I opened our front door to see some fat guy standing in front of me.

"Can I help you?" I asked, point blank.

The fat guy had fair skin, hair so blond that it was about the same color as his skin, and steely blue eyes. I could tell that his face was a little round and his arms were a little pudgy. His waistline was practically nonexistent as it looked like his entire torso had an apron of fat covering it, and it seemed to droop down way where his crotch should've been. The sides of his body also had strips of fat covering them, connected to the apron of fat in the front. I couldn't see what he looked like in the back, but he probably looked skinny in the back. The fat guy was wearing what appeared to be a buttoned-up blue dress shirt that was tucked into his specially-designed extra large jeans. He also happened to be wearing shiny black cowboy boots, size 15 if I had to guess.

"Howdy," the fat guy said. "You must be the new neighbors. My name's Newt McBride. What's your name, little girl?"

"Jessica," I quickly replied. "Jessica Traversie."

"Jessica, huh? That's a pretty name if I ever heard one. Say, where's your grandpa? I want to tell him hi."

"Oh, I think Namęšéme's just finishing up packing. I'll get him out here in a sec."

"Namęšéme? Is that what you call your grandpa?"

"Uh-huh. We're Cheyenne."

"Cheyenne? You guys Native Americans?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, I'll be damned. I'm living next door to honest-to-God Indians."

I laughed nervously. "You sure are."

Newt just laughed. "Alright. Let me go talk to your grandpa, okay? I wanna see how he's like."

"Okay, you go do that."

I stepped aside so Newt could come inside the ranch. I then went back to unpacking my things while I listened in on the conversation going on between Newt and Namęšéme. I didn't catch much from their conversation, but from the sound of it, Newt seemed like a nice enough guy. He offered Namęšéme a neighborly welcome, asked him where we'd moved from, what he did for a living, et cetera. After all, the conversation ended with Newt inviting me and Namęšéme to come over for dinner the next night and meet his family.

"Sure, Jessica and I would love to meet your family," I could hear Namęšéme say. "We've still got plenty of other boxes to unpack, though, so we can't stay over for too long. Plus, I've still got to enroll my grandkid into school. She's supposed to be entering junior high, like seventh grade."

"Wow, that sure is a lot going on," Newt replied. "Well, I'm sure you'll get her in, maybe into one of those schools that gets good funding."

"That depends on how far away it would be from the house. I was hoping she'd attend a school that was, eh, closer."

"Well, why didn't you just say so? How about Ewing-Halsell Middle School? That's where my youngest daughter goes to school. I mean, it's not exactly junior high 'cause it goes from sixth grade to eighth grade, but I reckon it's close enough."

"Hrmph, I'll look into it. Thank you, Newt. It was nice meeting you. See you tomorrow night."

"You too, Mr. Traversie. You sure are a hard-working fellow."

I stopped unpacking for just a second to watch Newt leave. I couldn't believe how... neighborly he seemed. First impressions weren't everything, though, right?

The next day, Namęšéme woke me up at around 6:30 in the morning. I was never a big fan of waking up in the morning, especially when it was for school. Oh, right, Namęšéme had said that he would try to get me enrolled in Ewing-Halsell Middle School before I started seventh grade later this month. God, why would he try to drag me into this shit?

"Good morning, thunderbird," Namęšéme said to me just as I was stirring. "You know what today is, right?"

"Uh, Wednesday?" I asked groggily.

"No. Well, yes, it is Wednesday, but today's the day I get you signed up for school."

I practically rolled my eyes at this. "Oh, wow, awesome. Whatever."

"C'mon, Jessica. Don't give me that attitude. This is a very important day for you and me both. Education's a good thing to have, you know."

"What good has it done for anyone?"

I could tell that Namęšéme was getting frustrated with me, eye slightly twitching and all that. "Lots of things. I don't have time to go into this great big speech about how you need to have a good education to get a good job or whatever, but this is a really good thing for you, sweetie."

"I don't wanna."

"Maybe I'll take you out to eat if you come with and be a good girl. Is that a deal?"

I gave up trying to fight Namęšéme on the school thing. "Alright. Where could we go to eat?"

"I don't know. Depends on how hungry we are after this enrolling business is over with. But first, I'm going to make a quick breakfast for us."

"Okay, what are we having?"

Namęšéme just smiled at me. "I'm making your favorite... Eggo waffles."

"L'eggo my Eggo!"

Namęšéme could only laugh and jokingly punch me in the shoulder. "Kids like you always say the darndest things. Okay, after this, we're going out and doing the things we need to do. We've got busy days ahead of us."

I nodded in agreement.

Namęšéme and I drove a few miles up ahead to Ewing-Halsell Middle School on 226 N Miller St. It wasn't even seven o'clock yet when we'd made our way up through the front doors and into the school. Once inside, we quietly walked through a hallway lined with blue lockers, only to stop when we found ourselves at the back of a line. I guess Namęšéme and I weren't the only ones wanting to get enrolled before the start of the school year.

"That's a pretty long line," Namęšéme observed as he peeked his head out to see how many people were ahead of us. "I wonder how long we could be here..."

I forced out a shrug in response. "Who knows? I'm already bored."

"C'mon, Jessica. We only have to stand in line. Hopefully, it shouldn't take us very long."

I just rolled my eyes out at him and kept my mouth shut. We just stood in line for what must've been about thirty minutes, waiting for the line to move by even an inch. After waiting and waiting and watching some families sign their kids up for school, Namęšéme and I finally got to move up to the front and see someone. Sitting at the desk was a relatively young woman (possibly in her late twenties to early thirties, if I had to guess) with fair skin and mousy brown hair that was done up in a half-perm. She had steely gray eyes and light freckles on her face. She wore dark purple cat's-eye glasses and matching plastic hoop earrings, an oversized wine red sweater, a cream-colored pleated skirt that went down to her knees, and wine red flats on her feet.

"Who might you be?" the woman asked us.

"Oh, right." Namęšéme cleared his throat. "My name's Warren Traversie, and I'm here to enroll my granddaughter Jessica into your school. I was hoping we could do that before classes started?"

"Yes... of course. Just sign these forms, please." The woman handed Namęšéme the enrollment forms and then looked him up and down. "I guess you're also Native American?"

"That's right. Cheyenne, in fact."

"Well, you gotta sign the form for that as well. We just have to make sure all that's worked out, okay, sir?"

"Yes, ma'am."

I just stood there and watched as Namęšéme filled out every last form that had been presented in front of him. Likewise, the woman was just sitting there, watching my namshim with what I believe to be some curiosity. I couldn't tell what she might have been thinking, but she just watched him nonetheless. Before I knew it, Namęšéme was already done.

"Alright, I guess that's everything," the woman said. "Before you go, I would just like to remind you that the first day of school is on the 23rd." She handed Namęšéme a list of school supplies that he needed to buy for me. "Oh, and you also need to buy some school supplies for your granddaughter, whether at a Wal-Mart or Target or whatever."

Namęšéme nodded to show he understood. "Alright, thank you so much. By the way, what's your name and what do you do here?"

The woman perked up. "Oh, right. My name's Arizona Richardson and I'm a Language Arts teacher, but my students just call me Mrs. Richardson."

"You married?"

Mrs. Richardson shook her head. "No. Actually, my ex-husband and I just finalized our divorce about a month ago. I'd rather not talk about it right now."

"Ah, okay." Namęšéme firmly grasped my hand and started leading me away. "Well, it was nice talking to you, Arizona. Hopefully, I'll see you again later this month."

Mrs. Richardson gave what seemed like a warm smile to him. "You too."

With that, Namęšéme and I left the school and were already back in the pick-up truck, heading out for a place to eat. Namęšéme was right about one thing: we had busy days ahead of us.