Ava walked into her first class 15 min. late.  “God, I hate this,” she whispered to herself. “Hi Mr. ahh,” she glanced at her schedule, “Simpson I’m Ava Gentry” 

“Hi there Ava, please grab a seat you’re just in time for my very interesting lecture,” the tall balding man said with a smile. 

 Ava smiled back; she decided she liked this teacher.  Ava turned back to the class.  She didn’t see anyone she knew, well, she thought I only know Marco and Ellie.  She took a seat by a guy in the back.  He didn’t even look at her.  Good, she thought, I might get out of here without talking to anyone.

She didn’t get off that easy, about 10 min. before class was over Mr. Simpson assigned a project.  And of course partners were involved.  Ava cringed.

“So you want to do it?” The guy beside her asked.  Ava gave him a dirty look in return. 

“I mean the project.” The guy said trying to hide a smile.

 “Oh, I knew that.” Ava said wishing she could crawl under the desk.

 “Sure you did.  So we gonna be partners or what?”  he asked this time with a cute little smirk. 

“Sure that’s fine, I’m Ava.”

 “Jay,” he answered. 

“Okay Jay, I have a free period let me see,” she looked at her schedule again, “5^th period.” 

“Cool I’ll see you in the courtyard.” 

“Don’t you think the library would be a better place to work?  You know I think we’re going to need a computer seeing as this is a computer project.” 

“Whatever, I gotta go.” He said.

 “Okay I’ll see you…later,” Ava said, but he was already gone.

Ava jumped as she turned around.  “Hey there”, she said to the girl in her face. 

“Yeah hi or whatever, look if I were you I would stay away from him.”  The girl said with a flick of her hair. 

“Jay?  Look, I’m not trying to hit on your boyfriend.” 

The girl laughed and said, “Jay, my boyfriend, I so don’t think so.  Let’s just say he’s trouble and leave it at that.  So, what’s your next class?” 

“English, with Mrs. Kwan.” “Me too, come on hun, I’ll show you the way.”

 “Okay thanks, I’m Ava by the way.” 

“I know I heard you say it to Simpson.” The blonde girl replied.

 “Oh and you are?” 

“I’m Paige hun.”  The girl said with another flick of her hair.

Ava smiled at Ellie and Marco as she and Paige passed her in the hall.

“What did I tell you Marco the new girl is already hooked up with Paige.”  Ellie said with a knowing smile.

“Ellie she is just getting help finding her next class.  She seems nice enough to me.”  Marco said with a shrug.

“Um maybe.”  Ellie said more to herself than to Marco.