Sometimes it takes a while to get to know a person before you can tell what they’re like, but he was easy to read. He was a collector of information.
I could tell by the way he made small talk with the old woman behind the front desk, asked about her kids, and took a handful of mints from the jar on the counter and casually stuffed them into his pocket. She smiled at him, and just as he was turning to leave, I saw him take the wad of gum out of his mouth and stick it under the counter.
Then he led me into the hall.
“So you’ll need to pick up your PE uniform, and then you have bio, right?” he asked.
I nodded. There was a well-practiced laziness to the way he walked, like he was moving quickly but didn’t care enough to be in a hurry. He pointed out a few buildings along the way and then gestured to a door off the side of the gym.
“I’ll be out here when you’re done,” he said.
But when I came out with my gym clothes, he was gone. Can’t say I was surprised. Not that I was unpopular or anything at my last school, but this guy just had a look about him like he was going to ditch me at the first opportunity. If I had to guess, I think he was disappointed that I don’t look like someone he could easily manipulate.
I was kind of screwed because I had no idea where I was going. Classes hadn’t started yet, so I was about to head back to the school office to get a map when a girl came out of a room to my left carrying a roll sheet marked for the office. She stopped in front of me with a quizzical look on her face.
“Are you lost?” she asked.
“I think so,” I said, taking a second to register the fact that she was tiny, but also really pretty in an angry-hummingbird sort of way. She moved quickly with short, rapid, no-nonsense steps, but there was something graceful about her, too.
“Didn’t they assign you an ambassador?” she asked, adjusting her glasses.
“Yeah, Ian Stone. But he—”
“Ditched you,” she said, nodding. “Yeah, he does that. What’s your first class?”
“Biology.”
“This way,” she said, leading me through a courtyard and up a flight of stairs. I stuffed my gym clothes into my backpack and followed her.
“So why is he like that?”
She looked at me like I’d just asked her the dumbest question she’d ever heard in her life. “His family makes huge donations to the school. All his brothers went here.”
“So he’s basically a legacy douche?” I asked. A smile flickered across her face.
“Something like that. Also, some people don’t need a reason to be jerks. It comes naturally.”
“Not to everyone,” I whispered under my breath.
“Most people suck,” she said, hearing me. “This is you.” She nodded toward the door in front of us, but she was gone before I even had the chance to say thank you or get her name.
I wasn’t the last one in the room, so it wasn’t as awkward as it could’ve been when I sat down next to an impossibly pale guy with white knee-high socks. He was meticulously clean. His fingernails, his clothes, his skin. Everything about him was blindingly white, like he’d been dipped in Clorox. He immediately introduced himself as Dwight Olberman.
Once he’d said it, I knew he could have no other name. A stranger could have named him at the hospital, and that would have been the name they picked for him. I know Adam isn’t the coolest name, either, but to be named Dwight and to really have it suit you—that’s unfortunate. I think I’d go by my middle name in that case. Unless it’s Cletus or something.
When we took roll, the nun at the front didn’t make me stand up and say a few things about myself, which was nice of her. The rest of the class just turned around and stared for a minute when my name was called. Then we were split into groups of two to summarize key points from the first chapter.
Dwight was my lab partner, and he had the unmistakable look of someone who tried too hard to make a good first impression. He reminded me a little of a golden retriever. It turns out we are in almost every class together. And he doesn’t. Stop. Talking. Ever.
He walked with me to my next three classes, and my noncommittal nods and grunts of agreement did not dissuade him from continuing his running dialogue. It was white noise after a while.
Anyway, to answer one of your questions, yes, new places are tricky because I have no frame of reference. The lady in the yellow dress walking to her car with a stack of paperwork looks perfectly normal until the papers fly out of her arms and circle her body like a flock of doves. I mean, that’s probably not real.
The presence of nuns and crucifixes in every room definitely makes this different from my last school. And if we pretend my ass wasn’t eating my uniform shorts at every opportunity, then yes, I’d say it’s been a fairly normal first couple of days. It makes me miss wearing jeans to school. Mostly because these are serious wedgies that involve discreet rectal archaeology, and it’s nearly impossible to do this without being observed by someone. Luckily, I think most people ignore it because they’re trying to pull their own underwear out of their crack as well.
The rest of the classes that day were a blur. If you’re not going to do anything valuable during the first week, then why am I here? I wish there was some way I could tell teachers to get back to me when they’re not going to waste my time. Also could’ve done without the get-acquainted-with-the-library bullshit.
Gym was an adventure. That was the second-to-last hour of every day this week. On the first day, Coach Russert did a timed mile run. I’m not in terrible shape or anything, but I typically don’t run anywhere. Dwight tried to strike up a conversation during the whole ordeal, which was mostly annoying but a little impressive as well. I’ve never met anyone so committed to speaking nonstop.
“You play any sports? Basketball?” he asked. Basketball makes sense. I’m more than a head taller than all the other kids, so walking down the hall is a little bit like walking among the Munchkins in Oz.
“Nope,” I said.
“This your first year at a Catholic school?”
“Yep.”
“You miss your old school?” he asked.
“Nope,” I said.
I wasn’t trying to be an asshole. I just didn’t want to vomit during the run, and one-word answers seemed safest. A couple other kids had already thrown up off to the side of the track, and one guy who wasn’t paying attention slid in it and landed on his back. Some girl took out her phone and took a picture before having it confiscated. A whole summer of no physical activity definitely takes its toll.
Dwight actually wasn’t the worst person to run with. He made the whole thing less painful because he kept my mind off how much I hate running. Like, really hate it. I would prefer to do almost anything else. The girl who’d rescued me earlier had already lapped us and finished her mile. It was impressive to watch her move. Even with her short little legs, she’d practically flown around the track. She disappeared a second later, but not before Dwight told me her name. Maya.