Clique High - Chapter One: Nerds

This is Clique High, I have decided to allow you all to read it for some critique. Please be harsh, I need all the help I can get!

This is the first day of High school for me. I have a goal, to try and join every clique in school. I have hung out with any and everybody from fourth to eighth grade. Ninth grade is going to be different. I want to start from lowest to highest, but once a nerd, always a nerd… My name is John Cline. I live in a huge city in Delaware; I have lived in the same house with my dad my entire life, my mom died before I was old enough to really get to know her.  I was a pretty popular guy in my eight years of school. That means doing this won’t be that hard.

First things first, you can’t get anywhere without being in sports or clubs. I am going to join… Soccer, I love soccer. I am joining the nerd club, “underground” as they call it. That way I will be popular while hanging out with the nerds. The nerds are having a trip to Japan, and I really want to go, but until then I have seven cliques to try out. One is the nerds; two is the Emos and Goths; three is the Gossips; four is the preps; five is the Richies; six is the Populars; and seven is the Jocks. Being in the jocks won’t work if I am only playing soccer though, I will need to join wrestling too. I live with my dad, but he is never home. He is an owner of a huge branch of banks; he has the highest rank of all of the owners. My dad doesn’t do much traveling though; he is afraid of planes.

The biggest nerd in school is a prince. Way, way, way down in the line as a prince. Be it as it may. He calls himself Prince Jok, while really his name is Teven. Teven sits usually alone, everywhere. I don’t even think he is classified as a nerd. He is ranked below everyone. Today I was going to sit by him; I am dedicated to at least a day of trying to find out as much as I can. Whether or not I should think he is in the right part of the high school ladder. I sat down beside him.  

“Morning Teven, how are you?” I ask, unaware of his barking if you don’t call him Prince Jok. “Okay, sorry I’ll call you Jok!” I winked, and then squeezed my eyes very tightly. He shrieked again. “Okay Prince Jok.” I already understood why he was so far down the list.

“Now, I am going to interview you, answer my questions.” I took out a piece of paper and wrote down a list of questions. “One, how often do you shower?”

“Daily, that is if my mom has clothes for me to change into.” He pretty much just cancelled himself out.

“Why don’t you have clothes to change into?” I sipped my milk. I didn’t really want to ask the other questions now, I had this one.

“My family is poor; we are a paycheck away from getting the house bill paid.” He had water in his eyes, underneath his tire-rimmed glasses. He took the hanky out of his shirt pocket and wiped his eye.

“I thought you were a prince, shouldn’t you be rich?” I wasn’t smiling. I was trying to figure him out a little.

“Yes, but my grandparents moved to Tokyo; they can’t send money to us.” He had a slight smile now. It turns out that he is an okay kid. I left him, kind of, he was following me. It was time for me to move to the first rung on the ladder, the nerds.

“Hey I am John, what are you up too?” I sat beside who I thought to be the hottest nerd in the school, or at least during breakfast. They all introduced themselves, one was named Zack Fandom. He has a really cool name, Fandom… I was mainly interested in the girl beside me. She introduced herself as Kelsey Gore. She is sixteen, around five-five and had a brilliant smile. Her hair was a marvelous yellow color that went down to the curve in her spine.

“This is your first day, right?” She smiled. She was a sophomore.

“Yep, new to the world,” I winked, “care to show a newbie around the school?” The other guy nerds were surprised at how fast I worked; little knowledge that when I was in fifth grade, Kelsey was my best friend. She began pointing at the stage at the far left of the cafeteria.

“That is where I will be every Tuesday and Friday after school, or, at least until the day of the play. I am the director.” She had a huge smile. I couldn’t understand how she could be a nerd. Then I looked at her notebook, I haven’t seen Kelsey’s sketchbook since eighth grade. She still had the same smile, and then she slid the notebook over to me. I remembered a lot of the first drawings, but then I saw one of us. The most beautiful drawing I have ever seen, it was colored in color pencils, and charcoal. The drawing was of us on swings, the sun was on the top right hand corner, she had the exact same smile she’s had all the years I’ve known her. I was slightly in the air, waving back at the outside of the paper. She was waving too. I couldn’t see even one mistake that made it turn from the most wonderful thing I’ve ever seen to just okay; not one flaw that would make me think it was all it needed to have to make it go from one million dollars to just ten. I kept flipping through to find three more of us, then one where she was alone. She was sitting on the corner of her mattress with her legs bundled up into her chest. She had a pillow between her legs and chest hugging it tightly, crying. Beside her was a window that had what looked to be a moving van that said “goodbye John…”   My eyes were the ones watered up now, but of joy and love. Then another that was just a barbwire fence, in seventh grade, a year before she left for Clique I asked her if she could draw one, she said she would get around to it, but never has. The pencil marks were pretty old. I looked around me now; my eyes were just recovering from the tears. The table was quiet; everyone was staring directly at me.

“Why were you crying?” Teven asked. I realized that the only answer I could give was that I was in love with Kelsey and I didn’t even know it. Kelsey was rubbing the notebook, it seemed that she was remembering the day she drew the barbwire fence, but where she was rubbing were some words that I haven’t yet seen. “I love John Cline” was written on the fence, below Kelsey’s finger. Then again the tears of joy showed up, and then I began laughing, maniacally almost. It is the first day at high school and I have already met the love of my life.

“How should I act on this?” I asked her. My eyes were glued to the sapphires of perfection that sparkled in her eyes.

“Come to the play, it is the first day of next month. Like I said, I am directing it.” She had a smile now too.

“I promise my life, I wouldn’t miss it if I died.” I reached slightly for her hand, under the table. My entire body shivered when she grabbed on and held it. “Will you join me Kelsey?” I knew she had no idea what I meant.

“What exactly do you want me to join you in?” She smiled.

“I have a goal to see if I can join every clique in school before I graduate. I am calling it the clique scavenges.” She laughed as maniacally as I had. My face turned to a bright red.

“I am doing the same thing! Only I had a much better name then ‘clique scavenges’” She flipped to the next page in her sketchbook, it was a picture of her and seven different people, one from every group in school. Under it was some text that said “the cliques of high school are the groups of students that teenagers join to find where they belong in the world. I am going to join every group I can to see exactly what they think, feel, act like, and talk about. I am calling this journey the clique ladder. She was right; it is way better then my title. It made since now why she was sitting with the nerds, we were both the popular types in middle school.