I
had gained a lot of confidence from my new found interaction with
girls and I thought junior high was going to be okay. It was right in
time for a fresh start. For the first time I had done my school
shopping on my terms with my money to buy clothes that I wanted. I
thought I looked pretty snappy but that was because I didn't know it
pretty snappy looked like. When the first day of school came around
we went our homeroom class, which for me was history, I got to sit
next to a kid named Sean and then another guy named Shawn who for
some reason we started calling Ray. When it came time for us to pick
a partner to be locker partners with me and Santaquin Shawn paired
up. We'd never really been friends but at least I knew him so it was
a match of convenience. About the second day I was quite a bit better
friends with the new Sean from Payson and I wished I would have
shared a locker with him instead. I was always worried that my new
friends were about to turn on me because it seemed too good to be
true that I was hanging out with cool kids. All the friends I made at
Timberline were all there too and they were ninth graders which meant
that they were big fish in a little pond and we were friends so I
gained acceptance to the older kids inner circle. All of the sudden
I'd gone from the least popular kid in school or close to it to
pretty well liked kid who had friends in the ninth grade. In classes
people wanted me to come and sit by them and people were
acknowledging me in the hall. For the first time in my life I had a
girl come across the room and ask to sit by me and my friend Kevin
from Timberline. I was in culture shock and I liked it.
