Teen Time

The First Day of School by a Junior High Student

Writer's Cramp: Write a JOURNAL ENTRY about the first day of school. You can write as a teacher OR as a student (junior high or high school or college student only). It can be funny or serious. 1000 words max.


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Note: The following has been adult-edited to iron out misspellings and punctuation errors.

The First Day of School by a Junior High Students

         Darn! The teacher wants us to write about the first day of school like we're in third grade
or something. That's so stupid! I sit here with the sunshine outside and the sky overhead as blue as my skateboard, and I'm stuck inside. Dumb! Dumb! Dumb!

         I write: I'd rather be at the beach,

lying in the sand, watching the girls walk by,

their eyes staring straight ahead, when all the

time they're checking me out. I'd prop up my legs

and sit there casual, like I don't care, but I'd

be staring back, choosing between them, wondering

what it would be like to ask one out talk

with them. I'd have a skateboard magazine

open across my stomach, but I wouldn't be reading

it. Not with that kind of parade passing by.


         My stomach growls so loud that the kids sitting near me laugh. It's not my fault I missed cafeteria breakfast. I forgot about getting food at school. It's more fun to pocket things at the 7/11, anyway. Mom makes me go get milk for the baby everyday, and I pinch a candy bar or two. No time this morning since I had to go to school. Guess Mom will have to get out of bed and go get the milk herself.

         I wonder if she's up yet? I wonder if Dad's okay. He had to go back to jail again yesterday. I think he busted someone's window or something. Mom never talks about why he leaves, but her eyes get red, and the baby cries more like she knows something's wrong. When I don't bring the milk right away, the baby screams louder than the TV. I bet little Carrie's screaming right now.

         I sigh and write: If today wasn't the

first day of school, maybe I'd be hanging at the

park with my friends. We'd be cracking jokes and

chomping wads of gum. I bet Barry'd have his

brother's board, and we'd all give it a run.

It's pretty cool when you ramp it and do a flip.

I almost landed right last time. I jumped, but

Todd got in the way. I wiped out because of

it. But I'd sooner mess up like that in front of

everyone than be stuck here inside this classroom

with the paint dropping off the wall like

scabs from your knee.

         Darn, if that girl sitting across from me laughs at my growling stomach one more time, I'm going to fix her. She's ugly as a dog's bottom, anyway. She won't laugh when I tell her what I think of her, but she'll probably go tell the teacher like her kind always does. Stupid xxx!

         Dad says I have to behave in school or he'll lay on the belt, but he only laughs when the notes start coming home. "Just like me," he always says, and then he smiles. But Mom cries. I hate that.

         The teacher tells us to write something more, but my pencil lead is all pointy on one side and not the other. My hand is cramped from trying to make it write. Doesn't she remember ever being a kid? Probably not. I bet she's always been a wrinkled old raisin.

         The teacher's put up a stupid dinosaur around the clock. That's different from last year's homeroom. Why the heck did some moron think that dinosaurs had green skin? This one has black spots like our bathroom ceiling. What are we supposed to think -- that dinosaurs had mold?

         "Stop watching the clock, Danny," the teacher orders me. She smiles with her lips, but her eyes look like stupid old gummy worms, the slimy-green and limp ones. Drops of sweat are sticking to her face as she fans herself with a grade book. Her hair is curled up all ugly-frizzy. My mother's is straight and black. Dad's always talking about how Mom's hair is beautiful -- except when he has a glass bottle wrapped up in a brown paper bag. He thinks that will keep me from knowing what's inside. Duh! He usually holds it tight against his body like I'm going to steal it. What would I want with his stupid booze?

         The teacher's glaring at me. I look down and chew my pencil. I try not to watch her sipping from her water bottle. My mouth feels prickly from wanting a drink. I remember how the park had a drinking fountain so I could slurp up water whenever I wanted. Shoot, I wish I had me an icy cola, right now.

         The teacher's eyes pounce on me again. "Danny, stop biting your pencil and get to work."

         Of course I close my mouth and bend over my desk. I don't look up again, but I can hear the kids snickering all around me. Twice in a row that teacher's picked on me. She knows my name now. Bad luck for the first day!

         "Remember to include all the senses in your writing," she says. "I want to know what you feel with your fingers, what you smell, what you taste, what you hear and see."

         The clock's still scratching around that stupid dinosaur. The ugly girl across from me is sniffling just cause I kicked her. The dumb paper I'm supposed to be filling up with writing is striped with lines that remind me of the bars of a cage . . . or of a jail cell.

         Dad's always talking about how jail has iron bars that keep you from seeing the sun, but I can't see the sun inside this stupid classroom either. It doesn't have any windows. What's the difference, I wonder. It's just like Dad talks about it: a box of a room, a door barred from leaving, a jailer ordering you around.

         The teacher says the period's over. That's the good part. Except leaving the classroom -- there's still bars all around, and the sun just doesn't feel right shining through metal fences with all that barbed wire on top.

         Dad says the worst part about jail is all the metal bars. I know just what you mean, Dad. I know just what you mean.


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