The Real Kind of Popular

Chapter 1 || The First Day

|| Alice's POV ||

"Have a good first day sweetie!" I hear my mom yell from our red convertible Mustang.

"Yup, you too mom!" I yell back.

I turn from the car and notice all the boys staring at the car I emerged from. I mentally rolled my eyes. I hurry inside knowing I am already late for my first day of school. Ugh. Once inside the air conditioning feels nice in contrast to the hot humid Santa Monica air. I walk to the front desk where a lady points me to a fancy looking computer. I swipe my card and the computer processes it.

Santa Monica Prep
Welcome Miss Alice Hunter!
Grade : 9
Homebase Room Number : 214
You are : Tardy

"It's ok, since it's the first day I'll let it slide." The office lady replies kindly.

"Thank you so much!" I say before hurrying to room 214.

"So I'm Mr. Medina." I hear a deep voice say from inside the classroom.

I take a deep breath and check my uniform (which is horrendous and consists of a polo shirt, a plaid skirt, and knee high socks) before entering. It takes a second for me to collect my bearings, but I recognize a face. A tall blonde named Rebecca waves me over and silently says 'hi'. I gratefully take a seat next to her. I met Rebecca a few days ago, she's supposed me my mentor student, because we have all the same classes together and she can show me around.

Mr. Medina continues to tell everyone about himself, where he's from, how happy he is to be here, and then proceeds to make a joke about how quiet we are. We all politely laugh. Mr. Medina is our home base teacher and will also be our English and Literature teacher for the next year. Overall everyone thinks he's pretty cool, I even noticed a tattoo on his ankle. Every student is supposed to get a school supply box on the first day of school. The box would basically contain the stuff you would need to get through the year - pencils, paper, notebooks, binders, etc. It would also contain things such as - paper towels, tissues, loose leaf paper, etc. to stock your home base's closet.

Mr. Medina then tells us to take our 2 rolls of paper towels and stack them into his classroom closet. I don't have my box, and no one seems to see my confusion. I feel embarrassed as Rebecca gets up and puts her paper towels into the closet. A girl behind me smiles and I realize she isn't putting paper towels into the closet either I shyly smile back, this girl looks popular even though she's sitting with a lot of girls who look unpopular.

I finally eye my box in the back of the room after a very cute boy points at my box and mouths 'yours?' With a devastatingly handsome grin. I smile gratefully and mouth back, 'thank you' and jog to to the back of the room to retrieve my box. I then go and stand in line behind the cute boy to put my paper towels in the closet.

"Hey I'm Scott Knight." He says with a boyish smirk.

"I'm Alice Hunter, I'm new."

"I know, I could tell."

"Is it that obvious?"

"Ha no. I know everyone in the grade." He chuckles deeply.

"Oh." I say blushing.

I put my paper towels into the closet and head back to my seat. Then Mr. Medina tells us that we now have some time to organize our things as well as socialize. He turns on some pop music and becomes absorbed in his computer.

"Thanks for saving me a seat." I tell Rebecca.

"No problem," she replies coolely "Do you want to come meet some of my friends?"

"Sure!" I say gratefully.

We walk over to a group of girls who look very beautiful and popular. All are tall like models, I'm pretty tall so I'd say I fit in with them pretty well. Although, compared to my light tan Asian skin, they're skin looked pale. Also, my eyes are much darker, but wider than all of theirs, I've always been self conscious of my big wide eyes.

"This is Lucy, Opal, and Lily." Rebecca said gesturing to the girls.

"Nice to meet you," I said shaking their hands, "I'm Alice."

I then politely excused myself to organize my things. I walked to my desk and began labeling notebooks and binders. As I did so the girl that smiled at me at the beginning of class came over.

"Hi, I'm Evelyn Harper, but you can call me Evie." The girl said shaking my hand.

"Hey I'm Alice Hunter." As I shook her hand I noticed the scars on her wrists. Evie turned her head, her dark brown hair swayed as she turned.

"I see you've met the Desis?" She gestured to the popular girls I had met earlier.

"The what?"

"The Desis, the Desired, everyone wants to be them, I was a Desi once you know."

"Cool, " I said not wanting to know why she wasn't a Desi any more. "Your eyes... they're purple." I said changing the subject from Desis.

"They're contacts." She said with a smile.

"Cool."

"It was fun talking we should do it more sometime but I've got to go organize my stuff so I'll see you later?"

"Totally." I said with a grin as she walked away.

A/N
Desis/Desi is pronounced : de-zees/de-zee

After 3 or 4 songs Mr. Medina told us to get in line next to people you wanted to be next to for our lockers. I ended up between Rebecca and Evie. Mr. Medina gave us our locker numbers and we went to find our lockers. I have never had a locker with a lock before so I had trouble trying to get it open. After 3 or 4 times I asked Rebecca for help she opened it on her first try.

"It's ok you'll get better at it I promise." She said. I smiled gratefully in reply. I then piled my things into my locker.

Once I finished I closed my locker and headed back to the classroom accompanied by Evie. I wanted to take few binders and notebooks home to decorate with girly paper and stickers so I held them loosely to my chest as Evie began telling me that she buys her own school supplies and doesn't get the box which is why she wasn't putting paper towels in the closet.

As we approached the classroom, Scott came bursting out of the door bumping into me and knocking me over. He quickly apologized and reached out his hand. I grabbed it and he effortlessly pulled me off the ground. Once I was on my feet I felt one of his hands around my waist resting on the small of my back.

"You ok?" He asked.

"Ya.." I said flustered.

His face was so close to mine I could feel his cool breath on my face. I was breathing heavily and staring at his electric blue eyes and perfect blonde quiff. He let me go, and I could feel my body missing his touch.

Scott's friends who had burst out the door with him gave me my books and apologized also.

"Again sorry about this," Scott said shyly, "these are my friends - Wyatt, Dustin, and Julian."

"Nice to meet you I'm Alice."

They all murmured 'hi's and I proceeded to the classroom.

"Oooooo," Evie said "the new girl has stolen the hearts of all the boys."

We giggled, but someone I didn't even know was extremely unhappy about my encounter with the boys especially Dustin and I don't even know it yet. Then it was time to go home. Not a first bad day if I do say so myself.