First Day of School

I'm going to pretend this prompt isn't because I dropped my babies off at the local elementary school today ...

So many YA and MG books start with the first day of school.  Why?  Because it's something most of us can identify with on a visceral level.  Any character heading in for their first day of school immediately has our sympathy.  We can feel our guts clench with anxiety and the stares of the other kids (especially if it's only OUR first day at a new school, where everyone else is already established). 

However you want to write it, however old your MC is, the prompt for this week is the First Day of School.

Enjoy!

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My response:

I knew I shouldn't have gotten out of bed this morning.  There was just something in the air ... a warning floating in through the open window on a desert breeze.  I told my mom we would be crazy to call the desert's bluff.  She just laughed and tossed a new t-shirt onto my bed.  "Get dressed."

Fifth grade was bad enough, but now that we'd moved to Tucson, into Grandma's house, I wasn't even going to fifth grade with my friends anymore.  And I knew from experience that no one ever liked the new boy. 

The elementary school down the street had wrought iron gates around the whole school and looked like a prison more than a school.  Inside wasn't much better.  Mrs. Apel wasn't exactly welcoming, either.  She frowned at me, adjusted her glasses, and pointed to the bookshelf along the side wall.  "You'll have to sit there until I can get a new desk brought in."  I shimmied along the bookshelf to the back of the class.  She didn't say where on the shelf I had to sit, and the last thing I wanted was to have everyone stare at me all day.

I pulled off my backpack and set it on the shelf next to me.  A kid with brown hair and blue eyes peered at me from beneath his overgrown bangs.  I smiled.  He sneered.

"Ok, class, pull out your pencils and notebooks.  Fifteen minutes of journal writing, starting now."

At least I had notebooks and pencils.  I reached into my bag and got out what I had.

"You aren't allowed to have a plastic pencil box!" a voice whispered. 

I looked up.  A girl with red braids fixed a disapproving stare at my pencil box.

"What else am I supposed to have?"

She rolled her eyes.  "A pencil BAG."  She waved her canvas contraption around in the air for me to see, then shoved it back into her desk.

Just as I was thinking things couldn't get worse, I felt something cold against my leg.  My hand dropped down to brush it away and landed in a puddle of milk.  It was oozing out of my backpack.

I stared, as if I could will it away.  It didn't work.  I peered into my bag and opened my lunch sack.  Sure enough, the lid had come off my TMNT thermos, and it was empty. 

Yep.  Should'a stayed in bed.