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Chapter One:
The Monday after Labor Day was one of those Southern California Indian summer days. The temperature had warmed back up into the nineties. The sky was a brillant blue with the smog having been washed away by two days of rain. There were a few wisps of snowy white clouds. It was a day to be running around shoeless, dressed minimiumally, and have fun. Not a day to be returning to school after a lazy summer vacation.
At Henry L. Caller Junior High School the yellow school buses were slowly making their way around the circular driveway to drop off mostly reluctant passengers. From every direction those seventh and eighth who had to walk to school were dragging themselves through the gates onto the school campus. Teachers and Administrators could be seen everywhere directing the new seventh graders and the returning eighth graders to their Core rooms. Those Core room assignments had been mailed out several weeks earlier. In the office, secretaries were telling those students who had forgotten or had never recieved their letterswhere they were assigned to. And most everywhere girls were giggling and boys were grumbling. A custodian was busy raising the flags. In the cafeteria workers were setting about preparing for lunch. In the faculty lounge, the Vice Principal was busy motivating the year's three new teachers. Old friends mingled and telling about each other about their summer vacations. In those that the first stirrings of puberty were taking their toll, girls talked about boys and boys talked about girls. On the stairs to the Multipurpose Room, hidden from view, a boy and a girl were kissing. And, in one of the bathrooms, two boys were sharing a cigarette.
For the seventh graders junior high would be a major change from elementary school. No more sinle class room with one teacher only. Now they would have a Core or Home Room teacher for a brief attendance period and for three periods a day to learn math, english, and history. They would have different teachers for gym and two elective classes ranging from home ec and shop classes in science, band, speech and drama.
Carole Kristine O'Dell, Kristy she prefered to be called hating the name Carole, stood outside her home room looking at a list of potehntial elective classes. She knew she was required to take a semester of home ec and was planning to get it out of the way that first semester. She was debating what to take as her second elective. She figured she should take science and/or speech, but the drama class piqued her curiousity, "It should be fun," she thought to herself.
John Andrew McGregor turned the corner and headed down the walkway to where his home room was located. His mind was deep in thought trying to figure out who the murderer was in Agatha"s Christie's "And Then There Were None". He loved her mysteries but was having a hard time solving the murders in this tale.
John was stopped suddenly when a hand grabbed his arm. He turned around to see a tall, gangly boy that he had played Little League with by the name of Tom Maggi.
"They let you out of St. Thomas, huh?" Tom asked with a big grin on his face.
"More like kicked me out," John responded with his own grin.
"What the fuck did you do to get kicked out," Tom asked amazed.
"Well, to make a long story short, it involved a penguin and my fist."
"No, shit?"
"Yep."
"What home room do you got?" Tom asked ungrammatically.
"7-9. How about you?"
"Great, we have the same one. Hey, I've got to take a leak. I'll see you in class," Tom said and hurried away.
John turned back and headed toward class. His mind now on the science and drama electives he was going to take this semester. But those thoughts quickly vanished as he neared his home room and saw her.
(To be continued)
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