Chapter 2   Dru started school with a voluminous amount of excitement. Walking through the halls of Lafayette High School, she looked around and realized she was all alone in this school, not knowing anyone.
 
“Meredith!” a girl with long, auburn hair yelled through the crowds of people.  “It’s good to see you again!”
 
“Same here!  So, how was your trip to Nepal?” the girl Dru took to be Meredith said. Meredith was pretty, in a sort of innocent way, not drop dead gorgeous.  Her long, blonde hair hung straight down her back, framing her face.  She was the perfect picture of a dumb blonde: blue eyes and blonde hair; though, something told Dru she was anything but dumb.
 
“How does it sound?  The only good part was buying souvenirs!”  On the other hand, the other girl was drop dead gorgeous!  Her auburn hair curled around her face, accenting her long head.  Her turquoise eyes were probably the brightest Dru had ever seen..
 
An annoying bell halted the conversation.  Dru could just barely make out the next words they were saying.
 
“Whose homeroom are you in?” the girl whose name Dru did not know asked Meredith.
 
Meredith looked down at the damp, crumpled paper in her hand,  “Mrs. Newplin.”
 
When Meredith had looked down at her schedule Dru had, too.  She was also in Mrs. Newplin’s homeroom.
 
“Me too.  This is great, we get to start off the year together!”
 
“And we may start it late.  That bell meant we have five minutes to get to class,” Meredith replied.  They hurried down the hall together and disappeared into the room with the gold numbers twenty-eight on the door.  Dru followed them.
 
As Dru walked into the door Mrs. Newplin was saying the kids could sit anywhere they wanted.  Meredith sat in the middle of the classroom, and the no-name-girl sat next to her.  Dru sat directly behind No-name girl.
After the tardy bell rang and Mrs. Newplin took attendance she announced that they would all be in homeroom until break, then they would go to each class briefly until school was done for the day.
 
“Great,” No-name-girl whispered under her breath,  “two hours with one teacher.”
 
Mrs. Newplin said,  “To get to know each other I think everyone will take a turn in front of the classroom.  I will call your name and you can start off by telling the class what you would like to be called and what you did over summer vacation.”  She looked down at her grade book.  “We will start with Gillian Anson.”
 
The No-name-girl (who now had a name) walked up to the front of the classroom.  “For starters, the 'G' at the beginning of my name, Gillian, is not pronounced 'g' as in goat, but 'j' as in jellybean.”  Gillian said this looking at Mrs. Newplin, accusing her.  “And I like to be called Jill.  I went to Nepal for the entire summer vacation excluding three days.  My father is a doctor and went there to start a hospital, and I went with him.  I just got back yesterday.”  Jill went back to her seat.
 
Dru decided then and there that she would be friends with Jill and her friend Meredith.
 
“Okay,” said Mrs. Newplin.  “Next is Paul Atreeman.”
 
The boy sitting behind Dru walked up to the front of the room and told everyone what he did over summer break.  As he sat down he walked past Dru and nearly tripped over her foot in the process.
 
“This is so dumb,” Jill whispered to Meredith.  “We already know each other!”
 
“Next is Thomas Azurd.”
 
“I stayed home all summer and watched Bonanza re-runs,” he said.  Then he was sitting in his seat again.
 
“Druscilla Bassey,” Mrs. Newplin announced.
Dru winced at Mrs. Newplin calling her Druscilla.  “My name may be Druscilla, but I have probably only been called by it eight times in my entire life,” she thought.
 
“Everybody calls me Dru.”
 
Dru looked around.  The girl she saw earlier, Meredith, looked interested.  Thomas Azurd probably did not even know what hair color she had,  because he was so enticed with looking at the wall.  Paul Atreeman looked very laid back and casual.  Jill Anson’s face was blank so she could not tell what her feelings were.  Dru saw a few other interested faces, but on the whole everyone looked bored to death.
She continued.  “I spent the month of July in South Africa with my father and the rest of the summer with my mother at various beaches in the United States.”  She walked back to her seat and sat down again.
 
“Next is Caroline Cooper...”
 
 
“Merry!” Jill hissed as she and Meredith walked out of homeroom.
 
“What?”  Merry returned.
 
“Shh!  Not so loud.  We don’t want her to hear us!” Jill whispered.
 
“Who hear us?” Merry asked, not whispering.
 
Jill nudged her head back and to the left of Merry.  “Her.”
 
“Why don’t we want her to hear us?”
 
“Because she is listening to us.  She was following us before homeroom and is again now!”
 
“How do you know she isn’t just going to her next class?”
 
“I don’t, I just have a feeling.”
 
“Well I don’t.  I think she looks nice.”
 
Jill looked skeptical.  “Suit yourself.”
 
 
Dru spotted Meredith and Jill at the lunch tables and walked over to them.  “May I sit here?” she asked pointing to an open seat.  There was room for six people at each lunch table, three on each side.  So far, only two of them were sitting here.
 
“Sure,” Meredith said.  “I’m Meredith Dalini.”
 
“I know, you were in my homeroom class,” Dru told her.
 
“Oh!  Your name was... I know I can remember... Dru!”
 
“Yeah, Dru Bassey.”
 
Jill spoke,  “My name is Jill Anson; you’re the girl who went to South Africa, right?”
 
Dru nodded my head yes.  “I visit my father there every summer,” she said as she sat down in the middle seat across from them.
 
“Your parents are divorced,” Jill said as a fact, not question.
 
“No,” she returned slowly.
 
“Then why do they live in two separate places?” she asked.
 
This conversation was starting to feel like Twenty Questions.  Dru figured Jill was the type of person who came right out with her curiosities and saved small-talk for a rainy day.
 
“They were never married,” she answered Jill.  She quickly continued.  “Both my father and mother wanted a child, but neither wanted to get married, so they went to a clinic and had it done.  Then my father had to go to South Africa when I was three, and I’ve visited him ever since.”
 
“Oh.  Just curious,” Jill said.
 
They continued talking, but of other matters.  But Dru could tell they were still interested in her way of life.
 
There was a commotion on the other side of the cafeteria.  Some boys were yelling at each other.  Two of them took their lunch trays and left the other boys.  They walked around asking if they could sit at someone else’s lunch table; no one would let them.
 
 “I feel sorry for them,” Dru said.
 
“Feel sorry for them!  You must be nuts!”  Jill exclaimed.  Once again she was demonstrating her personality: forthright.
 
“Why?”
 
“That’s Brian and Paul,” she paused.  “Oh, you’re new here, I forgot.  They are known throughout the school as rowdy, egotistical jerks!”
 
“Why are they known as that?” Dru asked her.
 
“They pick fights, never pay attention in class, all the teachers hate them, and the entire female population of America should be warned about Brian!”
 
Dru got her meaning loud and clear: do not socialize with them.  Everybody deserves a second chance, Dru’s mother always said.
 
They were getting closer to the trio.  Dru could now see that one of them was in her homeroom class.  She remembered what Jill had said, ‘that’s Brian and Paul.’  One of them was Paul Atreeman.
 
“Can we sit here?” the one whom Dru took to be Brian asked.
 
“Over my dead body!” Jill objected.
 
He gave her a I’m-better-than-you-so-don’t-mess-with-me look, smiled at Meredith and Dru, and went on his way.
 
 
“Hey, Paul, I think there’s an empty table over there,” Brian said.
 
“Let’s sit there, it’s not like anyone will let us sit with them anyway.”
 
Brian and Paul sat down at an empty table at the far end of the cafeteria.  Brian was craning his neck trying to catch another glimpse of her.  Paul was looking on with interest.
 
“What are you doing, Brian?”
 
“Trying to see her.”
 
“See who?”
 
“You didn’t notice her?”
 
“Notice who?”
 
“The new girl.”
 
“No, I didn’t, where is she?”
 
“Sitting with Jill and Meredith.”
 
“Oh, her.  She’s gorgeous.  You interested in her?”
 
“Yeah.  Does that surprise you?”
 
“I wouldn’t have thought you would go for her.”
 
“Why?”
 
Paul shrugged.  “She just doesn’t look like your type.”
 
“Maybe my type’s changing,” Brian said wistfully,  “maybe it’s changing.”
 
“What about Jessica?”
 
“I’m sick of Jessica.  She doesn’t fit me.”
 
“I’d like to see her expression when she finds out you aren’t going to the dance with her in a few weeks.”
 
“The dance?  Oh-- the dance!”
 
“You didn’t forget, did you?”
 
“Actually, I did.  It’s just as well.  At least I haven’t asked Jessica yet.  She won’t even know about it.”
 
“You gonna ask her to the dance?”
 
“Jessica?  No.”
 
“Not Jessica, the new girl.”
 
“I think I’ll try to go out with her before that.”
 
“I bet you can’t get her to go out with you.”
 
“Bet I can.”
 
“How much?”
 
“Twenty bucks.”
 
Paul smiled.  “Twenty dollars it is then.”
 
As they shook hands Brian looked back to where Dru was sitting.  She glanced up and caught him looking at her.
 
“Brian!”
 
“Huh?”
 
“Stop looking over there, I’m talking to you.”
 
“What were you saying?”
 
“She has to stay with you for at least an hour, or I win the bet.”
 
“Whatever.”
 
 
On the Thursday of the next week Meredith and Dru were at Jill’s house after school.  Dru had become good friends with them, as she had promised myself she would on the first day of school.  Jill was saying something about everyone in the high school already knowing everybody else, because Lafayette was a small city.
 
Dru had replied with an “Oh.”
 
“You do realize, of course, that you are the only person in the entire high school that didn’t go to school here last year, right?” Jill asked me.
 
“No, I didn’t.”
 
“Well, you know now!” Meredith said cheerily.  Dru had dubbed Merry as a forever optimist, just as she had decided Jill was an outgoing, forthright person. Dru was somewhere in the middle.  Meredith had insisted Dru call her Merry, because all her good friends do.
 
“Everyone takes an interest in you, because you’re new.  They don’t know anything about you, so you are exciting to them,” Merry continued.
 
“Especially the guys,” Jill said astutely.  “They don’t know how far you’ll go.”
 
“Jill!” Merry exclaimed.
 
“It’s okay,” Dru intervened.  “She’s probably right.”
 
As Dru found out later, Jill was right, the guys did all have an interest in her.  She was asked to go on a date with many of them.  Unfortunately for all of them Brian McLaoy was the first one to ask her, and although Jill had warned her about him, she accepted his offer.
 
He picked her up, and drove them to the movies.
 
When the movie started Brian made a move on Dru.  “No, Brian.  If that’s what you came here to get, I might as well tell you that you won’t get it,” she had said to him.
 
Brian gave her a criticizing sort of look, and turned away.
 
They watched most of the movie in silence, until he tried again.
 
She told him she was not interested in anything of that sort and left the theater.  She walked the mile or so home in sandals; her feet hurt for the next two days.
 
That being her first date, she became prejudiced towards them.  With that bad experience behind her she decided not to go out with anyone else for a long time.
 
Dru’s junior year was fairly easy because she had already learned most of the stuff from her tutor.  They stuck her in calculus because she was so far ahead in math.  Miss Waters had definitely done her job.
 
Christmas was soon past, and the new semester had begun.  Merry, Jill, and Dru were the best of friends.  They did everything they could together.  Surprisingly, Dru had all but one of her classes with Jill; she only had two with Merry.
 
The year was passing quickly, Dru discovered.  Most of her time was spent with school work or sports.  She found out she was the kind of person who had to be assured of an ‘A’ before she could rest.  She was sure she worked harder than anyone else in her class. In the winter, she played soccer. Though she had never played the sport before in her life, she found she was rather good at it. She started in all but two games.
 
In the time she did not spend studying or at practice she was either hanging out with Merry and Jill or avoiding Brian, sometimes both at the same time.  Jill knew she had not heeded her warning about Brian, and teased her often for it.  Both Jill and Merry knew Brian was pursuing her, and it amused them greatly.
 
Dru tried out and made it onto the track team.  She was one of the fastest sprinters in the school.  She was very short at 5’3” but had long legs.  Dru’s  school placed third in the league meet.  She set an all-time school record in the 200-meter dash.
 
 
Dru went to the graduation of all the Seniors from her school.  She had never been to a graduation before, unless you counted the time she went to Amy Cydmyn’s graduation from kindergarten.  Amy was a playmate of Dru’s when she was younger.
 
Dru couldn’t say the experience was fun, but she saw some acquaintances graduate, and she also knew how a graduation went.  She figured that she didn’t want to look like a fool next year.
 
After the graduation as Dru was making her way to the car she was stopped by Brian McLaoy.  “He actually is pretty good looking”, she thought.  He had sandy colored hair, and clear blue eyes.
 
“Dru,” he said.
 
“Brian, I don’t have time for this.  I’ve got to go home and pack.  I’ll make this easy for you-- no!”
 
“I haven’t even asked yet!”
 
“I already know what you are going to say.”
 
“But its not the same.”
 
“All right, hurry!”
 
“Want to go to the movies next week Friday?”
 
“Can’t.”
 
“How about later, then.”
 
“Nope.”
 
“Why not?”
 
“I won’t be here.”
 
“Where will you be?”
 
“South Africa.”
 
“Then its true!?”
 
“What is true?”
 
“You actually have been there?”
 
“Of course!”
 
“Hmm.  Will you go out with me when you get back?”
 
“No.  See you later,” Dru said.  Unfortunately.
 
“Please?” Brian whined.
 
“Don’t whine, Brian.  It’s unbecoming.”
 
“If I stop whining will you go out with me?” he asked as she got into the car.
 
“You’re pushing your luck, Brian.”
 
 
Dru was soon preparing to go see her father in South Africa again.  Unfortunately, because of her mother’s work plans, she could not leave until the middle of July.  Dru planned to stay until the end of August.
 
After saying good-bye to her friends and mother, she walked down the airline corridor headed for Kimberly, South Africa.
 
There are only two things Dru did not like about visiting her father. One is the travel time.  It wasn’t just the day-long airplane ride, it was all the time trying to get to her father’s village.  The village doesn’t have a real name, although Dru and her Father secretly call it Britville because the nearest town, 2 hours away by truck, is called Britstown.  The nearest city is De Aar, which is 75 kilometers from Britstown.  The nearest international airport to De Aar is in Kimberly, which is a little over 250 kilometers away.  So Dru had to travel in a slow car for over five hours, after she just had a day-long airplane flight.
 
The other thing was that she has to use a different name.  People think strange things when someone’s daughter does not have the same name as them. Divorce is not as common in other countries as it is in the United States.  So, whenever she is in South Africa her name is Dru Keieva.
 
Every year, though, she ended up thinking it was worth the trouble.  This year was not any different.  To her, South Africa meant happiness.  She loved everything about it.  She could see her father anytime she wanted.  She could run through miles of open space and not see any buildings.  She could entertain the natives in Britville with her stories about boxes that made things stay cold (refrigerators) and containers that clean clothes for you (washing machines).  She especially liked reading on the hammock her father made for her.
This year Dru met her father’s new partner, Dr. Mark Burke.  Dru’s guess was that he was around forty.  He wasn’t bad looking, but not handsome either.  There was something about him Dru didn’t like, but she decided that she wouldn’t mind if he ended up taking over her father’s job someday.
 
Dru’s birthday was going to take place in South Africa this year, because she had come so late in the summer.  Two days before she turned eighteen, her father took her into Cape Town.  Dru and her father stayed in a fancy hotel called The Elegantae.  For her present, Dru’s father gave her a sapphire ring.  The sapphire was supposedly found in a South African mine.  She loved it instantly.
 

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