The rain fell in torrents about her, drenching her clothes and her hair, messing up the minimal makeup that had been applied on her face. She didn’t care though. She loved the rain. Her brother would probably come running out in the next five minutes, yelling at her because she was going to get pneumonia or something else. She gazed out across the yard at her family’s new home; it wasn’t huge, but considering they had just moved from an apartment, any yard seemed huge. The grass was half-brown, still recovering from the intense August heat wave just a week ago, barely three days after they had moved in.

“Katara! What are you doing! You’re going to die!” Sokka ran to the front door and out onto the deck with his running into his eyes, his aging Queen shirt spotted on the shoulder from the rain that had infiltrated the covered porch.

Katara held in a groan and stared at the small house across the street, the only house on the street besides the one she lived in, “I’m not gonna die, Sokka. Would you stop overreacting?” She stood up and tried to wring some water from her hair, though she messed up the single braid it was styled into, “I need to take a shower anyways.”

Sokka crossed his arms, “I’d prefer it if you took a shower in the bathroom, and not outside.”

Katara stopped walked on her way to the front door, “Yea, Sokka, I’m gonna bathe out on the street,” she answered sarcastically.

Sokka scoffed as he followed her into the two-story building and closed the green-painted door behind him, “What has gotten into you? Why are you so snappy today?”

“I’m not snappy!” Katara snapped back at him. She paused and put a hand to her head when she realized what she had said, “Sorry, I’m … just worried about tomorrow.”

Sokka’s eyebrows rose, “Going to school, you mean? It’s not like you’ve never gone before.” He looked down to his leg as a white and gray cat rubbed against his leg, “Hey, Momo,” he muttered.

“It’s not going to school that’s bothering me. Well, I guess it is. I just don’t know anybody,” Sokka’s sister answered. She crossed her arms and smiled a little when Momo came over to sniff her, but refused to come closer after a few drops of water fell on his head.

“Of course you know people!” Sokka replied back, “There’s Toph and Aang. You know them pretty well.”

Katara shrugged as Sokka named off their two foster siblings, “I realize that I know them, but they aren’t in my grade. They aren’t even at our school, Sokka. They’re still in the seventh grade. I’m a freshman, remember?”

“You’re just too difficult to please, aren’t you?” Sokka goaded. He turned and fell back onto one of the beat up couches in the living room, “Maybe you should just dive into the social scene tomorrow. I’m tired of arguing with you.” He reached down and picked up his guitar magazine, signaling the end to conversation.

Rolling her eyes, Katara left the room and entered the bathroom with just a short stop in her bedroom to pick up some new clothes to wear that weren’t dripping with water. The girl set her extra clothing on the counter by the sink, and shut the door behind her. She looked into the mirror and felt her self-esteem drop. Tomorrow was going to be a nightmare. And she knew nightmares.

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“Come on, Katara, it’s not gonna be that bad,” Toph encouraged as she lightly elbowed her foster-sister at the bus stop. The shorter girl brushed some of her shoulder-length brown hair from her misty blue eyes. “I mean, at least you can see.”

“Well at least you have Aang in every class to help you. You have someone you know,” Katara retorted, “I don’t have anybody.” She looked down at the concrete.
Toph smirked, “Why didn’t you invite me to your pity party?” She gave trying to hold in her giggles and laughed, drawing the attention of Aang and Sokka who looked to be arguing about the pros and cons of vegetarianism.

Katara rolled her eyes, “Whatever,” she muttered under her breath.

“Don’t worry, Katara,” Aang said as he moved up to Katara’s side, leaving Sokka to have nothing to present his scientific facts to, “I was really worried about moving in with you and Sokka and your grandma, but it wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be.” He ran a hand over her head, bare of anything except stubble. Katara still didn’t understand why he wanted a shaved head.

She smiled, “Thanks, Aang.” Her grin widened slightly at Aang’s blush, but her look turned to that of a frown when the big yellow bus rounded the corner and came to stop at the corner of the street where the four stood. Her stomach ached, but she forced herself to climb the steps.

The bus driver glanced at her, the old woman's oversized sunglasses slipping down her face, “Katara Vann?”

Katara paused and nodded to the bus driver. She cleared the last step and walked forward; she looked at the rubber-lined floor, away from the faces of these people she had never seen in her life. Most of the seats were filled with two people, but there was one seat in the middle where just one guy was sitting. Katara swallowed and took a few more steps until she could sit down with the boy. The boy’s lengthy black hair covered any view that Katara might have had of his face as he was looking out the dirty window.

“Hey!” said a boy from the seat across from Katara. She turned to look at him and blushed slightly, “Are you new? I don’t remember you from last year.” He pushed some brown hair out of his eyes and chewed some gum.

“Yea, I’m new. I just moved from Ohio,” Katara answered.

The boy smiled, “Ohio? That’s interesting. My name’s Jet,” he spoke with a nod.
“I’m Katara,” she responded.

“Freshman?” Jet questioned after the bus jolted from a terribly built road.
Katara nodded with a grin, “Yea. What about you?”

“I’m sophomore. But I hope you’re in some of my classes. I love meeting new people,” Jet said to her, his brown eyes alight with curiosity and mischief.

Katara found herself giggling, despite her fear for her first day of school. Now she could only hope the school was full of people like Jet.