chapter 1 final draft!

RD: chapter 1. Melody
Middle school. New school. Both are dreaded places. Well me, I’ve been enrolled in a new middle school. Of course, I’m not alone, which detracts from the horror of it all. My best friends, Mikayla and Miranda, are here with me.
Now, you’re probably asking yourself how this happened. Well our parents were best friends growing up, and I guess they planned to have us at the same time, maybe? Anyway, they decided to go on a trip all around the world. Something about “having only so little time left.” Personally, I can’t understand their decision. I think they just wanted to get away from us a little while, while we’re going through our early teenage years. Some parents! Instead of dealing with us, they decided to dump us on my aunt because she had chosen not to embark on their trip along with them. So here we are, in New York City, living it up as far away as we could be from our old residence: Waikiki, Hawaii. Compared to the sandy beaches of Hawaii, the cold air of NYC was terrible.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my aunt. We all do. She’s convivial, solicitous and absolutely everything that you want in a friend, and a mom. She’s a perfect mix of both.
Back to the topic of school though. So, here we are, going to a new school in New York City. Surprisingly, it wasn’t that bad. Of course I’d rather not go into that topic but while I’m at it I might as well.
Every little thing there bothered me. The people.  Their clothes. Their attitude. The teachers. The slightest thing irked me, made me want to jump out of my seat and yell, “You’re not ever going to replace my friends! I hate you!” I controlled myself though. I know now that I wasn’t just comparing them to normalcy; I was comparing them to my old school, which was, by any means, far from perfection.
In any case, it was hard to fit in, solely based on the fact that I was clearly a nerd. My black hair was chopped off in the front to form blunt, uneven bangs. The rest of my hair was completely unworkable with. It was rough, straight hair, and no matter how hard I tried to make it look attractive, it just stayed the same. Not only that, but I wore hideous glasses, the color of mud, and my teeth, don’t even get me started on them. Because of their unbelievable crookedness I had to wear unsightly metal braces. Ugh! To top it off, our collared, black and white, appalling uniform completely confirmed that I was a nerd.
At that moment, I had relied on Miranda and Mikayla, who were basically my sisters in a sense. So I guess it was pretty bad, but I knew I would get over it.
This particular day started just like any other in the world, but it was about to change our lives.
“Miranda,” I said, viewing the giant notice board in front of our school, “Look at that!”
“What?” she replied excitedly, bouncing up and down. This is why I love Miranda, she’s ready for anything I say.
Miranda looked like such a popular person, which of course, she was. It wasn’t hard to see why. She had beautiful, flowing, soft brown curly hair that fell down in waves. Her face, of course, matched the prettiness of her hair. There was no trace of acne on her skin at all, and her eyes were ocean blue. She had absolutely no issues with her eyes or teeth, of course. She even managed to make the school uniform look as if it belonged in a fashion magazine!
Managing not to compare myself to Miranda this very second, I looked at the notice board. It read:
Spring Dance: March 16th
Talent Show Auditions: March 1st
Talent Show: March 21st
REMEMBER YOUR ID
I sighed, realizing the date had passed. “Never mind, I was going to suggest trying out for the talent show. But today is,” I paused to check the date on my watch, “March 9th. It’s too late.”
Instead of seeing look resembling acceptance, I saw a look of doubt. It was easy to see she was lost in thought. Thinking of what, I had no idea. “Yeah, that’s too bad,” she said in an unusual voice. “I’ll catch you later; I have to tell Selema something.” Her eyes lit up deviously, and I quickly remembered that she had other friends to talk to.
“Okay, see you at home.” She sprinted away, headed for Selema. I looked for Mikayla, only to remember that she was talking to her friends as well. I searched through the crowd of students in school for my friends, and saw a few staring at me intently, then waving me over. I jogged up to them, and they were going on about a boy named Johnny asking out Maria. Not that I didn’t find it interesting, but I barely knew the people they were talking about.
I looked at my watch, willing the 14 minutes to go by faster, so we could head into school and get this day over with. Then I could go home, finish my homework and relax. Text a few friends, take a nap, watch a movie… maybe two… maybe I could stay up all night watching movies! That would be the life, except for the fact that there’s school tomorrow, and the day after that…. Abruptly my fantasy turned into a nightmare. School, school, school. I couldn’t wait until I could finish college, get a job, then retire in Hawaii….
“…that Sara bombed the auditions!” Mary said quite sadly.
“What was that?” I guess the conversation had changed, and on to Sara, one of my other friends, who had seemed to enter some sort of depression based on my friend’s undying concern about her.
“Sara bombed the talent show auditions. That’s part of the reason why she’s been so depressed lately.” Mary repeated in the same tone.
“Oh… but why is she so sad about that? It’s just a talent show, not that big of a deal.” I stated matter-of-factly, receiving some weird looks.
When they saw that I wasn’t joking around, Clara replied caustically, “Actually Melody, it is that big of a deal. Every year this big talent scout comes, and if he thinks that someone’s got talent, he recruits them, which makes it more like a music competition, obviously. Only one group gets in every year, but they have to record some songs with him and then he makes the final choice… nobody gets past that stage though. Besides, it’s too late to even think of auditioning this year.” This was the first time she had ever spoken more than a few words to me. Her face looked annoyed, and instantly I felt like a little girl being scolded by a scornful teacher. I shook my head, getting the thought out of my head. Obviously, Clara was angry at me for some reason, but I had no idea why, seeing as I barely talked to her the two or three weeks I’ve been here.
“Um, yeah. I know. Besides, the only time I ever is sing is in the shower,” I replied, smiling, hoping to lighten the conversation. It didn’t have the intended effect. Everyone’s eyes flicked away from Clara and I, not wanting to get in the middle of it. “Well, um,” I paused waiting for inspiration to hit me, but nothing did. Riiinnngg! Perfect timing! “I’m gonna go, my locker’s pretty far away.” I took the bell to my advantage, leaving the awkwardness and rushing to my locker.
As the rest of the day droned on, I couldn’t help but notice the steely look I received from Clara once in a while. Sometimes she would just smile and ignore me like she did before, and other times she would sass me. Other than that, my day was mildly okay. When I walked out of the school, Miranda looked excitedly at me.
“Okay, guess what!” she paused, waiting for me to guess. Apparently I took too much time, because a few seconds later she yelled, “I got us auditions!”
“Wait, what?! How?”
“Oh, well, I found out the chorus teacher is in charge of the auditions, so I asked her if we could audition, even though it was a little late. And she agreed! But since there’s supposed to be this big important guy seeing the talent show, we have to pay $17. It’s not that bad though, right?!” Miranda explained eagerly, her brown curls bouncing up and down.
“That’s... unbelievable! I can’t believe you got us auditions!” I said, bouncing up and down with her. “You wanna ask Mikayla to do it with us?”
“Of course, we’ve always been a three man team! Well, that is, if she agrees to it. She seems so preoccupied lately.” She answered, shaking her head in mock disappointment.
Just that second, a tall brunette walked out the building. Her hair was scrunched and she wore plain gray sweatpants and a Madison High sweatshirt, following the boys winter dress code, of course. This was to be expected, because if you ever tried to put Mikayla in a skirt, you don’t even want to know what she would do. .
“Hey. What’s happening?” she calmly asked us, but with a scowl on her face.
“Nothing, where have you been? We’ve been waiting here for quite a while for you!” I asked her jokingly.
“Gosh, I’m sorry,” smirking at me, she replied.
We walked to my aunt’s silver Honda, and jumped in. When we arrived home after the short drive, Mikayla sprinted out and into our lime green bedroom before plopping on to the bottom bunk of our triple bunk bed. We followed her in curiously.
“Watcha doin’?” Miranda questioned her.
“Nothing,” Mikalya replied, as if she wanted to avoid the question.
I jumped on her bed and looked at what she was working on. “Ooh, a newspaper!” I said, getting interested. The paper she was intently reading was a writing contest, and if the judges chose your newspaper as the best one, then you won $1000! “Can I write one, too?”
“Me too!” Miranda added as soon as I asked.
Snatching the paper away, she said, “No!” We looked at her, startled. “I mean, it costs a lot of money to enter since the deadline was a week ago.” she snarled.
“Oh,” Miranda sighed, “Well do you want to join our group for the talent show?”
Mikayla looked up from the paper and glared at Miranda, “What kinda of question is that?! Of course I want to!” she said, calming down a little.
“Well, you have to pay to audition,” I said, sneering just a little. She was honestly getting on my nerves, there was no need to get so mad about everything in life. Most of the times she wasn’t like this, but for some reason she felt the need to be over dramatic today. I wasn’t going to take any of her attitude today.
“Whatever, you didn’t have to ask me if you didn’t want me to be in your silly little group anyway,” she snarled, back in her grouchy mood. It was clear she thought I didn’t mean it about her having to pay to audition, but right now I wasn’t in the mood to tell her that it was true.
Miranda looked awkwardly at one of us, and then the other, trying to find a way to calm us both down. Seeing that it wasn’t going to happen, she climbed on to the top bunk with a book and sighed loudly.
I thought that the situation that I was in was horrible, but it couldn’t get much worse.
Oh boy, was I wrong.