some girl named Anna. Dylan, if you remember him, he's not that good of a person, but now he's considerately nice to me. I mean, he teases me but he has helped me sometimes too. Probably because we were friends before. He is one of the rudest boys in ninth grade.

Occasionally I get lonely but I do have people to talk to. Just one problem, actually a huge problem. The Racism. I mean, some people just ignore me for no reason. Sure, I'm Indian, but that really doesn't mean that I am some kind of idiot. The racist people are either straightforwardly racist (Like saying rude racist stuff in your face) or the twisted kind where you insult a person but it takes time to figure out insults. I mean, those bug me the most.

The people here have these things called comebacks, and boy do I suck at them!!! Whenever someone says something like "Your ugly.", everyone knows what to say to them back. I take time to think of a comeback, which gets on my nerves a lot. Plus I noticed that some people here just don't answer your question. I mean, that is so ignorant and rude!!!!

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In school, the other day I had quite a good day.

So it all started with me almost being late... To biology class. The bell rang ,like , 3 seconds after I entered the class. We had a quiz last week and today we'd get back the results. I got a 100 percent! Eric got a 95 percent. He said he thought he'd get a low B or something.

During English class, I found Andrew looking at me. But when looked towards him, he just looked away. Probably he was embarrassed. We were doing another project, but this one, with one partner. My partner was Tyler. Though I personally wanted it to be Andrew , I was happy. Maybe I could be close with them gradually.

We had an announcement. There would be a school dance after two months. We would get the details on it later. Wow! A school dance? It would be my first. To be honest I actually never thought that school dances existed. I mean, only in movies and books! I already pictured myself dancing with Andrew. Well now I'm embarassed. Forget that I ever thought of that.

Then later on in lunch, I found out that Janice was part Indian. She had an Indian grandma. We talked about some Indian stuff. It was cool. I talked a lot with my friends today.....

In fact, at home I had another surprise awaiting me. It was my aunt Sophia. Her actual name is Sharmila but she changed it to Sophia. I've only seen her once before. She would be sharing a room with me. Yay! Though we didn't meet, we frequently chatted and sent emails. She just finished college. I'm pretty excited about what we are both gonna do. She's a very fun person! Sometimes a bit too fun though!

Chapter 7

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