Chapter 1: The Second Thursday of the Month
Chapter 1: The Second Thursday of the Month
Zzzzt….zzzt….zzzt!
The alarm blared annoyingly as it did every morning. With a disgruntled groan the young woman nestled so happily in bed slapped the snooze button atop it, perfectly content to go back to sleep. Of course it wasn’t long before her mother’s voice pierced the comfortably approaching haze of sleep.
“Jennifer if you’re not up and in the shower in five minutes I’ll be up there rolling you out of bed myself!”
With the sort of weary sigh only those suffering under the harshest and cruelest of taskmasters were capable of mustering she flung her covers off and swung her legs out of bed, standing with a huff.
“How does she always know when I try to go back to sleep…” She grumbled to herself. Despite the darkened room, she expertly navigated around piles of dirty laundry before tripping over her slumbering beagle, who somehow always managed to position herself just right the night before to send her master sprawling.
“Arrgh Isabelle I swear!” Of course her dog’s only response, the only one she ever got was a happy wag of the tail and a look that said ‘oh you’re up? Well time to pet and or feed me!’ Obliging the former, as it was too early for the latter, Jennifer gave her a quick scratch between the ears and slipped out the door into the hall.
She could hear her mom busy in the kitchen, no doubt preparing her and her dad’s lunches for the day. A brief snort at the thought of bringing bag lunches to school all the way up to the age of fifteen was her typical thoughts on that matter, plodding to the bathroom with footsteps made intentionally heavier to relate how unhappy she was at having to get up even earlier than usual for school.
“Jennifer Allen if you don’t stop that stomping around you can forget that trip to the art show you were planning Saturday!”
Knowing that it was no idle threat that got an immediate response, instantly quieting her step she hurried to the bathroom for her morning ritual. Pausing only momentarily to sigh at the reflection in the bathroom mirror, she could tell without checking her chest hadn’t ‘blossomed’, as her mother phrased it, overnight like she’d hoped.
“Ugh….ugh fifteen and I still don’t need anything more than a training bra.” Her eyes narrowed dangerously, focusing on the offending anatomy in the mirror. “Listen you, bad enough I have the braces….I don’t need you two making life more difficult too. The last time a boy even looked at me it was to cheat off that history test…” She sighed forlornly, hopping in the shower.
It’s not that she wasn’t pretty, far from it. With wavy auburn hair she let grow long enough that it was a hassle to clean and care for, and a face that promised to be quite a beauty in a few years when she reached maturity. She was on the tall side, taller than most of the boys in her class, with a slender willowy frame (that she kept hoping would fill out every day, dim hopes given her mother’s own slenderness), she had the sort of girl next door quality some guys really fell for. Unfortunately her braces, lack of curve, and good old teenage insecurities gave her a crippling social shyness. Her parents worried about her, mom especially would go on about what a bright and cheery little girl she was. “It’s just not normal for a girl your age to have no friends dear.”
She rolled her eyes as she got out of the shower, drying off. “No friends, thanks mom, nothing boosts the old self-esteem like hearing that every day.” Back in her room she nimbly dodged around her once more slumbering dog with a little 'ha' of triumph, getting dressed for the day and throwing her hair in a ponytail. Tugging on her extremely battered Converse sneakers (the one thing she steadfastly refused to let her mom replace), and grabbing her backpack she bounded downstairs. Grabbing her lunch and a pack of pop tarts, she gave her folks a quick “see ya” and was out the door.
Greeted by the still black of night (extremely early morning, but she thought black of night sounded more dramatic) she heaved a sigh and once again affirmed that coming into school an hour early for ‘peer bonding’ was the worst idea conceived by any human being in history. An opinion shared not only by the bulk of the student body, but most of the faculty as well.
The bus ride was uneventful as always, middle seat, by the window, facing out of said window. She didn’t bother to look over and see who sat down next to her, she was just the weird tall girl after all, no one talked to her. The usual chatter was somewhat subdued by the early hour, there really should be some sort of law against forcing everyone up at five am, and in school by six. It was cruel and unusual.
The shuffle from bus to auditorium was similarly quiet. The only sound the occasional chatter between friends, and the shuffle of tired feet. To say the student body of Rochester High were not fans of peer building day would be an understatement.
The auditorium had been rearranged as it always was on the second Thursday of the month, every chair pushed against the walls so the students could sit in large circles on the floor, separated by class. Plunking herself down near enough to one of her fellow sophomores to be considered in the circle, she set about the important task of examining her years old shoes.
Her class’s councilor was nice enough she supposed, Mrs. Winsom could be a little on the touchy feely hippy side, but she never pushed her charges like the senior councilor did, or treated them like they weren’t there like the freshman’s. An older woman, though still fairly pretty as far as old hippies go, Mrs. Winsom kept her graying hair back in a long ponytail (not unlike Jens own), wearing today yet another dress that could give one a headache from all the mish-mashing colors if they stared too long.
She started in with the usual ‘good mornings’ and ‘hope everybody’s having a good day so far’. Then she got to the day’s exercise, something about getting up and introducing yourself to someone you didn’t think you’d spoken to before. The idea was to force you to meet someone new in the hopes of instantly becoming best friends. Which was a pretty stupid idea as far as most of the students were concerned.
Resolving herself to get the hour over with as quickly as possible, Jen stood and scanned her supposed peer group looking for a slightly unfamiliar face. It seemed it was her lucky day as a pale girl wearing a pretty (and expensive looking) black dress that seemed to glitter when it hit the light just right approached her. She had the darkest blue eyes Jen could remember seeing on a person, and hair such a deep black it almost looked like it had blue highlights in the right light. This girl looked more like she was dressed for a fancy party then a day at school. She extended her hand with weird formality and spoke in a voice that was soft, but seemed to have a formal…almost commanding undertone.
“Good morning, I am Lucy a new student to your academy.” She had a slight accent Jen couldn’t place, but one that had a vague familiarity to it.
Jen stared at the offered hand for a moment in confusion, and then looked back up at this weird girl. Deciding it was best to get this peer nonsense over with, and that her social life couldn’t exactly be downgraded as she didn’t have one to begin with, she shook the offered hand awkwardly. “Uh…hi, I’m Jennifer…Jen is fine.”
Lucy’s face brightened instantly to an annoyingly perfect smile (Jen found anyone with a smile not marred by a mouthful of metal annoying), and she shook her hand vigorously. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance Jennifer! I will admit I was rather nervous about attending a new academy for learning, but I am glad to have made a friend so quickly!”
Now there was one thing Jennifer tried very hard to do, and for the most part succeeded in, and that was to keep a low profile. Girls with braces, flat chests, and old shoes generally tended to attract the wrong kind of attention from their more fortunate fellows at school, and she had no intention of doing that. However with this (possibly deranged) girl flailing her arm about and shouting at the top of her lungs, she was definitely getting every set of eyes on both her and Lucy. She quickly jerked her hand from the other girl’s rather firm grip and hissed under her breath. “Quit yelling! What’s the matter with you?!”
An instant look of consternation crossed Lucy’s face as she opened her mouth once, closed it, then opened it again to finally respond in a thankfully normal tone. “I..I do apologize Jennifer; I am not terribly…comfortable in social settings such as this.”
The look of sadness on the other girl’s face caused Jen to soften her own and she nodded slowly. “Well…it’s okay. I mean I’m guessing you just moved to Rochester, from out of town?” She sat back on the floor unceremoniously, hands propped behind her and legs crossed.
It took Lucy a few moments to slowly settle herself next to her, giving a nod of affirmation. “Indeed, I have only just moved to your fair city the day before last, and my elder sister was quite insistent I begin my lessons immediately.” She paused glancing about at the other students, who were slowly resuming their own conversations. “I am sorry if I drew unwanted attention to you. I simply assumed a friend of… Penelope’s would be used to some exuberance in their companions.”
All the color instantly drained from Jen’s face at the mention of that name. Several emotions flashed across it in rapid succession, mostly sadness, before settling on anger. She jumped to her feet, and (perhaps louder then she should have) yelled, “I don’t have any friend named Penelope! The only Pennie I know was… was a horrible jerk who abandoned me!”
Realizing that once again every eye was on her, and this time the fault being her own, she snatched up her bag and dashed from the auditorium, leaving a confused Lucy with a look of surprise on her face.
One of the guys in the circle gave a quick huh. “So are we all allowed to go?”
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Interesting beginning. I found this story because someone put your story into a group of mine... and I'm kind of happy to see a girl protagonist in Equestria those are pretty rare.
*Reads first chapter*......*instantly likes.*
I can tell this is gonna be good.
2030444 I for one agree.
cdn.chud.com/8/8c/8c6ddd8f_this-is-gonna-be-good.gif
haha i see what you did there
Pretty obvious direction, but executed well enough to have my attention (which is not something I can say for all stories). Continuing on...
2830766
Ohhhh Dis Gonna Be Gud!
Hm... Not a bad start. Quite eye catching, and well delivered if I have to say.