Awkwardness and Redemption In Junior High (Part 1 of 10)

I started out eighth grade by attending my first period class which was office practice. There was myself and one other student, Jill, and we helped out in the administration office. My first duty was to sharpen the principal's pencils. Every morning I checked to make sure he had six, long, sharp pencils in the pencil holder on his desk. He was very particular about that.
Anything that had to do with typing, they had Jill do. I think mostly because she was a girl, but also because she was a better typist than I. Jill was in ninth grade and because of her, the two ladies in the office called me Jack, (Jack and Jill.) Those two ladies were both administrative secretaries and they becked and called to us during the whole period. Since the bus got me to school a few minutes early in the morning, I arrived at the office just in time to wait on students at the front counter. Some had questions that one of the ladies had to answer, others needed to buy something which we had such as pencils, clarinet or saxophone reeds, or even a Bonneville Junior High School T-shirt. Others needed a hall pass. Still others needed to be excused from school later in the day. The five minute bell would ring, signaling school would start in five minutes. From the glass front of the office I could see the students in the hall outside begin to thin out as people scurried off to their first period classes. The principal, Mr. H. Clive Roberts was standing in our same office, at the P.A. System, in readiness for school to start which was when he would make his daily announcements. Usually he would have someone else with him, a student body officer, or a cheerleader who would be ready to make an announcement as well. Then magically, the bell would ring and the halls and the office would clear out as everyone got to his or her home room. The counter was devoid of people and Jill and I took our seats at a small table at the back of the office. Mr. Roberts at the microphone welcomed everyone to school. Another day had begun! There was a certain wonder for school to start each morning. It was as if each of us from the last student to the cheerleaders and student body officers, to the teachers and staff had individually gotten out of bed that morning. We could have slept in, especially on a cool and brisk fall morning. We could have stayed in bed listening to the music on our clock radios. But we had all gotten up. We got ready, ate breakfast, and rode to school. We were here now in one great body. We had come together. We were a team. And another day had begun!