First Day of School

Who: Skye and Alexis
Where: Marquette Senior High School
When: Morning

Skye decided, early on, that they must have cranked the heat in preparation for winter in the highschool, and accidently forgot about the fact that it was fall and therefore the weather was sketchy at best. Way, way too hot. Luckily, it was easily resolved by removing her grey zip-up hoodie and folding it to put in her backpack. She had time. Skye was, after all, sitting in the office waiting for them to sort out her schedule, find her a map or a guide or something, and a locker. A locker would be helpful. Oh, and textbooks. That'd be a bonus. It was kind of funny though. Skye knew she looked young for her age, but she never really expected a secretary to look at her sympathetically and go "Sweetie, are you lost? This is the high school."

Alexis was running late again. This time she'd overslept, realizing how very late it was only once she ran out the door. Not having a car was becoming a pain and she'd missed the bus, which meant getting her father to take her. She strolled into school just as the bell rang and was just starting to sprint when she heard her name being called. "Miss Byrd," the secretary said, and Alexis skidded to a halt. "If you'd like to avoid another tardy, we have a new student that needs to be shown around." Alexis raised both brows, taking a step towards the office. "I'll get a pass into class?" she asked. "If you show her around," the secretary stipulated. "If I hear about you ditching her, it'll be an automatic detention." Alexis amazed herself by not rolling her eyes. Instead, she turned towards the new girl. "Hi, I'm Alexis Byrd," she said, offering her hand and a smile.

Skye stood up and shook Alexis' hand. "Skye Craddock. Um. Glad I could help you from being late?" She quirked and eyebrow, not altogether sure what had happened there, but willing to accept it. Skye picked up her backpack and hooked it over her shoulder, then gave Alexis a slightly sheepish smile when the secretary put the various Important Papers on the desktop for Skye to get. "Sorry, I just need to get these..."

"Don't worry; it's far better than another tardy," Alexis smiled. She didn't mind showing Skye around in the least, though it amused her that one new girl would show around another. She'd only gotten a grip on things just recently, so hopefully she could answer all of Skye's questions. If not, she could at least show her to her locker and her first hour class. "It's fine, take your time," she said, waiting patiently.

Skye signed the usual stuff - locker agreement and so forth - got her copies, and put them in the backpack that was already heavy enough to make her want to stagger a little under the weight. Then she turned back to Alexis. "Okay, can you show me where this locker is?" Skye showed her the slip of paper that had the details. "I need to get rid of some of this stuff."

"I'm sure we can hunt it down," Alexis said, looking at the locker number as they headed out of the office. "So, what brings you to Marquette?" she asked, leading the way down the hall. "And is there anything I can carry? That looks awfully heavy..." Honestly, she was a touch surprised that Skye was in high school. She looked so young, but her schedule put the two of them in the same year.

Skye shook her head. "I'm fine." Though she did flinch when the backpack rubbed up against the stitches in her back. "I mean, if we can find the locker, I can just throw everything in there, right? Shouldn't be that difficult. Oh, my cousin went to university this year, so I'm living with my aunt, and that involves going to highschool. That's all." Skye didn't mention this was the first time she'd ever been to school, of course.

"You should be able to drop off what you don't need and come back between classes. There's usually enough time between bells," she explained. Every school was different, so Alexis didn't know what Skye was used to. "So you used to live with your cousin?" she asked. Yes, she was being nosy, but she'd immediately noticed the complete lack of parents being mentioned and so she was curious.

"No. I used to live with my parents and my brothers. But my cousin moved out of my aunt's place and she was lonely so I moved in with her, and so that I could go to school here. Oh, I need to get textbooks after we find the locker. Where do we get those?"

"You can usually get your textbooks in class. The teachers should have extras to assign. If they don't, they'll send you down to the library with a slip telling the librarian what you need," Alexis said. If she hadn't been so new herself, she wouldn't have known the procedure. In this case, Skye was definitely in luck. "Where did you go to school before?" she asked.

"I didn't." Skye rubbed the back of her neck, kind of awkwardly. "I was home schooled. This is the first time I've ever gone."

"Really?" Alexis asked, surprised. She'd never met anyone that was home schooled. Her father had wanted to go for that, but only because it would have made things easier on him. Unfortunately, that might have had child services knocking on their door. Easier to enroll her in public school than risk Alexis being carted off. "This should be really different then. Any questions?"

"No, not really. Not yet. I was going to ask why it seems so... empty? But I guess with the, um, the stuff that happened it's a perfectly reasonable thing. To be emptier, I mean." Skye frowned at herself, deciding that she was making very little (if any) kind of sense at all. "And it's kind of new to me - I'm sure I'll have more questions later." Then she paused and thought, and then shrugged and nodded.

"Um, it's empty because the bell rang and people are in class," Alexis explained. "You have to get to class before the tardy bell, or you get a demerit. I was running late and would have gotten a demerit, but I got a pass for showing you around," she smiled. "So after your class, you get your stuff and go to the next one before the bell rings. There's about seven minutes between classes, so you should have enough time, but generally there are a lot more people pushing through the hallways."

"I don't think it's because everyone's in class." Skye shrugged. The parkinglot had looked not-quite-full, and there was a weird echo in the school almost. The same when you came home to an empty, or nearly empty house. Maybe it was just her being paranoid over the shadow thing, though. "Seven minutes seems like plenty of time, though."

Alexis didn't know what to say to that. Sure, a few people were missing, but it wasn't like the school was deserted. Of course, she hadn't been to class yet, so maybe there were more people missing than she was aware of. "It usually is, unless you get to talking and forget about the time," she said, guilty of that herself. They turned down a hall lined with lockers and Alexis began to scan the numbers. "Yours should be around here," she said.

Numbers. Numbers were easy. A piece of cake. Skye just found one, subtracted her locker number, and counted down. Then she pointed it out. "That's it, isn't it? These are pretty big - do we have to split with anyone?"

"No," Alexis said, approaching the locker. "I'm assuming it'll be nice later in the winter, when we've got big heavy coats to stuff in here along with our books." At least, that's what she thought since her own stuff didn't take up that much space either.

Skye nodded, seriously, and opened the locker, and tossed her backpack inside, though she did take a binder with paper, and a pen, from it. "I guess so. Thank you for helping me find the locker. Now I just have to avoid getting lost for the rest of day, and I'll be okay." She said dryly, with a grin. "Don't worry, I won't tell the secretary if you want to run away now."

Alexis laughed softly. "You sure? I'd rather you find your class than wander around for the rest of the hour," she said. She knew she couldn't take too long, or she'd miss too much herself. If she knew more people, she'd get the notes from a classmate, but she'd yet to form that sort of relationship in most of her classes.

"Sure. Just point me in the direction of the first one, and I'll eventually figure my way from there." Skye grinned slightly. "I've got a map, and I've got a good excuse to be late, considering it's my first day and all."

"Okay," Alexis grinned, then looked at Skye's schedule to see where she was going first. "You're gonna head to the end of this hall, then take a left. Go three halls down, then take another left. Your class should be on that hall."

"Right on." Skye took the schedule back and tucked it into the binder. "That shouldn't be too difficult, unless it's hidden or something. Thank you a lot for your help, Alexis!"

"Welcome," Alexis said, waving as she headed off in the other direction. "It was nice to meet you! See you later!"

"Bye!" Skye smiled to herself and started walking towards class. The town might've been highly screwed up, but this seemed to be an excellent start to the school year otherwise.