Chapter 1 - 7th Grade, Again?!

I woke up to the delightful feeling of starting 8th grade and the smell of orange juice and pancakes. I run downstairs and my dad says, "Good morning honey! Are you ready for your first day of middle school?" 

"What do you mean?", I ask. 

"I mean, are you excited for 7th grade?" 

"But I'm starting 8th grade!" I say back. 

"Honey, did you not get enough sleep last night?" he says while feeling my forehead. 

"No dad, I'm fine. It's ju-just," I say confused. 

 I walk back up to my room to think things over. Then after I try to straighten my mind out, I decide to ask my older sister, Kate, if she knows anything about this prank that dad is trying to pull on me. 

"No, Alethea. I don't know anything," she says stubbornly. 

I walk downstairs again, perplexed. Before I can ask any more questions to my dad, he says, "Hey Ale, ready for Junior High?" 

I can't take it anymore so I just go along with it to see if they will break their strength in the joke. 

"Is it just me or is the year repeating?", whispered Graham. 

"I don't know, Graham… I think it's pretty normal that we just started 7th grade again!" Cicada cried sarcastically. 

"Okay, okay, jeez," Graham muttered, but then started giggling. Cicada gave him a look. 

"Are we the only people that know about this situation? My mom didn't know." Cicada says. 

"Neither did mine," both me and Graham say while glancing at each other. That stuff kind of happens a lot. 

"Should we ask the teacher if we were assigned to the wrong class?" I asked. 

"I don't think so, Alethea… ", Cicada said. 

 "Actually I think that we should," Graham said back. "We probably got lost. Although the front office told us to go to room 12 so maybe it was the teacher's mistake. Plus all of our classmates from last year are here and they think they are new in this classroom." Graham said thoughtfully. 

"Are you sure?" Cicada questioned. Before Cicada could say anything else to talk us out of it, Graham and I were trudging up to the teacher's desk. 

Ms. Kay is short and stubby, has bright orange hair and her family grew up in Great Britain, so she had a distinctive British accent. "Excuse me Ms. Kay. Are me, Alethea, and Cicada in the wrong classroom?" Graham asked. 

"No Mr. Jones, you and Miss Baker and Russell are perfectly fine in my classroom. You aren't thinking of transferring, are you?" Ms. Kay said, shocked. 

"No, no it's just we were in 7th grade last year in your class." said Graham. 

"Shouldn't we be in Mr. Orsany's 8th grade class?" I asked. 

"Ms. Schumaker, don't be thinking of skipping a grade. Last year you were in 6th." stated Ms. Kay. Graham looked disappointed. 

"Okay, thanks anyways," said Graham.

Him and I started walking away back to Cicada with defeated looks on their faces. "So, how'd it go?", Cicada asked. 

"Terrible," both Graham and I said. "Ms. Kay doesn't seem to know anything about us repeating 7th grade," I said. We were perplexed until we decided to ask other people like our classmates and a few people at the front office. All of them had the same reaction: that we're in the right grade. A strange man walked into our classroom. He was pretty tall, about 6'5. He had his long greasy hair slicked back and wore a suit. People, including Ms. Kay seemed to be studying him from the head, working their way down. People expected to see loafers of some sort on his feet, but instead, there were huge clocks on his feet, in the form of a shoe. Everybody tried not to stare, even Ms. Kay. 

"Excuse me Dorian Kay, may I speak to you outside?" Everybody started giggling about Ms. Kay's first name when the man gave every student a look and that's when I noticed. 

    I had to take a couple of blinks, but I thought I saw Graham and I in his eyes. Out by the front office, and it was raining. What?, I think to myself. I take a second blink and just see brown eyes. And then one winks at me. "Um, yes of course," Ms. Kay stuttered, surprised that some crazy guy knew her name. They walked out of the classroom and the strange man closed the door ever so gently behind them. Immediately, the kids started whispering. A few of the class clowns walked up to the door to try to listen to their conversation. "What do you think that man was here for?", I asked. 

Cicada took some time to answer but finally said, "That guy seemed pretty sketchy. . ." 

"Yeah, I think we can tell, Cicada!" Graham slapped back, but in a joking way. We all seemed tired and just wanted to get this over with, although deep down we all knew this could take a while. And it could be scary. 

"Well what do you think, Mr. Know-it-all?" Cicada cried. Man, those two! I knew their pretty good friends though. I looked away for a second, but then felt a tap on my shoulder. Graham looked at me with his bright green eyes and then was pointing at the door, which had a small red high heel sticking out the crack of the door.   

Chapter 2 - New Principal 

    "Yes. Mm-hm. Okay." People started to quiet down and Kylie, which me, Graham, and Cicada all agreed was the most annoying girl in our class, shushed everybody. I rolled my eyes. Then Ms. Kay finally stepped another foot in the classroom after what seemed like an hour. When she reached her desk everybody was looking at her for answers but she tried to act normal. 

She finally gave in and said, "Okay, children. I'm sure you all are wondering who that man was." Nods all around. "That," she paused, thinking for a different word other than strange because he was still inside our class grabbing his briefcase, "kind sir was Mr. Antonio Babojo. He is here for a job interview for our new principal." I heard many people groan but Noah's was the loudest. Noah is quite fond of Mr. Dao, our principal and I can see why. They're practically best buddies. Noah is popular and likable, so no wonder he's best friends with the principal. 

I whispered, "Oh my gosh. . ", to my best friend, Graham Jones. I have known him since I was in 1st grade. We went to Bark Lane Elementary. Our mom and dad are best friends so we end up seeing each other a lot. He's like a brother to me. Graham and I met Cicada in grade 4 and we started hanging out more. She's obsessed with reading and kinda like that one friend that knows every answer to every question. I'm Alethea and here we are now at New Dawn Middle School and things are better than ever. 

That is until we realized that the three of us are the only people at our school who seem to be aware that we are repeating this year. Even our parents don't know anything about it and are certain that me, Cicada, and Graham were in 6th grade last year. It's actually very confusing and probably sounds something like a fairytale to you. Although it is strange, we have to get on with our regular teenage lives which a big portion of is school. Whenever we have free time we always try learning more about our problem. A paper landed on my desk and I heard Ms. Kay's voice. "Class, today we're doing a-beginning-of-the-school-year assignment. Today is the 1st day of school and I distinctly remember doing this same worksheet of "Your Favorites". I know, I know it is pretty kiddy. Graham whispers to me, "Why do we have to do this? It's so babyish." I swear we share a brain. "Wait, if we have to do this worksheet, like the same from last year then this year will be so easy because we would have already done all of the assignments from last year!", I whisper back. "You're right!", he whispers. Then I see him whispering the same thing to Cicada. She just gives me and him wide eyes of "Yes!" Ms. Kay continues, "This is due by the end of today and before you all leave I expect to see you place your paper on my desk." I start doing the assignment and it is sooo easy! I wish we had assignments like this throughout the whole school year. 

 Alethea Schumaker    8/27/22

You're Favorites/Get to know you

    Color-Yellow

Animal-Dog

Movie- My Big Fat Greek Wedding

Song- Good 4 u by Olivia Rodrigo

Season- Summer

Holiday- Halloween

Food- Sushi

Book- Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper

What describes you/what do you get most

People always say that I'm tall and I have good handwriting. I really like the smell of rain, windy days and I'm creative, crazy, and thoughtful. 

    I look over Graham's shoulder. 

Graham Jones    8/27/22

You're Favorites/Get to know you

Color-Green

Animal-Dog

Movie-Hamilton

Song-Good 4 u by olivia rodrigo

Season- Summer

Holiday-Halloween

Food-sushi

Book- Capture the flag by kate messner

What describes you/what do you get the most

    I'm tall and I'm funny. I'm smart, athletic, and kind. I like rainy days and I love the restaurant mikuni. 

    I have always admired Graham's cool handwriting. I take a second glance at the papers. I laugh a little and he notices. He looks at my page and starts laughing so hard that Ms. Kay shushes him. 2nd period starts and I rush to math with Cicada, but Graham is taking a different math class so he goes the opposite direction. Me and Cicada run into Yuki, who I got introduced to from Cicada last year. She's very crazy and creative and loves to do art. She always acts like she's 5 years older than she really is, but she's okay. "I just started a new art piece," Yuki comments. 

"That's cool! What kind of art is it?" Cicada asks back. 

Yuki says, "It is a modern painting with colors like tan." 

Cicada goes, "Ooh." We finally make it to our math class and by then I'm so exhausted from carrying all of my books. Our math teacher is Miss Douglas. She's pretty young and carefree. I like that. She also has lots of piercings on her body including her ears, eyebrows, tongue, and lip. So does Yuki so they talk a lot about if they just got a new piercing and if using saltwater or saline is better to clean them. I would like to have a connection with a teacher like that someday. 

    By the end of the day I was biking home with Graham. As you may guess, we're also neighbors! "Bye, Graham! I'll see you tomorrow morning?" I ask. 

"Yeah! See ya", he yells back. I walk into my house and immediately see my dad, David in workout clothes with Graham's mom, Cara. "Hi dada!", I say. 

David says, "Hi-(whoo)-honey", while he's doing squats.

I try not to laugh but he sees my face and very sassily says, "Why don't you try it!" I just roll my eyes and let my incredibly heavy backpack fall to the floor. I start doing my homework and then go down for dinner. At the dinner table me and my dad start eating the take out sushi with Graham and his mom. His dad passed away last year. I think he's doing him and his mom is doing fine though. They come to our house a little more often to hang out. We all started eating and my dad broke the silence by saying with a mouthful, "So kids, how's 7th grade?" 

Me and Graham both give each other "that look" and I say, "It was good!" And Graham agrees. Later the parents are talking in the corner quietly and me and Graham start laughing about how we weren't smart enough to say "see you tomorrow" because we have dinner together almost every night. Then my dad brought up something that I'm sure nobody at the table wanted to talk about. 

"What was the 'soon to be principal' like?" Me and Graham took some time to stare awkwardly at each other but Graham, thankfully spoke, that blabbermouth. 

"He was really, um well you could say interesting," he said. 

"Yeah, you would think he's professional from his full suit until you look down and see shoes with clocks on them!" I say back as I get some laughs especially from my mom, who I think snorts up some of her seaweed salad. Dinner comes to an end and Graham goes home but as he walks out we exchange looks. We really need to figure out what most would call a mystery. 

Chapter 3 - Time Loop

    After getting ready, I run out the door barely saying good morning as I shove a granola bar in my mouth, determined to meet Graham outside on time so we can talk about how we're going to figure out what this time loop is caused by . . . or who. Graham immediately starts talking, "I couldn't sleep last night thinking about the time loop." 

"Neither could I," I say back as we pause for a moment. 

"Let's walk and talk," Graham says. "So this could be caused by . . what?" 

"Or who!!!" I cry. 

"And why 7th grade? Graham says back. 

This goes on for a while, just constant questions till we get to Cicada's house to pick her up. As always she is prepared and already has a notepad and a pen to write down questions. She's just so organized! It's in her nature. Graham and I try not to laugh. "I'm serious," she says as she pushes up her glasses but then has trouble not laughing at herself. When we get to the school we see Antonio Babojo out by the front of the school, near the front office holding some papers. We all now notice that he seems way taller than when we met him. I look with wide eyes as I slowly turn to Graham who looks the same as Cicada and me. "He-he's," Graham stutters. "He's like 7 feet!" "I guess we didn't pay much attention to his height yesterday and more about those clock shoes!" I get some laughs out of that. 

"He seems more like 6'6." Cicada says, statistically. "Yeah, but that's still tall!" Graham says. Cicada starts writing something down as I look over her shoulder. It says: "Cicada!" I yell as I laugh. "What?!" She says back. "This time loop stuff is weird and if we ever want to get out of it, we should record every detail." "She's got a point," Graham says. Cicada starts running away to room 12. I smile at him and the bell rings and Graham and I walk to room 12, by ourselves. As we pass the front office, I can't help but stare into the window as my jaw drops. Graham looks over and his drops too. "This Antonio dude has got to do with something." "I mean clock shoes! It's a bit obvious to be honest." he says. My jaw stays dropped by the thing Graham's avoiding. "He's-he," I stutter. "Why is Antonio Babojo, you know," I say, trying to calm down. "Already the principal!" Graham just walks away toward the classroom, probably going to tell Cicada a million things to write down. I laugh as I casually walk down the hall, far behind Graham. When I get in the classroom, apparently the last, Ms. Kay clears her throat and says,"So, Mr. Babojo is now the principal." Kids start trying to contain screams as me, Graham, and Cicada all look at each other, grinning. "A bit early, I mean," Noah says as his sister, Maxi, or Max slaps back,"You think?" I can relate to sibling rivalry. Especially if you have a sassy older sister.