The wind feels like it might blow me away today. My loose, tissue-thin shirt hangs off my bony shoulders, blows against the curve of my back, and I know that everyone can tell how thin I am in the tank top underneath. My cuffed denim shorts go down to my knees, and because Mom picked them up in the girl’s department, they fit snugly to my legs. That’s fine since I learned that baggy pants only made me look ridiculous and even tinier.
I look down at the ground and take a deep breath. Heavy. Be heavy. My eye catches the one thing that can make me smile: my blue plaid Chucks. My brothers, Michael and Max, gave them to me for my sixteenth birthday last month. They thought I would like them, and they were absolutely right. Awesome kids, no matter how jealous I am of their insanely rare water-walking skills.
With any luck, this year will just be the boring prelude to where I really belong: occupying one of the spots in the Biotech Hub’s summer internship program. I can do anything if it leads to that. I breathe deeply, hoping the air pressure in my lungs will make me heavier, and take my first steps toward a normal year at Nelson High.
I’m guessing there are 300 students in the whole school, which means everyone here knows everyone else. I let out a slow sigh of relief when I realize none of the students milling through the halls look at me. Either no one notices me, or no one cares. Or, since it’s the first day and I’m new, I’ll pass for a freshman.
I find the administrative office easily enough. I have to pound on the ancient touchscreen installed there to get my schedule, and when I finally manage to download it onto my cuff, it takes another torturous several minutes of waiting for the map of the school to appear. Through the thick, translucent office wall, something catches my eye. A tall, middle-aged man with glasses and black hair slicked back from his forehead pushes out the door. I swear the faint scent of licorice wafts out after him. He looks just like my organic chemistry professor from Superior High.
Maybe not everything about Normal High will be awful and unfamiliar after all.
I wave my wrist under the ID scanner in a variety of positions, but it just won’t register. It’s all I can do not to growl at it. Finally, it beeps its recognition, and I push out through the door as the stilted robotic voice croaks, “Good morning, sophomore Merrin Grey.”
The hallway teems with students, but I think I see him. Yes. The black hair and those thick-rimmed glasses. That’s got to be him. He’s talking to a petite woman in a navy suit at the end of the hallway, leaning close to her ear, his eyes darting around at the students. They both nod at each other and start to walk down the hall, away from me. She motions toward a door.
As I get closer, I see the placard next to it reads “Principal Lee.” I push through the crowd, but just as they reach the door, some clumsy kid rams into my shoulder, spinning me around. I don’t even care enough to be embarrassed or yell at the jerk because, when I look up, the door’s closing behind them.
I pinch my lips together, cursing under my breath. Mr. Hoffman is the one who came and dragged me out of the first horrific day of freshman biology, gave me a test, checked it over in about three minutes, and walked me to his class full of AP organic chemistry seniors without another word. While the other freshmen were trying to impress each other with their superpowers, I was staying behind in his classroom while he graded assignments, building models and generally kicking Orgo’s ass. By the end of the year, I was working from a college textbook.
Mr. Hoffman’s the one who made me think I could score a spot in the Biotech Hub’s summer internship. Only five kids get to go every year, and I don’t think a One has ever landed a chance.
I slump against one of the walls and check my schedule on my cuff. Nothing with Hoffman. I’m sure that, whatever he’s teaching, it’s so high level I’ll have to get notes from Mom and Dad and a meeting with the principal just to get me a seat in the class. That is, if I actually did see him. I can’t imagine why he would actually leave the state-of-the-art Superior classrooms to come teach at this dump.
