:: three : back to d-tacky : tk ::

The good news? The assembly was over. It had been horrible. I won't go into it, but the worst part was that everyone there was wearing the same exact thing – well, color, anyway. The girls were all wearing their uniform and the guys were all wearing theirs, but still. We looked like sheep in the sense that everyone was the same. I guess that's why it's called a uniform – it makes everyone, well, uniform. I like individuality. I was getting strange looks for my trusty old hat, but I didn't care. I'd rather stand out from them than look just like them.

The bad news? We had to go back to our Seminar Groups.

It's not like I hated anyone in my Seminar Group, though Cody had barely said anything and Yolei was… well, extremely intimidating. Ken seemed okay, even if he was kind of… er, what's the word? He'd know it, and would be patronizing about knowing it, which makes him even more defined by the word. Ugh… Come on, tiny vocabulary…

Ah, right. Condescending.

Anyway, Kari and Davis seemed nice. Especially Kari.

But that's not the point.

I still didn't want to go back to the Seminar Groups because I hate those kinds of things. I wonder if any adults even know how awkward it is for them to put you in a room with random strangers and expect you to "open up" and "become like a family". It just doesn't work that way.

But I couldn't do anything about it, because Ms. Hall was forcing us to go back. We returned to the room, and sat in the same seats as before.

Ms. Hall squinted at the paper she held in front of her. "It says we have to take pictures for the yearbook and your student IDs next, but first we have to pick a name for our Seminar Group and fill out these surveys." She waved a pile of papers in the air.

"Why do we have to have a name?" Davis asked. "Is this like a team or something? Are we gonna play soccer? Can we please?"

Ms. Hall shrugged. "Maybe," she said, though I was pretty sure she had no idea what she was talking about.

"We should combine all our names together!" Kari suggested brightly.

Yolei frowned. "That's so STUPID," she growled.

"Then you come up with something, old lady sophomore," Davis retaliated, sticking his tongue out at her.

"At least I'm not an infantile, immature… little… baby… thing like you!" Yolei screeched.

"Calm down!" Ms. Hall sighed. "Why don't we try Kari's idea?"

Kari smiled and thought a moment, then said "Davistkkencodyoleikari." She had apparently already memorized the names, which was kind of impressive.

Yolei snorted.

"What if we use abbreviations?" I offered.

"DTKCYK?" Ms. Hall tried.

"There's two Ks, so you only need one," Ken brought up. "It can stand for both Kari and Ken."

"DTKCY?" Kari giggled. "This isn't working so well. We need a word to spell out!"

"We don't have any vowels," Cody said quietly.

"I'd like to buy a vowel," Davis grinned, obviously thinking he was extremely witty.

"My name starts with a vowel!" Ms. Hall exclaimed. "Amber."

"TACKY…D," I said.

"D-TACKY!" Ms. Hall chirped. "Wonderful! Our new name will be D-tacky!" She scribbled this onto a piece of paper.

"Wait," chorused four sets of voices (Kari, Yolei, Ken, and me) – people who obviously didn't think that was a good name at all.

Ms. Hall blinked. "I already wrote it down," she said.

"Erase it," Yolei growled.

"It's pen. I think it's a lovely name! Now, here are your questionnaires." She passed out the surveys to everyone who was reluctantly and mournfully a part of D-tacky.

I scanned over the survey and frowned. "What's the point of this?" I asked Kari.

She shrugged. "Tai says this school is insanely organized. They probably want to know everything about their students." She sighed. "Which means tons of paperwork for us."

The survey didn't turn out to be that long, but it was annoying. Luckily, we finished kind of quickly.

"Done already?" Ms. Hall asked. "Well, okay. I have a surprise for you all!"

"Cupcakes?" Kari asked hopefully.

"No, better!"

We all stared at Ms. Hall in expectation. I finally felt hopeful about the day – maybe this would make it all better.

"Well, what is it, already?" Yolei demanded.

"We get to do skits!"

This didn't sound so bad to me, but of course it wasn't what I'd been hoping for (more along the lines of early dismissal, high school diploma, basketball stardom, true love…), but it was better than some things (like paperwork, assemblies, schoolwork…). I checked the reactions of the others to see what they thought.

Kari, who seemed to be an eternal optimist, still looked cheerful even though we weren't getting cupcakes. Davis was grinning his usual laid-back-yet-hyper smile as he leaned back in his chair, hands folded behind his head. Yolei rolled her eyes exaggeratedly and made a huge show of yawning. Ken looked disappointed, and Cody just looked plain scared. He seemed pretty shy, so I could imagine why he wouldn't want to do skits.

"Everyone, get in pairs!" Ms. Hall ordered.

I looked quickly at Kari. "Wanna work together?"

She nodded, at the same time Davis asked, "Kari! Let's be partners!"

She smiled apologetically at him. "Sorry, Davis… TK asked me first."

Cody and Ken had apparently decided they were going to work together, so Davis looked around in hopes of partnering up with someone who appeared from thin air. When he found no such luck, he fell to his knees before Ms. Hall. "Please, beautiful, generous Ms. Hall, be my partner?"

"I'd be honored to!" Ms. Hall exclaimed.

Davis looked intensely relieved. "Thank you, thank you, th – "

"But it looks like Yolei needs a partner," she said. "You can work with her."

Davis fell to the floor mutely, then rammed his head against it several times.

"Davis! You'll hurt yourself!" Kari warned him.

Yolei laughed dryly. "Don't worry, he won't. Nothing to hurt up there, anyway."

Kari and I got a skit called "High School Workload". We read it over in one section of the room, reading our lines aloud. It was a dialogue between two students, one who was having trouble in school and the other who was helping them.

"Did you get the homework for Chemistry class?" I asked Kari, starting the dialogue.

"Yes. Read page three and answer the questions," she read back to me.

"I can't keep up with all these classes! There's too much homework."

"You want to know a tip to help you succeed in high school? There's a lot of pressure to do well in school, and a lot of that is just balancing your work. What you should do is make time for your homework. Don't put it off until the last minute."

"What if there's a good TV show on?"

"Homework first!"

"Okay, thanks!" I finished the dialogue and lowered my script. "That was quick."

"And extremely enlightening," Kari giggled. "I wonder why they make us do this stuff."

"Just pointless busywork, I guess. We all know that we have to set aside time for homework. But none of us do it anyway. It's like some kind of human condition. Humans are always ruining things for themselves because they suck." I was usually optimistic, actually, but I didn't feel like it today. I had woken up too early, and everyone I knew was far away from here.

Kari stared at me.

"Sorry, I'm not some kind of guy who really hates people. Today is just – "

"No, it's okay. You just sounded exactly like one of my best friends!" She smiled. "It was weird, like you were channeling her or something."

"Oh. So do you think people suck, too?"

Kari shook her head quickly. "No way! People may have flaws, but they're still good. They just have to do the right thing. We all have to do the right thing."

I nodded, actually agreeing with her. She was kind of like coffee, waking me up from my morning gloominess. I was actually an idealist; I just didn't really feel like it that morning. "It's the people who don't do the right thing that suck," I said.

"Yeah, but even then they always can. People can always change and do good things, no matter how many bad things they've done in the past!"

This I didn't exactly agree with. "But how does one good thing make up for years and years of bad things?"

She shook her head. "Oh, it doesn't. But it certainly helps, doesn't it!"

I had to agree with her on that. "You know what doesn't help, though? Algebra first period. That has to be some kind of immoral act, doesn't it?"

Kari giggled and nodded. "Definitely. Having algebra any period is immoral. I was horrible in pre-algebra… I failed this one test on square roots. And we got calculators and everything."

"Well, if they were square roots that didn't work…"

She shook her head. "They all worked. I said that the square root of 100 was 3." This made her smile wider.

I liked the way she smiled when she talked about how she'd failed the test. A lot of girls would haven't even have brought it up, but Kari seemed actually to be enjoying making fun of herself. That was kind of… refreshing.

"I have Algebra fifth period." She shrugged. "My new least favorite number! I'll probably get fives on every test."

"Better than getting ones like me," I grinned. "Can I see your schedule? Do we have any classes together?"

We compared schedules, and found that we had PE, Japanese, and English together. I was relieved – at least I'd have one friend in a few of my classes. Or acquaintance, at least… I hadn't known Kari very long, so she wasn't exactly a friend. She seemed nice, though.

But, of course, I missed my real friends, the ones back at my real home. And I missed Mom. She was so supportive of me going to live in Odaiba again after I told her I wanted to. She never liked having to separate Matt and me in the first place, and so only opposed me living with Dad. But since I convinced her it was only going to be a trial separation, and since the school I would have gone to is terrible, she allowed me to come. She acted like she was happy, even, which seemed kind of messed up to me before I left. Then I realized it was just her way of coping with it, telling herself it would be better if I went. When I got on the train to leave, she hugged me, then stood there on the platform and waved until I couldn't see her anymore. There were tears in her eyes, so I know she misses me. But, like she said, Kyoto High is not a good school, and we don't have enough for any private school around. Unlike Ken over there. Condescending Ken.

I knew I was being unfair on him, but I just get jealous sometimes of people who have perfect families. I'm sure his parents are married, happy, and rich. He's probably a spoiled only child who never has to worry about money and never will have to. I bet his parents are still in love with each other, like parents are supposed to be. I bet he's never had his brother taken away from him like I have.

I try not to let my jealousy take over me, so I stopped thinking unfairly about Ken then. Besides, Ms. Hall was talking again.

"Okay, everyone, it's time to go get our pictures taken! We'll perform our skits when we get back! Oh, and we have a short break after we're photographed. Stay in the cafeteria, because snacks will be provided for you!"

"Yesssssss, snacks!" Davis cried, pumping his fist in the air.

Yolei smacked him on the head with her rolled-up script. "Quiet, underclassman."

"Now, now, children!" Ms. Hall reprimanded. "Come on, let's go!"

I stood up reluctantly, then glanced to Kari. She was up, too, and looked much more enthusiastic than I felt. I frowned questioningly at her expression. "Why are you so excited to get your picture taken?"

"I like cameras," she said simply.

Her answer almost made me wince. I hoped she didn't want to be a model. From my experience, everyone who ever wants to model is extremely vain, and I don't like vainness in people. It goes hand-in-hand with selfishness, and selfish people aren't usually very nice.

But I followed her anyway as we all left the classroom like sheep in our uniforms, herded by Ms. Hall – the bouncy, slightly strange Canadian collie.