Tyler rubbed his eyes slowly, trying his best to get the thudding pain pushing against them to ease up. He had taken three Aspirin before he left home, but they did not even begin to touch the fire burning in his skull. He reached into his backpack and got his sunglasses. It was a cold, rainy day, and he was pretty sure he would not see the sun at all, but he needed to turn the brightness down a little. In his mind, he could almost see the little bar at the bottom of a television screen, and he willed the notch to move to the left.

“Late night?”

Tyler lifted his head off the headrest and looked at the man driving the car.

“No,” he said. His voice sounded a bit rough, and he cleared his throat. “No. I didn’t get much sleep last night. I’m just a little nervous.”

“Big day today?” the man asked.

“I’m new in town,” Tyler answered. “This is my first day at this school.”

The man nodded, and began talking about how he was always nervous on his first day of blah, blah, blah. The only thing Tyler hated about riding in a taxi was small talk. The smell and the filth of sitting in the same backseat as a million other passengers were bearable. It was the constant chatter that he hated.

Tyler would not normally be in a taxi. Most of the time, he would either drive himself unless he was in a new city, which happened a lot. If he was unsure of where to go, his father would have one of his drivers take him where he needed to go. His cars were not as fancy as you would imagine. They were usually either a late model town car of some sort. His father hated limos, and he refused to buy anything that was not made in America.

Today he was in a taxi because he was going to a new school. Tyler’s father was an investor with interests in several museums all over the world. Over the past six years, they lived in four of the biggest cities in the world. London, New York, Tokyo, and Atlanta. Last year his father got involved in a group opening large exhibits in smaller cities. That led them here, but there were no private schools within fifty miles of Birmingham, Alabama. 

That suited Tyler. He hated going to school with a bunch of rich, spoiled brats, even though he realized he was one of them. His father hated putting his son into a public school and promised it would not be long before they were on to something else.

Tyler decided that it did not matter. Public school might be a nice change of pace. He hoped he could at least meet some people his age that cared about more than how much money everyone else’s parents were worth. But he also knew that if he wanted to make any friends at all, he had better not show up for his first day of school in a town car with one of his father’s drivers behind the wheel. He didn’t know enough about the city to drive himself, so a taxi was the next best thing.

The car pulled up to the curb outside the school, and Tyler looked at the rain pounding on the window, and the puddles forming on the sidewalk. He sighed as he pulled his wallet out of the pocket of his jeans.

“How much is it?” he asked the driver.

“Seven fifty,” the man said. He sounded a little put out, and Tyler guessed he had realized he had not been listening to him for the past several miles. It was enough to make Tyler feel a little bad but not enough to warrant an apology. That would probably make it a little more awkward.

“Seven dollars and fifty cents?” Tyler asked. “That’s not a whole lot for an eight-mile trip.”

The driver chuckled. “I forgot you said you was from outta town. We don’t do dollars in Birmingham. We got the credits. Comes out to ’bout twenty-three bucks.”

Tyler sighed. He was used to Atlanta, where they were still doing both. Smaller cities like Birmingham had been easier to roll over to the new system.

The credit system started a couple of years ago, but it takes time to get an entire planet to accept the same currency. He had not had his money transferred since getting to town. He hoped his father had put some credits on his account for him. 

Tyler pulled his driver’s license out of his wallet and handed it to the driver who swiped it through the machine mounted on the dashboard. Instantly, the image from Tyler’s government file was displayed on the little screen. Beside it was his name and a green light with the word “Accepted” written on it. Tyler let out a little breath. His father thought of everything.

“Alright, Bud,” the driver said. “You’re good to go. Welcome to Birmingham. Good luck to ya.”

Tyler let a slight smile pass through the haze of pain pounding through his head and stepped out of the taxi.

Before he could get two feet from the curb, his hair was already a soaking mess. He pulled his umbrella from his backpack and opened it. A gust of wind nearly pulled it from his hands as he got another grasp on it. This time he clutched it like he was welding a Samurai sword. 

The wind was blowing hard enough that the rain seemed to come from the side. Tyler was tempted to turn the umbrella toward the wind and use it more like a shield, but he decided it would not be a good idea. He was not sure how many people might be watching from the school windows. He held his umbrella above his head and got soaked.

He finally reached the front door and stepped into the main hallway. Umbrellas and raincoats were lining the wall, dripping the morning rain all over the linoleum floor. A “Wet Floor” sandwich board sign was standing in the middle of the floor, and he guessed a janitor with a mop would be there within a few minutes. Tyler closed his umbrella and propped it along the wall with the others.

“Are you Tyler McDawn?”

Tyler had been in the middle of adjusting the collar on his raincoat when he heard his name. It took a second for him to register. He had not expected anyone at this school to know who he was. He looked up and saw a young girl leaning against the wall. She looked to be about fourteen and had blonde hair down to her shoulder with a dark streak of black right where it parted. She was thin, wearing a pair of skinny jeans and a sweatshirt with a panther, the school mascot, emblazoned across the front.

“I’m sorry?” Tyler asked.

The girl chuckled. “I asked you if you were Tyler McDawn?”

“Uh, yeah,” he replied, adjusting his backpack onto his shoulder. “Yeah, I am.”

“I’m Donna,” the girl said. “I’m on the welcome committee. I’m supposed to welcome you to Western Heights High.”

Tyler looked around and smiled. It was just the two of them in the hallway. It was not the biggest of welcoming committees.

“You’re the welcoming committee?” he asked.

“No,” she replied. “I’m on the committee. There were two other girls here a few minutes ago. You’re kind of late.”

Tyler pulled his phone out of his pocket and glanced at it. “The rain slowed me down. But it’s only three minutes after eight.”

“School starts fifteen minutes before eight,” she said, laughing. “It’s no big deal. Mrs. Edwards told me to hang out for a few minutes to see if you showed.” She made a gesture in his direction. “You did.”

Tyler smiled. “I did. Thanks for waiting. What happens now?”

“Well, I’m supposed to take you to the office to get your schedule and then take you to your first class.”

Tyler gestured down the hall. “After you.”

__________

They walked down the hall past a series of posters advertising a car wash fundraiser for the cheerleading squad, a bake sale for the debate club, and a menu of the cafeteria lunches for the entire month. The school was nice, even though it was not as fancy as the schools he was used to attending. If he had walked this far down a school corridor in the past, he would have already passed a lounge, a huge library, a theater, and a cafe. So far, he had seen a few classrooms, two banks of blue lockers, and the restroom. He could see a sign at the end of the hall leading to an auditorium.

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“How many kids are in this school?” Tyler asked.

“I dunno,” Donna replied. “Three or four hundred, I guess.”

“Really?” Tyler said. “That’s not that many.”

“This side of town is mostly businesses and stuff,” she said. “Most people live over on the east side, or out in the suburbs. There are schools out there, too.”

“What grade are you in?” Tyler asked.

“I’m a freshman,” she replied. “You’re a senior?”

“Junior,” he said.

“I’m a teacher’s aide in Mr. Eldrige’s fifth-period class,” Donna said. “That’s a junior algebra class. Maybe you’ll be in it.”

“Maybe,” he said. “I took junior algebra last semester, but I’m not sure if the credit will carry over.”

Donna looked confused. He had forgotten what it was like to be a freshman. All that talk of credits and semesters went over your head the first year of high school. She would not start to comprehend all of it until next year.

They came to the office, which was further from the front door than he thought it would be. Tyler had always imagined public schools as having guards at the door and bars on all the windows. He had seen a few too many movies.

They walked inside an office that struck Tyler as small. They were in a small reception area with a desk that had a young red-haired lady behind it. She was on the phone and indicated she would be with them in a moment with a finger. The call was not business related since she was telling the person on the other end of the line about what kind of salad she had eaten for lunch the day before, and what kind she was planning to have today. 

Other than the reception desk, the room was filled with a couple of chairs and filing cabinets. On the opposite wall, there was a Norman Rockwell print of a young boy sitting outside of an office much like this one. The boy had a big purple black eye and a huge grin on his face, and the title written at the bottom of the print was “The Shiner”.

The young lady that liked to eat salad for lunch hung up the phone and glanced at them before turning her attention to her computer. “May I help you?” she asked.

“Ms. Lacey,” Donna said turning and motioning toward Tyler. She had her hands completely covered by her shirt sleeves and was grasping them tightly. This was a nervous young girl. “This is Tyler McDawn. Mrs. Edwards said to bring him to the office when he got here.”

“I’ll let her know he’s here,” Ms. Lacey said. “Thank you, Donna. You can run along to class now.”

Ms. Lacey picked up the telephone again and began speaking as Donna nodded and moved back toward the door to the hallway.

“Thanks for the welcome committee, Donna,” Tyler said as she opened the door. “It was nice meeting you.”

“Nice meeting you, too,” she replied shyly. Something about the girl said to Tyler that she did not get a whole lot of thank yous and compliments. She did not seem like she knew how to accept them. 

Donna walked out of the room and closed the door. A second later another door on the other side of the room opened and Mrs. Edwards stepped out of it.

“Mr. McDawn?” the woman asked, looking down at a piece of paper in her hand, glancing up in his direction.

“Yes, ma’am,” Tyler said. “Tyler.”

“Come in my office, please,” she said. She did not seem very happy, and Tyler dreaded getting off on the wrong foot with the school’s principal. He walked into the office with her and sat in the chair she indicated across from her desk.

Betty Edwards was not a short woman. She was a bit shorter than Tyler who, at seventeen, had already nearly reached six feet. She was a black lady with a flat-top hairstyle that had probably gone out about fifteen years ago. But she knew what hairstyle worked for her, and she kept it.

Her office was not large, but it was efficient. There was nothing that seemed out of place. No papers lay strewn across her desk. No books turned the wrong way on the bookcase. A place for everything and everything in its place, as they say.

“First of all, I would like to start by reminding you that the school day begins at 7:45 AM,” she said as she sat down beside her small, but well-cared-for wooden desk. “I believe I mentioned that to your father when he registered you last week.”

“That may be true, Mrs. Edwards,” Tyler responded. “I apologize for being late. My father has a lot going on with the new exhibits opening at his museum this week. I’m lucky that he took the time to register me at all. If he could have left it up to me, then he probably would have.”

“Your father is a busy man,” the principal said as she looked over something on her computer screen. Tyler supposed that she had his file up in front of her. “He owns a museum?”

“He doesn’t own it. He’s an investor and works as curator for several museums,” Tyler said. “The one here in Birmingham is his newest one. It’s also the biggest one that he’s ever built.”

“Why would he choose to build it here?” she asked. “We’re not a large city like New York or Los Angeles. We already have an art museum.”

“Well, the new one is a museum of natural history,” Tyler replied. “He’s starting to get into a phase of giving access to things people haven’t had before. I guess this city hasn’t had a way to see a lot of historical artifacts or works of art. He’s big into education. That’s why he’s always had me in the best schools.”

“Until now,” Mrs. Edwards said, the slightest hint of a scowl crossing her face.

“I’m sorry?” Tyler asked.

“You were about to say that your father has always had you in the best schools until now.”

Here it comes, Tyler thought. He was used to it. People expected him to be a snob or well-to-do jerk everywhere he went just because his father had a lot of money. Tyler did not think of himself that way. While it was true that he was used to having pretty much anything he wanted available to him, he always thought of himself as being normal. 

After all, it was not his money. It was his father’s. But, then again, he had never had to live in a lower-income home, so as far as he knew he may actually be a well-to-do jerk.

“I wasn’t going to say that,” Tyler said. He felt his pulse speed up a bit.

“Mr. McDawn,” Mrs. Edwards said, and Tyler could tell this time that she was not happy. “I have been the principal of this school for six years. I was the vice principal for three years before that. And before that, I taught nearly every class we offer. I hand-picked every teacher in this building, and I review all of the curricula taught to my students. I can assure you that even though this is a public school, the education given here is just as good, if not better, than the one provided by your Ivy League private schools.”

“I wasn’t trying to…,” he started, but she began again.

“And while we’re on the subject of your past education, let’s talk for a minute about Trailwood Academy in New York.”

Tyler sighed. He was starting to wish that his father was here. He was usually too busy to deal with things like this, but he had a way of talking to people that eased the tension.

“Yes, ma’am?” Tyler replied.

“Were you expelled from that school?” she asked.

“I was,” Tyler said. “But I wasn’t given a fair chance to tell my side of the story.”

“All it says on your record is that you were in an altercation with another student, and there was a knife involved,” she said.

“I know,” Tyler said. “May I tell you what actually happened?” Mrs. Edwards nodded and leaned back in her chair. “Two guys got into a fight. It wasn’t anyone I knew. It was just a couple of freshmen fighting over a girl or something. They started yelling at each other in the hall, and a whole group of people gathered around and started trying to get them to fight. One of them jumped on the other, and they started crawling around on the floor, beating each other. One of them got hit pretty hard, and there was some blood. I jumped in to try and break it up.”

“And one of them had a knife,” Mrs. Edwards said as if she knew the rest of the story.

Tyler nodded. “It wasn’t a big one. Just a little pocket knife. But he stabbed me right here.” He pointed to a space between his third and fourth rib on his right side. “The doctor said that if it had been my other side, it would have hit my heart and killed me.”

Mrs. Edward drummed her fingers on the top of her desk for several seconds. She looked at Tyler and then back to the information on her computer screen. She picked up a pen and made a note on the paper in front of her.

“Why would you be expelled for that?” she asked.

“The school had a zero-tolerance policy for fighting,” he replied. “They just said I should have let the staff handle it.”

“Well,” she said. “That’s more information than I could find in your file. But I also haven’t been able to find anything different from what you just told me. I talked with your father last week. I like him. He seems a bit eccentric and spends a lot of time studying history. He may not have a very good grasp on how things work in the real world…outside of history books.”

“You’re right about him,” Tyler replied.

“However,” Mrs. Edwards said. “He did tell me the same story you just did, and I’m inclined to believe him. You have to understand that it took a lot of meditation on the subject before I agreed to let you attend this school. When I heard about your altercation, I almost sent a notice of protest to the school board immediately. There hasn’t been an incident of violence in this school since I took over as principal, and I wasn’t about to let you be the one to break that streak.”

Tyler looked from the woman and down to his hands that were lying, clasped together, in his lap. “You don’t have to worry about that, Mrs. Edwards,” he said. “I’ve never liked violence. But, I can tell you, that experience had an effect on me. I’ve been seeing a counselor for the past few months since it happened. The threat of violence sends me into a panic.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Mrs. Edwards replied. “At least you’re dealing with it well. I’ve seen your transcripts, and your grades are very good. You seem to have a good head on your shoulders. So, I’m going to say welcome to you. I hope you enjoy our school.” She stood up and held out her hand. Tyler stood and accepted it with a handshake.

“Thank you,” he said. “I’m sure I will.”