Today is going to be yet another confusing, tumultuous day: my first day of high school.

Well, okay, that’s a bit of a joke. I’m sure it’s not going to be that different from junior high. Just a bigger school with more assholes to deal with. Harder schoolwork, though it’s nothing I can’t deal with. Marching band is a thing now, but to be fair that’s already been a thing for the past few weeks thanks to boot camp.

“Today’s a big day for you, how are you feeling?” my mom asks me, interrupting my train of thought.

I quit looking out the window of the car and look to her. Ah, my mother. If it weren’t for my different facial structure I’d almost be a clone of her. We have the same eyes, the same general lanky stature, and the same red hair. This is a good thing for me, because that also means I didn’t inherit my dad’s poor eyesight.

“You feeling nervous?” my mom asks, apparently misinterpreting my silence.

“No,” I say quickly.

“It’s okay if you are, you know,” she says. “You’re going from being the top of the pack, to the bottom. Now you’re going to have to compete with those upperclassmen.”

This isn’t true. Well, it is true that I have to compete with the upperclassmen, but they’re of no concern to me. Even though I’m just a freshman, I was let into the Symphonic Band, the higher of the two in the high school’s band program. Two other freshman also made it in, one of them being my best friend, Zoe. In her case, it probably helps that she’s the only bassoon player at the school. But still, it’s very impressive.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” my mom says, a hint of teasing in her voice. “You’re being awfully quiet.”

“I’m just thinking about stuff,” I say. I realize that I’m not doing a great job of proving that I’m not nervous and resolve to be less spacey.

We’re approaching the high school, a large red brick building.

“Can you drop me off at the back where the band hall is?” I ask her.

“Yeah, I was planning on it,” she says.

It’s a bit weird figuring out where to pull in with all of the upperclassmen buzzing around looking for parking spots, but eventually she stops right next to a sidewalk that leads directly to where the band hall is.

“Work hard today, Ashley,” my mom says as I open the door to get out.

“I will,” I say, because obviously I will.

I grab my trumpet and my backpack out of the back seat, and then I’m off.

So, I enter the band hall, which thanks to boot camp is about the only part of this school that’s already familiar to me. I look around for a flash of blonde hair, but I don’t see her. So I take the time to put up my instrument.

As I put my combination lock on, I see Mr. Castro, the band director, approaching from my right. He’s a bald, black man who always walks with a spring in his step.

“Good morning Ashley,” he says to me, with a slight bow.

“Mornin’,” I say. He’s probably the only person in the world right now who’s really happy that today is the first day of school. Still, I don’t mind him. From what I’ve seen so far, he’s competent.

Then, I saw someone else approaching, a trombone player named Anja. Big ol’ glasses, medium length brown hair, and an inexplicable smirk. Though she is in the year above me, you’d be forgiven for thinking she was actually younger, as I tower over her by several inches, and her stature is tiny.

“Isn’t that a trumpet? What are you doing with that?” she asks me.

“Jazz band,” I say. (She’s asking because I’m mainly a french horn player.)

“Well, aren’t you a big shot,” she says, and even though it’s true she says it in a sarcastic tone of voice. “Show me your schedule,” she says abruptly, pulling out her own, which had been folded up in her pocket.

“Aren’t you a sophomore?” I ask. “We’re probably going not going to have any classes together.”

“I know,” she says, “I just wanna see if we have lunch together.”

I set my backpack down on a nearby chair and fish out the folder my schedule is in. We didn’t know each other before marching band boot camp. While we were on our lunch breaks, most of the other kids would go home and eat there, also coming back for the afternoon session showered and with a change of clothes. However, there was always a pocket of ten or so kids who sat and ate sack lunches in hallway near the band hall. At some point, Anja randomly started sitting by me and making conversation. I’m pretty sure she only did it because she doesn’t really have any other friends. (Of course, I’d never say that out loud. I’m not that big of a bitch.)

“Awh hell yeah,” she says, “we do have the same lunch! I’m gonna go check Nova’s,” she says, right before suddenly running off.

I spend a few seconds wondering who or what Nova is before my attention is drawn to the one person who I actually did want to talk to this morning.

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There’s Zoe, who had just walked into the band hall and was being greeted by some preppy girl. She’s got floofy blonde hair. Blue eyes. She’s a bit shorter than me, but not as much as Anja, and with more body. Today, she’s wearing a frilled light blue shirt, with sleeves that flutter and hang halfway down her upper arms, and a pair of close-fitting dark blue jeans.

I met her three years ago. I had just moved here from California, and she came up and introduced herself to me during church. Must’ve heard about a girl her age who was also in band. Glad she did. She makes a good study partner.

[And a great friend.]

I make my way for her just as that other girl fucks off, and she waves at me and gives me that sweet, genuine smile of hers.

“How’s it going?” I ask.

“Good!” she says. “Do you know where our first class is?”

We already compared schedules yesterday during church, and we both have first period english together.

“Guess we’ll have to find out,” I say. And so we take off to do just that.

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And three classes and a band rehearsal later, we’re sitting down for lunch.

“What did you think of Ms. Truman?” Zoe asks, Ms. Truman being our new english teacher. “She seems nice.”

“Eh, I don’t really like her,” I say. “Something about her seems off to me. Like she’s a little too happy to see us.”

Then, someone sits down at the table right across from us. Oh yeah, Anja is in this lunch period. I had forgotten about that.

“Hey there Ash,” she says to me. Then, she sees Zoe and extends a hand out to her in greeting. “My name’s Anja. I’m in marching band with her.”

I glance over to Zoe’s face for a hint that she’s annoyed with the sudden interruption, but Zoe is receiving her warmly and shakes her hand. “Nice to meet you!” she says. “I’m Zoe. You’re in the trombone section, right?”

“Sure am,” she says. “I’m… uh…” she suddenly looks at us confused. “I was trying to think of a trombone-related pun, but I couldn’t come up with anything in time.”

Zoe giggles at her. “I’m in the saxophone section,” she says. “Though my main, uh, my primary instrument is bassoon.”

“Ah, yet another multi-instrumena… instruma… mul-ti-in-stru-men-ta-list ,” she says. She grins, and gives me a knowing look that annoys me for some reason.

Then, someone else sits down next to her. It’s a brown boy about Zoe’s height who looks like his hair has never been brushed before. I guess that’ll be Nova.

“Oh, h-hello there!” Zoe says. She’s trying so hard to be friendly, but her confusion at the sudden visitors is starting to show a little bit, as she seems more nervous than before.

“Hey,” Nova says without looking at her.

“This is Nova,” Anja says, gesturing at him. “He’s one of my trombone pals. Nova, this Ashley and… Zoe, right?”

Zoe waved cheerily at him. He’s still not looking at us, and is instead reaching down to his backpack for something. I notice that he doesn’t actually have a lunch tray.

“So, Nova, what’s your story?” I ask him. At this point, I’m not sure what Anja’s playing at by just inviting him to our lunch table.

“What’s my story? ” he asks. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t worry Ash,” Anja says, “he’s with me.” This comment doesn’t actually do anything to soothe my worries.

He pulls something out of his backpack which looks a lot like that Nintendo DS I used to have, except a bit blockier. Must be a new model or something.

He opens up the DS, and I can immediately hear game music coming from the speakers. I decide to use this opportunity to test him.

“Can you turn down that down a little?” I ask him.

He looks startled. “Oh, right. Sorry.” He turns the volume slider all the way down, and the game is silent.

Alright, so he’s just clueless then. I can put up with that. I’m going to hazard a guess that he also maybe isn’t the most popular kid at our school, so as long as he doesn’t deliberately act like an ass I figure I can live with him sitting here.

“So, um, what do you guys think of your first day?” Zoe asks, nervously trying to steer the conversation back on track. “Any teachers you like?”

“Yeah,” Anja says, “my chemistry teacher literally dresses like and acts like a cowboy.”

A cowboy… for some reason, this stirs something in my memory.

Oh yeah, I remember what it is. All that weird shit from last night, with the armadillo. God. That actually happened, didn’t it. I guess I’m going to have to deal with that sooner or later.

Just to make sure that it wasn’t a fever dream, I take my phone out of my pocket, all the while Zoe is saying something about her French teacher that I don’t quite catch. I unlock it, and sure enough, there’s that fucking app. It really is quite an eyesore. Color scheme totally clashes with-

“Hey, what’s that?” Anja says suddenly, looking down at my phone.

I instinctively yank it down out of sight, which may not have been the best move because she’s now glaring at me suspiciously.

“It’s a smart phone, Anja,” I say. “They’re quite popular these days.” She gives me a puzzled look for a while longer, but then the table goes back whatever mundane conversation was happening before.

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The last class of the day is none other than jazz band. I’m in the band on second trumpet. The first trumpet player is some senior who’s a two-time all-stater, which means that next year I’ll be able to get his spot.

Zoe’s also in the band, on saxophone, like she is in marching band. (If you didn’t know, bassoons don’t march. Carrying and playing those monstrosities while sitting down is already difficult enough.) She got interested in playing saxophone after my mom offered to give her lessons. You see, both of my parents are professional musicians.

Today, we just sight-read some fairly simple stuff, but I have hopes that we’ll be getting to some actually challenging repertoire. I may put in a request for the Bob Curnow arrangement of First Circle.

Anyways, after jazz band is over, we have about 30 minutes to scramble and get ready for marching practice out in the parking lot. So right after class is dismissed, I swoop down by Zoe to ask her something that I’ve been meaning to since lunch.

“Hey, Zoe,” I ask her as she’s putting her sax away, “do you mind those two from lunch sitting with us? If you do, I have no problem getting them to leave us alone.” You see, throughout junior high, we sat by ourselves during lunch as a c-... as a pair.

“Oh! No, I don’t mind at all!” she says cheerily. “I think they’re funny!”

Funny. I guess that’s the Zoe way of putting it.

I ask her again, just to see if she actually means it, and then let her go get changed. I don’t actually have to do much to get ready, since I just wore gym shorts underneath some sweatpants today.

I can’t help but to wonder if I should tell Zoe about all of this Metaverse stuff. I mean, on one hand, I’m not sure why I would. But, if you didn’t pick up on this, she’s probably the only person I really trust right now, so if I were to include anyone, it’d be her.

But then, there’s something that Lucy said that worries me. “You can use the UG to change the hearts of wicked people.” If that’s the work I’ve been assigned, maybe it’s best to leave Zoe out of it. She has such a pure heart, and I wouldn’t feel good about getting her involved in that kind of nasty business.

And then again, how would she even react to this news? I don’t think it’s controversial to say that this whole thing is pretty fuckin’ wild. Would she even believe me at all? Would she just be confused? (I mean, I’m still a bit confused on some points myself.) I don’t know. Who knows what goes on in her head?