Surprise

Chapter 12: First day

Luna Maya took over the conversation soon after and within half an hour the man had printed up my new schedule, about twenty minutes after the first bell rang.  I stood and he rose to shake my hand and “officially welcome me to the Wolf family.”

At first I nearly asked “You know about us,” from the mention of the wolves, but then he saw my confused face and elaborated; “Our mascot is the Gray Wolf.”

I nodded.  “Right.”

“Here at Albertson high, it’s all about school spirit,” he said, smiling.  I noted that that was the first time someone had told me the name of this school.  I absently wondered how I’d never thought to ask about something like that.

“Here is your off-campus lunch pass,” he said, handing me a lamenated slip of paper with my name on it.  “I’m sure your friends will explain the rules of that to you.”

I nodded.  “Thank you.”

“Alright, well why don’t I let you go to your first class,” the man said, excusing me to go.  “Christian, can you show her to her class?”  The guy he had called from the doorway of his office snapped his head up and smiled.  “Yes sir!”  He rushed over and collected my stuff before even offering to carry them.  He motioned to go ahead and said “I’ll meet you by the trophy case in the hallway.”

Luna Maya walked with me to the office exit and then we split up as she went back outside, and I turned to the huge glass trophy display full of shelf after shelf of golden sports and academic awards.  I’d never seen so many trophies in one building before.

Christian walked out of the office, now with glasses on his face, my purple over the shoulder book bag slung around himself.  He looked a little nerdy, but in an oddly cute way.  When he was standing in front of me, he asked for my schedule and I handed it to him.

“Right, so right now you have English with Mrs. Jefferson.  She’s cool as long as you don’t do dumb stuff like glue the book pages together.” I nodded.  “So, do you want me to just show you to your first class?  Or I could just give you the grand tour.”

I nodded.  “Yeah, thanks.”

He looked at my schedule.  “Oh hey, this right here is your math class,” he said, just before we turned the corner to go up the stairs.  “Mr. Gonzalez.  He’s strict, so don’t forget to do your homework, or he’ll bite your head off.”

I nodded, laughing a bit as I looked in the small window on the door.  The man in the room was Hispanic and really old and frail looking.  I doubted he could seriously hurt someone.

He led me up the stairs and we turned a corner and pointed to one of the first doors, saying that it was my History class.  “You don’t currently have a teacher.  Mrs. Schwartz it taking a year off of teaching since she just had a baby and maternity leave wasn’t long enough for her.  That class is just going from sub to sub.”

I groaned.  I hate it when that happens.

We kept walking as he led me to my first period class.  “Here’s Mrs. Jefferson’s class.  You want to go in now or finish the tour?”

I looked into the room to see and old woman who looked way too old to not be retired.  I looked into the sea of students and Stella saw me immediately and smiled, motioning me in.  I turned to Christian.  “You know, I think I’m good here for now, but thanks.”

He nodded, handing me my stuff.  “If you need anything else, let me know.”  He smiled at me, and then turned back in the direction we came.

I had three of my four morning classes with Stella, and the other was fourth period home ec with the boys.  Just as I’d expected, the two of them goofed around the whole time, which was fine actually, since we didn’t have anything to do anyway.