First Day at Arc img

First Day at Arc, Freshman Third Period

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While taking pictures of a small sculpture inside the classroom, another student approaches you. His name is Darden. Interesting name.

At first, he made a big show of taking pictures of a green, spikey cactus inside a pot in a corner near the sculpture. He started talking after a few minutes.

"I know this cactus is fake," he said, "but it looks so real."

The two of you argue about whether the cactus is real or fake. You finally touch one of the spikes and it bends against your finger.

"Is that supposed to happen?"

The both of you shrug and laugh. Then Darden begins critiquing the sculpture that caught your attention. Quickly, the two of you begin to argue about whether it is handmade or store-bought.

Finally, you agree that neither of you care and you show your phone images back and forth.

"You've got a good eye. I just started a new crew this year called Van Gogh's Ear. We have ten members already. If you haven't joined a crew yet, maybe you can think about joining ours."

I can form my own crew?

You didn't think that was how it worked. You also don't think you know enough about how any of it worked to try to do that.

"What do I have to do?" you ask.

"We have weekly meetings--well, not really meetings. We hang out and try different projects and stuff. We aren't snobby about it like the others. Any kind of art is okay. You can design emojis for all we care."

"Thanks," you say. "I will think about it. I'm not part of any crew. I'm new to this whole area so I don't know how any of it works."

"Here's our website," Darden said and he gave the information. "You can contact me through that site if you want to check us out."

Class ended shortly after that. You only went two class periods before someone invited you to join their crew. Everything seemed much easier than you thought it would be.

Third period class would be all about history. Great. You hate history. You literally fell asleep in history class in your old school. You had to promise yourself and your parents that you would not do that anymore. Your eyes are already feeling heavy ...

This time your class is practically on the other side of the school building. You have to fight against crowds of students. You see more girls and boys in blazers as you walk, and you try to avoid them. The hallways are full of colors grouped together in clumps. Blue everywhere, different shades of blue, yellow, orange, green, and several tall, good-looking guys in bright red so that you couldn't miss them at all.

You get to your history class just before the bell rings. There are only a few seats left, all on the front row. You don't care. You grab one of those seats and wait for the boredom to come on.

Amazingly, you don't feel sleepy throughout the entire class. The teacher explains that the class will cover American history from 1776 until the Civil War, but for the first day of class he talked about local history. In fact, he talked about Joan of Arc history and how the crew system started. He played an old video that aired on TV--you never watched it back then. Then he spoke about his own experience as an Arc student during what some people called the year of the social war. He talked about Jude "Prefontaine" Taylor and how the crew system started.

You hang on his every word. The other students may know about these things. It is all new to you.

In the last ten minutes of class, the teacher opened up discussion about Arc's history. One student raised a hand.

"I don't understand why this happened here, I mean, why the crew system started. Things like this happen at other schools, I guess, but no one really does anything about it."

The teacher nodded. "That's a good question. Does anyone have an answer?"

"It's because of Creme de la Creme or, you now, a lot of people say the Vanities. People just love to hate anyone who is on top. It's jealousy. There was no way to stop people from--"

Another student cuts in with no apology.

"Okay, I would ask our teacher if that is what he thinks because none of us were here at that time. We don't know anything about it. I know you don't. You just sound like you are hoping to get vained."

"Hold on," the teacher interrupted. "One at a time, please. Anyone else?"

A girl raised her hand. "Okay, I am not a fan of the Vanities. I don't hate them. I honestly don't care about them. But I just wonder if this is an experiment that has gone on too long."

The teacher smirked. "That is an interesting take on it. Well, maybe we will come back to this again throughout the year, but as you all can see, history can be dull and boring, but it can also be exciting and relevant. See you all next time."

The bell rings. Time for fourth period.

You decide to:

Go directly to your fourth period class

or

Go to the nurse's office

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Pub: 09 Sep 2020 01:07 UTC
Views: 95