Anna Begins [Paul Lahote]

Chapter Two

Anna

The next day was still full of trying to get organized, but we carved out a little time in the morning to go to the high school and get registered. It was an odd time in the school year to transfer—April began in barely a week—but since we'd moved out of state, it wasn't like we could continue going to our old school and simply commute. If not for Grandpa needing us closer so badly, we would have waited till the summer to move.

Mom explained that to the office lady, Ms. Cope, who'd began the conversation looking judgmental but was now appearing sympathetic. Alex fidgeted in his seat next to me, not because he was nervous but because he sucked at sitting still. I, on the other hand, could imitate a statue.

"Thank you so much!" Mom said, walking over to my brother and me with two clipboards in her hands. She handed one to each of us. "Fill out your preferences here, guys. No promises you'll get exactly what you want, but it can't hurt to be thorough, yeah? Be sure to include alternatives." Then she went back up to the desk to chat with Ms. Cope as she filled out whatever forms she needed to.

Alex nudged me with his elbow. "Hey, Annie, look. We get to do gym all four years here."

"What?" I said, reading through the required classes more thoroughly. He was right. "Great."

"About makes up for most likely losing that cool history class I was taking!" he said happily. Only Alex would sound happy about extra PE classes.

I scoffed. "I hate gym."

He snickered. "You hate most things."

I had to smile at that, just a little. "Shut up."

We both kept to ourselves as we filled out the rest of our forms after that, Alex kindly bringing them over to Mom and Ms. Cope...after I elbowed him in the ribs. Twice. He was better for the task anyway; talking to strangers was his forte—his personality was practically made for it.

"Come over here, Anna," Mom called a minute later, waving me over with a smile. At least she didn't hold my aversion to social interaction against me. "Ms. Cope's printing out your class list now. You can look over it real quick to make sure it looks alright."

Biting my lip, I walked over and took the piece of paper the lady held out to me once it finished printing. I gave it a glance. All the basic stuff was there: math (calculus), science (physics), English, and social studies (government). I was mildly surprised they even offered a calculus course here, so I took a moment to be glad for that. But then I checked out my electives, which were mostly okay—PE, Spanish, psychology—until I got to the last one: art.

And I'd thought getting stuck in more PE was a bummer. I was terrible at art.

But it wasn't like I had much choice. We were dropping into this school less than three months before the school year ended; all the other classes were likely full. I needed to be grateful I landed in psychology. Psychology was cool. And however many weeks of art class wouldn't kill me. It'd suck, but that was life.

Repressing a sigh, I handed the paper back. "Looks good to me." Alex did the same.

Ms. Cope smiled. "Perfect! We'll get this all in the system, and then when you two come in tomorrow just be sure to stop by here to pick up your schedules."

I nearly gaped. We were starting school tomorrow? How had I missed that?

Luckily Mom was used to me remaining silent in situations such as these—where people would normally have to, you know, talk—so she returned Ms. Cope's smile and thanked her. Alex chimed in with the same, promising we'd see her bright and early the next morning.