Chapter 3

I was second-guessing my bravado the next morning as I stood, staring down at the creek. The night before I had pictured vaulting over the creek, my feet skimming across the water. Sticking my crutch into the creek, I realized vaulting was not going to work. If I tried to stick my crutches in the middle of the creek and swing across, my legs would drag ankle-deep through the water.

The only good thing was it had not rained the night before making the ground more solid than yesterday. I ran through options in my head. While my foot did not hurt a lot, banging it on the door of Hanna’s car hurt enough yesterday that the thought of jumping and landing on my broken foot was not going to work. I tested, trying to stretch my good leg across, almost dunking myself in the process. I managed to jam one crutch in at an angle and push myself back upright before I toppled over.

The creek was not actually that wide, only a few inches at most, but it was too wide for me to straddle. If I did not have to worry about a broken foot, I could have just hopped across. The almost bath did give me an idea, though. I threw my backpack and one of the crutches over, sort of like a Viking burning his boat before an invasion. Committed, I leaped across, tucking my injured leg up just in case I subconsciously tried to land on it. I made the leap, but at enough of an angle that I started to topple over backward. Thankfully, I was prepared and stuck crutch into the creek, propping myself up like a lean-to. From that point, all I had to do was leverage myself straight.

My crossing was not the most graceful thing, but it worked. Unfortunately, getting over the creek also took longer than I had planned. Hanna was already standing next to her car, tapping her foot as I came around the side of the house.

“Sorry, getting over the creek was harder than I thought.”

“Fine. Just leave earlier tomorrow. Mom might have said I had to take you but that doesn’t mean I’m okay with you making me late.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Considering all the favors her mom had racked up on my behalf yesterday, I did not want to push my luck. I tried to wipe the bottom of my crutches off on the grass to get off the last of the muck from the creek and then slid them into her back seat, repeating the process from last night, minus the part where I smashed my foot on the door frame.

Neither of us said anything for a while until finally, I could not take the silence anymore.

“So ... ahh ... the Blue Ridge. Were you thinking about going there today or...” I said, letting the sentence trail off.

I did not really want to push, but I could not think of anything else to say.

“Yeah. Mom said to take you up there after school and talk to Chef about getting you a job.”

“Thanks.”

“Yeah.”

Luckily we got to the school a few minutes later, keeping me from having to figure out some other awkward topic of conversation. Hanna pulled into a parking spot and waited, foot-tapping, as I hobbled around to get my crutches out of the back seat. As soon as I had the door shut she hit her key fob and was off.

“Thanks for the ride,” I mumbled at her retreating back.

I set my crutches under my arms and swung myself into the school. My first stop was the office, which was good since I did not know where anything was. An older African-American woman with mostly grey, slightly curly hair and cats eyeglasses that she must have bought around 1950 took my name and told me to have a seat. I watched the clock tick down to the beginning of class, at least based on the introduction packet we had gotten when I enrolled.

A flat, low note sounded over the intercom that I took to be the school bell announcing the beginning of class. I looked up at the woman who took my name, but she did not seem to be bothered by my not being in class yet. Eventually, a man with close brown hair, glasses, and a thick, bushy brown beard stepped out of the door that led back into the school office.

“Charlie Nelson,” he said, reading off a piece of paper.

“Yeah.”

“Come on back.”

He turned and walked back into the office, leaving me to rush to catch up, which is not easy on crutches.

“Your mom called yesterday and explained about the fight and your injury. I understand that the boys involved in the incident also go here.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“I told your mom this already, but I want to make sure you understand as well. Because the incident happened off-campus these boys have not violated any school policies. This means the school cannot discipline them and they will be here in school today. Hanna Philips’s mother also called, and was clear that you weren’t the aggressor in the incident. Both Ms. Philips and your mother assured me that you aren’t a hothead. Can I trust that, if you should run into these boys, we won’t have any problems?”

“Not from my end, no, Sir. I will defend myself if they come after me, though.”

“That’s understandable, but you need to understand we have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to physical altercations. Everyone involved, even if they didn’t throw a punch, will be suspended.”

“That ... that makes no sense. If someone gets beat up and tries to stop it, they get suspended?”

“Yes, district policy is for zero tolerance in a physical confrontation. We tell all of our students that, if they think there is going to be trouble, to immediately run and find a faculty member or the school safety officer.”

While I still thought that was an insane policy, I also knew there was no arguing against this kind of bureaucracy. I might not have experience in schools, but the number of ordinances a club had to deal with to have live music was mind-boggling and some of the actual rules were insanely stupid. This seemed like one of those situations.

“Okay, consider me warned.”

“Good. I have your class schedule and your locker assignment. Your teachers should have your textbooks set aside for you. Get a pass from Mrs. Morgan on your way out. Good luck here at Julian S. Carr High School.”

He did not stand up or even look up as he dismissed me. By the time I stood up and maneuvered my crutches around to his office door, he was already looking at the next thing he needed to deal with. I was not sure what I expected from someone with the title ‘guidance counselor’, but I was pretty sure they should be focused on either guidance or counseling. Mr. Parker, according to his nameplate, was much closer to a harried administrator. I would put money on him being one of the ‘this place would be great if it weren’t for all the kids,’ types.

I looked at my schedule as I walked out of the front office into the hallway, and realized I had absolutely no idea where I was going. First on my schedule was History with Mr. Bryant in room 163. I did not have a clue where room 163 was. Since the first class had already started, the halls were deserted. To my left was an open area that I was pretty sure was the cafeteria. The school was two-story, which meant that room 163 could be anywhere.

I opened the glass door to the office and, when Mrs. Morgan looked up, I asked: “Where’s room 163?”

She gave me winding directions that seemed like it should double back on itself and went back to whatever she was working on behind the desk. I had met two members of the school staff, and both seemed bothered to have to help students.

I wandered my way through the halls, looking at the room numbers as I tried to follow her directions. The numbering system was a mystery, counting up in one part of a hallway only to drop to an earlier number and start counting up again when you turned a corner, or stop and start a new set of numbers seemingly at random. After three hallways, I was pretty sure whoever labeled these rooms just picked the numbers out of a bag at random.

Thankfully, Mrs. Morgan was helpful in her disinterested way, and I found my way to my first class. I stopped in front of the closed door, unsure of what to do. Should I knock? Should I just open the door and walk-in?

There was a strip of glass on one side, and I watched as a fairly beefy man with a shaved head walked from the center of the room towards the door, still speaking. He pulled the door and looked down at me.

“Yes?”

“I’m supposed to be in this class. I was in the office. I have a note.”

I held up the pass Mrs. Morgan had given to me as I spoke. The man, who I assumed was Mr. Bryant, pulled the note out of my hand with a grumble. After looking at the note for a second, his head snapped back up, and his eyes narrowed. If I had not read the hall pass, I would have assumed it had something offensive written on it based on the way he glared at me. After a very long second of holding his glare, Mr. Bryant stepped back and pointed towards an empty desk.

“Sit.”

I could not imagine how I had managed to piss off the first teacher I had met in the school before even walking in the door, but it seemed pretty clear I had. I found my desk as he shut the door and walked back to the front of the room, where he had been lecturing when I interrupted.

“As I was saying, for the project, you will split into teams of three. I expect every member of the team to participate in your final project, which will be presented the week of finals. Each member must take part in the oral presentations. Don’t think one of you can avoid getting in front of the class in exchange for writing up the presentation.”

The noise in the room picked up a little bit as people started whispering to each other, trying to get their groups together.

“Quiet. We aren’t picking our groups now. You can do that outside of class. Mr. Nelson, since you missed yesterday and were late today, I’m afraid you missed out on the opportunity to join someone else’s group. You will work on this project by yourself.”

“What? I thought everyone was supposed to pick their groups after class. How am I too late if they haven’t even picked yet?” I said, my mouth running off before my brain could stop it.

“You’re late because you can’t show the courtesy of showing up to class on time. If you think that’s unfair, I could go ahead and mark you down as a zero now, and save you the effort!”

I looked around, not believing what I was hearing. I may be new to public schools, but there was no way this was normal. The looks on the other student’s faces suggested I was not wrong. I wanted to tell him this was bullshit, and I would talk to the front office about it; but, while I did not have experience with teachers, I did know his type. He would not hesitate to follow through with his threat if I challenged his authority in front of the class.

“No, Sir.”

“Good. Now, open your textbooks to the first chapter. I...”

He stopped, staring at me as my hand slowly went up.

“I don’t have a textbook.”

“Then maybe next time you shouldn’t miss the first day. I won’t allow your inability to follow the rules get in the way of the other student’s lesson time. You can collect your book after class.”

He went back into his lecture, ignoring me. Luckily, his teaching style seemed to be just reading the textbook back to students. Coupled with what I knew from history books over the years, I did not feel entirely lost. I took notes over as much of what he said out loud as possible, planning on checking it against the text when I finally got a textbook.

The single toned bell sounded, and everyone began packing up their books. I slid my supplies back into my backpack and walked over to his desk.

He pulled out a piece of paper and a textbook and shoved them at me, not saying anything.

“Mr. Bryant, about the project...”

“Did you come to get your textbook, or tell me that you decided to take that zero?”

“I came for the textbook, but I wanted to try and say why I had to go to the office this morning and missed yesterday. I’m sure if I could explain...”

“I don’t care about explanations. I care about you following the rules. Now, I have another class to teach.”

He pointed at the door, just in case I had missed the signs that I was not going to get to explain myself. My next class was math. Thankfully, the hallways were full of people this time, making getting directions a lot easier.

My math class was taught by an older lady who was actually normal. She handed me my book before class started, and did not lay into me about being late. Unfortunately, her attitude is where things stopped going right. I had never liked math, and Mom had allowed me to push it off in favor of other subjects more often than she probably should have. My slacking in math did not seem a big deal until the class was handed a non-graded quiz the teacher could use to see if everyone had the concepts from the year before that would be built upon.

I only managed to answer ten of the twenty questions. There were concepts I either did not recognize at all or that I did recognize, but could not remember for the life of me how to actually work the problem. Nothing became clearer when she went over the answers after everyone finished. She may have been nicer than Mr. Bryant, but I was pretty sure I was more screwed in this class than his. There, I at least understood the subject matter.

I was happy to see the next class on my schedule was English. Unlike math, where apparently I am really far behind what’s expected of a high school sophomore, I felt really comfortable with language arts. Things got even better when the teacher turned out to not have some kind of unexplained hate for me. I did get a little worried when the teacher started assigning partners for an assignment. These kids had, for the most part, attended school together since they were little while I knew no one aside from Hanna, who was several grades above me.

Thankfully, my partner turned out to be a cute girl named Rhonda. She was short with shoulder-length brown hair wearing hip-hugging jeans and a t-shirt that came very close to breaking the no bare midriff rule. Her face still had a little baby fat giving her slightly chipmunk cheeks, which actually worked to make her even cuter.

“Hi, I’m Charlie,” I said as we turned our desks around to face each other.

“I know, she just said our names.”

“Yeah, but we’ve never met, so I thought I should introduce myself.”

“Ha! A boy with manners! That’s new.”

“We’re very rare. Seeing one of us is like seeing Bigfoot.”

“You realize I’m going to call you Bigfoot from now on, right?

“Shit.”

She giggled and said, “You didn’t think that through.”

“Nope. In my defense, my brain goes kinda mushy around cute girls.”

“Nice try, but I’m still going to call you Bigfoot.”

“It was worth a shot. Let’s get to work.”

The assignment itself was easy, and Rhonda and I worked well together, finishing the assignment before the other groups. Rhonda turned out to have a fairly wicked sense of humor while not being mean, which was a good combination. I tried giving her my best lines, but I did not have a lot of experience flirting with someone my own age since most of the girls I had hung around in the past were other musicians playing clubs with my dad. While that did make my game a little amateurish, it had allowed me to get over any shyness around girls. I had spent the better part of my youth hanging out with rocker chicks, who did not mind having a kid around backstage as much as most of the guys did. I’d heard the most ridiculous passes at them from guys over the years and the occasional line that worked. My upbringing might not have been the ideal socialization, but it did make me comfortable talking to new people and kept me from being intimidated by pretty girls. I hoped my confidence, or at least lack of fear, made up for any slack in my game. When the bell rang and we went our separate ways, I hoped we would end up paired again.

I was in a good mood as I walked into the cafeteria and then I stopped cold. This was another new experience for me. The first thing I noticed as I exited the hallway that led into the cafeteria, was the wall of sound. It was loud. Not standing next to a speaker loud or even yelling lead singer loud, but a constant din of noise produced by a hundred conversations.

There were people everywhere. Some already sitting, some inline getting food, and some just milling about. As I walked towards the lunch line, I tried to figure out where I was supposed to sit. There were not any empty tables, and everyone seemed to know where they should be sitting.

While lunch looked to be some kind of burrito, I was on the school lunch assistance program. Mom had shown me what I was supposed to do before the year started after we got signed up. Kids on the program did not get the normal lunch. Instead, they got a special lunch for kids who were either on the program or had too much lunch debt to be allowed to buy anything.

This special lunch turned out to be a brown bag with a plain baloney sandwich, an apple, and a bottle of water. Even compared to the not that appetizing looking burritos I saw on people’s plates, this lunch was sad. My sad lunch was, however, all I was going to get.

I found an empty spot at the end of one of the tables and sat down to eat. While I ate I watched the lunchroom, trying to work everything out. I’d expected people to split off into groups, but it surprised me how obvious it was, to the point where I could make guesses as to what some of the groups were. The sports kids were the easiest to pick out, since most were in letterman jackets which helpfully told me which sport they played. The girls at their table all seemed to fit a type too, my best guess being that they were cheerleaders.

Other tables were filled with kids whose styles marked them out. Kids in cowboy getup, a fairly small group of Goth kids, and a table of ratty kids with greasy hair and glazed over eyes. There were other groups I couldn’t work out, since they were dressed normally, and nothing they did stood out as a stereotype. I did notice Rhonda at one table surrounded by fairly well dressed girls, all talking animatedly to each other.