Tara Jones's Story

Tara woke up to find something resting on her chest. Her first thought was that it was another rat, and so her first instinct was to scream and throw it off. However (Luckily), her sleep addled brain soon caught up with her actions and she had the sense t look down… only to see a tiny head of long brown hair.

“Kay…” Tara began, still half asleep, “What are you doing?

Her little sister sat up. “Jay kicked me,” She pointed over to the cot next to the two girls where a small preteen boy was sleeping soundly.

“Well why were you sleeping next to Jayden?”

“I saw a spider”

Tara gently moved Kacie off of her and looked over at the clock. It was only four thirteen; still another hour till the seventeen year old actually was supposed to wake up. If she went back to sleep now, she would never actually get up in time for school. This was why she preferred summer. She could actually get more then three hours of sleep. The thought of going back to school made her want to jump with joy and break down in tears at the same time. She sighed with resignation and stood up.

“Kacie… you can sleep in my bed for the rest of the morning, but tomorrow it’s back to your own spot” As the toddler went back to sleep, Tara knew that she wouldn’t actually wake her up tonight to force her to sleep in her own spot on the floor. She felt bad enough that she was making a five year old sleep on the floor in the first place. She certainly wasn’t going to subject Kacie to her fear of spiders.

The next three hours actually went by rather fast. Tara had breakfast (Only to find that there wasn’t enough milk left to have anything in her stale cheerios), took a lukewarm shower, made Jayden and Kacie lunch to bring to school with them (Overly ripe bananas and a pathetic excuse for a peanut butter sandwich (nix the jelly for Jayden)), and finished getting ready. Now, getting the kids ready was a task in it’s own. Especially considering that neither of them were too excited to go back to school. Tara was fairly sure that the only thing that coaxed Jayden into it was her promise of a new book when she got back from work tonight.

It wasn’t until nearly eight that Tara was able to leave for school. And when she finally realized the she had left her backpack at home, she was already at school, walking into her first period History class. Late and unprepared… what a great way to start off her first day.

"And you would be... Ms. Jones?" The teacher (Who Tara guessed was Mr. Thomson judging by what her schedule said) asked. Tara felt her face turn beet red as she nodded reluctantly. This was what she hated about being late. The rest of the class was already sitting down and she could feel their eyes on her. She didn't doubt that they noticed the slight tear in the shoulder of her shirt, and the fact that her jean knees where a bit lighter than the rest of her jeans. It was illogical to think this (The tear wasn't even noticeable and the jeans may as well be a fashion statement), but logic never really seems to reach the mind of embarrassed teenagers. At her nod, Mr. Thomson rolled his eyes and pointed towards the only empty chair in the room. "You may sit next to Ms.Lawinsky"

"Yes sir" Tara said sheepishly, walking over to the seat he had pointed to. Great... she had to sit next to Yvonne. With her nice dress and perfect hair. And chances are, if Tara needed a pencil, which she would, the blonde would probably have enough extra to give Tara ten. So as she sat down, giving Yvonne the cold shoulder that she was so famous for among several students, she decided that she would ask for nothing. After all, it was only the first day. Why the hell would she need anything?

Yvonne watched as Tara sat down beside her, she smiled at her and looked back down at her paperwork. She looked up at the history teacher as he began to talk about the rules in his class, and the supplies that the students would need to survive his class. Mr. Thomson, -what a very uncommon name- wasn't very strict like some of the others might be. Laying her head on her right hand she listened to the teacher babble on about his little part of life and would like the rest of the class to introduce themselves to him and their classmates. Looking back at Tara she barely noticed the rip in her shirt, since ripped jeans were popular in the fashion industry.

Looking away and looked back at the teacher as he said that they would be doing it in alphabetical order by last names,"Ms. Jones? Your up next. Share what you want to share about you and move on." Everyone in the -class those he cared to look at least-, looked up at Tara and waited for her to say something about. Yvonne heard that she was usually called the poor girl but, she really didn't believe in what people say.

She didn't believe it if, she hadn't heard it from the person yet. Looking at Tara again like mostly everyone did she waited patiently and smiled at Tara.

Great, and Tara had thought this was a high school class. What kind of high school class played "Share Something About Yourself?" Apparently this one, but Tara didn't have to be happy about it. In fact, she really didn't plan on sharing anything. This was one of those games where the quiet kids just listened to other answers and doctored them to fit his or her needs. So far, the class had learned that Jessica Adams was born in Turkey, that Liz Cappa was a cheerleader, that Kimberly Davidson's favorite subject was history (Suck up), and other useless facts about students.

Tara crossed her arms across her barely existent chest and repressed a sigh. "Uhm, I'm Tara and I really don't have much to share. I have two younger siblings and I work over at Romanos." She stopped speaking abruptly, knowing that her 'fact' had probably seemed rushed. She leaned back in her chair and hoped that Mr. Thomson would move onto someone else. Every time a teacher asked this type of question, or even called on her name, she felt as if too many people were looking at her. And she really hated to be looked at.

The class went on and told their fact, some of them more stupid then the next, one kid even skipped and Tara couldn't believe she hadn't come up with that earlier. Once Thomson reached Yvonne, even Tara had to look out of the corner of her eye. Despite her jealousy, she had to admit that the other girl had no real reputation other then "nice" and "rich" and though Tara wouldn't admit it, Yvonne was prettier than most people she had met.

She nodded when Tara introduced herself to the class,"Hello classmates, my name is Yvonne. You can call me Von if you'd like to. I have two jobs," Well she wouldn't call them jobs more like careers,"And, I was born originally in England but, my family moved here." She smiled and looked around at everyone in the class, she sat down and listened to the teacher as he said he was going to try to remember some of the class, since he did look a bit on the older side of age.

"Now class first country we are going to talk ab out is well, of course america. Now take your note books out and pencils/or pens, it doesn't matter since it is the first day of school. If you don't have a notebook or any writing utensil come up to my desk and I will provide you with one. But, this notebook is only for taking notes, not your personal diary or drawing pad." Yvonne took out her pen and pencil since she can't write without both pen and pencil. She started writing down the tittle which was America the topic of the lesson,"Now, we are going to probably take a little while to learn a little about American History. since we do have a thousand countries to talk about. We are going to learn about each every two weeks and move on to the next. At the end of the two weeks, we will have a test on what you have learned about the country we had talked about. If you don't understand something please don't hesitate to come to me. I don't bite or kick at you if you don't understand how this and that happened. Now let's start with the first lesson: Remembering the Countries to even learn about them. Start writing down the countries you remember in alphabetical order in columns like A: 1. 2.," He started writing on the board how to do it.

Yvonne written down the sub topic of the lesson and started writing each country she could remember in neat columns. "I will give you 20 minutes and if some of you know the time then you should tell the person next to you that doesn't know how to tell time on a original styled clock. You may begin." Yvonne had already started when he had said begin and she was almost done with the R's.

Tara looked at Yvonne as she talked. She shouldn't have been interested, but two jobs... that was interesting. In fact, it was more interesting then Tara had expected. She had expected some spoiled little rich girl with no job who's mommy and daddy took care of her. Of course, she still doubted that they were real jobs. They couldn't be mind numbingly difficult jobs. They couldn't be jobs that didn't pay nearly enough to feed you (but of course, leaving wasn't possible, because then she would have no money at all), but hey... it was still more then she had expected.

Tara grimaced at the teachers words wehn he mentioned that they had to write. Great... she would have to make a bad impression on the first day of school. She stood up, wincing at the noise that the chair made when it was dragged across the floor; like nails on a chalk board, except low pitched. After receiving the supplies from the teacher's desk, she walked back to her seat and pulled out the chair before sitting down, being sure to lift is so that it didn't make that annoying noise. So the lesson was to list the countries? Well she sucked at that, but it wouldn't hurt to try.

By the time 10 minutes were up, Tara only had seventeen countries on the list. And she was at L. She really did have a rubbish memory, and remembering this was a very difficult task, especially since her brain was fried from a lack of sleep. Only ten minutes left, and she could remember no more countries. It just wasn't possible.