One School Day, Zoe Zhang [best e ink reader for manga TXT] 📗

One School Day
By Zoe Zhang

“BEEEEE—” Click. That’s what started a school day. The alarm buzzing my ears off, and then a partly destroyed snooze button. But hey, no biggie. I’d get my dad to fix it in the afternoon. When I check the time, it’s 7:00, as it should be. Or so my wristwatch says. To me it’s still seems like 3 in the morning. I’m about to get up and change, but at the very moment a monkey decides to invade my room.
The door slams open and in comes (or bounced is a better way to put it) my sister. Jasmine. Oh, sure, I could go on and on and on and on about how evil, crazy, mutated my monkey/sister is. But I don’t have time for that now. I have to dress.
“Aki-Aki-Aki-Aki—” And that was all I heard all morning. Jasmine screaming and hollering down the hallway, acting like she was on sugar high. And I think I’m right. Acting like detective for 3 minutes should be safe, that is, as long as my toast doesn’t get burnt. I fast walk to the kitchen counter, and on it is a small pile of 4 or 5 lemon drop wrappers. Figures. I can be a good detective when I want to. But I’ll have to save that for later, because that has nothing to do with the fact that I’m going to be late for school.
Wait! Late for school?!
Crap. This was no time to fool around. I’ve been standing here, lost in my own thoughts, while the clocks ticking 7:30, the toast is burning, and Jasmine is still bouncing off the walls, and both Okaa-san and Otou-san have already left the building—I mean house. I need to get organized, starting… now!
I sped off to my sister’s bedroom (which had a sign that said “Banana’s are for eating, peels are for peeling, and doors are for KNOCKING”. Typical.), grabbed Jasmine around the waist, and heaved her to the living room. There I gave her a vitamin. The best cure to sugar high kids. You should try it some time.
Immediately Jasmine calmed down and looked up expectantly at me. Then she goes all “innocent” like and says “We going yet, Aki?”
Oh yeah. She’s doing act #24, the innocent puppy look, one of the most deadly weapon that makes you think that she hadn’t done anything bad during the last 5 minutes.
“Jazzy-chan, can you go wait outside for 5 minutes? I need to pack for school.” I play along. I don’t want to argue right before school starts.
“Kay, and its Jasmine! I’m not your Jazzy-chan anymore, I’m a big first grader.” She says proudly, puffing out her chest. It’s a Kodak moment, but I don’t have time for that. I give her a ‘look’ and she skips out the door.
I quickly throw everything I need, which isn’t much. Just a binder, reading book, and my Japanese folder. I folded a small note into my pocket. It was an invitation to Mrs. Hawkinson if she could go to IHOPS for dinner with my family, coming directly from Okaa-san. But I doubt that Mrs. Hawkinson will accept. She’s a very busy woman.
I hear a beep outside, then “Akira, Kerry’s here!” I pop a vitamin in my mouth.
“I’ve got you covered!” I said, taking Jasmine’s and my backpack in my hands.
Waiting outside our front lawn was a green van. Sienna to be exact, newest model. It makes things better that Kerry’s dad works at Toyota. I haul both the backpacks and throw them in the trunk before closing it shut (I’m very careful about other people’s stuff. Usually I would have slammed it shut.).
“Yo, Kerry! Morning Mr. Brooke!” I greet the two “men” as I slid open the side door.
“Morning, Akira.” Mr. Brooke smiled at me. I could tell that Mrs. Brooke was on another business trip, because usually she picks us up. I turn to Kerry, waiting for a response. Instead, he’s grinning like an idiot, and pointing at his shirt. It read:
“HEY YOURSELF, UGLY!”
Now, had that been anyone else or any of my friends, I would have said “Well, that’s a nice way to treat your friend!” or something like that. But this is Kerry we’re talking about. I’ve known him since 2nd grade, so there’s no reason to be rude. He does this all the time.
Instead I say, “Nice shirt, Kerry, but are you going to move your butt, or will I have to push it off the seat so we can be late for school?”
He gets the hint and scoots over to the other side of the car. I ungracefully plop myself on where Kerry was sitting. Mr. Brooke had stepped out of the car to carry Jasmine (with more ease than I had) to the front seat and strap her into the newly installed kid seat. He got back in the car and off we drove to CARKA middle school.
On the way, Kerry and I talked about our new private project: Project “G”, which stands for Project Garfield. When I lived in Kyoto (that’s in Japan), I adored Garfield comics. I’d read them day after day, and soon in 1st grade (I was still in Kyoto that time) I learned how to draw Garfield. I was as good as Jim Davis himself. But a year later I moved to America, where I learned English quickly, seeing how I was always reading Garfield.
But enough about that. That’s for later…

I look out of the side window. There it was. In all its glory there stood CARKA, my school. Room 150 wasn’t going to start without me to teach (Gag, gag, that sounded weird). I hear a person clear their throat, as to get my attention. I looked sideways, giving Kerry a confused and annoyed look.
“What?” I hiss, turning around towards the window again, looking for a certain someone.
Kerry just pointed at the entrance of CARKA, and I follow his finger to the opening, and sitting there was the one and only person I was looking for: Abby Johnson.
Just gotta love her. She was born in Utah, but had traveled many places before meeting us. Luckily, she was finally transferred to our school, Fay Wray. The three of us grew up from there on. Abby was my best friend (apart from Akako from Kyoto), and she matched my day perfectly. When I was in a bad mood, she would be too, and would make sure we both had someone to boss around. But since I wasn’t that kind of person, she did that herself. When I was happy, she would be too and join in any of the excitement I held. But that’s beside the point.
Jasmine, Kerry and I jumped out of Mr. Brooke’s car, gave a quick wave, and headed toward CARKA. At the entrance, I gave Jasmine a quick peck on the cheek (she wiped is off when she thought I wasn’t looking), shooed her on her way to Fay Wray, and ran to keep up with Kerry who was already ahead of me. As soon as we were right on front of Abby, she stood up, dusted her backpack, and we headed for Room 150.
While we were walking, she looked at us like we were her saviors. I don’t blame her. I didn’t look at her sympathetically, though. No, Abby likes to the proud independent woman— girl—and not be the one who asked for help. She could kill anyone with her hard, stone glare, if looks could kill. Carter Thomas was once a victim of the Killer Glare and didn’t recover after 3 hours. But as independent Abby was, she had to spend the whole entire weekend with her grandma. Don’t get me wrong, Abby loves, no ADORES her grandma, but most of the time—heck, all of the time her grandma would ramble on and on about… gibberish. Living with her is beyond me my imagination. I couldn’t stand 30 minutes with her.
As the three of us opened our lockers, me unlocking Kerry’s, he unlocking Abby’s, and Abby unlocking mine (shhhh, don’t tell the principal that! We aren’t supposed to exchange locker combinations!), we heard footsteps. It had better not be Carter, or I’m gonna—
“Yo! Kerry, sup?!”
Speak of the devil, I spoke too soon. There he goes, in all his glory, strolling up to Kerry, after nodding to Abby and I in greeting, thinking he’s all that and the MOST popular boy in school. Which he was, I’m sad to say.
The boys pounded fists (why DO they do that?), slapped them, and wriggled their fingers at each other.
“Sup?” they both said before bursting into laughter. Abby and I rolled our eyes. Boys. The most mysterious and strange creatures to live on earth.
Abby turned to me while the boys were talking about God knows what, she said, “I forgot to give you a formal greeting.” We went through the usual. We high-fived turned around and held our hands like pistols. We shouted “BANG” and then blew on our fingers like smoke was coming out of them. We laughed. I, the one and all genius, made up this little “hand shake”. I used to do it with Akako. Boy do I miss her…
“BRRRRRRRRRRRM” went the bell. I hate the bell. Why can’t it be a little ding, or an ACTUAL BELL? Beats me. First bell, and Kerry and Carter were still talking as if they hadn’t heard it at all, which I bet was true. I can clash a pair of symbols on Kerry’s fat head (exaggerated) and he wouldn’t hear of feel a thing.
I jerked at Kerry’s collar, almost succeeding at choking him, disrupting his little “conversation” with Carter. He sighed and waved at Carter. “See you at lunch, CT!”
Carter, with the use of his nickname, nodded and smiled. “Sure thing, Ker’! You had better be there!” and with that he left, bobbing his head up and down as if he was one of those cool people. Which he was. I hate it when I’m right.
As Kerry and I walked behind Abby, I shook my head. “Just what do you see in Carter, anyway?”
Kerry feigned an offensive voice. “Who, me? Now why would I be interested in the most popular guy in school, who also happens to be one of my closest friends?”
I lightly cuffed him on the head, but couldn’t suppress a chuckle. Kerry smiled at me as he slid his binder across the table we were sitting at. “Besides you, of course.”
“Of course,” I said, unzipping my binder open while looking at Kerry, “how could you ever forget me, the one and only friend you had in 2nd grade, not to mention the rest of your life?” Abby pointedly glared at me. I giggled like the schoolgirl that I was. “Counting Abby, of course.
Kerry nodded knowingly. “Yes, yes, how can I forget you two? Besides, you weren’t the only friends I had. There was Richard, Cameron, Safa, and you know the rest.” He countered back, and trying to steal the piece of caramel I was hiding in my pocket as he reached across the table to dig into my jacket.
I sighed. “Ah, yes, how can we forget your dear little Cameron?” I saw with satisfaction that Kerry was turning a nice light shade of pink, which stopped him from taking the caramel that was still stuffed in my pocket. I took it out and popped it in my mouth.
“Akira, you know that as many times as I’ve said it, I’ll say