I look up. All I see is a dull red building. Probably three stories high. I am standing in front of the biggest school in New York City. A heavy breeze that smells like old grass and steam pushes me a few steps to the left.

Once I regain my balance again, I realize that I’m right in front of the entrance. I hesitantly step inside the door to my new school. In this moment, I realize that my life will never be the same. I have officially lost all control of what happens in my life. I look on my schedule and see that my homeroom teacher is Mr. Tucker, room 907. 907? There are over nine hundred rooms in this school? I immediately start to panic. I let a faint screech escape under my breath.

Oh no. I quickly realize that I’m going to need help navigating my way through this enormous school. I scan the massive crowd of students walking into school and try to look for someone easily approachable. I see a girl walking in to the school with golden brown skin and curly hair, holding the straps of her backpack. She is wearing a black and purple coat with cropped jeans and converse. The girl looks a little older and more mature than me, so I guess I could ask her for help. I walk up to her, hoping she can help me find my class. “Hi,” I say, “do you know where Mr. Tucker’s room is?” She slowly looks up at me as she takes her ear buds out, and a small smile creeps from her face. She thinks for a second, which I don’t blame her for if there are ever nine hundred rooms in this building.

“Um…” she starts to talk, bringing me back to our conversation, “yea, it’s on the right side of the math wing.”  Whatever that meant. “I can show you how to get there if you want, but I’m about to meet my friends somewhere. You can come with me if you want, we still have twenty minutes before we have to get to class.”

“Sure,” I say before I even let myself think about it, “thanks.”

We turn the other way and walk out of the front entrance of the school, and the girl walks so fast, I have to run to catch up. People roll their eyes at us when we navigate our way through the crowd of people. It actually takes a lot of effort and apologizing because we’re walking in the opposite direction of everyone else who is going into the school. Why would we be going away from the school? It’s a pretty nice day in April, maybe she and her friends want to hang out somewhere outside.

I almost run into her when she abruptly turns around. “I’m Holley by the way,” she says pretty enthusiastically for a Monday morning.

“I’m Sofia. Nice to meet you,” I say, trying to match her excited tone.       

I follow her around the big school and over to what looks like an alley on the other side of a busy street. I casually squint and see a few other kids that look slightly older than both of us in the alley wearing black from head to toe. There seems to be smoke everywhere. The air smells like steam neer the school, so it might just be what it smells like here. It almost looks like smoke from a fire though. The smoke is as intense as I feel right now.

“Is there a fire back there?” I say.

“Fire?” she lets out something like a laugh and a sigh. “You’ll see,” she says with a mischievous look on her face. There is no crosswalk, so we have to just walk and hope we don’t get hit by a car that is going extremely fast. I start walking behind Holly as she begins to pick up the pace. Once we get a little closer I see what they’re doing. Smoking. Everything starts to happen in slow motion as I see Holly start to run toward her friends. I’m not sure if I’m moving or not, but everyone’s looking at me.

“You’re not going to tell anyone, are you? I really want to get to know you better because you seem like a lot of fun, but just one thing. To join our club, all you have to do is smoke. Just once, and if you don’t like it, you never have to do it again. Of course, I was scared to do it too, but it’s a lot of fun,” Holly says.

The handful of people are talking to me all at once, but all I hear are muffled sounds and ringing in my ears. The cars driving behind us are as loud as thunder. What do I do? I really don’t want to be known as a “goodie goodie” for the rest of my five years here. Just one puff can’t hurt, right? Again, before even thinking about anything, I agree. Or at least I think I agree because someone hands me a lit cigarette. I almost drop it as soon as I touch it because my parents have always told me not to do drugs or anything that can affect my health. I know I’ll never do this again, and I don’t want to have no friends for the rest of my life. Right as I start to move the cigarette toward my mouth, someone far away from us says, “What do you think you’re doing?” He sounds too old to be a kid, and he seems really disappointed and shocked. As he comes closer, he sends all of the people I am with to the principal's office, including Holly.

“Are you alright?” Why isn’t he punishing me like everyone else?

“Yea, I’m fine. Who were they?” He starts to say something about how some of them have been arrested before for vandalizing property. I’m too alarmed to hear anything else he says. He makes me promise to never talk to those people ever again. Then he directs me back into the school and into my new homeroom.

“Be careful, and don’t give into peer pressure. This is a big school, and we can’t watch everyone. If we catch you doing anything like this again, you will be punished.” Before the teacher leaves, he says, “be careful.”

Before I can thank him, he’s  already gone. I let out a sigh of relief as I walk in the direction the teacher told me to. I think it’s safe to say I’ll never smoke again. Now I know why people always tell me to never give into peer pressure in a situation like this. Now I know why I shouldn’t. Now I know that things like this can be prevented. The only thing I don’t know is why I did this. I wish I didn’t.

-Michaela DeFrancisco