Frankie Price had not talked to anyone all day. It was his first day of high school, but not only that, his first day ever of private school. He hardly knew how he had gotten here, so far away from the world he had always known.

His mother said it would be for the best this way. It was so unexpected. He'd hardly heard her even mentioning having a sister for the first thirteen years of his life, and now she was offering to pay for his education. They lived in another state, hours and hours away from his mother. And she sent him off to them. She didn't even ask what he thought about it. She said, "It's for the best," and that was that.

Frankie was really trying to pay attention to his English teacher. Mansfield Academy was supposed to be top rate. It was such an honour for him to be here, his mother had said. He didn't know what his father thought about it. He hadn't heard from him since two Christmases ago.

Frankie looked down at his sheet of paper. His pen was held ready to take down notes, but the teacher wasn't saying anything useful. He was introducing himself. That wouldn't be on the finals, surely.

He stared around the classroom discreetly. The desks were lined up in pairs, two students next to each other. There was evidently an odd-number of students in this class, because he was the only one sitting by himself. When the students had entered the class, he noticed most of them rushing to find seats near the back, far away from the teacher as possible. He took the spot he thought had the least number of people around it, the very front row centre. Now he sat distinctly aware of how close he was to the teacher and that any move he made would be obvious.

He risked glancing around the classroom again, still afraid that the teacher would notice his eyes darting around his head and call him out on it. Maybe there was no reason to be so nervous. But it still seemed to him like all the other students in his class looked a lot older than him. Much older than thirteen surely. He didn't see anyone who looked as young and short as himself. And they all seemed so comfortable in their uniforms. To him the shirt collar was itchy, the tie was too tight, and the jacket sleeves drooped down past his fingertips if he didn't roll them back up. His Aunt had gotten the used uniform from a friend of hers whose son had graduated last year.

He wondered if anyone else here was new too. Or were they all local? Had they all gone to the same private junior highs and elementary schools? Was he the only outside here? Would he stick out wherever he went? Did he belong here?

He wondered too what was going on in the high school he was supposed to go to, the one where the school walls went for months before they got someone to clean off the graffiti. The one that had police officers on campus and where the rumours said a brutal initiation awaited all the geeky ninth graders. This is an honour, he reminded himself. This is a privilege. I'm lucky. I'm going to have a great future because of this. He never had a lot of friends back home, but he truly loved the couple that he did have.

Finally the bell rang. This had been his third period today. Now it was lunchtime. He wandered into the hallway, head down, fixated on his shoes, pushed along with the stream of students heading to the cafeteria. He hadn't even been inside there yet. When he did go in, it might as well have been the biggest room in the world. Students everywhere, all in the same navy blue coloured uniform. He saw a lot of the boys had their shirts tucked out, their ties off, or their pants down low past their waist. He moved away from the door as more people kept pushing in. He made his way through the room, pressed as close to the wall as possible, trying to not bump into anyone as he looked around the room. Finally he saw Julia and Maria.

His twin cousins were at a table packed with friends. He could see their knees poking out from under the table and felt sure their skirts hadn't been that short when they left school in the morning. Maria was looking in a compact mirror, and another girl he didn't know passed her lipstick. He'd never seen them wearing make-up at home either.

"Hey," said Frankie, coming up behind them. They didn't hear him over the murmur of talking students. "Hey there," he said, a little more loudly. They still didn't here. He stood behind them for a few second, wondering what to do, and then tapped them both on the shoulder.

"Frankie!" said Maria, smiling brightly. "How's it going coz? Enjoying your first day so far?"

"Oh yeah, of course," he answered, trying to match her smile.

"That's good," said Maria.

"Yeah, really," said Julia.

"Who's that?" said a boy sitting at the table.

"It's our cousin, Frankie. Didn't I mention him?" said Julia. "Everyone, this is Frankie."

The other kids at the table nodded at him, a couple mumbled a greeting, one girl waved. Frankie smiled, conscious of everyone looking at him, but they when he didn't reply, they all went back into their own conversation.

"You know what, I totally forgot to save you a seat," said Maria. "You don't mind, right? We can have lunch together tomorrow."

"So sorry!" said Julia. "We won't forget tomorrow, promise."

"No problem," he breathed. His cousins turned back around and rejoined their group. The first night he came to their house, just a week ago, they had made him sit in their room, where they spent an hour interrogating him about his whole life, giggling loudly as they hoped to make him reveal something juicy. They realized he didn't have any interesting to say, and that they had almost nothing in common. After then they had hardly said anything besides good morning and good night.

Frankie knew he couldn't just approach a group of strangers and ask to sit with them. The cafeteria was so crowded, and he was just sure if he kept standing there for long enough, everyone would notice he had nowhere to sit, that he was all alone. He quickly headed for the door.

He wandered down an empty hallway. He didn't even know where he was going. He turned around a corner and when he felt he was a safe distance from the cafeteria and from anybody else in the world, he sat crouched down on the floor next to a locker, knees pressed to his chest, and buried his face in his hands.

He was ashamed of how easily he let himself cry sometimes. He had promised himself he wouldn't cry ever again when he came to live with the Bertrams. He knew he had to be a man now. But he felt the stinging in his eyes, and the worst part was he didn't even know why he was crying.

Lord, give me strength, he prayed to himself. Prayer usually helped him feel better. But it didn't now.

"Hey, what's wrong?"

Frankie was ready to jump off like a cartoon character, crashing through the ceiling. Someone was there. He took one had away from his face and a tall boy with curly blonde hair in front of him with a concerned looked on his face.

Frankie wiped his eyes and was ready to get up and away from there as fast as possible.

"Don't be embarrassed," said the boy. He said it with a bemused chuckle. It wasn't mocking though, Frankie could tell that. "Why are you out here all alone? Is everything okay?"

"It's fine, really, just – don't worry about me. I'm fine."

"Was someone picking on you? 'Cause let me tell you, I don't like bullies…"

"No, no, not that," said Frankie. He was stopped, but still half turned, still ready to rush away if he needed to.

"Well, something must be wrong." The boy was smiling warmly, so differently from how Julia and Maria and smiled at him, half-oblivious. The boy looked like nothing else mattered right now but trying to help him.

"It's just, it's so crowded in there. The cafeteria, I mean. I, I don't really know anyone yet."

"Sure you do," said the boy. "You know me. I'm Eddie. Nice to meet you."

He held out his hand, and Frankie shook it, introducing himself, and explaining he had just moved to town.

"To be honest, I was really nervous too," said Eddie. "I didn't even go in the cafeteria. I decided to check out the chapel during lunch instead."

"Oh cool, I wanted to check that out too."

"Great, I'm glad I'm not the only kid around here who thinks chapel is cool, then," said Eddie. "So where did you move from?"

They stood in the hall for at least ten minutes, getting to know each other, and then Eddie said they really should go eat some food or they'd be starving the rest of the day. Eddie managed to find a table with two empty spots and asked the other kids there if it'd be okay to join.

"See, it's really not that hard," he whispered to Frankie.