“Isla Weber!”
The teacher says reading names off the roll call list. Isla says ‘Here’ without looking up from the book she is reading; ‘The Hobbit - BY J. R. R. Tolkien’. Being seated at the back of the room and being short she normally gets away with it without getting caught by the teachers. Most of the time, she reads and listens to morning announcements.
Whether it’s a new student, some tests, fire drills, shooting drills, and the class getting yelled at, Isla is listening… well kind of. Today she is just in the mood to just do nothing but read. She can only think it’s because she just ordered ‘The Lord of The Rings’ books and they are to be in her hands in a week’s time, which is just in time for her birthday. She hears the class quiet down as the teacher, Mr Smith yells at the class to ‘sit down and shut up’. She looks up from her book, placing the bookmark on the page, wanting to know why Mr Smith is shouting.
She along with the rest of the class notices an Asian girl with dark brown curly hair, dressed in red shoes, jeans, a t-shirt that says ’I’M PRETTY SURE MY LAST WORDS WILL BE ’WELL SHIT THAT DIDN’T WORK” with some tape over the word ‘SHIT’. Her jumper is tied around her waist. Mr Smith who is standing next to her clears his throat once everyone is silent.
“As you know, our school has entered a student exchange program for the month, this lovely young lady here is Han Juhyun from South Korea. I’m not sure which part, but I hope you will give her a warm welcome.”
“Hello, it’s nice to meet everyone, as Mr Smith said I am Han Juhyun, but everyone can just call me Judy. I hope we can all get along and become good friends this month”
They all watch as Juhyun bows, most of the class doesn’t know how to react, do they bow back? The class turns to some girls throwing their hands up in the air and practically screaming that Judy can sit next to her and her friends. Mr Smith doesn’t fight them on it and agrees, showing Judy which seat to sit in. Once she is seated, he straightens his posture again, clearly ready to say something else. Isla is ready for him to yell at the entire grade because most kids here have the reputation as ‘School Bullies’, ‘Biggest Idiots’, ‘Mean Girls’, and ‘Window Breakers’. Isla is lucky enough to be known as the quiet kid among everyone that no one likes.
“Now… As you all may know our sports day with Angelwood College, Cape Coral High, and Crossroads Spring is coming up and as you all know we always place in fourth every year so this year can we please try our hardest to get third. The principal and Co-principal will give every grade pizza of their choosing if we get third place. Judy, if you wish to take part, you can.”
The class whispers, mutters and speaks with whomever is next to each other, some hyped, others asking what’s the point of it if we are just going to come forth again. Isla is the only one who is excited but unsure over this news as she isn’t the one to be for sports other than Soccer. She has even skipped most of the other sports days like half the class does… But she does like pizza, but is it worth it just to come to school? She knows she will have to do some sports like high jump and sprints… She is brought from her thoughts as the nine am bell rings, indicating that first classes are starting. She places her book in her laptop case, stands up and leaves the room, following everyone to their first subject, science.
As they walk through the hall’s students from other classes, grade sevens, grade nines, grade tens and even eleven and twelves pushing through trying to get to their assigned rooms. Some students shoving and others tripping, some even yelling at them to move and hurry about it. Isla is one of the last people in the science room and because of a seating chart only for her grade, grade eight, she sits at the very back, being the only one at the very back and the kid that the teachers forget about she swaps seats every class. Today she is sitting from the teacher’s view on the far right, for Isla it’s the far left. She watches as Miss Bell smiles as she welcomes Judy into her class room, her voice cheerful and friendly.
“Ah Yes, welcome young Juhyun! Welcome to my class. Now, do you wish to be called Juhyun or something else?”
“Judy is fine. I fear Juhyun might be hard for everyone to say.”
“Both are beautiful names. Now today you will sit with Isla, she is on the very back row, far right.”
Isla looks up from grabbing her science book out of her laptop bag, all she heard was her name, she isn’t sure of what else Miss Bell said because she wasn’t listening. She watches and grows nervous as Judy makes her way to9 the seat next to Isla; she tries to clean up as best as she can so she feels Judy feels welcome and doesn’t feel like she is being rude by having her stuff spread out like she normally does. Once Judy is seated, Isla tries her best to smile and make it feel welcoming, Judy does smile back, which surprises Isla. The only thought in Isla’s head is how pretty Judy is.
“Excuse me, but what’s your name?”
“Isla Weber... I’m so sorry to be staring, but you’re just so pretty.”
Isla shyly admits, trying not to blush, she really doesn’t want to appear a creep. She knows there is always a chance she will be teased about this as very few people talk to her and when they do, it’s her classmates just wanting to pick on her and make her look like a fool. She looks at Judy to see her blushing.
“Oh, my goodness… I… do you mean it?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you, everyone at school back home always called me ugly… no one has ever told me I am pretty.”
“You’re not ugly, you’re pretty. Those people who called you ugly are just mean… Trust me on that.”
Isla was shocked to hear that Judy is called ugly in her original school, even though she is a transfer student she wants to give Judy memories she will forever remember, mainly all wonderful memories of her time here in Delta, a rural town in Millard County, Utah. Soon the class starts as Miss Bell gets everyone’s attention, this is one of the few times’ Isla actually pays attention. They learn different parts of the brain and how they work. By the end of the two hours, their homework is to label each area of the brain with a small description of what it does. She knows she will do it in an hour once she gets home, but she also knows she will leave it until the last minute.
“Do you want to do this with me in the library at lunch? It won’t take us long.”
Judy asks Isla, Isla nods, knowing that Judy might be her friend if she spent some time with her. She also knows maybe Judy can help her on the stuff she gets stuck on. The pair of them end up walking around the school during recess and eating their snacks, normally Judy would have been shown around by the girls she sat with this morning. But the same girls bring Judy over to their table, wanting to get to know her more, she hears Judy ask them if Isla is joining them but Isabella, a girl that’s white with blue hair and green eyes, dressed in a pink skirt that goes down to her knees, a pink shirt that has hello kitty on the front of it and it has white sleeves.
“What about Isla?”
“She’s busy, she’ll be fine!’
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. Right Isla?”
Isla just nods, she knows if she tries to say no Isabella will just claim she is lying or an attention seeking teenager. Often, it’s just best for her to agree. She walks away as Judy talks with Isabella, Mia, and Evelyn. Isla grabs her hobbit book from her bag and sits under a tree somewhere near the grade eight lockers, her grade lockers. This way when the bell goes off, she can be one of the first to grab her stuff and head back to her next class, which is maths.
When the bell rings, she is the first person to grab her stuff and sit in the back row in maths, like science they have a seating plan, she can’t move around like science cause here she doesn’t do her work and because Mr Murphy had placed the table and chairs in a square to make sure he can check everyone does their work.
She was just lucky Mr Murphy sat Juhyun next to her of course Mr Murphy had explained to her we can talk if it’s only to help each other out. Judy leans over to Isla and whispers to her a question that almost every new student asks.
“Is he always this strict?”
“Yeah, but as long as we do our work, we won’t get detention or in trouble”
“Today’s lesson is algebra. Everyone pull out your maths books, Judy you can share with Isla and turn to page 620. The first question goes: what is the value of x in four x plus ten equals thirty… Does anyone know the answer?”
The entire class is quiet as they write the question and try to work it out on a sheet of paper, Mr Murphy is quiet as he waits for someone to shout out the answer. Isla writes the question many times and gets a different answer every time. Even Judy gets two different answers. They watch as a boy in front of them throws his hand up in the air. Mr Murphy says his name
“Arlo”
“X equals five”
“Correct. Explain how you got it.”
“First, I subtracted ten from both sides”
Arlo explains how he did it, Isla listens and writes it out at the same time. Judy is doing the same. By the time the hour bell rang, they pack up their stuff and head to their next class, English which is held in their home room with their homeroom teacher, Mr Smith. Because she is a head of everyone in English, he is letting Isla read or write up anything on her laptop as long as it is respectful and not anything dirty.
Isla sits in her normal seat but Judy has to sit with Mia, Evelyn, and Isabella who she hears Mia ask Judy about if she is okay sitting with Isla in every class so far. Once she sits down and class starts, she grabs her hobbit book and reads it, hoping it would distract her from Mia’s question. She looks up every once in a while, to listen to the rest of the class lesson. She works out that they are trying to read some book from Shakespeare.
She glances over at Judy, making sure she is okay. To Isla’s surprise she is looking at her and smiling, she relaxes knowing that Judy will be fine. She goes back to reading her book, which helps the hour go by faster. Even though she is a slow reader, she read from page seventy-five in chapter six ‘OVER HILL AND UNDER HILL’ to page one hundred and seven in chapter seven ‘OUT OF THE FRYING-PAY INTO THE FIRE’. She places her book mark on the page and places the book in her laptop bag. She listens to Mr Smith give out homework to the rest of the class. The homework they were given was that they have to read the current chapter and the next one before next Monday’s English class, Isla being the only expectation because she is a head in the class.
She puts her stuff in her locker as Judy grabs the science homework, Isla remembers that they have a homework session together. Once she has her stuff and her lunch, she goes over to Judy, both of them are all smiles. Isla is the first one to say something, and Judy nods, still smiling.
“Are you ready?”
“Yep. I’m telling you we get this done today and we won’t have to worry about it for the entire week. Maybe we could hand it in early or before lunch is done”
Just as they are about to walk off Evelyn stops them, smiling as well, Isla sees Mia and Isabella sitting at one of the metal tables nearby, both secretly watching, or thinking they are being secret about it by hiding behind their science textbooks.
“Hello Isla, Hello Judy… Judy, how would you feel if you would join me, Mia, and Isabella for lunch today? We often share our food and snacks. We also do group study sessions. We do them here outside because it’s a lot less stuffy and we have more room to move around.”
“I understand how that might help you three, but it certainly wouldn’t help me and Isl-”
“Isla has her own study group, or solo study session, but it’s indoors”
Isla just looks down at the ground, acting like she isn’t hearing anything Evelyn is saying. Most of the time she doesn’t understand why Evelyn is mean, the same goes for Mia and Isabella. The teachers have always told her they are going on with issues at home, but she has always told them it still doesn’t give them the right to be mean cause a lot of kids are going on with things outside of school. Every time she said it, she got detention over it. Judy, clearing her throat brought her out of her thoughts.
“Before you rudely cut me off. It may help you three, but Isla and Myself need a quiet space to work as we get distracted easily. So, we will be studying and working in the library. You are free to join us if you wish. But thank you for the offer.”
Isla hides her smile behind her poster paper as she and Judy walk towards the library. She doesn’t want to say anything, but she can see Judy smiling as well. Her trust in Judy grows and once they reach the library and go inside Isla turns to Judy.
“I can’t believe you did that. You stood up to those three”
“I will not let them walk all over you like that. I may not be from this country, but I know when someone is being mean and an utter little bitch”
“Keep your voice down”
Isla giggles, softly whispering to Judy, knowing that the library lady often works with people in the office and goes to the staff room for breaks. Judy just giggles at Isla’s attempts to prevent them from getting in trouble. After ten minutes they calm down and sit down at one of the circle tables, they pull out Isla’s laptop and type into search ’brain and its different parts and a bunch of colour coded diagrams pop up on google images. They end up picking one that has everything labelled with dot points on what they do. They rewrite the dot points into small detailed paragraphs into what they really do to make it look like their own writing. By the time they are finished there is only five minutes of lunch time left, they use that time to write their name on the work and hand it’s in. When the bell rings they grab their stuff and head to their homeroom. Yet again Judy has to sit with Evelyn, Mia, and Isabella, who are this time apologising to her for being rude and asking her if she wants to borrow one of their spare books to read during the 15 minutes reading time.
Judy nods and Evelyn hands her a copy of ‘Shadow and Bone—BY Leigh Bardugo’. That is one book and its set Isla hopes to buy some day, she doesn’t know how much it costs but someday she dreams of buying it. But right now, she is happy with ‘The Hobbit’ and soon ‘The Lord of The Rings’, maybe even some day she would buy ‘The Unfinished Tales’ and ’The Silmarillion’. She watches as Mia pulls out a copy of Nevermoor—BY Jessica TownSend’, Evelyn pulls out ’Snakes and Storm—BY Leigh Bardugo and Isabella opens up her book, which is titled ‘The Wheel of Time—BY Robert Jordan’. In the fifteen minutes of reading time, she had read from page one hundred and seven to one hundred and thirty-one, starting chapter eight ‘QUEER LODGING’.
Their last subject for the day is art class. Something like maths, Isla is not good at one bit. Isla and Judy get to sit by the computers, Arlo is sitting on the other side of Judy and he already has his sketchbook out and open. They do see his drawings, which are more of an anime style.
“That’s Saturo Gojo from Jujutsu Kaisen right?”
“Yeah! I’m drawing Nobara Kugisaki on the page next to him. After Nobara is Yuji Itadori, then Megumi Fushiguro… It’s nice to meet you, my name is Arlo Barnes, I only moved here last month, I’m from the UK.”
“Juhyun, just call me Judy, I’m from South Korea”
The three of them, for the final hour of school, talk about the jujutsu kaisen anime. Isla listens as Judy and Arlo try to explain the lore and how the whole anime goes, they even say how a lot of anime fans (Haters really) call it ‘A Second Naruto’. Isla is happy with the pair of them talking and having fun. She watches some anime but not a lot or this jujutsu kaisen one. By the time class ends they have packed up and at their lockers, Isla tells Judy her goodbyes as she has to take a bus to get home, which Judy understands and says her goodbyes as well.
By the time she is home, her older sister, Ivy, is lying across the couch watching something on Netflix, Isla isn’t sure what though. Isla looks at her phone as it vibrates, telling her she got a text, she glances at her phone to see it’s from her childhood best friend: Jackie Collins.
JACKIE COLLINS +6 NEW MESSAGE
JACKIE COLLINS: Hey girl, how was the new girl? South Korean culture really is something but I think I like it. Most students keep telling me my skin color is beautiful. I meet one girl names Seo Miyeon, I think you spell it like this
JACKIE COLLINS: 서미연
JACKIE COLLINS: Some of the other students even wanted to give me a Korean name. So far, they thought of Lee Jiyong, Choi Haein, someone even suggested Paeng Yeji and Cheon Ryujin. I think you spell Cheon as 천 but I’ll have to double check with Miyeon and my teachers.
JACKIE COLLINS: 이지용 - Lee Jiyong, 최해인 - Choi Haein, 팽예지 - Paeng Yeji but I think I spelt Paeng wrong, 천류진 - Cheon Ryujin
JACKIE COLLINS: So far there have been some names I like such as Kim Bora, Park Sua, Choi Jisoo, Lim Sian, Heo Nayeon, Myoung Hayoon, Song Yujin, and Ahn Nahyun. There are just so many great names!
JACKIE COLLINS: I could send you names written in Korean all day! I’m being rude. I’m sorry, how is the new girl? She isn’t replacing me, is she?
ISLA WEBER: You aren’t being rude. I’m glad you’ve had a good start, I just miss you like living hell and the new girl is Han Juhyun, she tells everyone to call her Judy and she isn’t replacing you. She told me that Mia, Evelyn and Isabella are being bitches for being mean to me
ISLA WEBER: I hope you pick a name you like and I know whatever name you go with everyone around you will tell you that it suits youCan I suggest a name?
JACKIE COLLINS: OMG YES!
ISLA WEBER: How about - Lee Seoyeon? Or Son Yoonah, maybe even Seo Haebin, possibly even Choi Saebom and Chang Minji or Minju
JACKIE COLLINS: I love them all! 이서연, 손윤아, 서해빈, 최새봄, 창민지 / 민주
JACKIE COLLINS: Oh maybe you can ask Judy on how to learn reading in Korean! Even if it’s just names, I’m sure she will understand if you struggle to read the big words
ISLA WEBER: How do you write Han Juhyun in Korean?
JACKIE COLLINS:한주현. Juhyun is a unisex name. The was a name suggested by the teacher but the class said they didn’t like that name. I personality think the name is pretty
JACKIE COLLINS: Wait, Judy called the three of them a bitch??
JACKIE COLLINS: Oh, hell yeah, her and I would be GREAT friends
ISLA WEBER: You both would get along I know that for a fact
JACKIE COLLINS: You know what Isla; I think the Korean name Daeun (다은) would fit you best. If I remember correctly, Daeun means Kind in Korean! And that’s what you are kind. When I’m back I’ll be sure to thank Judy for sticking up for you and then deal with Mia, Evelyn and Isabella myself!
JACKIE COLLINS: I really have to go, Juhyun’s family is asking me to help her siblings with dinner. TTYL! I LOVE YOU <3
She watches as Jackie’s account goes offline. She really misses Jackie, the number of times she wishes to have been able to go with her is too much to count. But she knows she wouldn’t last a whole month being away from her family and with her struggle with learning things also played a major role; she struggles in her current school now, how would she go in another country possibly with a stricter school system? She looks at the report card on her computer desk. Most of her grades are F- with three being, D-, B+ and A-. Her parents are proud of her, but she thinks she can do better as everyone else in her class is getting A and A+.
She just puts the report in one of her desks draws and reaches up to one of the three shelves, on the far left is books filled with Jessica Townsend and her three current Nevermoor books, next to it is the shadow and bones book set by Leigh Bardugo.
She knows the shadow and bones set will be moved once the rest of the Nevermoor series come out. Below it is a book set of Marvel’s phases one, she opens the iron man one, reminding herself that they aren’t comics but novels with words, next to is the all-stars set, the three books being ‘Black Widow and forever red’ by Margaret Stohl, ‘Captain Marvel higher, further, faster’ by Liza Palmer, and ‘The unstoppable Wasp: built on hope’ by Sam Maggs. The final book next to them is ‘Loki Where the Mischief Lies’ by Mackenzi Lee. Out of them all, she has only read The Unstoppable Wasp so far; Only being at page fifty-four, chapter three ‘OH, LIKE YOU’D HAVE LEFT IT THERE?’. she started Loki, but she is only at page eight.
She knows once she finishes ‘The Hobbit’ she will start on ‘The Lord of The Rings’ then maybe go onto finishing ‘The Wasp’. She looks at the shelf next to her Nevermoor and Shadow and Bones books, on it is her cousin’s version of ‘The Hobbit’ which is battered and almost falling apart. She places her own copy next to her cousin, trying to work out why her cousin’s version is bigger.
Since her cousin is from Australia, that normally means she gets books by Australian authors shipped to her, on the shelf that is soon to be her J.R.R Tolkien shelf is a shelf that currently homes four books; ‘FOUND’, ‘RISK’, WRECKED’, and ‘BLACK’ all by Fleur Ferris. She opens RISK to see that Fleur Ferris had signed the inside of the front page.
Isla knows how much the book means to Evie so she makes sure to not lose it, sell it or ruin it despite it already having its pages not so white anymore and some wear and tars on the pages. All She knows about the book being signed is that Fleur had gone to Evie’s school to she can only think to promote the books and explain how she was a local turned author. On the top of the shelves is another row of books, this time all mixed up and colour coded. She sees the ‘Heart-stopper’ series, ‘The Maze Runner’, ‘The Hunger Games’, ‘Skullduggery Pleasant’, ‘The School for Good and Evil’, ‘The 100’, ‘Sherlock Homles’, and some manga from ‘Attack on Titan’, ‘Blue Exorcist’, ‘My Hero Academia’, even ‘Scott Pilgram’ comics, with two indie authors such as Elisa Menz and Sarra Canon. But most of the room is taken up by the ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ comics.
She plugs her phone into the charger and grabs ‘The Hobbit’ out of her bag, before she could kick her shoes off and lie down in bed for a good read her older sister comes in, telling her that mom told her to wash the dishes, but as classic Ivy fashion she tells Isla to do is as she cleaned up the lounge room once back in 2021 when Isla caught covid for a while.
“I did the dishes yesterday”
“It doesn’t matter, I cleaned the lounge room up in 2021 when you had covid”
“That’s the ONLY thing you’ve done”
“Doesn’t matter, I am still tired from that time. Now do the dishes”
Isla knows there’s no point in arguing. She knows Ivy will just lie about her to her parents, even pull in some excuse, as she has too much home work to do or she has already planned something with her friends. Not even their youngest sister, Ida, does any jobs and cores around the house. Ida mostly sticks to her phone. She places the book on her desk and getting up and walking to the kitchen.
As she puts cups, glass, bowls, plates and what else into the dish washer she watched Ida put a dirty plate on the bench.
“You know the rules. Put it in the dish washer”
“No.”
“How is it too far? You walked all the way out here so you can put the plate you used in the dishwasher”
“No. You’re dumbest out of us three so you do it… Anyway yeah, no one should be mean, regardless what they are going through.”
Ida walks off, telling her friends how much she hates bullying and how she would bully no one regardless of who they are and what they have done. Deep down she knows Ida and Ivy are all lies when it come’s to their friends…
“I’m telling you. Isla does nothing around here. I have to do all the house work because of how lazy she is.”
Isla hears Ivy say as she walks back to her room after finishing all the jobs around the house. She tries her best to Ignore Ivy, but she thinks some day’s she wants Isla to know what she thinks. She hears Ida say something along the lines that ‘Isla would be the one to end up in jail or on the news for something bad’. Isla just lies down on her bed, this time with the hobbit in her hands and headphones on her head, her computer playing ‘Black Sound’ to block out everything around her.
She keeps her phone on vibrate on her chest so if her mum or dad call, she will know to pick it up. She plays the twelve-hour version of the black sound so she doesn’t have to get up and change it every hour or every few minutes. Today it doesn’t seem to block everything out, she can only assume it’s because Ida is being extra loud and Ivy has the tv turned almost all the way up.
She opens the book and reads anyway, trying her best with the sound to block out the outside world. As she reads, she reads the same line over again. As She reads, she reads the same line over again. As she reads, she reads the same line over again. As she reads, she reads the same line over again… So; she puts the book mark back in its spot and places the book, closed on her desk. She turns the sound on her headphones up along with the YouTube video and the sound on her computer, but sadly she can still hear everything going on in the house.
The front door opening and their father shouting out to say his home. She shouts out a ‘welcome home’ as she knows her siblings won’t do it. She hears her father say something along the liens of ‘Thank you Isla for doing the dishes’ and something about adding five dollars into her bank account. She takes a quick glace at her phone and opens her bank account. So far, she has one hundred dollars in her account.
She knows because of her siblings’ jobs and social medias they have more around five hundred, even six hundred in their accounts. Being the only sibling that has a following just on five thousand, five hundred and keeping all of her content free she earns nothing from them. She looks at her inkitt account, seeing that she now has five thousand, five hundred and one followers and a comment on her wall post. She goes through those comments on her wall all the time, and every time she replies with the same answer repeatedly. But after a while she just gets sad over them, not once has she felt like she has been seen for her work but seen for just being the sister to a twitch streamer and youtuber.
She knows deep down she may never be seen for her work… She knows whatever her sisters do and say could come back onto her regardless what she posts. Even if they get cancelled, she fears she would be pulled into it for just simply being their sister. However, she loves having fewer followers than her siblings, the ones that found her before they found her siblings from her understanding where kind and helpful and she knows that they do try to help small readers grow. She can never seem to wrap her head around Ida having one hundred thousand and fifty followers and Ivy having sixty hundred thousand followers.
Having a high number of people to follow you to get money from them is something Isla will never understand. Why take money from or give your money to someone you don’t know? Why make social medias just to show a fake side of yourself off to the world? Why would someone want attention like that? What about having a high number of followers gets on to think they may be bossy and mean? It’s all so many questions Isla has and sadly there is no one around to answer them.
She thinks back to the time she started YouTube back in twenty-twenty; she was only fifth teen. She thought she would have fun, but all she felt was burning out. Having to make one video after another and post them every day, to even get close to looking at any views, just made her feel burnt out. Often she wondered why she wasted so long doing that, three whole years and all she got out of it was just burn out. She is of course proud to get three hundred followers but the burn out ruined it for her.… She looks over at her siblings, wondering when their hobby stopped feeling like a hobby and more like a job. Was it ever a hobby, or was it just a way to make quick money? She looks up as her dad stands at the doorway of her room. She takes off the headphones and pauses the brown sound.
“Sorry, did you need me to do something?”
“Your mother should be back from work soon. Do you want to go out with her to go shopping once she’s back?”
She nods, any chance to leave the house and not be around her siblings she will take. Until then, she cleans up her room and rearranges her books on the very top shelf of her desk. This time she rearranges them in author order, taking away its colour coded arrangement.
ns 15.158.61.8da2
