Identities

New Name, New School

"What? I have to change my name? Why?"

Uncle Vic just stood there, his face expressionless. He seems totally cool with giving me a new identity. Why doesn't he just die my hair green and pierce my eyebrows while he's at it?

"Adelaide, it's for your protection. If the Davenports found you out they'd come after you. That's why you're going to go by Jaime Baker for a while. No more questions. Just get unpacked and finish getting ready for school. It's already four thirty. Your bus comes in an hour and a half." And with that, my uncle exits, leaving me stranded in my bedroom, completely lost in this house and in the situation, and he didn't give me a road map for either.

It takes me a few minutes to unpack and get myself adjusted to my new room. I then wander around the house searching for the bathroom, only to get baffled by the shower. How do I turn it on? There's three turny-things! Eventually I figure it out, and I wash the tunnel smell off of me, because that tunnel smelled like burning banana peels that have been sitting there for three hundred years next to monkey feces. It's pretty gross.

With my body unstinked and a general idea of how to get back to my bedroom, I waddle back in my towel, because I stupidly hadn't brought any clothes in there with me. That's not the best thing when you're living with my uncle and Doug. They've never had to deal with girls before, and seeing one in a towel, well, what more can I say?

I make it back unnoticed, only to find Morris in his cage just sitting on my bed. There's a note on it too. It reads: Hey Adelaide, can you please keep Morris in here? He'll stay in his cage, and I'll feed him when you're at school. Just hide him under your bed. Thanks!

"Looks like you're getting a new place to live too, Morris. At least you don't have to change your name for the sake of protecting yourself from evil teenagers who want to destroy you," I say to the cage. Morris climbs up the side a little, then falls down on his back. I watch as he tries to get himself up, but he can't do it, so I have to stick my hand in and flip him over.

I look down and realize that I'm still in a towel. Like a normal girl on her first day, I go through about fifty possible outfit combinations until I find one I like. My room already looks like a bomb exploded though. I glance at the clock on my nightstand. It's five thirty, so I've got a half hour to clean this up, eat something, brush my teeth, and go down to the bus stop.

When I go downstairs for something quick to eat (I was thinking a granola bar), a foreign scent fills my nose. Someone's whistling, and I can hear something sizzling. In the kitchen, there stands Doug flipping pancakes and whistling Happy Birthday.

He turns around when he hears me walk in. "Hey, Jaime! Victor told me your new name. Look! I told you there'd be pancakes for breakfast! I've always wanted to do this for my kids, but they're gone." Doug sighs, his merry whistling disintegrated.

"Thanks for the pancakes. Wait, you had kids? What happened? Where'd they go?" I ask in a spastic fashion. This is news to me. This is news to the whole world! Douglas... whatever his last name is... had kids!

"I don't want to talk about it, okay? All I'm telling you is that my brother took them. For the longest time they thought he was their actual father. He didn't tell them about me at all. It broke my heart. Here are your pancakes." He sets the tray down in front of me. He made me three big chocolate chip pancakes and two strips of bacon. It looks delicious.

I take one small bite, watching Doug sulk at the same time, then almost drop my fork. It's the best thing I've ever tasted. Ever. "Doug! These are amazing! You're a great cook! Why haven't you made stuff like this before?"

Doug perks up a bit at my praise. "We've never had a kitchen this nice before, so I couldn't make pancakes without burning them into pancrisps. By the way, its five forty-five. Do you want me to pack this for lunch and then give you a ride to the bus stop?"

"That'd be awesome! Thanks!" I quickly run upstairs to brush my teeth as Doug puts my breakfast in his special microwave lunchbox. If you press the secret button, it warms your food. I think he actually invented it, but he did it behind Uncle Vic's back of course. There's a lot of stuff about Doug that my uncle doesn't know about.

I race back downstairs where Doug's waiting by the front door. He's got my lunchbox, backpack, and the car keys. "Let's roll!" he says, the joy back in his face. He would make a great dad. It's too bad his brother took his kids away. Talk about cruel.

The bus stop is only a thirty second drive down to the corner, an easy two minute walk. At six on the dot, the bus rolls up, and I step out of the car and wave good-bye to Doug as I take my seat on the bus.

The bus ride is long and boring. I don't think I need to explain it in detail. All I really did was stare out the window and hope nobody sat next to me. Someone did, but they paid no attention to me, which is good, because their breath smelled terrible.

Mission Creek High looks just like it does on the Internet, only bigger, since it's not a tiny picture on a screen. I walk through the doors, the caterpillars in my stomach turning into butterflies. There were kids everywhere. Any one of them could be a Davenport. I try to make my way to the principal's office to get my schedule, but the principal isn't in there, and there's no secretary for me to talk to.

"Don't sass me Tweedledum!" came a raspy voice.

"I wasn't sassing you! I was just telling you that I have the same pants as you. Only, mine are way taller, and I only wear mine on special occasions, like Hanukkah," retorted a male voice.

"Adam, we're not Jewish. We don't celebrate Hanukkah," said another male voice.

The raspy voice spoke again. "Pipe down Tweedledee! You two are lucky that you've got a rich daddy that's paying me not to do anything to endanger you brats."

The voices came into view. The raspy voice is a tiny woman in a pantsuit, the first male voice is Adam, a tall guy with black hair, and the other one is shorter than his brother, but taller than Pantsuit Lady, and he has brown hair.

The brown haired one spoke up. "Principal Perry, Adam's sorry for what he said. Now let us go to homeroom." Oh! So Pantsuit Lady's the principal! That makes sense.

Adam glares at his brother. "How dare you apologize for me, Chase! I'm not sorry for saying that I have the same pants."

The conversation lasted a while, but it eventually ended when Chase just left, Adam following him, still holding up his half of the argument about the pants. Principal Perry went back into her office, and I followed her in to get my schedule.

She noticed me once she sat down at her desk. "What do you want?"

"Um, I need my schedule. I'm new here. My name is Jaime Baker," I say more shyly than I expected. What can I say? The principal scares me.

"Ugh! Here! If you need anything else, don't come to me." She hands me my schedule, and I'm out of there faster than she can say "spaghetti." Not really, because I'm not fast at all, but I walked out really quickly.

This school is going to take some getting used to.