Okay, so the axeman dream stopped. Instead, I was gifted with nothing but a black void. That void being my racing thoughts. I stared up at the ceiling, waiting for the grueling hour of five o’clock. I hid my phone under the pillow to make myself fall asleep. It backfired, of course.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

I pulled my covers over my head. Even if I didn’t fall asleep, I felt like I was forced awake during an Advil PM daze. After thirty seconds of torture, the beeping seized.

A familiar scent of body wash and breakfast filled my room from the hall. That kinda distracted from my aching tire. My phone fell on the floor during my daze. I almost forgot what day it was until I accidentally kicked my clothes onto the floor. The ones I picked out last night. All with stickers and tags stuck to them.

“Screw off,” I muttered to myself and “pointed a finger”. Once I realized I flipped off my own clothes, I knew it would be a long morning.

I slid out of bed and trudged to the lamp. My eyes burned from it like a vampire.

“I said zip it!”

I yanked the clothes off the floor and looked around.

Finally, after two weeks of living at the new place, I unpacked all my stuff. Organized into the perfect mess. Clothes stuck out of my tall dresser where the old TV sat. My computer desk stood near a corner with posters of singers and a 4th grade honor roll certificate on the wall. I wanted to give it to Andy just in case he doesn’t get an honor roll this year. What would people think about me having an NSYNC poster above my bed?

I shuffled to the bathroom—the bright, white bathroom. I figured out the hot water, so I could take a normal shower. I got dressed immediately so I wouldn’t have to later. Same letterman jacket from a couple weeks ago, only I wore white jeans this time. I considered wearing an earring, but threw it away.

That gave me about an hour and ten minutes to mess around and get my stuff together.

In the kitchen, Mom poured coffee into her mug. She scraped some eggs out of the pan and onto Andy’s plate. Chucky sat in his lap wearing a pajama shirt around him as a blanket. Andy’s smile brightened the room and brought one to my face.

“Morning, A,” I ruffled his hair.

“Good morning!” he cheered. “Are you excited?”

“Not really.”

“Is fourth grade fun? Is East fun? What’s my teacher’s name again?”

“Osborne. She’s super fun. You’ll love her.”

I opened the fridge and pulled out a container of strawberries. They tasted good on peanut butter toast.

Back in my room, I pulled my new bookbag out of the closet. With another night without sleep, I might actually eat the weird packet inside it. The bag was really beefy for a first day: two binders, three notebooks, a pencil pouch, and the book I was reading. How does that work? I pulled out the extra binders and notebooks before I put it on.

That stupid Throw Away box still sat there next to my trash can. I had sealed the top with five long strips of duct tape before we moved. I wanted to tape it more, but it’d just be decoration at that point.

6:30 and the bus would arrive in five minutes. I leaned on the mailbox. Griffin walked over, upright and awake like he woke up in paradise. He wore a red and black flannel and cuffed blue jeans. His hair was tied in a ponytail.

“Morning,” he said.

“Hey, Griff.” I yawned.

“Remember, you don’t have to remember where all your classes are right away. It took me three weeks to remember mine… that’s a lot of remembering.”

“I know, but what if I’m late by, like, twenty minutes?”

“Just follow me. The school’s not that big.”

A loud engine roared from down the street, left of us. Bright red lights shimmered through the foggy air. The tall, yellow bus charged and stopped right in front of Griffin. My heart sank just seeing the doors open.

“Bye-bye, Blaine!” Andy had opened the door and called to me. “See ya after school!”

I hadn’t been up school bus stairs in a while, and I wasn’t missing much. The lights were on and made the bus look like a comfy diner. The seats were empty besides a girl listening to music and a boy with a skateboard.

I followed Griffin to the back of the bus, second to last row. The bus seemed brand new with black leather seats. Griffin gave me the window seat while he sat on the aisle and threw his bookbag on the floor in the aisle. I saw Andy and Mom shrink away as the bus drove forward.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Now I only had school to worry about.

I had already seen pictures of the school: big with two stories and windows seemingly everywhere. I think Griffin could sense my fear, since he leaned over and told me the second floor had no classrooms. Trees engulfed it and East Caedispear Elementary across the street. They were both entirely made of red bricks.

The bus parked behind the school next to the others, in a sloping line.

Griffin and I squeezed through the aisle, along with other students, and stepped off.

I stood on the wet pavement. Students flooded the parking lot. My eyes fell wide open. My ears tuned to every conversation around me so much that it sounded like gargling lava and rushing rivers. My heart pounded.

“Blaine, it’s okay.” Griffin put his arm around me. “We both have Mr. Mercier first. You’ll be fine.”

We finally made it inside. The center of it was a cozy square atrium with red columns in each corner. Posters covered the walls. The ceiling was low, with another high ceiling existing in the middle of it, like a tunnel. Far across from us were cafeteria doors. The amber sunrise washed the floor in orange from a giant window, which seemed to be the only one in sight. Were all the windows I saw on the outside fake or something?

“Homeroom!” a teacher yelled. “Go to homeroom, first, everybody!”

The hallway leading to Mercier’s class was wide, and identical to the others. The lockers were bronze brown.

The desks were in groups of four with packets in the middle. The teacher’s desk sat to the left of the enormous blackboard, with the SMARTBoard in front of it. Small bulletin boards of math equations cross every wall. Math textbooks filled the top of the heater by the stuffed bookshelf.

I could appreciate the deep blue carpet; the room was beautiful.

Everyone pushed and shoved each other for a desk in the back. Griffin and I claimed our seats before we suffocated in the mass of students.

The late bell rang.

Our desk group looked sparse until a girl sat across from us. She threw her bookbag in the empty chair next to her. She had dark skin and long, crimped black hair. She wore a choker, a skull shirt, black leggings, and tall platform boots. Sucking her teeth, she took out her phone.

I leaned forward. “Mandy?”

She glanced up. With a weak smile, she waved. “Hi.”

Worth a shot. Even though most of the faces in the class looked familiar, the three year gap I had with them made them total strangers. Mandy always had a dark soul, but it was more intense now. The others… they were unknown. And there I was, unchanged and not adjusted to the bright lights of a small classroom.

A tall, sharp teacher burst through the door. His long coat trailer behind him, like just came in from a winter storm. And messy black hair to match. His snow-gray eyes glared at the class. He pointed to the blackboard.

“Can you not read?” he said in a low voice. “Do NOT sit down until I say so. I will be asking everybody’s name. When I call you, say ‘here’. If not, tell me. Everyone in this class also has Algebra II for first block, so don’t bother making excuses to leave.”

He went through a list on his clipboard, last names from A to Z.

“… AJ Butler?”

“Here!” someone called.

“… Blaine Bi-theh-sia?”

“I-It’s bithersee. And I’m here.”

“Good.”

He continued down the list. “…Mandy Marshall?”

“I’m here,” said the girl in front of us.

“I suggest putting your phone away. Let’s start the year on a positive note this time.”

Mandy stuffed her phone into her bookbag. She crossed her legs and arms.

“This year I heard is going to be very different,” Mercier explained. “We’ve added some new programs that we previously lacked. It should raise participation amongst the student body.”

“Why is he telling us this?” Griffin leaned into the center of the group.

“Imagine having him for ninth and tenth grade,” Mandy whispered. “I swear he’s following me.”

“I like him.”

The bell rang. I guess homeroom was over. I sank deeper into my chair.

“I wanna cry,” I huffed.

“It’s okay,” Griffin patted my shoulder. “It’s not all this sterile. You can join some clubs soon. I was the sophomore class representative last year.”

He reached for the packets in the middle of the desks. “See? What did I say? There’s a whole list of things you can join… in October. And you need A’s and B’s.”

“Hey, Mercier?” a girl asked. “Can I still change my schedule?”

“You don’t like me?” Mercier sneered.

Her fake smile turned to a disappointed frown. She had wavy black hair with blond tips and caramel skin. She wore a tan hoodie with colorful dots and triangles all over it, and cherry red jeans.

“I-I don’t want Public Health… It has nothing to do with Algebra, I promise.”

“Nice try. Ask your counselor next block.”

“Oh, please.”

“That’s enough, Solana!”

She slouched and took a sip from her clear pink thermos.