Late-Night Party

“Hey, did you hear about the volleyball courts? Yeah, they’re going to demolish them and put in a swimming pool instead!”
News, rumors, and conversations fluttered cheerfully throughout 17-year old Hollie Maxwell’s drama class. Really, she didn’t care about any of this stuff, because she joined drama class to act, which was her hobby; not to listen to stupid rumors and gossip. But it wasn’t as if she had a choice; Mrs. Redding, her drama teacher, apparently liked to come late to class because she has her lunch break the period before. This bothered Hollie mildly, but at least it was better than her English class, and by a long shot, too. Hollie couldn’t bear going to her English class every morning at school, but she had no option, of course.
Finally Mrs. Redding arrived, carrying with her a large, pink scale-textured purse that had pink and purple fluffy stuff reaching out from it. To Hollie, it looked like a mutated, dead half-bird, half-crocodile. As for Mrs. Redding’s hair, her surprisingly still blonde but aged hair was lazily clipped on top of her head but most of her strands still sprung out from the clips in every direction. Her eyes were—well, actually, no one seemed to know what color eyes Mrs. Redding had; they were very unnoticeable eyes. Mrs. Redding looked plump but not fat and she was dressed in a mixture of crazy clothing that shouldn’t really be put together for one single outfit. Her glasses and make-up seemed like the only thing normal on her.
“Good afternoon, class! Please take your seats—” Mrs. Redding surveyed the class for a quick two seconds and realized everyone already was sitting down—“and please cease your talking.” The class stopped chattering; everyone had much respect for Mrs. Redding, although she never yelled at them. “Today, we’ll be discussing Shakespeare. I know, I know, it’s rather drab and boring, isn’t it? But that’s because it’s old and all fancy-talk. I have with me here a modernized version of one of Shakespeare’s play scripts. Miss Montez, please stop talking to your friend over there about how cucumbers would look if they were a mix of carrots and cheese.” Mrs. Redding raised her brow at two girls towards the back of the room, who were giggling as quietly as they could as they talked, completely ignoring Mrs. Redding. They froze, looking at Mrs. Redding with apologizing looks on their faces. “Ahem, thank you, girls. As I was saying, we’ll be acting out the script today. Everyone will have a part in this practice play. But we won’t do this mini-play until we finish the improvisational acts we did last Friday.”
Hollie sighed with frustration; two more girls behind her, Kelly and Bonnie, were whispering and giggling to a guy named Harlan Crosley. They were distracting Hollie from finding out the agenda for their class today; she was surprised Kelly and Bonnie were even in drama class, if they never did anything in it. The closest thing they did to doing anything in drama was criticizing costumes and accents that the other students used to complete their daily mini-plays and rehearsals for serious, actual plays.
Hollie twisted to look back at Kelly, who was right behind her. Kelly was chewing gum as she twisted her flat ironed, blonde hair around her finger. Hollie could tell Kelly was trying to flirt with Harlan, but Harlan seemed to be more interested in Bonnie, who was right behind Kelly. Bonnie suddenly laughed loudly and snorted, startling the class. Hollie immediately turned forward again and glanced at Mrs. Redding. Mrs. Redding slowly lifted her head and raised her eyebrows at Kelly and Bonnie.
“Kelly, Bonnie: out. Go to the principal’s office; that’s been around the tenth time you’ve interrupted my class this week.” Mrs. Redding pointed towards the door, clutching her attendance clipboard in her left hand; she liked to take attendance the old-fashioned way, instead of just using the computer. Mrs. Redding lowered her voice and muttered, “Soon enough you girls won’t be in my class anymore.”
Kelly and Bonnie didn’t seem to notice.
The door closed behind Kelly and Bonnie and Mrs. Redding finished taking attendance and headed over to the phone to call the principal when the door suddenly burst open. A guy with brown, messy hair that wasn’t too short or too long walked into the classroom casually. His eyes were the perfect shade of blue, and his skin was slightly tanned. The guy, who looked to be around Hollie’s age and in her grade, had a navy blue backpack slung over his shoulder and a schedule and pencil in his hand. He took one quick glance at the class and then looked up at Mrs. Redding.
“Uh, hi… I’m new here, where do I sit?” said the boy. His voice sounded typical, nothing special to mark about it. Hollie could sense a tiny amount of nervousness in his tone.
“Oh, Mark Everlene, am I correct?” Mrs. Redding said, her face beaming up with a smile. Hollie could have sworn Mark stopped himself from smiling back at Mrs. Redding; her smiles were contagious.
The boy nodded. So his name was Mark; Mark Everlene. That was a catchy name, actually. Suddenly Hollie realized that Mark was about to be seated, and Hollie remembered there was an empty seat to her left. Hollie secretly hoped he would be seated next to her; she wanted to find out if this guy was decent or not.
It was then that Hollie remembered something else, too; an annoying fake girl named Kendall Mercedole had an empty seat next to her, too. Hollie wished he wouldn’t sit next to her; nobody deserved to sit next to Kendall, because she was way too obnoxious and fake and… well, Hollie really didn’t like Kendall at all, and when Kendall got things her way, it enraged Hollie.
“Hmm… oh, yes, yes… you’ll get to sit next to Hollie Maxwell, over there. She’s in your grade, your same age too. She’s the pretty brunette with the green eyes and gray sweater.” Mrs. Redding pointed to Hollie. Hollie’s face nearly lit up, but she stopped herself from showing any relief or excitement; that would be quite embarrassing!
“Now, Hollie, if you don’t mind, I’d like you to help Mark whenever he needs it. Carry on… what was I going to do? Oh, yes, call the principal… hold on…” Mrs. Redding turned her back on the class and, still standing on the mini-stage installed at the front of the classroom, headed over to the telephone.
Hollie looked away from Mrs. Redding and planted her eyes on Mark. Mark was setting his backpack down by his desk and was reaching back up.
“Hi! I’m Hollie,” Hollie greeted him. He glanced over at her and smiled back. “So… your name’s Mark? Pretty cool name.”
Mark smiled again and spoke. “Thanks. So… Hollie… anything special coming up for this class?”
“Nah. We just finished putting on a play about some country girl moving to the city. I played the main character,” Hollie smiled and swept away a strand of hair from her face.
“That’s pretty cool,” Mark replied, giving off a slight look of impressment on his face. He was about to speak again when suddenly a girl to his left, Michelle Pollock, greeted him loudly.
“Hi, Mark!” Michelle practically yelled, and her face was sporting a huge, fake grin. She had freshly-applied lip gloss on her lips and was winding her orange-red hair around her finger. “I’m Michelle Pollock. I’m in Hollie’s and your grade, so hopefully I’ll see you in more of my other classes.”
Mark turned his head to Michelle and smiled quietly. Hollie was crossing her fingers that Mark wouldn’t find Michelle as the type of girl to talk to, or even like.
“So, Mark,” Michelle pressed some emphasis on Mark’s name to sound flirty. Hollie’s fists clenched, but then released when she realized what she was doing. “Where are you from?”
“A town like this one, it’s twenty minutes away. It’s called Eastlake,” Mark answered politely. His eyes darted at the other students around him to see if there were any guys he could be friends with, but his eyes quickly went back on Michelle when she spoke again.
“Oh! Eastlake? I think I’ve been there. It has that… that park, right? With the playground and the swings? And an elementary school?” Michelle stuttered. It was clear that she was making things up to try and impress Mark or at least relate to him.
“Uh, doesn’t every city have that stuff?” Mark laughed, stealing a look back at me as if to say, Is she serious?
“Well… not all cities and towns,” Michelle pouted, blinking more than usual. She was getting a bit nervous; did she have a crush on Mark after just meeting him? Not a surprise, though; Michelle had always been crazy. “Anyway, this’ll seem really early, but you seem like a really cool guy. Wanna hang out with me and my friends at lunch tomorrow? We got guys at our table, too, so don’t feel awkward about it!”
Hollie’s heart dropped. At least Michelle wasn’t asking Mark out, but then again, Michelle unfortunately had common sense in her to know not to ask him out so early. (Apparently Michelle did know that Mark would most likely say no.) Please say no, please say no, Mark! Hollie thought, her blood boiling. Then again, it was Mark’s first invitation to anything. He was bound to accept Michelle’s offer, but still; Hollie didn’t want to hear words of acceptance slip through Mark’s lips.
“Um, well, I’ll try to,” Mark replied casually, looking away from Michelle and at the rest of the class. “We’ll see.”
“Uh, pardon? What do you mean—” Michelle was getting onto her snobby side again! Hollie felt sorry that Mark had to experience it on his first time talking to that selfish loser, Michelle. “Er, I mean, of course. Doesn’t matter or anything… but, you know, think about it. I don’t want you to be a loner!”

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Will Mark become friends with Michelle or can Hollie save him from hanging out with her ex-friend? (Michelle and Hollie were once best friends in sixth grade, but Holly realized Michelle was using Hollie for popularity and friends.) Find out in CHAPTER TWO.