Social Norms

Chapter 1

It's the first day of school after Christmas break, and I'm happy to be back. I don't know why, but I kind of like having a schedule and bustling from class to class. Standing at my locker before third period, shifting my books around, I take a deep breath and enjoy the familiar smell of books and paper. 

As I close my locker door, Ryder Trevisani (my best friend who I've known since I was six years old) sneaks up behind me and sticks his face right in mine, scaring the bejeezus out of me. Loudly, he says, "What's up, Pepple?!" I jump forward about two feet, nearly hitting my head on my locker door. "Holy crap, Ryder, what are you doing?" 

I can't help but chuckle a little when I look at him. He's wearing a t-shirt with a picture of an apple in the middle and the words Teachers Have Class written around it. The shirt clearly belonged to a frumpy school teacher at one point in time. His shirt is topped with an unbuttoned men's dress shirt, which sets off his black jeans and matching Converse high-tops. 

He's one of five kids, and between taking care of his younger brother and sister and running his family's restaurant in town, his mother had had enough of picking up after him. She told him that he was old enough to take care of his own laundry and that if he wanted clean clothes to wear to school, he would have to take care of it himself. Because Ryder is the quintessential and perpetual slacker, instead of doing any actual laundry, he just uses the money he earns from working at the restaurant to buy more clothes from Goodwill. This shirt was clearly a new find.

I'm just about to say something about his shirt when a group of baseball players rumbles down the hallway. The lead pitcher, Colten Hayes, is the closest thing to a bully (in the traditional sense) that our school has. He runs down the hall and jumps on the back of Jacob Pritchard whooping, "Go Royals! AAA tournament here we come!" Jacob is a spindly type of thin and cannot bear the weight of Colten. They both come crashing down onto the floor. 

Jacob is beet red and clearly embarrassed as he struggles to get back up to his feet. He mutters, "You're such a dork, Hayes." Colten snaps back, "I'm just trying to spread some class spirit, Sheldon. Relax, man." The ironic thing about this is that it's the football team that made it to the tournament. The baseball team at our school actually sucks pretty hard. 

Ryder leans in toward me and dryly asks, "Why are all baseball players such asshats?" I giggle a little and shrug, "I guess it's because they're a lethal combination of Idol and stupid."

The Idols are the top of the social structure at our school, the cream of the crop. It's quite painfully obvious to everyone that they're the future elites in our society, i.e., the lawyers, bankers, and entrepreneurs of the future. 

They generally all dress preppy and are all involved in some kind of athletic extracurricular activities, including football, basketball, or golf for the guys and cheerleading, dance, or majorettes for the girls. Most are rich, but not all. The thing that really makes them unique to our school, though, is that most of them are also smart. The baseball team is an obviously notable exception to this. 

The vast majority of them take all AP classes, are on the student council, debate team, chess team, and quiz bowl, and even do volunteer work. Don't get me wrong, they're still your stereotypical popular kids. They're just hypocrites. They get wasted at keg parties on Saturday nights at the Racquetball Club, which often ends up on someone's Finstra or in a TikTok meme, but then they get up and go to church on Sunday morning, like they're perfect angels. 

I think the thing that I find the most irritating about them is that, despite their debauchery, everyone in our town still loves them, including the teachers, principal, and community leaders like the City Council and even the Mayor. The football team making it to the tournament certainly isn't hurting their reputation as the future leaders of Kingstown, Texas, either.