“Bye, Mom.” Spencer kissed her mom on the cheek and got out of the car.

“Good luck in middle school, Spencer.”

“Bye, Glen.” Spencer smiled at him. He was sitting patiently in the passenger seat waiting for his mother to drop him off at his high school. Spencer turned around facing her new school.  WELCOME STUDENTS TO LOS ANGELES MIDDLE SCHOOL. A banner hanging in between two buildings said. She headed towards the main office for her schedule.

–

“Hello, students, welcome to Honors English.” Ms. Lacey was propped up on the corner of her seat. “I’ll sit you in alphabetical order and see how that goes.” She pulled out a paper from her desk and began to call out names.

“Steven Alacon, Jessica Avens.” She spoke pointing to a desk in front. Spencer looked over and saw a tall, jock with a basketball under his arm and next to him stood a skinny girl in shorts. They looked at each other and gave each other high fives. “All right!” They laughed and sat in there seats.

“Hmm, I’m guessing you guys know each other. Okay next is, Craig Ayelly and Patrick Bons.” Two boys  took there seats behind the jocks.

“All right, we have Spencer Carlin and Ashley Davies.”  Spencer looked up and took her seat not sure who the other girl was. A girl the same height of Spencer sat next to her. She wore a tight tank top and a short skirt with some flats. She placed her books down on the desk followed by her purse and sat down in the chair next to me. She looked over at me and smiled. “I’m Ashley.”

“Spencer.”

They shook hands and engaged in small talk as Ms. Lacey continued to go down the list.

–

“All right, you guys have a little time to talk among yourselves. Try to get to know each other.” Ms. Lacey said and began to skim through a big teacher book.

 Ashley faced me and nodded. “So, you’re the new girl.”

“The nickname is already catching on.”

Ashley snorted, “My bad, I meant to say Spencer.”

“Yeah, sure you did.”