Lost in Bewilderness

Before I met Lucinda

It was within the span of twenty four hours that I discovered my mum was a loser druggie (I always knew she was a loser) and that I had to make the decision of what school I had to move to.

"Jade it can't be a private school, has to be in the area. Wait did I tell you where we're moving? I don't care whether it has boys or girls or both. I honestly don't care where you end up, just pick a damn school, print and fill out the enrolment forms, give it only to me when you want me to complete the signature." She instructed impertinently and rapidly, dismissing all my 'if', 'buts' and 'ands'.

I blankly stared at her face, then she replied agitated, "What on earth are you waiting for?".
"Where are we moving? What state? What suburb? When?" I demanded my voice rising without giving much thought to behaving accordingly to the situation.

Looking up from my Mathematics for 6th graders I saw the itinerary on fridge, and we were heading to New Jersey, via Oklahoma. "Why Oklahoma?" I whispered under my breath slightly annoyed. Couldn't it be something more interesting? Like Colarado?

The next morning I woke up early and took the 5am bus to 'San Diego junior school'. I took it because I knew someone from New Jersey. He was fairly new and was clearly a nerd, with the stereotypical round Harry Potter spectacles and messy hairdo.

"Hi," he said nervously, possibly confused as to why I was suddenly sitting next to him.
"Name's Jade Pow-" I briefly introduced myself. He shuffled closer to the window and sighed.
"Jade Powell, I know. What brings you here? " His New Jersey accent was different, it took me a moment to understand it as he tended to over-pronounce the vowels.

"You're from New Jersey right? Like the city? Because I was wondering if you knew any good public schools?" I asked unintentionally raising my pitch.

"Wow you seem like you're in a great deal of anticipation. How do you even know where I come from? I can name a couple of schools which you should definitely NOT go to. Wait it's my accent isn't it?" He replied, a little less tense than before.

I nodded and listened to his stories. His life seemed pretty crappy and his low self esteem was no surprise ; though I didn't even know what I was in for in a couple years time. The bus turned into the carpark,
and my maths workbook was now full of a messy list of elementary schools in New Jersey.

One of the schools was : Wandston High School.
(Ring a bell?;)

"The name's Arthur Fin." He amusingly reminded me as we stepped off the bus together, now friends, though most likely not for long.