“You ready?” Mr. Harpsi said from the back of the car. He grunted as he looked ahead and spotted the rows of traffic.

“For you to take me home and call Mrs. Clarisse again? Yes, please do.” Emily said in a bratty attitude.

“Mrs. Clarisse had a life other than you, Emily. Try to have some consideration, you know?” He replied back, ignoring how rude his daughter was.

“I know, but I don’t want to,” Emily said pushing her thick glossy hair behind her in one swift motion.

“Now, what was the school’s name again?”

“Oakwood Middle and High School of idiots.” She said, trying her best to act as serious as possible. Although, a small smile poked out at the end.

“Does that mean you’re an idiot?” Her dad smiled at her.

“No, because I’m not going there.” Emily said, rolling her eyes. She bit her lip wishing her dad would understand.

“Actually I’m pretty sure I signed a girl with black hair, freckles, pale skin, and is a beautiful thirteen-year-old model up for that school.”

“Right… Can I get my hair dyed brown today? There’s a salon nearby,” Emily asked again. She had been asking the whole day. She wanted to look like the other models in the magazines. They had bleached hair or bright colors. Emily wasn’t sure how she liked the style, but she knew she wanted to look more like them.

“Nope. You know I don’t let you dye your hair like that. You look like your mother right now, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

“That mother who decided ‘it was best to leave you now that she had enough money?’ The mother who was basically a gold digger, but you said she wasn’t and she had a life of her own?”

“Look, Emily, at least you're a model? Not everyone’s father is this cool,” He smirked at her.

“That’s exactly what I don’t want to be. They’ll probably think I’m some kind of stripper looking for money from one of the teachers.” Mr. Harpsi gritted his teeth.

“Emily, what have I told you about those topics?”

“Not to talk about them.” She rolled her eyes, looking at the road.

“Not to talk, think, or do them.” He lifted his fingers, trying to make her remember the three things.

“Right.”

“I am right. Finally, you get something.”

“No, right.”

“What?”

“You’re in the left lane, dad. You need to turn right! Look at the phone, not me!” Dad checks his phone, set to maps. It’s revolutionary that he hasn’t gotten any business calls yet during this whole ride.

Emily takes out her phone while her dad sighs, wondering if she should pull a “#Firstday” on Instagram. Just when she’s about to take a shot, she thinks again.

What if someone at this school saw it and were to think she only wanted fame?

A week ago, Emily Harpsi didn’t care. In fact, she didn’t actually know she was going to an actual school. Even now, her nerves froze.

Today, her father volunteered to take her to school. It wasn’t the best for Emily, her father was horrible with directions and her father’s car stuck out like a sore thumb, an extremely sore thumb.

“Make friends?”

“Everyone probably wants me for money and fame. Like I'll hashtag best friend them. If anything, I'll hashtag fake friend them.”

“Then don’t give them money. You are a social media star, Emily, you have probably seen it all before.”

“You’re right, dad.”

Mr. Harpsi smiled. If anything was the best part of today, her father’s smile was. Her father rarely smiled. He owned one of the largest modeling and design companies in the world: Delightful Divas. As well as modeling clothes, her father needed models, one of which was his daughter, Emily Harpsi.

“Actually we might be ten minutes late.”

“Really?!”

“Nope. We’re here.”

Emily looked outside the tinted window. The girls and boys all looked the same. No one looked any more important than the rest of the crowd. She sighed. Hopefully, that would stay the same, even after Emily joined them.

She shuffled around her backpack, in hopes to find her XL hoodie. The hoodie was one she got from a modeling agency. It went all the way down to her knees, maybe a little lower.

Not to catch attention, she wore the worst clothes she had: a pair of ripped jeans, a white shirt, and her large teal hoodie, which she just found. If that wasn’t already enough, she also wore a normal eighth grade level of makeup, compared to what she normally wore.

In every outfit, she wore her hoodie, just to cover up all of her outfits. Little people knew that Emily was obsessed with anything horror. She wasn’t your normal model.

Her wrists were covered in bracelets, each one of a kind. Most had skull patterns, one had a splatter of “blood.” Her favorite, and yes it was the weirdest, was the one that looked like a knife had curled around her finger. The bracelet itself was a metal bangle, with the end being a brown rusted wood texture. When she was ten, she thought to make it worse, painting little drops of red blood on it. The paint and the metal made it look so real, it probably would get her dress coded. That was one reason she decided to wear her hoodie, even though she wore the most basic clothes anyone could own.

Emily didn’t care, her hoodie ended up covering her whole hand.

The second dad finally managed to park on the curb, eyes started coming for her. She tried her best to look down while opening the door.

When she got out, she turned to her dad, who waved bye and drove off.

Trying to be as quiet as she could, Emily turned around. Her day was going fine until after the second step, when someone yelled, “Oh my gosh, is that the Emily Harpsi?!”

A line of people was coming toward her when she looked back up.

Emily bit her lip, so much for not standing out, she thought. She sent a small prayer, just to make sure everyone was pleasant to her, unlike those jealous brats at her old school.

“Emily! Can I get an autograph?”

The first crowd started building up, mainly girls who wanted her to bless their items with her signature.

She was not happy. Still, she signed each and every one of them. Luckily, her dad took that wrong turn. Now there were only a few more minutes of what the school called “Early Bird.”

Thinking about it now, it made sense that people named it that. The school’s mascot was a robin. Yay…