Into the Sea, kap. 1
20th September, 6.30 am
Dear diary,
2day is my first day of school; I’m hoping 2 make a good first impression – dah. I’ve decided not 2 let anyone C how nervous I am, that would just make people think I’m a chicken – no offence chickens, it’s just an expression. We came here yesterday – me, my dad and my mom – and I’m supposed 2 start school 2day. I barely had time 2 go check the location of the school! And it would not be a good thing if I didn’t knew where the school was. That would just be embarrassing. Where is it we now live, then? We moved 2 the small town Forks in Washington, but Forks High School had no more places for juniors so I have 2 go 2 the La Push High School. La Push is a Native American reservation and it takes only 45 min 2 go from our house 2 the school, and 20 on my skateboard. My parents aren’t very happy ‘bout the fact that I’m going 2 go 2 school in La Push with ‘black kids’. My parents are all ‘no homosexual people, no black people, no bisexual people’ and it’s pretty annoying ‘cause I have no problem with it. For example they want me 2 talk 2 the other students or the teachers – unless they’re white – as little as possible. Don’t they want me 2 have any friends @ school, or what? Well, if I asked them, they’d say no.
“Samantha! You have to get out of bed now!” I heard my mom call from outside my room.
I sighed and laid my diary on my bedside table. “Okay!” I called back.
I heard her walk away from my bedroom door as I stood up from my bed and walked over to my closet. Hmm, what to wear today? I found a blue pair of baggy jeans and a purple tank top that I threw on and as usual I had to wear accessories – a loose tie and my Vans cap. Before I walked out to the kitchen to eat breakfast I put my diary in my shoulder bag (the shoulder bag is my school bag) and my keys and mobile phone in my jeans pockets.
When I got out to the kitchen my mom and dad already sat there drinking their disgusting coffee, eating sandwiches and reading the newspaper. I dumped my bag on the floor by the sink and took a bowl from one of the cabinets and a spoon out of a drawer and sat down together with mom and dad.
“Good morning.” Dad said to me and looked up from his boring newspaper.
“Good morning, Samantha.” Mom said as she – too – looked up from her newspaper.
“Mornin’.” I said and poured milk in my bowl. Dad cleared his throat and looked and me. I sighed and said; “Good morning.” Dada nodded and went back to his newspaper. I put some cereal together with the milk in my bowl and started eating. Everything – apart of the sound of us eating – was totally silent. How could they eat like this?! I had never understood why they never talked when we ate and I had stopped trying to make them, it never worked.
After I had eaten I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth and hair and put on some makeup. I never wore much makeup; it just looked cheap and scary when girls had overdone it. I put my brown, wavy hair in two loose ponytails – one on each side of my head – and then put on some black mascara and light pink lip gloss. I smiled at my reflection before I walked out from the bathroom and into the kitchen where I had left my bag. I had to go through the kitchen to get to the front door. I took up my bag from the floor as I passed it when I got out of the kitchen I couldn’t see my skateboard anywhere. I had left if leaning against the wall beside the front door yesterday.
“Where’s my board?” I asked as I turned around to look at my parents.
“It was in the way so I put it just outside the door, honey.” Mom said and did a gesture with her hand towards the door.
“What?! You can’t leave it outside for the night!” I exclaimed. “It would have got ruined if it had bean raining.”
Both mom and dad ignored what I’d said. “Now remember; do not talk to the black teachers or students if you don’t have to.” Dad said.
I rolled my eyes but said “sure, sure.” As I walked out the door and found my dear skateboard outside waiting for me. I took it and walked out on the driveway where I put it down on the ground, stood on it and started riding down the street.
When I got to the school I could feel everyone watch me. I took my skateboard under my arm and walked past everyone into the building with my head held high. I went to the office to get my papers and then I went to my locker. I had number 103, it was not long from the front doors so I didn’t needed to walk through the whole school to get to it. It was still 10 minutes left ‘till the classes would start so there stood groups of people talking in the corridors. One group with five incredible big boys and two very cute girls were all looking at me weirdly. Not ‘she’s the new, weird girl’-looks, they looked more like they all were trying to figure out something really hard. All five guys looked practically the same – beautiful bronze skin, dark hair and eyes, high cheekbones and very muscular. The girls didn’t look the same – heck! One of them was as pale as snow – but they were both very cute. The pale one had big, brown eyes and her hair went down to her lumbar and was wavy and had a unique mix of bronze and orange. The other girl had the same bronze skin, high cheekbones, dark eyes and dark hair as the guys, but hers was cut down by her shoulders. She and the guys are probably Quileute. All the guys looked like they were different ages – from my age and up – and both girls looked like they were freshmen. One of the oldest guys had his arm over the Quileute girl’s shoulders. I could feel their gases on my back as I turned around and unlocked my locker. I hang my bag on a hook that was in my locker and leaned my skateboard against the right wall in it. Then I took up my schedule to see what my first class was. I sighed heavily. Great, math as the first lesion on the Monday. I folded my schedule and put it in my back pocket – it could come in handily sometime. Since I didn’t had any books jet I just put a pencil and eraser in my pockets and grabbed my diary. Maybe it sounds lame to take your diary with you, but I always do that. I wonder if it’s safe to leave my skateboard in my locker or would someone steal it? I could still feel the group looking at me so I could as well ask them if it’s safe.
I turned towards them “Hey! Is it safe to leave my skateboard here?”
“I think so.” The one with his arm over the Quileute girl said.
“Okay, but if it’s gone when I get back here it’s on you.” I said as I slammed my locker shut. He grinned at me as I walked past them and towards my class. I smiled back. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all? I mean, I could talk to them in school; I just didn’t need to tell mom or dad.
As I walked down the hallways I felt everyone looking curiously at me. No one dared to say ‘hi’, but a few people smiled friendly at me.
When I got to the math classroom it was about half empty. The desks stood two and two and I got to sit beside a boy named Joseph. He was a total math geek and could everything. He seemed pretty nice, he introduced himself to me and helped me when I got stuck but other than that we didn’t talk much.
My second class was art and apparently that class never is in the classroom when it’s warm outside. Some girl told me that when I was just about to open the door to the classroom and she walked by. She told me to go out the front doors and to the left side of the school, where there were a big oak in the grass. Mrs. Oland always has her classes there.
“Can I sit here?”
“Holy shit!” I exclaimed and jumped a couple of inches. When I looked up I saw one of the big guys who had looked at me weirdly before.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” He said.
I shook my head. “No, s’okay, I was in my own little world.” I patted the spot in the grass beside me. “Sit down.”
He sat down and laid his stuff beside him in the grass. No one said anything. Awkward silence, next.
“So…” I said awkwardly but trailed off; I didn’t know what to say.
“I’m Seth.” He broke the silence and held out his hand.
“Sam.” I shook his hand. He looked questioning so I explained the name thing for him. “My real name is Hannah Samantha Piece but that sounds way to girly so instead of being called Samantha people call me Sam.”
“Aha.” Seth nodded slowly.
Then Mrs. Oland clapped her hands together and started the lesion. “Okay, today we’re starting on something new. You shall pick a patch from my hat” she pointed at a black hat that stood upside down on a stone under the oak with small, white paper notes in it. “On every patch I have written something, then paint it, sketch it, build a little sculpture of it, take photos, or whatever you can think of. Okay? And this is a big work. We’re going to work on it until Christmas break so take your time to plan what to do today.” Students agreed with ‘sure’-s, ‘okay’-s and ‘yep’-s and started getting up. When I got up Seth took my arm and dragged me down in the grass again.
“What?” I asked.
“It’s going to take awhile for the class to be done with that” he nodded towards where the class had crowded around Mrs. Oland’s hat. “We could as well wait here until they’re done.”
“But… I what if I’ll get something like… like… I dunno, something really boring.”
“You don’t get to choose what you get; even the first one can get something boring.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but shut it again. He was right; all the little papers were folded so you couldn’t see what was written on them.
“If you got to choose, what would you choose?” Seth asked curiously.
“Hmm, something like…” I thought for a moment “Sadness or music, maybe? You?”
Seth thought for a moment. “I dunno, not too hard, I don’t have much time working at home, and art isn’t really my subject.” Seth stood up and held his hand out for me. “C’mon, let’s go see what we do get.”
“Okay.” I took his hand and let him drag me up from the grass. Now everyone were standing or sitting in groups together and talking about how to work with their topic. When we got to the hat I closed my eyes and took a piece of paper.
Quileute legends
I smiled. This was way better than sadness of music!
“What did you get?” Seth asked.
“Quileute legends!” I exclaimed happily.
Seth raised an eyebrow at me. “Seriously?”
“Aha.” I nodded my head eagerly. I had always bean fascinated by Native American legends, and was great to have it as a topic in art, my favorite class.
“Quileute legends?” Seth asked me doubtfully. “I mean, some of them are cool but how do you think you’re going to make our legends into an art work?”
I shrugged. “Sketch illustrations out of your legends – like the thunderbird with a whale in it’s claws and that kind of stuff – and I can always make you and your friends dress up as charters out of the legends and take photos.” I smiled one of my most evil smiles at him and then said: “I can see it; you, on the beach, dressed up as a ‘cold one’… and the others on boats in the water, trying to escape you.” While gesturing with my hands in front off me.
“Not gonna happen, Sam.” Seth said and took a note himself.
“So… what did you get?” I asked.
He unfolded it and showed it to me. “Friendship.” He said. “How am I supposed to do that?”
“Can’t tell you, it’s your job to figure that out.” I said smugly.
Seth sighed heavily and went back to where we had been sitting before. I followed him and sat down opposite him. I opened my diary in my lap and took my pencil. Since this was something I liked and was interested in, I was going to write my plans and notes in my diary instead of on some boring striped papers like the rest of the class – inclusive Seth.
20th September, about 9.20 am
Dear diary,
Right now I’m sitting in art class – outside, in the grass! ‘till it gets cold, all art classes are going to B out here. Anyways, today every1 got a topic which you’re supposed to work with ‘till x-mas break and
“What’s that?”
I looked up at Seth who was looking at me curiously. “Um, my diary.”
“You do know that you’re not supposed to write in your diary right now, right?” Seth asked. “You’re supposed to plan how to make Quileute legends art.… And friendship” Seth’s last two words he said sarcastically.
“Ha! Good try, but I won’t do your work.” I said and laughed. “But, I’m writing it in my diary. Since this art work is something I’m really excited about I’m going to take notes and stuff in this.” I clapped the side of my diary that I was writing on.
Seth nodded and went back to his notebook, so I continued writing too.
guess what I got! Quileute legends! So cool! OK, now I have to start planning, here we go…
The rest of the lesion I and Seth spent planning our art works. We talked a lot and decided to help each other, for example Seth was going to help me to find interesting legends and I was going to help Seth with whatever he could need.
My third class was chemistry. It was so boring I’d probably fall asleep if I hadn’t had anything else to think about. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t get Seth and the rest of the kids in the group he was in of off my mind. Somewhere deep inside of me something said that they weren’t normal – that they weren’t human – but why would I think that? It was just some weird feeling I’d got when Seth took my arm to hold me back on the grass instead of go taking a paper note in art class. Totally weird. And I had already noticed that they kept to themselves, well, except from wen Seth talked to me in art class. Actually, it was as if the other students kept themselves from Seth and his group. Not as if they were afraid and didn’t wanted to get too close, it was more as if Seth and the others were some other sort of people – more powerful people – and the other students didn’t dared to talk to them, but they respected them. I wonder why, maybe my weird feeling had something to do with it. Should I avoid them just as everyone else did? Seth had been very nice to me.
“Miss. Piece, are you listening?” I was awoken out of my daydreaming by Mr. Smith’s irritating voice. My chemistry teacher looked firmly at me.
I sighed and shook my head. “No, I was thinking ‘bout other stuff.” What? I’d rather like people to tell the truth, I don’t like liars.
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Then I bet you’d love to share your ‘other stuff’ with the rest of the class.” By now everyone’s eyes was on me. I wasn’t that uncomfortable with everyone looking at me, just a little, and one thing I defiantly wasn’t afraid of was angry or irritated teachers.
“Actually, I’d rather not. I like having my mind private.” I hear several surprised gasps and some student’s mouth’s popped open as the bell rang and it was time for lunch. I took my new chemistry book and my diary in my hands and walked out of the classroom towards my locker.
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