I hate high school. Just thought I'd make that clear. I hate it. Hate, hate, hate. I'd rather lick a dog's butt, then go to school. Heck. I'd rather have used tampons shoved in my nose. School sucks. Enemas with boiling coffee would be more fun. Sitting through a lecture on belly button lint would be better than high school.

Well, okay! Maybe I don't hate all of it. I mean I got my friends. Some of my teachers are nice. I do enjoy some of my classes and the couple of teams I’m on. But other teachers and a lot of the students? Not so much. So once again I must say. I fucking hate high school. But like everyone else, I have to go. Stupid state laws. No child left behind or some such crap.

Hate it, with a capital Fuck you school system!

Yeah, I get it. Maybe it's not the schools fault. Life had a big hand in dealing me this cruel twist of fate that led to me being more of a weirdo than I already was. Oh course, a lot of my school could be given the title of weirdo. Maybe all my problems were just Fate? Could have been Fate. Mom did seem to piss Fate off, a lot.

To me, all it seemed school was good for was instilling certain things in kids. Beat and mistreat those different than you. Pick on any weakness. Even in a zero-tolerance private school, like I attend, the jocks were more important than anyone else, so they got preferential treatment. Break any rules without fear of getting in trouble. I hate that. Some of them because they are the big sports heroes. Others because their parents have money. I really hate that. How can a system tell us we’re all the same, but treat us differently. My parents pay just as much for tuition for my brother and me that any other parent has to pay for two children. How the hell are they special. After all, I am on the fencing team, dance team and cheer squad. So why do I get treated like dirt? The Principal and vice principals were on my side, as were many of the teachers. The male physical education teachers on the other hand, not so much. Same with my just fired English teacher.

I was already a misfit, before I graduated from middle school to high school. Heck, I was a misfit before the end of the first month of sixth grade. After that, it took one messed up summer to really change it up for me. Oh, yeah. And this past summer. Everything changed this past summer. And all of that isn't even adding in my love for things that aren't considered girly. And yes, I love video games. Plus I’m a windsurfer, rock climbing, hang gliding, parkour loving nut. I don’t hunt, but I can shoot a gun. I like to camp, I love to go boating, skiing mostly. Many of the girls on my dance team don’t get my love of the great outdoors. I enjoy a lot of the outdoors. Heck, I’d even try extreme ironing just for the fun of getting up on a mountain top with the board and extension cord.

Due to my being bullied, and a bit of my love for the outdoors and maybe a small part of my inability to focus at times, my grades are not the best. Okay, maybe a large inability to focus. I pull a C average, some of my grades are B's. History and Math are not my strong points. I was pulling an A average, like many kids I knew. Then the shit hit the fan during my eighth grade year and every bully had me on their "to punch" list.

Of course my parents insist I have to go to high School. Each time I plead not to go, all they say is "blah blah blah! It's a law." My brother doesn’t seem to have any of my problems. He’s gay, but for some reason, the entire football team is scared of him. And when I say that, I mean he managed to make them all piss their pants-all at the same time.

My best friend, Darcy, has problems too. She seems to have withdrawn from everyone. Well, she hangs out with us, but she isn’t as talkative as everyone else. Something is brewing in her head and I don’t know what. She just won’t open up I see her looking at me and my other friends and you can almost see her want to say something, then nothing.

My other friend, Cerce gets it too. She is Chinese, well, half at least. So the 'Murican's of the school think she is illegal. Nope. She was born in the country. So was her father. In fact her family came to America in the mid eighteen hundred. But that doesn't stop them. Stupid rednecks. She is also the youngest person in the high school classes, but she is one of the smartest here. I do mean that. She has jumped forward almost three or four years in school, due to how smart she is. I think she could be much further, like college, but she is here, with us. And that’s good. I’d hate to see her trying to navigate college alone.

Now my other two female friends, Aileen and Amphitrite, are openly bi. Aileen doesn’t believe in hiding it, but for some reason, no one ever gives her a hard time. And Amphitrite is smoking hot, so the boys all wanna see her with another girl. It’s kinda pathetic, really. And to get an idea of how hot she is, picture a perfect ten. She is about two notches higher on the scale. Her mother is too.

There is another girl in our normal group, but she lives elsewhere with her Grandfather. We rarely get to see her, except around time for summer camp. We have other friends. Like Lucas and Marcus, brothers of Darcy. The three of them are triplets. Their parents have a big home, mostly because they also have a another set of triplets at home too. Three girls. Plus a boy who is almost in first grade. Their dad hates it, because he is outnumbered by women and they have him trained.

There is also Hank, another friend, but he keeps to himself, plus Reggie, my brother, who is older, openly gay and left totally alone at school.

A quick word on my school. It's a private one, near Traverse City Michigan. Cherry Capital of the World and near the beautiful shores of Lake Michigan. A Private, but not a religious school, they have both middle and high school grades here on the main campus and a great college prep program (not that I want to partake in that). Across the road, connected by a tunnel for the safety of the people who have to go from one campus to the next, is the private elementary school. The school itself rests on nearly twenty five hundred acres. A few streams. A small pond they call a lake or two. Nice wooded areas. There are at least four dorms for kids who came from out of state, or from across the world. The elementary school has a smaller campus, just about five hundred acres.

But right now, I’m not in the woods and none of my friends are near me. We got split up from the mob of jerkwads that are following us. So I’m sprinting down the halls of the school, after hours, dodging kids who have clubs and after school classes. I am moving at a good pace, with half the football team on my heels and the other half seems to be missing. Most likely chasing Lucas, Darcy and Cerce. Some of the school bullies are in there too. Saw them when I stopped to help out a kid I have in some of my classes. He’s a new student this year.

Colin. While he isn’t what I’d label a friend, that is only because he has erected some kind of wall. He keeps almost everyone out and refuses to talk about anything but school. I’ve never really seen him outside of the school and as far as I know, even in Middle school, we were the only people to talk to him. And he rarely talked back to us. But when he does talk to me, he seems-enamored with me? Almost in awe, I guess. Guess I’m just that awesome.

By now you’re wondering one question. Why am I here if school is out? That’s simple. The video game club just got out. I attend that. I am a member of several clubs, two teams and of the school’s award winning orchestra. Monday morning is the gay straight alliance. I attend with Amphitrite and Aileen. I’m still finding my sexuality, so I’m there as support for Aileen and Amphitrite. A couple of our other friends show up for that too. Tuesday is after school orchestra practice, I play the harp, something my paternal Grandmother insisted I learn. I love it though. Really do. I can also play the piano and I play guitar. Wednesday morning is the game group, like table top and pencil and paper RPGs. Thursday is video game club. Friday I am with the competitive dance group. We're trying for any title this year. Plus this helps with an elective. We also meet Monday afternoons. Wednesday afternoon is my fencing team. I’m the only girl on it, plus the co-captain.
Normally, I would have been to my mother’s car by now. But like I already said, they caught us when we stopped to help another student, one I had known from my middle school days. Colin. He was a good kid. Quiet, yet helpful and smart. Did I say that already?

At my middle school, a few of these guys used to pick on me, but now-now I got a mob, all over one supposed name change. Funny thing is my first name never changed. Never. But someone keeps telling this story about me and it spread like wildfire. And you’d think by now, no one would believe it. After all the High school I go to is combined with a middle school and elementary school. Most of the kids who have known me since I was in first grade used to defend me. But when pressure from the bullies got bad, they backed off. I didn’t mind. I could shoulder this problem.

More than ninety percent of my grade year has been going through school with me since I joined the first grade. Now I’m a freshman and I have these people spreading rumors about me and people are believing them. Not the kids I’ve known for years, but the ones new to the school since I got in the eighth grade.

Okay, this is a bit confusing. Let me give some background information. I was born to Helen and Clark Somerset. We live in the township of Old Mission, Michigan, which is north of Traverse City on a small peninsula. We're just about a quarter mile to Grand Traverse Bay. One of the things that gets me teased by the newer students to the school is the fact that we live in an Earthship home.

Yup, one of those homes made out of old tires, old pop cans and old glass bottles. I know we aren’t the only ones to live in one of those, that attend my school. I just seem to be the only one who gets hell for it from the new kids. Even my brother doesn't get teased for it.

I have a brother, older. One sister, younger. And a cousin, older than my sister, younger than myself. She also lives with us and attends school with my sister.

And for some reason, thanks to a church that sprung up when I was in the eighth grade, a lot of people believe I am a boy, living like a girl. But no, I have always been a girl. Boyish hobbies, but I’ve always had a vagina. Yet these people have gone out of their way to run a campaign of fear and hate against me. No matter how many times I’ve told people, none of them will believe me. And somehow three of the members of that church have become teachers at my school...

You know, let me back this bus up a bit.