New School, New Friends

Daily writing prompt

Tell us about your first day at something — school, work, as a parent, etc.

View all responses

I was shaking on my first day of sixth grade. We’d recently moved from a larger city to a small, unincorporated area in the mountains, with a school that spanned kindergarten to eighth grade. I knew no one at the new school.

Unlike most of the junior highs at that time, sixth-eighth grade were together. Not in the classroom, there were enough of us to have separate classroom for each grade, but we shared everything from lunch times to teachers, rotating classrooms for each subject. Common enough now, but certainly not then. I was particularly frightened of the eighth-graders. What if they beat me up?

I didn’t know what to wear to fit in. Until recently, girls had been required to wear dresses to school. Now we could wear jeans, much more suitable for the mountain area. To be honest, I don’t remember what I wore, I just remember agonizing over it. I’m not even sure I had jeans at that point. My mom had made all my clothes, including my pants. I’m quite sure I didn’t wear homemade pants on my first day of school.

My mom didn’t make me take the bus that first day, something for which I was very grateful. She drove me to school and together we found the playground, where kids hung out before school started. After she left, I pressed up against the brick building and hung my head.

Much to my shock, two girls approached me. “Are you new?” one of them asked in a welcoming manner. I nodded my head yes. “What grade are you in?” When I told them sixth grade, they gleefully said, “We are, too!” Since there was only one sixth grade class that year, we would be together. They proceeded to show me around the playground, giving me vital information such as where the bathrooms were.

Those two girls, Sue and Lisa, would remain my friends through high school. After that we drifted apart, and I’ve kept up with very few of my high school friends, so I don’t know where they ended up or how their lives are today. I hope things are good for them. Sue’s mom died in a plane crash shortly before seventh grade, and her dad remarried not long after. I suspect now that things were difficult for her through all those years, but I didn’t know enough to lend my support. I feel bad about that now.

Sixth, seventh, eighth grade. High school. Tough ages for all of us. But I had friends, and that made all the difference.

Image Credits: School Children (header)–© stock.adobe.com, Jeans © GOOKKIK–stock.adobe.com, Happy Kids Jumping © Bigstock Photos