“Okay, but, good luck finding anything around here. Kids strip the labels off the doors and switch them around for just this sort of occasion.” She turned away. “If you want to be the laughing stock—”
“Okay.” I caught up. “Fine. Where’s the office, then? I need to get a schedule.”
“It’s this way.” She pointed forward, smiling. “So, do you have a name?”
My fingers tightened around my backpack. “Um, yeah. Ara-Rose.”
She drew a breath through her teeth. “Yikes. Do you go by Ara? The whole Rose thing’ll get dropped around here anyway, you know, ‘cause it kinda sounds a little… antique.”
I smiled pleasantly, remembering that being normal meant fitting in; slapping a girl you just met led to detention. “I guess just Ara’s fine,” I said, but scowled at the girl when she wasn't looking, thinking I should start shortening her name. In fact, that’s what I’d do. Well, maybe later, assuming we ever talked again after this one time.
“So, what brings you to our school?” the girl asked.
Death, Tragedy. “My feet.”
She looked at me, then, seeing I was joking, actually laughed. And I suddenly liked her so much more. “Seriously. Did you just move here or were you, like, expelled from another school?”
I wondered if I looked like the sort of kid who’d get expelled. “Sea change.” I shrugged.
“Eccentric mom?”
My brow crinkled. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, I mean, most of the new kids come here because their moms decided to be a painter or marry a man they met on the Net. Eccentric moms.”
“Oh.” I tried to laugh. “No. Just a sea change.”
“Well, our gain,” she said, linking arms with me as if we were friends.
I laughed awkwardly, using the excuse of adjusting my backpack to break away from her. And she talked non-stop after that—her high voice too fast for my ears, while I let my mind wander in the ugliness of the décor. Brown seemed to be the preferred colour at this school and, in my yellow dress, I blended in too easily with the linoleum floors. But it was better than black, I suppose, which had been the only colour I really took notice of anymore. Not that I wore black, but everything just felt black.
“Hey!” Emily called from a few steps ahead. “Are you coming?”
I snapped out of my state, realising my feet had stopped moving. “Oh, yeah, sorry.”
“What were you doing?”
I walked quickly past her curious stare. “I, uh. I kind of faze out sometimes.”
“Why? Do you have, like, a brain condition or something?”
I laughed for real this time. “No, just an over-active imagination.”
“Hm. Well, you should fit in just fine here, then.”
“Great.” Not.
She stopped walking. “Were you being sarcastic?”
I shrugged.
“Because, you know, we started back last week. If you wanted to be a wallflower, you should have started with all the other new kids.”
“I was…” I looped my thumb around my backpack strap. “I wasn’t quite ready.”
“Well, I hope you like attention.”
Attention, I didn't really have a problem with. It was questions I wanted to avoid or, well, answers.
“Come on.” She linked her arm through mine again. “Let’s just find out where your first class is.”
The corridor had gone quiet—all the students closing the plain brown doors on the noise in each classroom, leaving only the occasional squeak of Emily’s sneaker on the linoleum. Ahead of us, pale light filtered in through the glass doors leading to a parking lot, making the floor gleam in an eerie way, like something out of a post-apocalyptic horror film.
“Okay,” Emily said, stopping abruptly by a door on the right, her ponytail swinging behind her again. “This is the school office and your first stop on today’s tour.”
“Awesome.” I nodded, fake-smiling again. “Can you just show me to the last stop?”
She laughed and pushed the door open. “Sure. As soon as the last bell rings.”
Inside the quiet, muggy room, a lady behind the desk, talking softly on a phone tucked into her chin, looked up and smiled, issuing a straight finger at us while she wrote something down. “Okay, Mrs Rossi, I’ll let them know. You just tell him to get some rest and we’ll see him back here next week. Okay, bye.” She hung up, stashed the note elsewhere, then looked at me; I shrunk, contemplating a quick dive to hide under the desk. “What can I do for you, Miss Pierce?”
“New kid.” Emily leaned her forearms on the counter. “Need her schedule.”
“Name?” She put her glasses on and fingered through a pile of manila folders.
“Um, Ara-Rose,” I said, stepping closer.
She stopped searching. “Amara-Rose?”
Emily’s eyes fell on me.
“Um, yes.”
“Right.” The lady woke up then and, in a jittery fashion, fumbled about her papers. “I’ll just find your file here among all this mess, and—” her voice trailed off. “Haven’t had a chance to read it yet. Been so busy with all this stuff here. Ah, here we go.” She put her glasses on. “Yes, this is you.”
I stared at the folder, wondering when I had become an A-Four piece of stationery.
“Well, um, here’s your class schedule—” She handed me a piece of paper. “And you can just go ahead and take one of those there maps ya see.”
Emily handed me a pamphlet from the desktop. I ran my fingers over it, biting my lip to hide a hint of a grin. This little piece of paper was my new best friend.
“Now, Emily, can you show Amara-Rose to her first class?”
“Happy to.” Emily grabbed my hand and dragged me from the room, but even as the door closed, the eyes of Reception Lady lingered along my nerves. “I bet you have English first period.” She snatched my schedule, then grinned widely. “You do. I hate you.”
“Nice to meet you, too.” I took the paper back and frowned at it.
“It’s just....” She started walking; I followed. “You have David Knight in your class.”
I scratched my head, choosing to ignore her complete lack of composure. “School heartthrob?”
“You guessed it. I mean, he’s a bit of a jerk, really—to most girls, but he’s just so damn cute no one cares.”