The Gold MEdallion

Unnamed Story

Chapter One

I was walking to my new school in the morning listening to music when some obnoxious guys in a red convertible wearing letterman jackets drove right through a puddle and splashed me while laughing. Nice. Just what I needed. We just moved into town last week, and I haven’t had the chance to meet anyone, and there are still boxes lined up in my unpainted, boring dirty white room. My name is Olivia Prince. I’m 14 years old, and live a pretty messed up life. Especially when it comes to my parents, my mom is a crazed artist, and my dad works for a sales company that involves lots of moving. So we never stay in a town for more than a year. Sometimes even less. So, as you probably guessed, I’m not exactly big in the “long lasting friends and relationships” department. I’ve never really kept in touch with anyone from previous towns so I’ve basically decided to just live in solitude. The one boyfriend I did have long distance with ended up dumping me after only a few weeks after the move because it was “too hard.” Sadly, I completely understood. It’s not like I could even travel to see him either. So anyway, I was walking to school. At least its freshman year so there’ll be some new people besides me, but most people here will have known each other since at least 6th grade. It’s not exactly a big town. It’s just this small polished suburb too far from Chicago to really count. I don’t hate it, but I don’t love it either.

As I made my way to the bus stop, I saw a group of four girls all wearing Ugg boots, sweatpants, a tight t-shirt, messy buns on the top of their heads, and enough eyeliner and mascara to make the ancient Egyptians cringe. I shuddered. If you have time to put that much makeup on, you should be able to dress a little better than that. I realized immediately that I would not fit in too well. I was wearing red Converse sneakers, grey skinny jeans, a pale pink quarter sleeve top, light mascara and a sweep of blush, and of course, my necklace that my mother had given me at birth. It was a small medallion that looked as if it had a starry crisscrossing pattern on it, with something inscribed in the center. My uncontrollable dark blonde hair was in a messy side braid. They were all either listening to music and dancing horribly, or texting. Ugh. I tried to avoid eye contact so that they wouldn’t talk to me, but despite my efforts, and their distractions, one of them, a tall girl with dark brown hair, and hot pink lip gloss, snatched her ear buds out and said,

“Hi! My names Christine are you new? I haven’t seen you around at all this summer! Anyway, this is Jane, Rebecca, and Ambrose.” Startled by this sudden introduction, I reluctantly removed my ear buds as well and replied,

“Yea, we just moved here from New York.”

“New York?! Ooooh! How glamorous!” she seemed pretty interested, and I began to think maybe these girls wouldn’t be quite as bad as I thought, “Did you go shopping and see the empire state building, and see the statue of liberty and…” she went on, and on, and on. I eventually zoned her out and began to check out the rest of the people who had gradually accumulated at the bus stop. There was a group of guys talking about some sports game that I had obviously missed. A group of well-dressed girls who should obviously be going to private school, but for some reason were here, waiting for the bus. And then there was a boy standing alone. He had dark shaggy hair, was also listening to music, and seemed not to mind people avoiding him. Although, it was weird, he had pale blue eyes, which is rare for someone with such dark hair. Odd.

“So have you?” Christine interrupted my thoughts with her loud voice. I didn’t really know what she was talking about, so I took a guess and said “Sure.”

“That must have been terrifying! Did he take your money?!” she asked. Man, she would just not give up. I figured out that she had asked if I was mugged and so I just said,

“Yea, but the police caught him.” I lied.

“Oh good! I don’t know what I would have done!” She said as she put her hand to her chest in amazement. I was more than grateful when the bus arrived and I could make my escape. As I climbed aboard the bus, I was shoved by a guy wearing all black. He chuckled and smiled muttering “new girl,” to himself. Perfect, I already made an enemy, or, at least I think I have. As I make my way to the back of the bus, I noticed that guy checking me out. That’s…confusing. Whatever, he’s just some random guy. Hopefully I’ll never see him again, I think. I take a seat at the very back of the bus, and replace my ear buds, and turn on some music. Just when I think I’ve finally found some peace, the shaggy haired boy comes and sits down across from me. We don’t talk for the whole ride, but just before we have to get off, he says

“I’m Peter, by the way.” And then he ducks his head and quickly walks away before I even have a chance to tell him my name. There’s something about him that was…off. Not something wrong, but I could tell he was different. So despite my growing curiosity for this new boy and, most likely classmate, I reluctantly filed into the building along with the rest of the students. I passed the boy in all black again, and he smirked my way. I didn’t like him already. The school looked fairly normal on the outside, except for a giant bronze statue of a beaver. At first, that threw me off, but then I quickly realized that that was just the mascot. Just as I was thinking that that was a pretty horrible choice for a mascot, Peter walked by and his hoodie sleeve brushed me. He shot me a glance and then, again, ducked his head and walked away. I tried my best not to think about him, and pulled my schedule out of my backpack to see where my first class and homeroom was. It turns out I was in Mr. Cambridge’s class, room 208. I walked down the hall as more students flooded in from the doors. 214, 212, 210, ah, 208. I opened the door and the classroom had only a few other students inside, a delinquent like boy sitting in the back, a girl in mostly pink chewing bubble gum with a designer handbag in front, and I recognized one of the jocks from the convertible sitting towards the middle eyeing me familiarly. I chose a seat behind the jock but in front of the delinquent. So in the middle back. It was where I usually chose to sit when we weren’t doomed to the dreaded alphabetized seating chart. During the next couple minutes, the rest of the class filed in and as soon as I saw that dark brown bun bobbing in through the door I cringed and waited for what I knew was coming,

“Olive! There you are! I can’t believe we have first period together!” Oh. My. Gosh. She had already given me a nickname. I wasn’t even planning on hanging out with her little clique of matching girls anyway! Much to my dismay, Christine sat down right next to me and put down her bag as to say I’m not leaving this seat. A man in a suit strode into the room with confidence. He seemed to feel in charge. He told us to take our seats and listen up. I assumed he was a teacher of some sort, or a principal even.

“Hello freshmen. I am Mr. Cambridge and I will be your homeroom teacher this year, as well as your history teacher. I expect exceptional work from all of you, regardless of what you believe you’re capable of. I make my class challenging, but not impossible. If you work hard it is completely possible to get straight A’s through the year. I hope to get to know you all better, but for now I believe we should put our supplies away in our lockers. Please line up and I’ll give you your combinations on the way out.” He said. He spoke with a steady voice, as if he had given a similar speech every year. I lined up and ended up right behind the delinquent boy. He smelled so heavily of some body spray that I couldn’t help but emit a small cough. He glared at me and I was quickly realizing that people here didn’t exactly love me. Oh well, hopefully we wouldn’t be here longer than a year anyway.

When I got to the front of the line, Mr. Cambridge handed me a slip of paper with my locker number, and combination. I strode down the hall trying to figure out which way locker 1125 was. I finally found it. My locker turned out to be in between Peter’s, and the guy in black’s. “Great.” I muttered sarcastically. I get to be between a mysterious guy and a non-stop talker. Fun. I wasn’t used to using a combination lock, so I just left it locked until I realized that I would need to get in to put my backpack away and grab my books. As if he was sensing my confusion, Peter turned around and asked,

“Need help?”

“Yes thanks so much,” I replied. I was grateful that he knew how to work these things. “I’m not very good with these.” I smiled, trying to seem relaxed, when in reality my heart was on high speed.

“No problem, you just spin these numbers to match your combination, and, voila!” he said.

“Perfect. Thanks again. I’m Olivia by the way.” I said. And then I silently grabbed out my books and went back to my homeroom for more instruction.

The rest of the day went pretty much how all first days go. You meet the teachers, you get all these guidelines and you put all your supplies in lockers and such. When it was finally 9th period, I was grateful that the day was over, but I also was relieved that something hadn’t gone wrong yet today. So when the bell rang, I walked back to the bus stop, and chose the same seat as before. Peter decided that he would sit across from me again. I guess we were both just too stubborn to move. Then, out of nowhere Christine and her crew took all the seats surrounding us and began chatting up a storm! I put in my ear buds, pretended to be exhausted, and then “slept” for the rest of the ride. I felt like I just kept running into all these people randomly. Ugh. Hopefully tomorrow will be better, or at least less awkward.

The bus pulled up to the stop near my house, and I said goodbye to Christine and all her little clones. Peter walked away silently, but later glanced back at us. I decided it really didn’t mean much and that for the next few days people would be looking at me simply because I was new. I walked home and was greeted by my mom wearing a replica of one of those old African masks. Sadly, this is normal for me.

“How was your first day honey?” came the muffled voice behind at least an inch of paper maché.

“Fine, like all the others. I met a girl named Christine.” My mom was always encouraging me to meet new people so this kind of thrilled her.

“Oh awesome!” she exclaimed. “Well, I’m sure you have homework or something so I’ll let you go now hon.” She removed the mask and pecked my cheek before letting me free. I was eternally grateful that I had made it through my first day, and went up to my room to take a power nap.





Chapter Two

I woke up to the sound of chirping birds and the radio blaring out some pop song that my mom was listening to. I looked at my clock and was alarmed to find out that I’d slept in until 7:32, just 28 minutes before the bus would arrive! So I jumped out of bed and threw on some clothes, I didn’t have time for makeup, which wasn’t really a problem except that I’m sure my hair wouldn’t look too fabulous today either. I brushed it out and put it in a quick ponytail. Then I grabbed my backpack and ran to the kitchen. I was in such a rush that I barely noticed my mom wearing some outrageous dress made of feathers and orange ribbon. “Late for school, can’t talk!” I shouted through a mouthful of toast.

“Love you too!” she replied while dancing around swirling her dress. I rushed out the door and ran to the bust stop. The same people were there, except one of the girls was missing from Christine’s little clique. I overheard them talking about how sorry they were that “Abby was sick again.” I figured Abby must be the missing one. Peter was standing in the back of the crowd, and just as I was about to walk over to him Christine stopped me to ask if I had any “minty fresh gum.” I told her I didn’t but of course she wanted to talk after that about what clubs I was joining. I told her that I hadn’t really given it too much thought and she went off about how cheerleading was the best one. Didn’t see that one coming I thought. I zoned her out and slowly made my way to the back by Peter, he looked kind of pissed off about something, so I decided that maybe it wasn’t the best time to get to know him better. Annoyed by the fact that I knew nobody, and didn’t want to deal with Christine and her mourning clique, and that Peter looked too mad to speak, I walked slowly around the whole group trying to figure out someone to talk to, or at least stand by without being awkward. I saw the boy who was in all black the other day. Today he had on a Slipknot t-shirt and camouflage cargo pants. Friendly looking. I thought with sarcasm. I stood by the back, alone, and the bus arrived shortly. I went to the same seat as the day before, and Peter sat across from me once again. He still looked mad, but now he looked a bit more calmed down. I leaned my head against the window and watched as trees, houses, sidewalks, cars, and other scenery whirred by as we got on the highway for a while. I must have dozed off, because when I woke up there was some shy looking girl sitting next to me reading Charles Dickens. I also must have looked quite startled to see her there, because from the look on her face she was scared that I had waked up.

“And you are?” I asked, wondering who this random little acquaintance was.

“Sara. Sorry there weren’t any other seats and since you were sleeping I figured that it would be ok if I sat down. Are you mad? I could move right now, we’re almost there anyway.” She babbled nervously.

“No, no it’s fine I just didn’t know who you were is all.” I smiled at her to show I was nice, and I noticed her shoulders heave down a bit in relief. “So are you new too?”

“No, I’ve actually known most of these people since about kindergarten,” she replied. “I just don’t talk to most of them. Actually, most of the people here rarely even notice me.” She didn’t seem upset by this. It just seemed as if she was stating a fact.

“I’m sure they at least talk to you sometimes, right?” I asked. It seemed crazy to have known someone so long and still find a way to ignore them. But then again, people need to have some sort of outcast or else I guess things get too boring.

“Well of course they do when the teachers pair us up, or some unlucky person gets me as a partner for a project or something, but other than that they really don’t socialize with me much.” She replied, this time sadness tinted the edge of her voice.

“Well,” I wasn’t exactly sure how to respond to this, “I’ll talk to you then.” Will I really? I thought. But when her face lit up with excitement and she started thanking me I realized that whether I wanted one or not, I had a new friend. I decided to just let it go, it wasn’t as if this would change anything.

“Hey, I have something to show you!” Sara said. “I’ve never showed anybody before, mainly because nobody talks to me, but also because it’s really special. Can I trust you?”

“Yea sure, of course.” I didn’t want to be, but I was actually interested in what she was going to show me. She reached into her leather bag and dug around a bit, then her eyes got really wide, and she said,

“Ok, but you can’t tell anyone!”

“Got it, top secret stuff here,” I obviously wasn’t going to tell anyone, I hadn’t even been in town for two weeks yet. She pulled out her hand, which was clenched into a fist around an object that was roughly the size of a quarter, I could tell that it was either bronze or dirty gold, and it was round. She slowly unclenched her fist and presented a small medallion. I looked at it for about a second and realized how familiar it was. My stomach sickened, and I must have looked pretty ill because Sara asked me how I was feeling. I told her I was fine and asked ,

“Where did you get that?” I was startled at the amount of panic in my voice. Anyone who didn’t know what I did wouldn’t have though much of having a matching necklace. Anyone else would have thought that maybe they had bought the same one at the mall that day or that it was merely coincidental, but no. Not me. I knew something that I had never in a million years expected to be true, or even if it was to ever happen.