My first day of freshman year at a brand new school. Yuck. This new school I was going to was't the best school either. As I walked in the front door, most people were staring at either my bright orange hair, my clothes, or my Converse. All except for four guys talking and laughing in front of the main office. They were dressed a lot like me. One of them was wearing a My Chemical Romance tour shirt like the one I had at home, and looked strangley farmiliar, but I couldn't place where I'd seen him before. Maybe they were cool.
I walked into the front office, got my schedule and went to my first class. There were about ten minutes before first bell, so I put my earbuds into my ears and plugged in my iPod. One of the guys I'd seen in the front came over and sat next to me in the back corner of the classroom. "Hi. Whatcha listening to?" he asked me, his tone generally welcoming. I pulled out the headphones and said "Oh, 21st Century Breakdown by Green Day. They're my fave band." He smiled at me and said "I like them too, but my favorite is My Chemical Romance. Y'know, I'm friends with some of the guys from MCR," he said, clearly trying to show off to me. I smiled huge at him and said "Really??? You KNOW them? Can you get me tickets to the next show? Sorry, I don't mean to mooch, but yeah." He laughed and said to me "I'll check with my contact, but yeah, I can probably get you some front row seats." My smile got even bigger and I said "FRONT ROW??? You can really score me front row seats?" He nodded and said "Totally. It won't be that hard. I'm Mikey by the way," he said, extending a hand to me. I shook his hand and said "I'm Rory."
Something was up with him, though. I could tell. He kept looking around the classroom while we were talking, a nervous expression on his face. The only other people in the room were three cheerleaders who were clearly the queen bees of the grade and the million year old looking math teacher. No one I would really think to be that big of a threat, unless the cheerleaders were really mean to him. But the cheerleaders were eyeing me weird and kept pointing at me. I swore I thought one of them said "That's the one," when she looked at me. I tried to brush it off, but it freaked me out a little bit.
First bell rang, and everyone rushed into the classroom at once. Mikey looked at me and said "Hey, w-why don't you sit with me and the guys today at lunch? Don't want you to get chewed out on your first day here." I nodded. "I'd like that." I said to him.
***
At lunch, I got my tray of food, paid and looked out at the huge cafeteria. I didn't see the guys, and I swear I looked at every table, so I went into the hallway to eat my lunch. When I sat myself down in the hall, I pulled out my iPod and plugged in again. As I ate my sandwich, the cheerleaders from the classroom in the morning were walking down the hall. I threw them a look and went back to my lunch. One of them walked to me and stood over me. I pulled out one of my headphones and said "Do you mind? I'm trying to get through this day without getting humilitated." After I said that, the one standing over me said, "Ha! Humiliation isn't gonna be the worst you'll have to deal with today! Grab her, girls." She said to the other two standing behind her. They immidiatley grabbed my arms and yanked me off of the floor. "Hey!" I yelled at them, "Get your hands off of me!" That just made them grip my arms tighter.
Then, I did something that surprised them, but especially me. Something inside of me surged, filled my body with strength I didn't even know I had. I yanked my arm out of their iron grip and slapped one of them hard across the face, knocking her out in the process. That made the other girl let go of me pretty quickly, and the two concious ones ran away faster than I though cheerleaders could run. I turned my head back down the hall and saw Mikey and the three other guys, watching in stunned silence. The guy wearing the MCR shirt ran over to me and said "Didn't Mikey tell you to sit with us at lunch?" I looked at him and said "I looked for you guys but you weren't there! What was I supposed to do? Sit with the normal people and get humiliated on my first day? Can I at least know your names? I know Mikey already, but the rest of you..." They went down the line and got the plesantries out of the way. Their names were Ray, Frank, Mikey and Gerard, but I already knew Mikey. Gerard turned back to me and said "Where were you, Rory? We looked for you in all of your classrooms, but you weren't there." I looked around, motioned to the hallway and said "I was here, waiting for you!" He grabbed my arm and said "Let's talk about this somewhere more private." The five of us walked to Gerard's car and got in to talk.
When we were in his car, I asked him "Okay, WHAT was that about? Is that like, the initiation ceremony at this school or something?" Mikey heaved a sigh and said "All you need to know is to stay away from those girls. They're bad news." The other three nodded in agreement.
***
That night, I was sitting in my room, thinking about what happened that day. What was up with those girls? Did they have something against me? Or did I do something to them just by living? I grabbed my computer and looked up the guys' names on Facebook. Nothing. I tried Twitter, with little to show for it. I dared to venture into the sleezy world of MySpace to try and find them online, but I couldn't find them there. Eventually I ran out of social networks, so I typed their names straight into Google just to try and find out something, anything about these guys. That was when I found it. There was an article about something involving a large explosion at a high school in New Jersey and both the guys' and the cheerleaders' names were mentioned briefley in the article. Oh God, what was I getting myself into? Who were these guys? And did I want to be friends with them, for my own sake? But, they knew something that I didn't. Something big. And I had a feeling that something would keep me safe.
