"I think we should find someone else to fill in her shoes, Jack." Gene pushed her glasses up. She was lightly taping her newly buffed but plain, nails on her particle board desk.
She held her face, pondering what she should do, what she COULD do. On one hand, her best friend was genuinely good at her position, but on the other, unfortunately, their leader was in love with Maisie. That did not bode well for Genevieve.
She had a large crush on Jack, but she wasn't sure she could pursue it, and she also knew Maisie wasn't interested in him so she wanted him to slowly lose his fascination of her.
"Do you have any other borderline genius friends?" She wouldn't call Maisie a genius, Gene thought. Jack pushed up his messy blonde hair out of his Nordic eyes, he hadn't been grooming himself as well especially on days where he wasn't seen by the public, or Maisie.
He was also wearing very plain clothing, a white shirt that accented his very untoned muscles and a pair of deep blue jeans. He wasn't as interested in pure fitness as some were, just furthering his goals.
"I have another friend, her name is Leslie, she has been looking for an internship for awhile." Gene hadn't talked to Leslie for a minute, but She knew because of social media Leslie was in her senior year in college and looking for an internship of some kind as an office administrator.
"She any good?" Jack narrowed his eyes, leaned towards Gene.
"I wouldn't recommend her if I didn't think she was. She is studying for a degree in office administration with an emphasis on buisness. I think she may even surpass Maisie on such tasks." Gene gave him a thumbs up. "Don't go falling for her too." Gene smiled with her eyes mostly closed, hoping he would just understand that it was a joke.
"Oof, that stings. But probably not, I still have my eyes on Maisie." The man was kind of a Lady Killer, always going for the younger girls, and he was older, thirty himself; which made him just young enough to be attractive without looking too old but made him seem like a fox.
--
Leslie Botellier was both Maisie and Gene's best friend. One of the original three. Gene was a transfer student on a scholarship to their all girls private school which serviced kindergarten thru 12th grade.
"You're not that pretty." A blue eyed platinum blonde girl shoved Genevieve on the ground. She had just started a new elementary school on the wrong foot.
The week previously she was in public school with her friends and her favorite teacher, Mrs. Smith. Now she was transferred to a private all girls academy where she was to have to be with these people a long time.
She was transferred in her fifth year, into the sixth grade class.
She had blown every one out of the water in public school, getting straight A's in all her subjects and having a high aptitude to learn. She loved to read and math was her favorite alternative pass time. Her friends did not do so well but she liked other people for their personalities not their academic performance.
She was sad to say the least, and was almost forced to go to this new school, but under the pretense that she was going to lift her family up out of poverty in a world where that didn't happen a lot.
Her old class had a fair well party for her and her friend Cynthia was crying buckets of tears. Her normally cute Brown doe eyes were blotchy and her freckles wrinkled.
"D-d-don't go, I need my friend here!" She was the most effected by her friend going, she didn't have many friends and it was difficult for her.
Gene was sad to leave them too, but her parents told her it's for the best.
"Welcome Gene to Maplewood All Girls Academy! We're excited to have you here!" Her new sixth grade teacher seemed actually excited to have her there.
"Would you like to introduce yourself and your hobbies?"
"Hi, as she mentioned, I'm Genevieve, and I like to read books and solve more complex math problems." The girl with platinum blonde hair sneered, whispering into another girls ear. What was her problem?, Gene thought.
Her teacher told her:
"Oh I forgot to mention, my name is Mrs. Thurman." She smiled, "and you sit here by the window. "
Her seat was in the back row by the window, not as close as she would prefer to be by the digi board.
In the new age some older technologies had still stayed around for convenience, but it actually didn't matter that she was close to the board or not, everything would be displayed on her laptops computer as well.
She just wanted to be teacher's pet since she knew she only had a snow ball's chance in hell of getting to be any of these older richer girls' friends unfortunately.
Her education was seen as a buisness move as far as she was concerned, emotions shouldn't play into it. That was until she became a target for bullying as she was in high regards with their teachers.
The girl in front of her and the girl behind her tended to mess with her, either leaving mean sticky notes on on her back, or the girl in front of her pulling her pigtail if the teacher asked her to write an answer on the digi board.
She eventually encountered an older girl from her class that pretended to be her friend.
"Hi, I'm Lucy, You seem to be having trouble with the others." A blonde blue eyed girl with pig tails talked to her finally; after two weeks of endless bullying. She had to stay strong.
"I'm okay, I don't really need friends. That's not really my goal." Gene smiled.
"I still think you need one." She nodded and smiled back.
"Ok, sure." She didn't know what she was in for.
Lucy habitually sat by her during lunch and a free period for studying in the library.
"How'd you end up here, anyways? This dumb school, in this dumb town?" They were stuck at a boarding school in one of Seattle's suburb cities, Renton. It wasn't necessarily a small town but was not super exciting to live in. There wasn't a lot to do for a young kid.
"I was able to get a scholarship from this school for a full ride through twelve grade, including room and board."
"Where are you even from, here in Washington?"
"One of the more rural areas. Cow country, less educated folk. I just liked to read and challenge myself to aim higher than everyone else."
"But which town, so I can have a better idea?" Lucy looked at Gene, her mouth gaping open, curious.
"E-claw, what remains of it actually." Mount Rainier finally blew it's top twelve years before; after a six hundred year hiatus of any significant activity, and reduced many rural and suburban areas in the Pacific Northwest to ash.
Enumclaw in particular, was originally a farming community based on a flat plateau created by Mount Rainier; situated by the Mud Mountain dam which was originally created by the WPA (World Program Association) and Army Corps in 1948. The WPA was created by FDR in the ' The New Deal,' during the great depression. It was the tallest dam in the world at the time.
Mud Mountain dam helped stop the White River from flooding the Puyallup valley, but when Mount Rainier had erupted, Mud Mountain dam became a Lahar zone and the water built up on it flooded into the small town and it's sister city, Buckley.
Lucy frowned, uncomfortably. The destruction of the mountain, and the aftermath that followed shook the whole country but more specifically the Pacific Northwest. The ash was everywhere in the world because of the jet stream. It was a reminder of Mount St. Helens blowing it's top in the 1980s.
It was something that happened right after Gene was born, but it caused her family to lose everything. She didn't know how everything looked before the eruption, just their small rebuilt town, shifted six miles over towards the maple valley.
Her family somehow managed to save her life, but they had to be in an emergency shelter and after that a shanty. The unfortunate part was Home Insurance had failed to pay out much like after Hurricane Katrina in the early 2000s and her family's farm was gone.
She spent much of her early childhood being homeschooled, and only recently went to the newly built elementary school in Enumclaw. The government has supplied her family with an internet connection and a cheap laptop for her to learn on previously. That was their method of keeping those affected by the disaster in learning.
Lucy kept up a fascade for more than a few days, and kept asking Gene things about herself; until one day Gene came to class and found her desk scratched up and someone had graffitied on it.
There was written " Dirty Hick." in permanent marker. Gene wasn't even shocked. She just sat down, placing her books on top. She was better than that. That led to Lucy finding other ways to attempt to torture her.
The last time, Lucy cut Genevieve's hair mostly off while she was sleeping.
Gene did not know who cut her hair but she tried to clean it up, but still, everyone made fun of her for it. Her long flowing hair was no more.
Lucy's friend saw that Gene was upset when she had come to class and wrote her a note. "Lucy cut your hair." Her friend felt guilty about knowing Lucy's plans and not helping her younger classmate.
That caused Gene to confront Lucy about it during the free period on the playground (playground was for the younger children usually, kindergarten through fifth but Lucy was there on a bench for some reason).
"You did it! you cut my beautiful hair off!" Gene shouted at Lucy.
"You're not even that pretty!" Lucy shoved her to the ground. A few of the elementary school students saw her fall down, hitting her head on a nearby bench.
Two younger girls, her current friends, came to her rescue. The back of her head had hit the bench.