Sworn Read Free Page A

kitchen. “Come on kids, you don’t want to be late on your first day. It’s time to go!” she said.
    Rachel’s mom kissed her dad on the cheek and said, “I’ll see you when you get home from work. Have an excellent day. I love you.”
    Rachel, Mark and Sarah all put on their shoes, grabbed their backpacks – well, Sarah grabbed her black patent leather shoulder bag – and headed out towards the car.
    Sarah breezed by Rachel and hopped into the front seat, shut the door and started pressing the buttons on the radio. Their family had a rule, that whoever sat in the front could choose the radio station. So Rachel was in for a bubble gum pop music extravaganza on her way to school.
    As the Jonas Brothers blared over the radio, Rachel’s nerves began to grow. She felt her body tense up and get cold and clammy. She only had a few more minutes before she walked into AHS for the first time.
    The minutes felt like hours as her mom drove down the windy back roads of Bedford, New York. Rachel looked out the window and saw cars full of teenagers drive past her, smiling and laughing. Rachel got even more nervous, thinking about the prospect of making new friends.
    For a moment she imagined herself riding along joyfully in a car with all her new friends, laughing and gossiping about boys.
    Rachel’s warm thoughts were cut short by a buzzing coming from inside her backpack.
    1 New Message:
    Rachel flipped open her Motorola flip phone and saw a text from Dana.
    Dana: Happy 1 st day! We miss you XOXO.
     
    Attached to this text was a picture Dana had taken with her camera phone of their entire crew of friends back home.
    Rachel sent back a smiley face, even though that was anything but how she was feeling inside.
    Rachel’s mom turned on her blinker and made her final turn into the driveway of the school. Rachel looked out the window and saw a large sign that said, Welcome Back AHS Students.
    As the family car slowly reached the front of the school, Rachel could see groups of friends hugging and greeting each other in the school yard. The student parking lot was full of BMWs, Audi’s, Mercedes’ and Saab’s. This was nothing like her old school parking lot.
    As the car sat there in front of the school, Rachel’s mom reached for her purse and fumbled around for her wallet. Rachel put her head down so nobody could see her face. Her mom slowly pulled out twelve crumpled dollar bills and handed each of them four dollars.
    “Here’s your lunch money. Have a great day and make lots of new friends,” their mom said in an overly cheery voice.
    Rachel felt even more out of place as her 1997 grey Station wagon pulled up to the front door of the school. She hopped out of the car fast so nobody would be able to remember which car she had stepped out of. She said a quick goodbye to her mom, shut the door, and entered the sea of new faces at AHS. She already wished this day was over.

 
     
    Chapter Three
     
     
    As Rachel made her way through the bottleneck of kids entering the school, she felt completely alone. Mark and Sarah had disappeared into the crowd, and she was pushed and shoved as she squeezed her way through the front door of AHS. This school was very large, much larger than her small rural Pennsylvania public school. The hallways smelled of bleach and stale cafeteria food, which made her nose burn.
    As Rachel got inside, she heard yells and screams of excitement as friends reunited for the first time. She reached into her backpack, trying to find her student schedule. She couldn’t remember her homeroom number, or her locker number. Standing in the middle of the hall, she rummaged around in her bag, but couldn’t find any of it. She felt the kids breeze past her, down the hallway and towards their homerooms.
    She pulled out her army print FiloFax. She flipped through the pages, searching. But her schedule and locker information was nowhere to be found.
    Feeling desperate, Rachel looked around for help. Rachel saw two