Who are we?

Tale as old as time. True as it can be. Do you what a cliché high school story consists of? I'm sure you do but even with resemblance, each story is different. I'm not a drama queen but I'm telling you, my school life is exactly like a drama.

Campelton High is well-known for its freedom in everything. Freedom on your outfits, as long as it's not too exposed and shows some inappropriate body parts. You can also style your hair in whatever way you like. Basically, you're a student but the only thing you need to follow is the school rules, which are "Respect each other. Any form of violence is prohibited. Enjoy your school life." Sounds like a paradise, doesn't it? That's why even though it seems that this school have no discipline, no principles, and no management, many parents still want to send there kids here because it helps with creativity and independent thinking.

At Campelton High, everything seems normal. Students are chatting in the corridors. Some are reading in the classrooms, some are by the lockers but I don't know what they're doing, and some are still sleeping in the flats. Are you still with me? Yes? Excellent! Let me tell you more.

What kinds of students are there in a typical high school you might ask. Well, first of all, the school jocks, or the golden boys, however you call them. They're dreamy to almost every girl. They are fit, good at sports, healthy skin tone and irresistible charisma. When they walk into the room, you can see some girls have their eyes train on their every move. No matter what they do, they always look attractive even when they're just being silly. I don't know why they always wear matching outfits. They don't even belong to the same sports teams and the clothes they wear are just some casual sports wear. I'm sure they always go shopping together. At least they go everywhere in the campus together, and yet, they say it's weird that girls go to bathrooms together.

The leader of this boy band is called Coltrane or Colt. He's close friends call him that. He's the biggest school bully. No one really stands up to him because he's tall and muscular. And his loyal minions are Fabio, Juan and Gilbert, who have similar body-built as Coltrane. They have a strange habit of flexing muscles when they walk. To other girls that might be a masculine and attractive move but for me, that shows their sense of insecurity. Even though Coltrane might be the biggest male bullies in this school, the most annoying male individual is Juan. You can probably speculate from his name that he's Hispanic. He will start an argument with you in English but start babbling in Spanish once you're all riled up. For me, that's annoying because not everyone can speak Spanish so what's the point. If you want to argue with someone, make sure you get your points across. If others cannot understand you, then don't even start it. The rest of the boy band would just laugh like idiots during the conversation. That's our school jock group.

Always hanging around the jocks are the school gossip girls. The cheerleading team members mostly. A common traits they share is that they are probably the meanest people you'll meet in your life, or at least throughout your school days. They're usually from a rich family or at least living a better life than the average kinds of families. To be honest, I don't think I've ever seen them wearing the same sets of clothes. They wear a different attire every day during school days.

The boss of this group is called Madeleine. If anyone else has this name, I'd probably think "Wow, that's so elegant. She must have good manners and behave like a princess that we saw in Disney movies." But when this name is used by her, all I can think of is "Yuck, that's so superficial." Her entourages are Kendra and Sydney. All three of them are beautiful. Well, on the outside anyway. They look like models. Delicate and shiny skin, smooth hair and long legs. But being intelligent is something that they might need to work on. For example, despite that her name is Sydney, she has no idea where it is. Madeleine is known as "the B" to other girls. She's extremely unpopular among girls, but guys adore her very much. She ogles with any male living creatures. Some people just like the feeling of girls flirting with them. Guys who have never had girls looking in their directions fall to this kind of spell more easily. They always have admirers following after them when talking around the campus. That sounds creepy actually.

Now you have the most conspicuous characters in a high school story, don't forget the dispensable background characters, which is probably the entire school except the mean girl squad and the jocks. The school faculties, other students, animals on campus, whatever are just not important. Actually, that's not true.

At one particular corner of this school, a group of people appears to catch attention more easily than other expendable characters, or least I wish this group didn't draw anyone's attention, especially the bully and the B's attention. And yes, that's my group.

My name is Abbigail. My older sister always calls me "baby gal". That's annoying sometimes. She's two years senior but she's 4 inches taller than I am. I guess that's why she calls me baby gal. I look younger than my age as well. The reason why my friends and I are easy targets is because that we're all underdogs of this school. Like I mentioned, I'm short and look younger than my age. The bullies would always tease my height and say that I should start from kindergarten while they should've been the ones starting from kindergartens again to learn some basic manners. I enjoy talking to my friends even though I hate going to school. Let me give you a sneak peek of our "secret conversation".

"I mean, it's not like we only have one school subject to study. How can they expect us to finish so much homework within just a few hours?" I say.

"Meh, every teacher thinks their subject is the most important, but for me, none of the subjects is important." Says Yori.

Yori is a big fan of cosplaying. Even if we don't have school uniforms, she still wears uniform to school every day. The kind of uniforms that you see in a Japanese school manga or films. Her hair is vivid purple now but before, she also tried bright pink, neon green, etc, like neon lights. Her family background is Japanese but her grandparents moved when her parents were young so her parents actually met here instead of Japan and she spent her whole life here instead of Japan. She actually cannot speak Japanese. She understands some words though. You can tell that she's mocked because of her preference.

"Can we talk about something else? School life is boring enough already. I don't want to be reminded." Perrine interrupts.

Perrine is quite the muscle of our group. She exercises every day unlike me. Even walking from one wing to another exhausts me. She has muscles but not overly muscular. The muscle and fat ratio strikes a perfect balance. Her father is French so she's multilingual. Fabio is a total French so he likes to pick on Perrine in specifically. One thing that remains mystery to me is that she doesn't really like studying but she manages to pass every subject without even understanding the questions. I secretly suspect that she studies when no one is around or she's a genius. I think if she studies harder, she can enter Oxford, Cambridge or any prestigious universities in the world. Her parents got divorced two years ago. What a nightmare it must've been for her. She was very close to both her parents and they had a nice family before this happened. The school jocks and mean girls tried making fun of her and they ended up getting themselves into trouble. Obviously, that's against school rules and they would've faced serious punishment if they weren't the captain of school sports team and cheerleading team. Not to mention their parents are extremely rich. They fund some of the school events so the principal dare not penalise them too harshly. It's not fair but this is reality.

"Hm, OK. Let me think of something else." I say in response to her request.

"I love the new lipstick colour on you, Adam." I compliment Adam's shade. It looks pink but very subtle. Adam's skin tone is darker and it brings out his eyes.

"Thank you sweetie. This is from my favourite brand and it's the autumn collection. I have it on me so you can try it, too if you want." Adam says.

As you can probably guess already, Adam is a bit feminine compared to the school jocks. He's a nice person. He's very kind and gentle. He's full of confidence. That's something I admire because I've always lacked of confidence. His feminism and confidence are exactly why he's picked on. The school popular kids are pretty narrow-minded. He isn't affected by what other people think of him. He's quite sassy himself. Sometimes, the comeback he makes leave the bullies and the Bs speechless. They cannot say anything but to get out of the scene. To me, Adam is like a hero who isn't afraid of standing up to bullies and being himself no matter what other people say. He's warmhearted but can be fierce without showing actual violence. That's the art of being sassy I think.

"That is a bold colour. My mom will never let me try." Says Rechab even though she's wearing dark red lipstick.

Rechab's family is originally from Syria but she was also born and raised here. She didn't have memories of Syria because she came here with her parents when she was eight months old. Sometimes, we need to depend on her if we don't want to fail some difficult exams. You know what I mean right? *Wink*. If you were thinking that we copied her answers, no! I mean we would all study together, except Perrine of course, at her house and she would tutor us. It's the perk of being friends with the smartest student in the class. Learning with her is more effective than learning with school teachers sometimes, to be honest. She's kind of nerdy but in a cute way. Her family is quite traditional and have very regular routines to do. However, Rechab thinks it's a bit strict and old-fashion. She told her parents that she doesn't want to follow some religious customs and her parents were furious. Now, she follows their traditions and wears a hijab. She found a way to reach a conciliation with her parents. And well, she's a target because of her intelligence and her family background. I know, that's ridiculous, right?

There you go. It's obvious that my group is really diverse but I like it and some students in school even envy our group. We enjoy each other's company and love different cultures. I would say we're the pioneers of cultural acceptance and interaction. On the other hand, even though the school bully groups also have diversity, they're brought together by their evil characteristics. Most people want to join them so they will stop bullying them. Some students are grateful for the attention we catch from the bullies, so they won't be a target. I'm quite a emotional and sensitive person in general. I would have cried when they mock me, but with my friends, I'm stronger than I thought I am.