The sky was blue and the sun was bright as usual. No clouds in sight. I started walking up to my new school which had white and turquoise walls. I walked in with my mother and the Assistant Principal. I felt like they were my walls and I was hiding behind them. It was the second day of school. I was so embarrassed that I walked in with my mom.
“What a loser,” I heard the kids say as I walked by them.
“I’m sure you’ll be fine Honey,” Mom said.
“Yeah, that’s what you think,” I replied.
Then, we continued to walk to my class upstairs on the left side of the building.
In this mysterious world, the students were monsters. They stared at me. They judged me before they even knew my name. They stood on the courtyard in clusters looking at me with their friends like I was a different species.
As I turned every corner, it was suspicious. Shadows were whispering to each other. My body was trembling with the fear of everyone having friends and me having none. My face was turning more and more green, I could feel my breakfast coming up and I couldn’t stop it. Luckily, I choked it down quickly, which was absolutely disgusting.
“I hope my breath won’t smell bad,” I said quietly to myself.
“Huh, Honey did you say something?” Mom said.
“Uh, no, I didn’t,” I said.

Since, I was new, the teachers had me wear a nametag with Kirsten on it because that’s my name. My black hair was in a ponytail that flowed past my waist. For school that day, I wore uniform, which is dress code. I had on short khakis, a white polo shirt, and blue converse sneakers on.
My new school was named Palm Cove Elementary, and it was baseball-themed. The time of year was August 15th, 2011 which, was the beginning of the school year in Florida, and it was very hot. This school was different than my last two elementary schools. It had trash all over the place, like on the baseball field and in the main area of the school.
It didn’t have a homey feeling like my last school. I felt like I didn’t belong here.
On the first week of school, I figured out that the students at my school were very rough and tough. They took school lightly. As if they didn’t care if they got bad grades, they even cheated on tests.  They weren’t very friendly either, you couldn’t just walk up to them and say, “Hi”, I learned that the hard way.
On the third day of school, I tried to make friends but when I said, “Hi, I’m Kirsten”,  and one of the students made a fist notion.
That was my “cue” to run. That’s where Kendra, Taisha and Keara came, in I bumped  into them while running to class that I soon learned we all shared. Quickly I explained that I was the new kid.
“No problem, wanna be friends?” said Kendra.
“Yes, yes I do thanks,” I then replied.                
They were very nice at first. They showed me around places I didn’t get to see on my first day. We hung out and they introduced me to some of their friends that soon became mine. Even though they were my friends, their personalities were way different. They were “baddies” and I was more of the nerd.
A couple weeks after school started, my friends said something to me that changed my attitude towards them. We were walking to school and we were by the school fence, that circled the field, looking at the orange clay for baseball games.
Keara said to me, “Maybe you shouldn’t be so nice.”
Right there I just froze. Of course I went along with it because I was weak and didn’t ask why.
“Uh ooookaaaaaaaaay,” I replied.
They told me to become more like them and change about my attitude towards adults school, which I did.
“Now we have to make you look the part of a part of being popular.”
“Why? I like my look.”
“Yea, but other people don’t,” they said to me.
I started not doing homework and teachers didn’t like it.
“Kirsten I don’t what's gotten into you young lady,” said Coach Benitez.
“If this becomes a normal routine for you to lack homework, there will be consequences.”
“Ok, I don’t really care.”
That was the hardest thing to say to someone, especially for me.  Then came the day on 1st week of September of meeting Toie on my way to lunch. She was the “Queen Bee” because she was the daughter of a famous rapper Rick Ross.
“So who are you?” Toie said.
“I’m Kirsten and I’m new nice to meet you.”
Obviously, she doesn’t like because I guess she sees me as competition. Everyday after that my life ended as she kept trying to bully me.  
I had to step up my game and become popular, bummer. I had to loosen up a bit and make school number “10” on my list of important things instead of number one. I started turning in homework in late and most importantly, I DID NOT want to become “Popular”. Everyday I morphed into this character that wasn’t me. It made me depressed and I changed forever. All this drama happened in fourth grade and I didn’t know how to tell my parents. There was dating and that’s not supposed to happen. I had to grow up faster than I intended to.
One afternoon, I was laying on my Paris comforter thinking about life. Thinking about how bad it sucks, but that had to change.
“This is my life and I’m going to control it no matter what anyone says!” I screamed loudly, in my head. I wasn’t going to listen to my so-called friends anymore, my life, my decisions. The next morning, I marched to school and walked right up to Keara, Kendra, and Taisha and said “If we are going to be friends, I’m going to act like my ‘normal’ self.” Or what was left.
“Whoa, what’s up with all the anger, I thought you liked being popular.”
“Well does it look like it?”
I then marched off and told everyone who knew me that I didn’t want to be popular in the first place. I was on a rage, but I didn’t think everything through, so then this happened. My biggest fear of all had to be conquered which was standing up to Miss Toie Roberts. I walked up the white stairs and I yelled to her ,“Stop acting like a brat.”
“Ooooo,” said everyone.
“Excuse me?” Toie said
“Yeah, you heard right, you are not better than anyone else just because you are a snobby rich girl!” That was the biggest mistake I have ever made.     
Eventually, I got the answer to my question which was why my friends wanted me to change so much. They felt like I would die or get crushed if I didn’t toughen up so they decided amongst themselves to “protect” me.
“We are sorry that we tried to change you and control your life.” said Keara
“Yeah we didn’t mean for all this to happen,” Taisha said.
“I know, but it’s ok so we can all act normal and hang.” I said.
Everything went back to being regular and my friends stopped telling me, “You should stop wearing girly stuff, wear pants and crop tops, etc.”
“Hey Kirsten,” said the other students.
“Wazzup”  I said back.
Everything became bearable, except for school itself, and I enjoyed the rest of my time at Palm Cove . Or so I thought, but that’s another story.