Chapter Text
“Well, here we are mija! Hexside school!” said Camila, pulling up in front of the building. She turned to her daughter with a smile on her face. Her child, Luz, looked back at her, a nervous look in her eyes. Camilia leaned over to her, kissing her forehead.
“You’ll be fine sweetie. I promise. Now, do you want me to walk in with you or are you fine on your own?” she asked.
“I’ll be fine,” said Luz, reaching into the back of the car to grab her purple backpack. After she grabbed it, Luz hopped out of the car, Camilia then rolled down the window to wish her daughter a good day at school.
“Go into the principal's office, there should be someone who can show you around the school. Have a great day mija! I’ll see you after school! I love you!”
“I love you too mami! Have a good day at work!” Luz said, before turning to head into the building. She walked through the front door and into the office off to the right. As she entered, the chatter of students out in the foyer died down into a dull hum.
A young woman sitting at the front desk, with a blond pixie cut and green eyes, looked up at her as she entered.
“Hello! How can I help you?” she asked with a smile.
“Yeah. I’m new and there's supposed to be someone here to show me around?”
“What’s your name?” she asked, typing into a computer.
“Luz, Luz Noceda.”
“Ah here we are,” she said, “here’s your schedule and Gus here,” she gestured to a young boy standing off to the side, “will show you around.”
“Hi!” said the boy, Gus. He was short and looked a little younger than her, by maybe one or two years. He was wearing a pair of dark blue jeans, a long sleeve gray shirt layered under a light teal shirt, a pair of brown boots and a black backpack slung over his back. He grinned and waved at Luz, she smiled back before reaching over and grabbing her class schedule from the secretary.
The bell rang and Gus stepped forward, gesturing towards the door back into the hallway.
“You ready to go?” he asked.
Luz nodded and followed him out the door. They walked down the hall, Gus pointing out different classrooms.
“So what’s you first class by the way?”
“Um...US history,” Luz said, checking her schedule.
“Oh great! That’s my first class too!” responded Gus with a smile. “And here it is!” he gestured towards the open classroom door to their left.
The two walked into the classroom and took seats next to each other. The teacher walked in, a bored looking man with a thin mustache. He began taking attendance and when he arrived at Luz’s name he looked up at the classroom. She raised her hand a little and he simply nodded.
When that class ended Gus walked Luz to her next one, science, then her final class before lunch, which was math, another class that she had with the boy.
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After their third class they headed to the cafeteria together. Gus continued to blabber on about all things they passed. But by now Luz was feeling a lot calmer and was also able to participate in the conversation. They discussed the classes that Luz had after lunch, some of which she had with a few of Gus’s friends.
They made it into the cafeteria and Gus began to scan for said friends. Once he had seemed to spot them, he pulled Luz over to one of the tables. At that table sat a girl with short black hair, green eyes and round glasses. She was wearing a yellow dress, striped tights, and brown boots.
“Hey Willow!” called Gus, causing the girl to look up with a smile and wave.
“Hey Gus! Who’s this?” she asked, gesturing towards Luz.
“This is Luz Noceda, she’s new!”
“Nice to meet you!” exclaimed Willow, “I’m Willow Park!”
“Hey Will,” asked Gus as he and Luz slid into the seats across from Willow, “where are Amity and Boscha?”
“Oh Boscha is having a lunch meeting with the team since the season is starting soon,” Willow started, looking slightly disappointed at the absence of the other girl, “and I actually have no idea where Ami is.”
“Sorry I’m late,” came a voice from behind Willow. A girl with shoulder length auburn hair tied up in a half ponytail and golden eyes came up to the table. She was wearing a black dress, black earrings and a silver necklace with a purple jewel. She slid into the table next to Willow, across from Luz.
Luz felt her breath catch in her throat. She was beautiful and slightly intimidating with the way that she held herself.
“Ed needed help carrying some new props to the drama department,” she explained to Willow while pulling a yogurt container out of her lunch bag. She then turned to Luz.
“Hey,” she said with a smile. “I’m Amity Blight,” she stated as she reached across the table with her hand extended. It took Luz a moment to realize what was going on but Amity didn’t seem to mind. Once she did catch up, she placed her hand into the other girl’s and gave it a shake. Her hands was soft and warm.
“By the way, Willow where were you this morning?” asked Gus.
“Oh I was just at the doctor. Sorry I forgot to tell you.”
“Willow is usually in our history class but as you know today, she wasn’t there,” Gus explained to Luz.
“So Luz, what classes do you have after lunch?” asked Willow.
“I have art, then English, then gym.”
“Oh cool. So you and Ami will have art together, you’ll have English with both me and Ami, and gym with Boscha.”
“Good to know I’ll have friends in every class,” said Luz with a smile.
As lunch wore on the four friends continued to talk about things that were going on at the school. After the bell rang, they all made plans to meet in the lobby after school and head to the library together.
Luz headed to her next two classes, sitting with Willow and/or Amity in both of them.
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Finally, she was at her last class of the day. Gym. Luz had always hated PE, due to her weak nerd arms as she liked to call them, but it was a required credit in the school district and since she hadn’t taken it in middle school back at in her old town. She quickly changed for the class and headed out into the gym itself. She looked around, taking in all the students. There were several groups milling around before the class started.
The class began and ended relatively quick despite being rather boring. It just consisted of walking laps around a track. Once the class was over, Luz quickly changed back into her normal clothes. She then ran to her locker, shoving her things into her bag as fast as possible. She ran to the foyer where her friends said they’d meet. No one else was there yet so she took a seat at one of the benches.
Gus approached a few minutes later, sitting next to her while they waited. Then Willow arrived with a girl that Luz had seen in her gym class. She had pink hair pulled into a bun with some light blonde roots peeking through. This must be Boscha. Luz’s suspicions were confirmed when Willow introduced her.
“This is Boscha Harrison,” she said, as the pink haired girl shot Luz a two fingered salute. Luz smiled and waved back as Willow introduced her too.
Boscha opened her mouth, about to ask where Amity was, when a laugh came from the entry to the foyer.
Luz turned to see Amity walking in with four other students. They all looked slightly older, around sixteen if Luz had to guess. There were two boys and two girls.
The two boys were walking behind the rest of the group a little, one had cropped short blond hair, golden eyes and square glasses pushed up into his hair. The other was lanky with mousy brown hair, slightly grown out but still above his jawline and brown eyes.
The girls were walking next to Amity, one had her arm slung around Amity, that girl had long blond hair, pulled back into a French braid and golden eyes that matched Amity’s and the guy walking behind her. The other girl was walking next to her. She was short, had brown hair pulled into a loose bun, green eyes and was wearing what seemed to be a silver fishhook as an earring.
As they approached it became clearer to Luz that Amity was very annoyed with the situation that she found herself in.
“Hey Amity! Who are they?” asked Luz, gesturing towards the people behind her.
“We’re Amity’s older siblings,” said the blonde girl, gesturing towards herself and the blond boy “I’m Emira and this is Edric. And these two are Viney Oak and Jerbo Barnes,” she finished, pointing towards the brunette girl and boy.
“HI! I’m Luz!”
“Nice to meet you Luz,” said Edric. “What are you guys doing?” he asked.
“Oh we were about to-,” started Gus.
“We aren’t doing anything!” interjected Amity.
“Aww Mittens don’t be like that,” said Emira.
“We’re just heading to the library,” Boscha rushed out before Amity could cut her off. Said girl turned around to look at Boscha with an expression of complete betrayal. Boscha simply shrugged and began to walk towards the door.
“You guys coming or what?” she called behind her.
Amity grumbled but followed anyway. The rest of the group, including the four older kids, followed behind the two now bickering girls.
They made their way to the library a few blocks away and chose a bench right outside the building so that they could, as Willow put it, “soak up this sunshine before it goes away”.
Once they sat down, Amity pulled out and opened a binder full of loose papers. She grabbed a pencil from her bag and began to fill out the pages. Willow pulled out a folder as well and began to start on her work, Gus pulled out a stack of papers, held together with a binder clip, leaned towards Edric and Emira, who were sitting next to him, and began discussing something with them. Jerbo pulled out a book and began to read, Boscha grabbed her phone and Viney pulled out some loose pieces of paper and began to mark them with a black pen.
Luz watched this play out with confusion. Willow seemed to notice Luz’s expression and leaned over to her.
“We come here often after school to work on homework,” she explained. “Amity I think is working on her math homework,” she nodded in conformation. “I’m working on French, Gus, Ed, and Em are planning for the winter play for the school. They work on stage crew,” she mentioned. “Jerbo seems to just be reading and Viney is...” she trailed off, realizing that she didn’t know what Viney was doing.
“I’m studying my new sheet music,” said the girl, not looking up from the paper in front of her.
“Oh,” said Willow.
“So should I be working on homework?” asked Luz.
“Not if you don’t want to. Boscha never does her homework with us. It’s more of just time to work with other people in case we need help.”
“Got it!” exclaimed Luz with a smile. She then pulled out her history homework for the day and began to work on it.
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Later that evening Camilia returned home to find her daughter watching TV in their living room.
“Hola mija!” she called as she entered the room.
“Hola mami!” responded Luz, looking up at her mother with a huge smile on her face.
“How was your day sweetie? I know you were nervous this morning.”
“It was actually really great! I made a ton of friends and we even hung out after school!”
“That’s lovely. Can I meet them sometime?” Camila asked.
“Sure! I’m just not sure when.”
“Alright then. What do you say we order pizza to celebrate a successful first day of school. Also because there is a very limited amount of good food in the fridge because I didn’t have time to get to the grocery store today.
“That works for me!” said Luz. After they ordered the pizza Luz launched into a detailed discussion of how her day went for her mother. And that is how Luz’s first ever day at Hexside school went.