Band Geeks and Drama Freaks
an excerpt

I don’t know what Mom expected of me that day. When she dropped me off for school, she chirped, just like this was a regular morning back in my real Nevada school, “Have a nice day, sweetie!”
I grabbed my bag from the backseat and turned around. “See you after school, Mom.” With that, I headed toward the shiny new main building of Stonewall (as in Jackson) High.
It was bad enough I was already a junior who was going to have to try to fit in at a new school. It was worse that I was probably one of the only transfer students of the year. It was cataclysmic that it was the first day of the semester, not even the school year. Add the fact that I was a Nevada girl who was unused to the east coast lifestyle, and you’ll have a pretty clear idea of how I expected my school year to go.

In first period, the teacher assigned a student to show me to as many of my classes as possible.
“Um, Mrs. Hughes?” I said. “I don’t think that’s necessary. I’ll just sort of…ask directions as I go.”
“Nonsense!” she boomed. She was a big woman, Mrs. Hughes, with a big voice, the kind of woman you’d see out west rather than striding around on the stressful east coast. “We don’t want any of our students getting lost!” She shot a significant look around the room as she said this, as if she expected one of the students to volunteer. However, if she did, she was sadly disappointed. No one cared. She had given them a study hall that day, so their attention was nonexistent. She selected a victim.
“Cassidy, come here!”
A small, slender girl tossed her short blonde hair and looked over. She got up from her chair. “Yes, Mrs. Hughes?”
“Show our new student around, Cassidy,” Mrs. Hughes ordered. The teacher then turned to me. “Addison, this is Cassidy Miller. Cassidy, this is Addison Hunt.”
“Hi,” I said. Cassidy and I shook hands awkwardly. I felt really stupid and I’m sure she was uncomfortable. I was a full five inches taller than her five feet and wearing a red t-shirt and black pants against her pretty denim miniskirt and fitted black tee. I bet I was at least four sizes bigger than her too, and my curly brown hair frizzed out around my head, not falling in curves around my face like her chin-length blond hair. I felt like an explorer in the Amazon, an outsider foreign to the lives of curious, pitying natives.
Much to my relief, the bell rang. As Cassidy and I left the room, I paused to ask, “Mrs. Hughes, where are you from?”
She grinned. In her slight western drawl, she said, “Wyoming. And you?”
I grinned back. “Nevada. Outside Carson City. I have relatives in Cheyenne, though. Have you ever heard of George and Susan Hunt?”
“Sorry,” she said. “I’m from Sheridan.”
Oh, well. It was worth a shot.
~~~~
Cassidy squinted at me. “What’s your third period?”
“Math,” I told her, digging around in my bag for my schedule. I pulled it out and looked for the room number. “Room 202.” She and I had first and second periods together, so she could still take me to third.
“C’mon,” she said. So we started walking down yet another barren hall.
There were people with us, but it was the fluorescent lighting which gave the halls their sterile, hospital-like atmosphere. The gleaming white tiles and puke-green lockers added to the feeling. Back home, the lockers had been decorated with birthday signs, wrapping paper, and ribbons from friends, but here such fripperies were few and far between.
On the way, though, a lime-green sign, hanging bravely on a bare white wall, caught my eye. “Drama Club!” it said. “Come join us Tuesday after school from 3 to 4! Snacks and revelry provided, but bring your own Dramatic Flares! Room 306.”
“Didn’t they spell that wrong?” I asked Cassidy.
She shrugged. “Who knows? It’s the Drama Club.”
“It sounds cool. I might go.”
We reached her room, which was across the hall from mine. After third period, I was on my own; her next class was far from my fourth period. She entered the room and I followed hesitantly.
“What?” she said. “This isn’t your class.”
“I know. I wanted to ask where band is because I have that next.”
She sighed. “Go all the way to the other end of the hall and turn left, then right. Believe me, you can’t miss it.”
“Thanks.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Good luck.”
I was leaving the room when she called out to me, “Don’t tell anyone in band that you’re planning to join Drama Club!”
I turned to my guide in amazement. “What did you say?”
Cassidy, now sitting on her desk, crossed her slender, shapely legs over each other and cracked her gum. She tucked her honey-blond hair behind her right ear. Her blue eyes had suddenly gone hard. “You heard me,” she said. “If you tell the Drama Club people you’re in band, or if you tell the band people you’re in drama, you’ll regret it.”