Adel Baby (Kacyn Grace Adair Book 1) Read online

  Only six classes are required, but students can take a 7th class. No way was Kacyn going to spend another hour in school. The late afternoon buses goes to a bunch of neighborhoods, so getting home would take much longer too.

  In high school, unless you are college prep, only three math and sciences classes are required. Kacyn decided to take a drama as an elective this year and do science the next 3 years. This year she will do her required language and health class, which will give more room for easier classes later.

  She was most excited about drama, finally a subject she will be good at.

  The bell rings at exactly 7:50 am. Kacyn looks up and notices the room is full and there is nervous energy in the room. The first day of high school is probably the most stressful day of all school life.

  “When I call your name, please come up and get your schedule” Ms. Foster tells the class. Kacyn decides she was really glad to get in early and not talk with Brandi, now she doesn’t have to walk to the front with all eyes on her.

  Kacyn watches as the students that were not early are called one-by-one.

  The rest of homeroom goes by quickly. Ms. Foster goes over some news, there are morning announcements and she gives some directions on how to get to classes. When the bell rings, Kacyn and the class all funnel toward the exit door.

  Chapter 3

  First period is PE. The teacher tells the class his name, Coach Atwell. He explains that the first semester is physical education and the second semester is health class. During the 50 minutes of PE, the students are to meet on the track Monday through Thursday, and in the gym on Fridays and if raining.

  The students will be graded based on how many laps they complete through the year and attendance. If you average 8 laps or more during class, you get an “A.” 6 laps gets you a “B.” “It won’t be easy to make an A in this class unless you run a couple of the laps”, Coach announces.

  All Kacyn can think about is she is going to stink and be sweaty the rest of the day. Apparently she wasn’t the only one thinking about it, “What do we do about cleaning up and doing our makeup,” a girl to Kacyn’s left asks.

  “There are showers in the gym, you can wash off once you’re done with the laps”, coach responds.

  This sucks, Kacyn thinks in her head. It’s over 90 degrees every morning when she wakes up. No way is she going to be able to run 2 miles and still have time to shower and do her makeup. She raises her hand and asks, “How many laps do we need to do to get a C?”

  Coach frowns and tells her, “Four laps.”

  If it’s not too hot, she decides she can do that walking without changing or having to do her makeup. Right now, looking good and smelling nice is more important than an A. Not like her family could put her through college anyway.

  The rest of the class drags on as free time until the bell rings. Off she goes to Spanish.

  When the class bell rings, the teacher, a pretty Latino looking woman in her late twenties or early thirties, announces, “Hola, classe. Me llamo senoritas Rodriquez.”

  A boy that looks like an upperclassman blurts out, “Where are you from?”

  “I’m from America”, she gives back to the boy. “My grandparents came over from Cuba in the 60s and my dad was born here. My mom is from Thomasville, where my parents met and I was born.” “Where are you from?”

  The boy blushes and mumbles, “Here.”

  Kacyn likes her, this class may not be so bad after all.

  “Any questions”, she asks.

  Jennipher, whom Kacyn knew from middle school asks, “Where’s Cuba?”

  Ms. Rodriquez explains to her that it’s an island not far from Florida, actually just 90 miles from Key West. She further tells how it is a Communist country now and her parents fled because her father had worked with the previous government. Then how her parents started in Miami, moved to Tallahassee and finally ended up in Thomasville with her father’s job with Bell South.

  “Who here can speak Spanish,” Ms. Rodriquez quizzes. A handful of students, all looking like Mexicans or Guatemalans raised their hands. Looks like they’ll be getting an easy A, Kacyn surmises.

  Every desk had a textbook and a printout worksheet on it. After the class introduction was done, she went over their assignment text and told them to bring the completed worksheet in tomorrow.

  The next hour was a blur with her eyes glazing over during math. She had a couple friends in her class since it was mostly freshmen. There were a few upperclassmen taking to get their third year of required math, some having had lower math and a couple having had Algebra and Geometry, but wanting a cake year.

  After math, Kacyn had lunch period. The lunch is staggered, so she doesn’t know yet if Brandi has the same lunch period.

  In the hallway, she texts Brandi, “Wat lunch do ya have?” She waits, the gets a response, “Now.” Thank God! “Meet me outside da lunch door.” Brandi responds with emojis. The school year was saved.

  Kacyn rushes to her locker and throws her books inside. Maybe this weekend she can get to Dollar Tree to get some stuff to decorate this boring gray cubby assigned to her. Shutting the locker, she melts into the crowd of students and heads to lunch.

  Brandi is waiting outside the lunchroom door when Kacyn turns the corner. “What took you so long, heifer”, she squeaks excitedly.

  “Had to put up my stuff, let’s see how bad the food sucks.”

  They walk in and the room is full of tables with connected bench seats. To the left, is a door to an outside patio with about nine wooden benches and some greenspace. The outside lunch area is surrounded by the school almost all the way around, with a small gate and path that heads to a parking lot. Kacyn imagines this is about what a prison yard would look like.

  A line is growing against the wall to the left, and the girls get their space. The each grab a tray and move through a door that takes them to the cafeteria line. As Kacyn slides her tray down the metal serving line, the smell of pizza a tater tots make her mouth water. This isn’t too bad.

  “Pepperoni,” she tells the lunch lady dressed in a white button-down shirt with a black hairnet when faced with the classic cheese or pepperoni choice. Knowing food could be scarce at home, she gets the other helpings too, tots and corn. The drink choices were chocolate or white milk and Apple & Eve apple juice. She grabs the juice and heads out the door.

  Brandi is the first to realize the situation, “Shit, where do we sit?”

  Just then Kacyn sees Lily and some other pseudo friends from middle school. “Let’s sit with Lily.” Brandi follows Kacyn’s lead and they take a seat across from Lily. Lily looked up and smiled at the girls as they were sitting down.

  Kacyn spoke first, “Hey girl, how was your summer?”

  “Boring. I broke up with Dennis. I needed to keep my option open.”

  “What? Y’all were together for a long time!”

  “Yeah, we dated almost two years. He’s changed a lot and I just got bored. Besides, I don’t want to be stuck with anybody with all these hot guys around. What about y’all, anyone on the radar?”

  Brandi was quick to stake her claim, “Kyle and Eliza broke up too. I sat next to him in Algebra this morning. I think I’ll be playing the dumb, helpless girl to get with that!”

  All three girls laughed. “Yeah, Kyle’s a hunk,” Lily responds.

  “Eliza has been following him around like a little puppy, from what he told me in class.”

  “She’s a bitch, she deserves getting knocked off her pedestal”, Lily tells Brandi.

  The girls all nod in agreement. The conversation continues as they eat there pizza and discuss classes, teachers and who they like and don’t like in their classes. After the 30 minutes is up, the lunch bell rings, signaling the girls they have five minutes to get to where they’re going. Since Kacyn has drama, she doesn’t need to run by her locker and get a book.

  The girls say their goodbyes and head off to find their next class.

  Chapter 4

 
Kacyn gets to drama class and the teacher, Ms. Masters, is welcoming all of the students outside the door. She looks to be close to fifty, wears no makeup and dresses hippy with a floral maxi skirt. She was probably gorgeous in her twenties, but needs a little fixing up now.

  “Welcome to theatre, it will never be dull”, she greets Kacyn.

  Kacyn smiles and goes in to find her seat. She’s one of the first to get to class, so she moves to the back. This classroom is a little different. The teacher desk is in the back of the room and all of the desks are facing a stage that spans the width of the room and about twenty foot deep. The stage even has a black stage curtain, currently tied open. This will probably be more fun than Kacyn thought.

  She observes every student that walks in. Being an elective, they are from all four years of high school. Most of the students taking the class have been girls and there are several cheerleaders in class. It’s obvious because the football players wore their jerseys the first day and the cheerleaders come in with their full uniform. Gotta have that Hornet pride!

  Then he walks in. Holy shit, he is so fucking hot. Over six foot tall with tan skin and light brown hair. Thin, but not skinny. No jersey, so he’s not a meathead. Kacyn looks to her right and sees the three cheerleaders ogling him too. He passes her row and turns down the next row of desks. He passes all of the empty desks in the front and puts his books on the desk that’s one in a front and to the left of Kacyn. As he starts to turn his body to sit down, their eyes lock. He gives smiles at Kacyn. Not the kind of smile that shows teeth, but the kind of smile that shows intention. More twinkle in the eye and one side of the lips lift higher than the other. His intentions were clear from that smile. He thought Kacyn was hot too!

  Kacyn cannot control her thoughts. She is fixated on how sexy he is. Her throat becomes lumpy and breathing becomes harder to do. Heat emanates from her chest and pelvis. Her entire body starts to warm. She has never felt this happen to her body before. She squirms in her seat. Then abruptly, she looks down at her desk. She realizes that she was still staring at him.

  He is permanently etched into her brain now. She can remember everything on him that was showing. She doesn’t see the desk in front of her eyes, she sees his semi-squatting and twisting body with the sly smile. His eyes still looking deep into hers.

  This wasn’t a boy. He’s a man. He had to be an upperclassman. He was shaven, but you can see the shadow on his skin that shows he can grow a beard. His face was so smooth, no acne or scars. He must be a god, no one can look that perfect.

  If he’s a junior or senior, he probably has a car. A hot guy and a car is all that I want, Kacyn thinks. He is dressed nice, wearing designer jeans in the 100 degree South Georgia heat and a royal blue polo with a little alligator logo. He doesn’t look poor, but this is Adel and boys will go to the King Frog outlet and spend over $100 on a pair of Aftco shorts and a shirt, even if they had to bus tables for 20 hours to do it.

  When the tardy bell rings, the teacher comes inside and starts calling role. As in most cases, Kacyn’s name is first. “Here”, she murmurs and half raises her hand. She was staring at the boy again, cause she caught him look down and back toward her when she had answered the teacher. No eye contact though, that would have been embarrassing if he caught her staring.

  His name seems to never get called. Finally, “Chance Wright?” “Yeah”, he answers.

  So that’s his name. Did his parents know he was going to be perfect? You don’t give perfect names to ugly or nerdy kids. Nerds need names like Steven and ugly guys can go with the old standby, Mike. Chance is sexy. Chance is cool. “Chance is going to be mine”, Kacyn silently exclaims.

  Ms. Masters goes over the class objectives and talks about the drama club, which does a small skit during homecoming week, a Christmas musical and a play in May. Kacyn hears her say the Christmas musical was Christmas in Oz and the end-of-the-year program had not been decided yet, but still thinking about Chance, she missed when tryouts were. Not like she could do tryouts anyway, she doesn’t have a car.

  After discussing the programs and class grading, she tells the class that she is wanting to play a drama game, Party Host. She scans the room and says, “You would be a good host, go outside in the hall until we call you back in,” pointing to Chance. He gets up and walks out. Kacyn’s heart flutters.

  “Next, I need three party guests.” Most of the class raises their hands, including every girl in the class. Kacyn thinks they all have intentions like her to get close to Chance.

  Sitting almost directly in front of the teacher, Kacyn is picked first. Next the teacher picks one of the boys and one of the cheerleaders.

  “Let’s give these guys a character to play. The goal is to give them someone to be, they act it out on the stage and the host has to figure out who they are.”

  Still pointing at the last person choses, the cheerleader, Ms. Masters asks, “Who should we make her?”

  “A cheerleader”, someone blurts.

  “No, that’s obvious. Let’s be more creative.”

  “How bout a football player”, chuckles a boy.

  “That’s pretty good, let’s do it”, Ms. Masters tells the class. “’Now what about him?”

  “Justin Bieber”, a girl giggled.

  “Now her.”

  “A bag lady”, the cheerleader playing the football player said in a deadpan voice. The other cheerleaders giggled.

  She just made Kacyn’s mortal enemy list for life. She’ll find a way to get her back, she doesn’t forget or forgive often. She didn’t catch her name when role was called, but she remembered her as part of the middle school royalty that were cheerleaders or football and baseball players. She was a grade ahead of Kacyn in middle school. She will just have to go by “RBF” now, short for resting bitch face. She had a permanent lip curl and judgmental eyes that made her look like she always smelled shit.

  “I think she can do it”, Ms. Masters responded. “So this is how the game is going to work. We will call the host back in and I will tell one of you at a time to go on stage. Be your character and as soon as he announces who you are correctly, come sit back down. We could have all three characters on stage at the same time.” “Please let our host in”, she asked, while pointing to the girl on the front row, sitting closest to the door.

  Chance walked back in and was asked to go on stage. Ms. Masters explained the rules and pointed on Kacyn to go on stage first.

  Kacyn was nervous as all get out, but she willed herself up. She had to be noticeable to him, but she didn’t want him to judge her like all the cheerleader bitches. As she stood, she hunched her shoulders forward, looked down to the ground, started pushing an imaginary shopping cart and slowly walked to the stage. She’s seen enough homeless characters on TV that the only idea that came to her head, was an old lady pushing a cart with all her belongings in a dirty brown coat that was too big.

  “Old lady”, he announced when she got on stage.

  “Nope”, Ms. Masters said with a smile. Kacyn was glad she wasn’t outed right away, she wants some stage time with Chance.

  “Cutting grass”

  “No”

  “Plowing a field”

  The class giggled at this one. “You’re getting colder”, Ms. Masters laughed, then pointed at the boy to enter the stage.

  As he comes on stage, Kacyn stands a few feet from Chance warming her hands over an imaginary fire. He is looking at her with the twinkle in his eye more than he is paying attention to the Bieber wannabe, who is absolutely sucking at his role.

  Bieber boy starts playing with his hair, but not being noticed, sings out in the most country of drawls, “baby, baby.”

  This earned a look from Chance, who gave the guy a “you are an idiot” look and guessed correctly, “Justin Bieber.”

  The class clapped and Ms. Masters squealed, “You’re right!” “Now you”, she said pointing at RBF.

  RBF jumped up and shouted “Blue 42, hut!” and ran to the stage. Kacyn ha
d no idea what those words meant, but she was sure she learned them fucking all of boys on the football field. Once on the stage, she kept going and wrapped both arms around Chance and twisted her body around him in a mock tackle.

  Kacyn was surprised and pissed. She had his undivided attention and was basically grinding on him. They were both enjoying this a little too much. She had to act and fast. She went up to them with her hand out, “Can I have a dollar?”

  He looked at Kacyn, then the teacher and asked, “Quarterback or football player and a homeless person?”

  “Well done. You can take your seats now. Class is almost over, you can talk amongst yourselves the rest of class. That was fun, we will do more games tomorrow.”

  As Kacyn was heading to her seat, she could hear RBF say “Sorry I tackled you.” Sorry my ass, she was probably thinking sorry I didn’t fuck you.

  “No problem, but I’m not sure you could tackle me.”

  “Oh, I think I could”, RBF seductively taunts him and shakes her ass off the stage.

  When Chance reaches his seat, he doesn’t turn and sit down. Instead, he looks at Kacyn. She is trying her hardest to not look at him, but she can see him wanting her attention out of the corner of her eyes.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Kacyn.”

  “That’s pretty, I’m Chance.”

  Before she could stop herself, she said, “I know.” Oh my god, she squirmed. How could she say that?

  He could tell she was uncomfortable and reveling in it. “How’d you know?”

  Motherfucker. He couldn’t just let her off. As coy as he was playing, he was still hot and she was glad he was talking to her. “I heard the teacher say it.”

  “Ok. Do you remember everyone’s name?” He was teasing her for sure now. He knew he was hot and he knew she wanted him.

  She didn’t want to go down this rabbit hole, so she decided to change the subject. “What year are you?”

  “Junior, you?”

  “Freshman”, she said sheepishly.

  “I thought so. But you look a little older than most freshmen.”