The Rookie & Tom Hanson: A "21 Jump Street" Story

Chapter 6: "Winter Park High"

Tom leaned closer to my ear and whispered, "I just realized that we might have to kiss to maintain our cover as the creepy step-cousins."

I nodded but laughed when I realized he called our cover 'the creepy step-cousins'.

"I understand. Just know that I might not be very good at it because the last time I kissed a boy was at my older brother's Bar Mitzvah when I was five."

"Wait, you had your first kiss when you were five?"

"Yup, first and only time. How old were you when you got your first kiss?"

"I was thirteen," Tom said bashfully.

"So I guess that was your 'Bar Mitzvah' moment in a gentile way."

"What's a Bar Mitzvah?"

"It's a ceremony when a boy becomes a full-fledged adult in the Jewish community, and the first step is to read the Torah in Hebrew out loud and lead in other prayers during the ceremony."

"Oh, cool, I've never really met anyone who was Jewish, so I'm interested in picking your brain," Tom said.

"Don't anybody move!  I dropped my brain!" I yelled out suddenly, causing Tom and some nearby kids to jump in surprise.

Tom chuckled  and shook his head at my silliness, "Well, people will definitely think that you are a stoner now with that comment."

"Wow, Tom, that's the sweetest thing that anyone's told me," I said dramatically as I put my hand on my chest. "But sure, I would love to share more about my culture with you."

We finally reached the door, and Tom opened it for me like the gentleman that he was. A girl could really get used to this. We walked in silence as we approached the office, but we got a little lost and ended up at the gym instead. I wish that these schools would give maps to new students instead of making them walk all over the school and then blaming them for being tardy. It's things like this that make me glad that my actual high school education is over.

We finally managed to find a janitor or maintenance engineer that gave us directions to the office on the other side of the school. Tom and I both looked at each other and groaned because now we would be really late, but maybe this could work in our favor to give us an image with an edge instead of just being the 'creepy cousins'.

Many minutes later..

"Whoever designed this school should have never studied architecture," I said as we finally arrived at the office.

"Agreed," Tom said.

A woman from the office saw us come in and questioned us, "Shouldn't you two be in class already?"

"Listen, lady, me and my step-cousin have schlepped throughout this entire campus looking for this office, and because this school doesn't offer maps to new students, it made us tardy," I said a bit aggressively.

"Oh, you two must be the new transfer students," she exclaimed.

"I wonder what gave it away," I whispered to Tom, causing him to try to stifle his chuckle.

"Yup, that's us, Tom Nelson and Rebecca Taylor," he answered confidently.

"Here," the lady said, "I'm going to have you two fill out these forms and here is the class schedule for both of you."

"Thanks," I mumbled under my breath.

Tom and I sat next to each other as we filled out our forms and saw that we both had the same exact schedule, which made me feel relieved, given that I was still a rookie at this whole undercover operation. Hopefully, we get to sit close together so that it will be easier to communicate the details of the case together. When we both finished our forms, Tom took them to the lady, and she let us get to class, but not before I made her give us detailed directions to where our classroom was located.