SHOUT - Adopted by Lin Manuel Miranda

WELCOME TO WILMINGTON PREP

The Mirandas are not going to let me go uneducated. Apparently it's vital to survival that I can solve equations and identify presidents by term. I can't make a living by knowing the best places to land a punch or how to scam cash out of tourists. That's what NYU is for.

Welcome to Wilmington. Home of the swanks.

The school is in Midtown, a big windowed building adjoined to an office skyscraper. Wilmington Prep is a prestigious academy. The place churns out doctors and lawyers. Lin enrolled me last week. He brought home a shiny pamphlet and three outfits. Long sleeved uniform for fall and Winter, short sleeved uniform for Spring, and my gym uniform. Yes. It's that type of school.

I take the subway to Midtown and walk the three blocks to the school. My school in the South Bronx was where you went to get high, beat up, or pregnant. Drug dealers had designated spots around the property where they waited for lunchtime customers. Police cars patrolled the block. I spent most lunches in detention. Did they really put four-hundred-something assholes in my proximity and expect me to tolerate it? There were loads of black eyes at my accord. Loads of dislocated joints. 

My first class is english. Ms. Rishanki shakes my hand when I sit and gives me the book they've been reading in class. The Yearling. I engrave my initials at the corner of my desk. Some prick behind me asks if he can borrow my eraser. I tell him exactly where he can stick his flat-bottomed pencil. So far there have been no explosions. No fights. No discreet drug injections in the classroom. Everywhere I look, there are robotic clones in uniforms, programmed by their parents to condescend. It makes me worry about kids in Manhattan schools. For the city they live in, they haven't had the proper exposure.

Second period is science. Mr. Gowda talks about microscopes like he married one. Third period is American History. Mrs. Montgomery looks like a female George Washington, three kids and seventy pounds later. Fourth period is remedial math. Boredom plus prehistoric teacher equals naptime for Vidya. When the lunchtime bell wakes me up, I'm refreshed and ready to brave the cafeteria. 

The school lunches are freshly cooked. I eat my mac n' cheese in the corner of the blacktop and doodle mehndi patterns on the science homework I won't do. A group of boys take a scrimmage too seriously on the basketball court. When the bell rings, they leave unharmed. I leave with the burning desire to pick a fight with the twat who made a basket in the wrong hoop. Rich kids are too civil.

Sixth period is study hall. Naptime #2. Seventh period is health class. Mr. Wells acts like we need to know this crap. Eighth period is P.E. We play dodgeball. I pelt thirteen morons in their stomachs and kids shy away when I get close. And finally, ninth period. Art. Ms. Laritino's class is making papermache animals. I sketch a peacock for my outline. Wing, wing, feather, feather. Art is the only class that doesn't make me want to yank the fire alarm for an early escape. After school lets out, I take the subway back to Uptown and take the long way back to the Miranda's place. I want to avoid the dreaded how was school. I've answered enough questions today.

I don't know why they expect us to tolerate this. I've suffered enough. I'm still not over the culture shock of Hope House to Miranda. And this? School to school transfer comes with its own form of culture shock-- culture electrocution-- one that goes unnoticed. Victims are either hermits who don't talk about anything, let alone social trauma, or deadbeats who don't care enough to complain. 

The moment I walk through the door and slump my backpack against the wall, Lin jumps up from the couch. "How was your day?"

He vibratos the "day". That does it. I will not answer his stupid question and I will not do my stupid homework. I rush to the guest room and slam the door before he can belt an aria about what we're having for dinner.