The Secret of Lentra High: Freshman Year

Getting to Lentra: Brandon

Three hours of driving, one two-hour plane ride, and forty-five minutes of riding in a rented car - that’s what it took for me to get to Lentra. It had been about three hours since I’d hugged my mom good-bye in that Chicago airport and I was already worried sick about her. To be honest, though, I’d started worrying before I even got on the plane.

When I’m at home, I usually take care of a lot of the house-work - cooking, cleaning; sometimes I even help with getting all the bills paid on time. Now that I was leaving, I worried a lot about Mom being able to handle that on her own. Before I left, she assured me that she could, but I was still worried. My mom doesn’t have an easy life. She has to work two jobs and if that wasn’t hard enough, she’s still trying to clean her life up so she can take care of me properly.

My mom is messed up, unorganized, and sometimes a little unreliable, but I love her. That’s why I got on a plane this morning and left her for Lentra. Yeah, I know. It doesn’t make much sense. Frankly, I got on that plane because Mom and I really needed the money Lentra allowed us to spare (my cost of living in particular) and I would get the good education she’s always wanted for me. No matter how we looked at it, Lentra was a win-win deal. The only downside was I couldn’t bring my mom with me.

When the invitation letter arrived that said I’d been accepted into Lentra, Mom jumped all over it. If it weren’t for the fact that she wanted this so much for me, I would have thrown the letter away and just stayed with her, but she was insistent. I never wanted to go to Lentra. She wanted me to.

I thought about all of this as I sat in the large auditorium waiting for the orientation to begin. As that time neared, a Hispanic girl with short, dark hair and brown eyes, wearing faded jeans and a white “Old Dixie” t-shirt that must have been two sizes too big for her came over and filled the empty seat next to me. “Hi, I’m Naomi Reynolds,” she said looking at me with a smile on her face, “What’s your name.”

I glanced at the girl, a little annoyed, wondering why this stranger wanted to talk to me. “Brandon Smith.” I replied bluntly, in an “I’ll be polite, but please leave me alone soon,” tone of voice, keeping my arms crossed.

“It’s nice to meet you, Brandon. I’ll look forward to perhaps getting to you a little better this year.” Naomi continued to smile as she said this. I just glanced up at her. Yeah, right, I thought, I’m just getting through this year and going home. There will be no making friends. I simply grunted in reply to Naomi, and then she turned away to talk to someone else. Not long after that, the orientation began.

“…Before I continue any further,” the orientation speaker said, “There is one promise I want all of you to make me. If you can’t make it, I’m going to ask you to leave the school right now. If you stay in your seat after this point in speech then you are pledging to me that you will stay at Lentra High until the end of your senior year. If you can’t make that pledge, please leave right now.”

This made my heart momentarily stop. What?! If I don’t leave now I have to finish high school here? That was not in my plans. What’s going on? I debated in my head what I should do. Should I just leave now? I really don’t want to stay here any longer. But Mom was so excited. I remember the look on her face as she read the invitation letter, and the smile that never left her up until the point that I left on the plane. I’d never seen her that happy before. I can’t disappoint Mom by leaving now. I have to stay.

I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want to stay. More than anything I wanted to leave and go back home, but I couldn’t because I cared too much about my mom. Damn, this sucks.

*First Day of Class*

I walked into homeroom at 7:50am (early), after eating breakfast in the cafeteria. Mr. Carton (Sydney Carton), the homeroom/extra-terrestrial history teacher, a man of small stature with energetic eyes, young features, and a big smile had the desks set up and was preparing for the class enter.

“Good morning.” Mr. Carton said as I walked in. “I’m Mr. Carton, your homeroom/E.T. teacher. And your name is?”

“I’m Naomi Reynolds, your student.” I said smiling back at him. I was wearing the school’s uniform, which looked something like a green and black (the school colors) Japanese school-girl’s outfit.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Naomi. Please, have a seat.” I sat and it wasn’t long before the rest of the class began filling in. I didn’t recognize any of the other students and supposed all the people I’d spoken to at orientation were in different homerooms - which was, of course, disappointing. Then, the last student came in. He was tall, with long, black hair, green eyes, and tan skin; he was wearing, of course, the school uniform. I recognized him as the guy I’d spoken to briefly at the orientation - Brandon. Why does he have to be in my homeroom class? I complained to myself.

Brandon was exactly the type of person I hated. Quiet, stuck-up, arrogant, and of course he had to come and sit next to me, in the only open seat.

After Brandon entered, Mr. Carton started homeroom. He explained in more detail what Lentra High is and how it works. We all listened attentively. After he was finished explaining, Mr. Carton took questions, answered them, and then started E.T. History class. To start off the year, he told us he was going to partner us up and make us do a project in groups of two. Mr. Carton placed us in groups according to where we were sitting and then explained the project.

The project was somewhat small. We were supposed to be able to finish it by the end of the week. It was really more to get to know each other than it was to learn about E.T. history, but there was some of that too. The E.T. history class, Mr. Carton said, was going to cover the history of all life-sustaining planets in the universe, starting with the 2nd galaxy - since Earth is the only life-sustaining planet in the 1st. In the 2nd galaxy, Mr. Carton explained, there are twelve planets and only two of them are life-sustaining. Those two are called “Asdentle” and “Fieskt”. Our project was to create a creative model of the 2nd galaxy based off of the diagrams Mr. Carton had given us, being particular about Asdentle and Fieskt.

Oh, yeah, and my partner for this project? Of course, he was none other than the stuck-up and arrogant Brandon Smith. This week is going to suck.