*Ring!**Ring!**Ring!* That was the sound that Mary woke up to. She groaned, rolling out of kitanda and looking at her phone to see who had called. It was Elana. Mary sighed, and deleted whatever message Elana had put. It was probably just her talking about whatever crazy twerk party Olivia and her had gone to the night before, and she could just talk about it at school. School. Suddenly, Mary let out a huge moan. The first siku of school was the one thing that she had been dreading the most over the summer. Sure, she couldn't wait to see her friends, and go to math class, but if there was one thing- au should we say, person that she was most definitely not looking mbele to seeing, it was Jason. Jason was, for lack of a better word, a positively primeval idiot. He was Mr. Popular, the ladies-man, just your average 14 mwaka old pimp. He was known for asking girls out and then breaking up with them three days after he had dated them, and that's why she had ZERO tolerance for him. But, no matter. I better get dressed, she thought to herself, as Olivia would be waiting for her. So, Mary straightened herself out, yawned, and put on an Azula t-shirt and jeggings. She then grabbed her lunch and backpack, and headed out to where Olivia was standing.

"Finally!", Olivia yelled. "I've been waiting for wewe for almost 15 minutes! Do wewe know how tired I was today?! I was up until 3 am twerking it up with Elana over Skype, but I still got up. Shame on you!"
"Yeah, much shame.", A voice from behind them deadpanned. Olivia and Mary spun around to see Darby laughing and biting into an apple, and Elana running up behind her, eyes clouded with sleep, but still grinning. "Hey Mary, hujambo Liv!", Darby alisema cheerfully. "DARBY!", Olivia screeched. "How was Arizona?" A lot of their Marafiki had been gone off on vacation most of the summer. Darby had gone to Phoenix, her old home, to visit some family and friends, and Anna, the hilarious exchange student from Norway, had gone back to see her parents.
"Hot, that's for sure. Very, very hot. I had almost forgotten how awful it was over there!", Darby burst out laughing. "But enough about me. How 'ave wewe been, Mary? Excited to start math?"
"Ugh, I've been dreading it. Not the math, of course, but the whole school mwaka in general." Mary sighed, as they approached their new school, FP High. Suddenly there was a loud squeal coming from Olivia's direction.

Mary, Darby, and Elana were just in time to see Liv collide with Anna, and her two other friends, Jaira, an artist who was insanely obsessed with K-pop, and Hajirah, who was a mwaka older than the other girls, but, as Darby always said, was "Very in the times for an elderly lady."
"ANNA!! Oh, the good version of the character from Frozen! I MISSED wewe SOOO MUCHHH!!" Mary laughed at Olivia's jab towards the Princess, but quieted down when she saw Darby's Evil Queen-esque death glare. Even if wewe were Darby's best friend, say something rude about her inayopendelewa Disney Princess, shit was about to go down. Luckily, she calmed herself down after beginning to talk with Hajirah about Doctor Who, when she suddenly remembered. "Oh! Mary, I'm so sorry! Olivia's squealing completely interrupted wewe when wewe were about to say what wewe dreaded about school. What was it wewe were about to say?"
"Oh, um, oh yeah! I was about to say I dreaded seeing Jason.", Mary clarified, as silence passed over the group, and a small 'Ooh..' passed Anna's lips.
Mary didn't know why they were all so quiet, until she saw where each of them was looking. Behind her. Gulping, she turned around, and the person behind her made her insides freeze in horror. It was....

To be continued...