A mysterious box was sitting on Angie's doorstep. She had no idea what it could be. A mistaken delivery? A bomb? An abandoned mutant baby?

She wasn't sure how to approach it. Should she ignore it? Should she call the cops? Should she knock politely and wait for an answer?

The tension was killing her. Was it something dangerous that would kill her if she touched it? Was it something belonging to a neighbour who would kill her if she touched it? Was it something so grand she would regret it for the rest of her life if she didn't open it?

She had to try. After all, she was an adventurer. She could take anything this strange box could throw at her!

With her heart pounding, her palms sweating, her breaths quickening, and her stomach growling—for unrelated reasons—Angie tore the top away from the box and, springing backward into a defensive kickboxing stance, gazed upon the wonder that faced her. She decided this was, in fact, no threat to her and knelt down to grasp the contents.

"A golden ticket," she gasped in awe as the paper glimmered away in her hands. "I've been invited to the Hogwarts School of W… Wait." She squinted. "Oh. Howard's School of Westchester County. Hm. Well, that's less fun." Angie considered for a moment if she should accept this invitation. Westchester County was districts away, and she had become quite accustomed to and comfortable in her home high school over the past two years.

But this school had a GOLDEN TICKET! The decision had already been made for her.

So, she packed her bags, loaded them up in her private helicopter, and jetted away to a promising life of adventure.

…

Well. Maybe Angie never actually had a helicopter. Or a golden ticket. Or even a mysterious box on her doorstep. And maybe she didn't change residence of her own accord. And maybe she had no idea what a proper defensive kickboxing stance was, anyway.

But she DIDend up enrolled in a high school named after a Howard of some sort!

And she was on-campus today. It was Howard's "Opening Night", where a bunch of administrators showed up to push a bunch of students around to get schedules, agendas, and lunch tickets (not golden ones, sadly). While Angie had been hoping to get a good feel for Howard's tonight (the first day of school was tomorrow), no teachers had shown up, and the administrators were too oblivious to answer questions.

But there were still other students. Angie resolved to get a few good answers from some of them (involving duct tape if necessary… But when is duct tape UN-necessary, anyway?).

The first she ran into was Carter. As a senior, he had (almost) seen it all yet lived to tell the tale. When asked about the teachers, he paused and asked for her schedule. Too starved for information to resist, Angie handed it right over.

"Let's see what you've got… First period, English Literature." Carter made a sour lemon face. "What a great way to start off the day. Well, just remember to call him 'Professor' or he'll go crazy. Oh!" He looked up from the paper schedule and into Angie's strangely beautiful (why, yes, this detail IS perfectly relevant to this paragraph) eyes. "And you may notice he drinks tea every morning. But whatever you do, NEVER try to be funny and spike it with alcohol. You DO NOT want to see that." Apparently remembering the time this happened before, Carter cringed.

"Anyway. Second period… Art. Well, that's the definition of a blow-off class here. Teacher's real nice. Doesn't pay any attention to things. He's a good artist himself, though." He clicked his tongue as he read the next few words on the paper.

"Third period, Calculus." He paused, giving Angie a "you must think you're REAL smart" look until she shrugged. "Eh, he's an okay teacher." He looked up at Angie again. "Except you're a girl."

"Did you just now notice that?"

Carter smirked. "Your hair IS kinda short."

A quick b*tch slap later, Carter continued, "Just… be prepared for him to flirt with you. A lot. At least he's young—most of the teachers here are, actually—but, uh… Yeah.

"Fourth period, American History." Carter's expression lightened. "Great, you got Coach! His class is really easy, since he pretty much only teaches it so he can coach football. Just act patriotic and you should pass.

"Fifth period, French." Carter paused, apparently unable to recall who the French teacher was for a minute. "Oh, that teacher's fine. Haven't had his class, but I haven't heard anything about him, so he can't be too bad." Not knowing anything else to say about him, Carter moved on to the final period.

"Sixth period, Chemistry…" He squinted at the teacher's name before his face went pale.

"What? What is it?" Angie cried dramatically.

Carter's gaze flitted about, making sure the said teacher wasn't listening, before leaning over to whisper in Angie's ear.

"Okay, okay. So you have HIM. But… But that can be okay… All right, listen! Do absolutely EVERYTHING he tells you to, or you will die."

Angie pulled back to stare at him. "It's that easy to fail his class?"

"Who said 'fail'?" Carter responded hoarsely. Seeing Angie was still confused, he leant in again toward her ear. "The first kid that fell asleep in his class STILL HASN'T BEEN FOUND."

Angie gulped.

"Yeah. Be careful with him. Listen to his rules and follow them. That's about all I can say." Carter exhaled. "That, and 'good luck'. You're gonna need it."

"Thanks for the heads-up," Angie gasped, taking back her schedule when Carter relinquished it.

"No problem." Carter shook his head sadly. "Wish I could have gotten one of those."

"Well, uh…" Angie took a tiny step back, hoping Carter wouldn't notice in case breaking off here was rude. "I'll see you later?"

Carter gave a curt nod. "See ya." He glanced around to make sure no one was approaching, and then put his headphones on and messed around on his iPod.

During a round of blaring music, Carter found another student staring at him and immediately stopping mouthing along to "Dancing Queen".

"Ah!" Carter paused his iPod and lowered his earphones as the other student approached. "Joaquin! 'Sup?"

Joaquin grinned at his friend for three years, and the two exchanged a quick secret handshake consisting of fist-pounding and a sequence of Patty-Cake.

"Not much, dude," Joaquin finally replied, slipping a hand into his back pocket (he had to lean a good twenty degrees backward since his trousers were sagging so low) and pulling out an already-folded schedule. "Just grabbing some crap."

"Think we have some classes the same?" Carter started, pulling out his own schedule.

"Sure hope so, dude." Joaquin uncrumpled his own schedule and swiped his friend's.

"First hour, World Lit," he read off his. He turned to check Carter's. "First hour, World Lit!" He whooped. "Sco-wah!"

Carter grinned at his friend before Joaquin continued.

"Second hour, Mech; second hour, Home Ec." Joaquin, upset this period hadn't checked out as well as the first, raised an eyebrow at his friend. "You're in cooking?"

Carter shrugged defensively. "It's the Art teacher, so I figure it's impossible to fail."

"Yeah, good point. Let's see… Third hour, 20th Cent Hist; third hour, Mech." Joaquin made a sour lemon face. "Missed it by one hour, dude! Bogus."

"Yup. The Mechanics teacher usually lets you out early, though, doesn't she?"

"Yeah," Joaquin laughed, "she's a total ditz, so it's not very hard to convince her to. It's not like you learn anything in her class, anyway, am I right?"

"Definitely," Carter answered with a grin. "Three cheers for hot teachers, huh?"

"Well, hot in some ways more than others."

"Yup."

"All right, all right… Fourth hour, Orch; fourth hour, Spanish."

Carter gaped at his friend. "You're in Orchestra? Are you crazy?"

"Yes and yes," Joaquin responded. "I know the conductor's always chewing out all the peeps, but I had to sign up for one more stupid 'fine art' class."

"Should've signed up for Home Ec with me."

"Dude, that's a chick class."

"Best place to pick 'em up, don't you think?"

"Point taken, brah, point taken." Joaquin turned back to the papers. "Fifth hour, Algebra II; fifth hour, 20th Cent Hist." He laughed. "Hah, you have to deal with the 20th Cent Hist teacher after lunch."

"I know, I know. Hopefully he won't have had too much to drink, huh?"

"Dude, he ALWAYShas too much to drink. At least he can still teach when he's too buzzed to walk."

"At least that." Carter looked back at the schedules. "And last but not least…"

"I've got this, dude," Joaquin cut in defensively. "Sixth hour, Comp Sci; sixth hour, Math Analysis (Joaquin, of course, did not use the common abbreviation of this class because it's really awkward to type.)."

"You're in Comp Sci?" Carter responded, once again in disbelief at the classes his friend had chosen. "The teacher's never there!"

"I know, dude, I know. Always getting yanked out of class by the Chem teacher. It's not like the same thing doesn't happen to the World Lit teacher, y'know."

"Well, yeah, but you don't have a choice with World Lit."

"Didn't have much of a choice here. All the decent languages were taken, so I either got to take a Comp class or German."

Carter understood immediately. "Ouch. Good choice, then, buddy. I'd take an empty Comp Sci class over the plastered, bird-aficionado/German teacher any day."

"Same." Joaquin made a popping sound with his lips. "Well, we get one class together. And lunch."

"And football, right?"

"Duh."

"All right. Well," Carter sighed, "I'm gonna get going. You wanna take the title of N00b Student Helper for the night?"

"Sure, dude. See ya tomorrow."

"See ya."

No sooner had Carter walked out (and put his headphones back on, now listening to "It's Raining Men") than a timid-looking freshman-to-be came a-wandering Joaquin's way.

"Yo!"

The newcomer jumped. Unable to keep himself from grinning at this, Joaquin continued, "You a freshman?"

"Ah? U-uh, yeah," the freshman replied, bewildered.

"Got your schedule? I can give you some tips if I know what teachers you've got."

"Um…" Flustered, the freshman shuffled through a maroon-and-white folder he had brought. "Here?" He took a sheet of paper and handed it unsteadily to the senior.

Before checking the classes, however, Joaquin decided to check the name at the top of the schedule.

"You have one weird name, dude."

The freshman blinked, apparently not recalling his name for a moment. "Oh, Raivis? Yeah, I guess it's not that common…"

"You know what?" Joaquin asked rhetorically. "I'm just gonna call you Peter."

"Eh?"

"So, Peter (WHAT?), let's see what you've got here. First hour, East Asian Hist."

"East Asian what?" Raivis/Peter echoed.

"Uh, history. Well, that teacher's not bad… He takes things way too seriously, though. Especially if you break the dress code. Especially if you're a girl." Joaquin looked away from the paper to check. "Which you're not." Apparently this needed confirmation.

"Second hour…" He stared blankly at the words before him. "Chem? How are you in Chem as a freshman? You should just be in Gen Sci…"

"Well, I already had a lot of science at my old school, s-so…"

Joaquin shook his head. "But why Chem?"

"Um, I've taken Biology already, so it was the next science up here…" The freshman shuddered. "What's… What's wrong with Chemistry?"

"Nothing wrong with the subject… Just the teacher… The teacher…" Joaquin shook his head again, causing Raivis to start trembling a little. "THE TEACHER…"

"Wh-what's so b-bad about the t-teacher?" whimpered the freshman.

"Many things." Joaquin sighed. "Good luck, kid. You'd better pray he doesn't pick on you because you're younger."

As Raivis continued to vibrate at electric massager levels, Joaquin moved on along the schedule.

"Third hour, Am Lit. Eh. The teacher's kind of a psycho, but most of them here are. And she has a huge vendetta against Coach for some reason. Actually, I think most of the teachers here do, too. Uh… Yeah. I heard she's actually Coach's sister, but… Eh.

"Fourth hour, Spanish. That's fine. The teacher's really laid back, as long as you at least PRETEND to pay attention.

"Fifth hour, Choir." Joaquin made an "ick" face. "Well, the teacher's really strict and ticked-off at everything—ESPECIALLY the Orc teacher—and he kind of has a sucky voice himself, but you can survive. Oh, and don't get googly-eyed over his "teaching assistant"—his little sister. He might kill you."

Raivis gulped. This school was starting to seem like it wasn't such a good place after all…

"And sixth hour, Algebra I. Not much to be said on that teacher." Joaquin shrugged and handed the schedule back. "Well, you're not COMPLETELY screwed over, at least. Just watch yourself, and you should be fine. Maybe."

The freshman shuddered.

"Well, nice to meet you, Peter. I'm off to go hunt down some other n00b students. Smell ya later."

"Um… O-Okay…?" Utterly baffled, the freshman wandered on back to his parent's car, wondering if he would walk out of this place alive a second time.