03. First Day of School


Okay. I'm going to admit something to you here, something you'll surely be incredibly shocked to hear.

As I stepped out of the (my?) room, I was actually scared.

Was that felt like to be normal? Scared and weak all the time? I still wanted to give it a shot, but...

I walked into the kitchen, which looked exactly the same as I knew it and, feeling ridiculous, said "Sorry."

"Uh-huh," Mom replied, eyebrows raised. "Was something going on?"

"No, just... got a late start." I'm so great at making up excuses.

Maybe not. "Were you up late IMing? Because I won't buy that as an excuse."

"Sorry," I said again. This was weird... I was used to flying and talking about ways to save the world, and now I was IMing and talking about getting to school on time? Huge difference.

"Well, eat fast," she said, picking up her keys and starting toward the door. "I need to be in early today, but I'll be home around two. Okay?"

"Okay," I answered, and she called out, "Ella! I'm leaving!"

"Bye!" she shouted back.

Mom kissed my cheek and left the house.

It took a bit -- just a bit -- to muster enough courage to do this, but eventually I'd gathered up enough bravery to yell "ELLA!"

"WHAT?" I heard her yell back, and I was pleased that it had worked out.

"Come here!"

"Why?"

"Just do it," I said, sighing, and she was in the room within a minute.

"What's up?" she asked.

"Have you eaten yet?"

"Yeah. Do you want a donut? Mom got some this morning."

"Sure," I said eagerly. She motioned to where the box was, and I chose a jelly filled one. Not a bad beginning! Ella was writing something in a notebook as I ate.

It was good, and I was pretty surprised to find out that I only really needed to eat one. That made me feel even more normal, and it wasn't a bad feeling. "What're you writing?" I asked Ella, figuring she'd have to tell me. I was older, after all.

"Nothing." She snatched the notebook up and stuffed it in her backpack, which was next to her chair. "Come on, we have to go. Bus comes in five minutes."

"Okay," I said, and went into my room and threw on a pair of jeans and a blue t-shirt from my closet, ran a brush quickly through my hair, and grabbed the backpack on the desk. As I was doing all of this, I caught a glance of myself in the mirror above and was shocked again. I just looked really -- all modesty aside -- pretty.

My hair was, like, dark-blonde; more brown than blonde, really. It was bone-straight (I was used to it being everywhere; out-of-control) and my eyes were brown and shining.

With an appearance like that... I wondered if I had a boyfriend at the school I apparently went to. The thought freaked me out a little, but I smiled a bit when I remembered how confused I'd been about Fang. Then thinking about him made me think about the rest of the flock. Jeb had said that if I chose this life, I wouldn't be able to know them. That would be torturous, hellish, and a bunch of other words like that. Those five kids were my life, the only thing that kept me going. But I didn't plan to choose that, anyway, so what did it matter if we were apart for just a teeny little bit of time? I was sure they were happy, too, wherever they were.

I try a lot to convince myself of things, in case you haven't noticed.

The boyfriend thing, though... I didn't know if I'd be able to do that.

"Lauren! The bus'll be here in like 30 seconds! Come on!"

When I heard Ella's voice my stomach lurched again, but I didn't have a choice.

Ready or not, here I come, I thought as I walked out of the room.


Yo. If I thought I'd been scared earlier, it was nothing compared to how I felt on my first view of the bus stop: there were other people there. Other kids.

That was scary, but here's the weirdest part: I wasn't scared of them because I thought they could be Erasers or whatever, but rather because I started to feel -- get this -- self-conscious.

I'd eaten breakfast etc. late, so of course I hadn't had a chance to brush my teeth or make my hair perfect or anything, and I was bound to act awkwardly around these people I knew but didn't know (if you know what I mean).

When Ella and I first got there, there were four people waiting. One was a girl I suppose you'd classify as a "nerd" -- big thick glasses, wool skirt, nose in a book, you know, the works; she looked about 14. Another was a younger boy, maybe around eight (although he looked nothing like the eight year old I knew, I realized with a little pain in my heart) who was just looking down at the ground. His clothes looked old and worn, and he seemed like maybe he didn't have a lot of money. There was also a guy who looked perhaps a year or two older than me. He had dark hair, like Fang, but green eyes. I guess some people might have called him cute, but to me he looked arrogant and annoyed. The last was a really pretty girl, probably my age, who was tall with blue eyes and sleek black hair that resembled the guy's. She started talking to me the second I looked at her.

"Lauren!" she started, sounding irritated. "I told you to be online at six yesterday, and I waited for, like, three years and you never showed!"

"Sorry," I said for about the fortieth time that morning. "I was... watching TV."

"Oh, yeah... wait," she stopped, looking confused. "I thought you didn't watch too much TV. Like, I've always thought you were, like, totally crazy for that?"

"I was watching something with Ella," I lied, nudging her so that she wouldn't deny it. She didn't, but gave me a look that told I'd have a lot of 'splaining to do when we got home. Sigh.

"Oh." The girl smiled, and I looked past her to see the bright yellow school bus (forgive me if I sound a little too "Junie B. Jones" here) coming towards us.

"Of course Queen Lauren gets to get on first," said the dark-haired guy, smiling even though I'd found his comment rude.

"What?" I asked, trying to summon some attitude. "No I don't."

"Sure you do," he continued, and I'd already decided to hate him, "we always do this. Lauren, then Ella 'cause she's Lauren's little sister..." -- he actually pinched her cheek for emphasis -- "then me, of course, then Amy" -- the dark-haired girl -- "and then Marta and Daniel can always duke it out to see who goes next."

I assumed those were the two other kids there, the "nerd" and the young kid who looked poor (and whose eyes were filling with tears), and didn't join in with his and Amy's laughter. "Shut up," I said, glaring at them.

Amy looked shocked, but the jerk just smiled smugly. By that time the bus had stopped, and obviously no one would get on if I didn't, so I got on and chose an empty seat in the middle.

"You kidding?" Amy asked when she got on. "Back." And she sat down in the last seat in the back, me plopping down right next to her. Apparently we were friends.

"Hey, what's with you and Jason?" she asked when I'd sat down and was watching Marta try to sit down next to an insanely gorgeous blonde girl, who kicked her out into the aisle. "Oh, she's fine," Amy decided, following my gaze. "That's what you get when you dress like that." She snorted and then continued, in a lower voice, "Anyway, Jason?"

"Who?" I asked, startled back into reality.

"My brother. Won 'Best Smile' three years in a row. Guy we've been trying to make your boyfriend?"

Trying? How freaking pathetic. "Oh, that Jason," I responded lamely.

"Yeah, that Jason." Amy rolled her eyes. "Because after all, what's the point of being, like, the prettiest girl in school if you can't get, like, fixed up with the most popular guy in school?" It wasn't sarcasm. Inwardly I was groaning, but Miss Perky just giggled at her -- so-called -- wit. "Anyway, I got another idea last night," she continued. "If you'd've been online, you would've heard it! Anyway, it's, like, brilliant, it's..."

And we went on like this for the entire 15-minute bus ride. I stopped listening somewhere around the seventh "like", and while Amy gabbed and gabbed, I thought about... stuff. Like (no, I didn't just say that. Damn girl was rubbing off on me!), what kind of person was I, to have such mean, annoying friends? How different was I? And why did I still have a voice in my head, if I was supposedly completely normal? Did The School exist or not? Did they create other hybrids, or what?

And how the heck would I get through this school day?


Finally we got to school and off the bus. I was walking really quickly toward the school -- "Hillpark", what kind of dumb nature-y name is that? -- to lose Amy when a pretty, brown-haired, kind-looking girl my age walked up to me.

"Lauren?" she asked. She wrinkled her nose. "Were you talking to Amy?"

I sighed, despite having no clue who this girl was, and said, "Unfortunately. It was unavoidable."

"Guess that's the problem when the most annoying girl in school lives right next door to you. Did you manage to lose her online last night?"

I laughed and said, "Yeah. Let's call it luck."

"Luck? You're calling the hours of planning we did to skillfully avoid her no doubt ingenious plans of setting you up with her brother luck?"

"The result was lucky," I said and now we both laughed. It was easy to talk to this girl, even though I didn't know her at all. My spirits lifted as well -- evidently Amy and I weren't friends after all, just neighbors who had to be nice to each other. I wasn't a bad person!

"You've got that right. I'm your best friend, but if you started dating Jason Simms I'd swear we'd never met."

"Believe me, I wouldn't wanna know myself either," I joked, really happy now. I knew it didn't matter, but I was really relieved to see that I wouldn't be a jerk if I were normal. And that I'd have a best friend as cool and funny as... well, the name hadn't been revealed yet, but my point is that she was really cool.

We kept talking as we walked into school, and everything was just coming naturally. When we reached the row of lockers, however, I swallowed hard. How would I know the combination, or what number I had, or anything like that? This school was different from the one in Virginia, and I'd never opened a locker. Well, I had but hadn't.

You're not the only one who's confused, let me tell you.

How do I do this? Which one's mine? I wondered, hoping to God that Jeb would answer.

I'm sorry. I forgot to tell you. There is a schedule in the locker, but you do need to get in first. Sorry.

Then he told me the combination and how to open it and everything, and I actually did it. Cool. Score one for Max! Or, Lauren, I guess. I actually kind of liked that name, believe it or not. It could've been worse, at least... thank God I wasn't something lame like "Olga" or something prissy like, um... "Priscilla"?

Anyway, turned out my friend and I had the exact same schedule, and our lockers were side-by-side, which I figured would make it easier to get through the day. I just took out the same books and folders she did, trying to keep my constant copying of what she was doing as inconspicuous as possible.

Our first class was (gag me) Geometry. My first impression of the teacher, Mr. Noten, wasn't good: he was just sitting there drinking Mountain Dew and checking his email as the class threw paper and stuff around. My friend and I sat down in the back, and she rolled her eyes.

Couple minutes later the guy started calling attendance.

"Doesn't he know our names by now?" I whispered.

My friend laughed. "Never gets old," she said.

Finally Mr. Noten got to what apparently was my best friend's name: "Alexis McCain?"

"Here," she -- Alexis -- called.

Guy just stood there staring at us.

"HERE!" she practically yelled, and I couldn't help laughing. The rest of the class was cracking up too.

"Lauren Martinez?" he asked next, and no one said anything. Finally Alexis nudged me and I realized that was me. Heh. Oops.

"Here," I said.

The whole day (Geometry, Spanish, Art, Science, English, American History) went by as I felt just as if I were on vacation, taking a break from my normal life. I didn't feel paranoid, or scared, or under any pressure once during the day.

Basically I copied whatever Alexis was doing. Not her actual work, of course, because that's low. Pretty much I just got by on that, not knowing or caring if I was right or wrong.

The reason I didn't care was because I still viewed the whole thing as an experiment. I was just getting a taste of normal life.

But I won't lie to you: I liked it. I liked it a lot.