Monday- 8:00 am- North Bronx

Rica beamed with confidence in her new Catholic School uniform. She shuffled fast on the busy sidewalk since today was her first day at St. George's Middle School in the Bronx, and she was late.

Rica blamed Reyna for her tardiness. If her mother would've told her about this mission in advance she could've prepared. Instead Reyna half assed Rica's forged transfer papers, along with not getting enough school supply shopping done. All Rica had was a black and white notebook and was lucky to find the right color grey skirt. Hardly a good start to a new school year.

CLASS

Homeroom in St. George's started at 8 am. When Rica finished in the main office, a chore since Reyna (terrible parent) hadn't signed so many papers, Rica wound up fifteen minutes late to homeroom. Before entering the classroom Rica fixed herself and laughed at her nervousness, then she banged on the door like a boss.

Bang! Bang!

A west Indian teacher named Ms. Sanders opened the door. She'd already announced Rica's arrival to the class.

"Ms. Rica Reyes?" asked Ms. Sanders.

"Yes ma'am, that's me!" answered Rica.

When she entered the classroom every student stared and whispered, making her nervous.

"Class, this is our new student, Ms. Rica Reyes. Now I expect you to extend every courtesy to her," demanded Ms. Sanders from the class.

"Yes Ms. Sanders," the class droned back.

Rica spotted an empty seat, so did Ms. Sanders, "Ms. Reyes, please sit next to Mr. Roman over there, Caleb please raise your hand."

Caleb Roman raised his hand never looking up. Rica walked past the curious eyes of her new classmates and heard a girl with highlights whisper, "She thinks she's cute," and, "She looks like a baby," obviously in reference to Rica's child like appearance.

Rica forged her age on the documents to attend the school. Most of the kids in her class were twelve years old, some thirteen. Rica was a solid eleven and looked it. And this was her first time in middle school, with different classes and a class schedule on a blue piece of paper.

Being late to homeroom she knew the bell would ring before she could check - Booop! The bell rang.

Math was her first class of the day, at least she thought it was. She scrambled to pull out her schedule as Caleb prepped to leave. Caleb Roman, dark haired and handsome, taller than Rica with glass brown eyes. Rica needed info from him.

"Hi, Caleb right? Do you know how to get to room 303?" she asked politely and politely he replied, "You don't want to go there, they'll make you do math." Before Rica could respond he waved and disappeared.

What a smartass she thought, and why was she sitting here worrying about it? She had to go or she'd be late again, not cool when you're trying to blend in.

Math

Rica was no fool, she knew 303 was on the third floor, she just...well. Rica made it to class with time to spare and students still filing in. She used that time to ask the teacher where she could sit.

The teacher stared at Rica for a moment confused then he remembered, "Oh, right you're the transfer student, ok, sit with the other new student since he's using my text book, umm..Mr. Roman please raise your hand!"

Yes, Caleb Roman, Mr. they'll make you do math. There he sat in the back, with his hand raised and not looking up. Rica hurried to the seat next to his so she wouldn't be the last one standing.

She glanced at Caleb and sat down. He smirked but kept staring at his notebook while writing out a math problem.

"I see you found the place," he quipped to Rica.

"No thanks to you," she answered.

"Well, gratitude is overrated."

"I beg to differ, we all want help from time to time," she shot back.

"But you didn't need my help."

"Needing help and wanting help are two different things, and your answer is wrong. You need to square the X's when you multiply them, now you're wiser," she said pointing at his paper.

A few of their classmates turned to sneer at the two. But Rica wrote in her notebook so Caleb caught the brunt of the looks. Ugh, Caleb didn't speak to many (if any) classmates since he transferred in last Thursday, so speaking to Rica, a fellow quick wit, entertained him.

Caleb corrected his mistake and glanced back at Rica who shared his textbook. For the moment he didn't have a comeback, and managed a whispered, "Thanks," and she replied, "See, not overrated," and continued writing in her notebook.

"Heh, you're cool," he whispered.

"Hmph, like I need you to tell me," she said with an evil smirk.

Caleb chuckled and the two shared the textbook for the rest of class.

Fifth Period

By fourth period Rica had a stride. A few curious students spoke to her since homeroom, everyone nice. But now it was time for the gauntlet, fifth period lunch. Lunch is the time and place for the cliques and the segregation of social structure.

Rica entered the noisy cafeteria not sure where to sit. She assumed there would be a place for people like..Caleb?

Caleb sat alone but a pretty girl stood above him talking to him. The girl from her homeroom that said, Rica thinks she's cute. Her name was Tiara Ortiz. Tall, fair skin, brown hair and noticed by guys. A popular girl by definition.

Caleb saw Rica walk in the lunchroom and made a gesture of, come sit over here, to her. Tiara noticed the gesture and her smile turned sinister when she glanced over at Rica.

"Yeah, how about I don't go over there," muttered Rica.

Not interested, Rica avoided Caleb and Tiara and sat down with some other talkative girls, oblivious to her.

Rica wasn't here to make friends, she had a job to do, or at least she told herself that. But events in the lunchroom escalated fast.

Tiara walked away from Caleb and toward another group of three advancing boys. She said hello to the three boys, but the main boy in the middle seemed upset. The girls chatting around Rica mentioned the boy was a second year named Norman and had something going on with Tiara.

Norman then said something heated to Tiara, and she responded with, "Will you calm down?" but that didn't work. The three boys pushed past Tiara and advanced toward Caleb, and Caleb saw them coming.

Caleb stood and positioned to a fighter's stance. This was bad. If Caleb fought Norman he'd be suspended and Rica could see that Tiara, now behind Norman, wasn't trying hard to stop Norman. In fact she seemed to enjoy the drama, damn instigator.

Rica wanted to stay under the radar, but she needed...no, not correct, Rica didn't need to do anything, she wanted to help Caleb.

She hurried toward the posturing boys. A crowd hadn't formed yet but other students heard Norman and Caleb exchanging words. Rica wasn't sure what to do as the situation grew louder. Then the oddest thing.

"What the heck?" muttered Rica as white smoke plumed under one of the tables. Within seconds the white smoke overwhelmed the whole cafeteria, a smoke bomb.

The cafeteria monitors sprang into fire drill mode, clearing the students out of the cafeteria. But the smoke was so bad the students were escorted out of the building. Soon fire engines arrived outside.

FDNY, how exciting for a first day! Rica giggled to herself.

There was so much smoke the school declared a half day while they investigated the incident. But for future note, no student witnessed the bomb throwing. So nothing ever became of the smoke bomb incident.

Rica found herself excused from school, but not her from her mission. She needed to protect her mark and to do that she had to go on the offense. And Rica loved going on the offense.

...