Once inside the school, I decided to get my bearings and figure out where my first class was. Thankfully, I managed to study my schedule enough times to figure out where each class was, starting with Homeroom.

I was already worried about what Homeroom would be like, especially since it seemed like Mrs. Richardson had been assigned as my Homeroom teacher. Wait, wasn't she a Language Arts teacher? I hadn't realized until that point how weird that was. I guess she had to take over at the last minute. Oh no, but that would mean having to attend Homeroom with someone who... who... I dared not think about it. The sooner I pushed that thought deeper into my brain, the better. At least Frankie was there, sitting at her desk next to mine. Thank God. I could always count on her to help me feel better.

"Good morning, class," Mrs. Richardson said. "I hope you all had a great summer vacation."

I could hear murmuring around me. Hopefully, it wasn't about me.

"Allow me to introduce myself," Mrs. Richardson continued. She started writing her name on the chalkboard. "My name is Mrs. Richardson, but you can call me Arizona if you want. I have what you might call a quirky name."

I saw a student raise his hand up in the air.

Mrs. Richardson smiled at him. "Yes, Benton?"

"What's it like being named after a state?" Benton asked.

"Well, I guess you tend to be a conversation starter most of the time, just like what's happening right now. Depending on who you ask, the attention you draw from other people will either be good or bad. I think most people who comment on my name tend to think it's peachy keen or neat that I was named after one of the fifty states." Mrs. Richardson smirked at the rest of the class. "Well, now that I've said all that, how about you all introduce yourselves next?"

All of the other kids started clamoring up to be the first one to make a formal introduction to the class. I didn't really say anything, though. I wanted to keep away as much attention about myself as possible. Unsurprisingly, Benton was the first one up to introduce himself. His full name was Benton Thomas, and he and his family had originally come from Bartlesville (which was a city not that far from Vinita). During summer vacation, he and his family had traveled to Missouri and collected a whole bunch of rocks like Mozarkite, chert, and flint. In fact, it seemed like his family had a thing for collecting rocks all across the country. He was even nice enough to give the entire class some rocks that his parents had collected years prior. For my trouble, I was given a particular specimen of jasper. Oddly enough, I couldn't help but think about how much I had in common with this rock. We both had bands on us that were a different color from the rest of us, and we both seemed pretty tough on the outside. Obviously, I was a living thing and the jasper wasn't, but I considered us the same. I then looked over to my left to see what Frankie got. In her hands was a carnelian gemstone. It didn't look polished, but it seemed weirdly beautiful nonetheless. Frankie seemed to think so at least, maybe because of its brownish-red color.

After Benton had introduced himself, next up was some girl named Delta Avondale. Like me, she was Cheyenne, but she had regular parents to raise her instead of just a grandparent. She and her family had also originally come from Montana like Namęšéme and I did, except the town she moved from was Anaconda and not Malta. For her summer vacation, she and her family had spent some time with her extended family because there had been a death in the family. She didn't specify who it was that had died, but I didn't think it was any of my business anyway so I guess it didn't matter.

And so it went on like that, with other students introducing themselves (including Frankie, but I already knew all that stuff she was saying) and talking about what they did for summer vacation. Finally, it came my turn to introduce myself to the class.

"Alright, Jessica," Mrs. Richardson said to me. "It's time to introduce yourself to the class."

I just mumbled in response and trudged to the front of the class.

"Hey, guys," I said. "I guess I should get this out of the way. My name's Jessica Traversie, and I'm a Cheyenne Indian like Delta over there. I live with my grandpa who's been taking care of me ever since my momma died years ago."

"Wait, where's your dad?" Delta curiously asked me.

"Hell if I know," I replied with a scoff. "I don't even know who he is. My momma had me when she was still in high school, and I bet not even she knew."

Delta frowned at me, though I couldn't be sure if it was genuine or not. "That's sad."

"Anyway," I continued. "My grandpa and I were originally from Montana, but we came from a town called Malta. Anyways, we just moved down here a few weeks before school started. Namęšéme is a cattle rancher."

The other kids, save for Frankie, oohed at me. I talked some more about what happened during the summer, making sure to conveniently leave out any details I didn't want to share to the class. Eventually, I stopped and I went back to my desk.

"Well, wasn't that interesting, class?" Mrs. Richardson asked all of us. "Everyone got to know each other, even if they only shared a little bit about themselves." She then looked to the clock hanging over the chalkboard. "Oh, well, would you look at the time? It's time for you all to head on down to your first period classes."

With that, every one of us students gathered up our backpacks and headed out the door for our first classes of the day.

At lunchtime, Frankie and I met up at a cafeteria table and took out our schedules so we could compare classes and teachers.

"So who did you get this year?" Frankie asked me.

"Well, let's see," I began. "We both got Mrs. Richardson for Homeroom, obviously. Aside from that, I got Mrs. Callison for Home Economics, Ms. Brooks for Art, Mr. LaCroix for English, Mr. Garrison for Social Studies, and Mrs. Nelson for Math. What about you?"

"I got Ms. Lipshitz for Home Economics, Mr. Beaver for Art, Mr. Mackey for English, Ms. Hoover for Social Studies, and Mrs. Wright for Math."

"Oh man, so I guess the only times we can see each other in school is in Homeroom and lunch time, huh?"

Frankie nodded sadly. "But that's okay. We can still hang out outside of school and stuff."

"Uh-huh."

"So how are you liking Mrs. Richardson so far? She seems really nice."

I didn't show much emotion. "Yeah, real nice."

"That didn't seem very convincing. Do you already not like her?"

I didn't want to lie to Frankie, but I was worried how she'd think if she found out what I think happened to me. "Eh, I guess I'm not too thrilled because she's been dating Namęšéme since earlier this month."

"Well, at least she seems to be putting herself out there. Divorce is tough, man."

"As if we'd both know what that's like."

"You may not like Mrs. Richardson all that much, but you shouldn't have to be so angry about her."

I sighed. "Maybe you're right. Guess I'll have to suck it up and let Namęšéme be happy with her."

"That's the spirit." And then something else makes her beam up. "You remember those rocks Benton gave us in Homeroom?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, what if we were to start calling ourselves by the rocks we got?"

I looked at her with intrigue. "Okay..."

"You can be Jasper, and I can be Carnelian. That sound good?"

I smiled. "Yeah, sure."

As if in the blink of an eye, 3 PM came and went. Namęšéme picked me up from school and we went out to eat at Sonic Drive-In. There, Namęšéme ordered us some food and then started talking to me while we waited.

"So how's school been so far?" Namęšéme asked me. "You liking it?"

"Yeah, it's been alright," I replied. "We just went over the usual back-to-school stuff. We introduced ourselves in front of the class and went over our syllabuses. Is that how you say it? The plural for syllabus? Syllabuses?"

"Syllabuses? I reckoned it was more along the line of 'syllabi.'"

"Syllabuses, syllabi, whatever the plural is, we got 'em. Maybe you could help me look over them tonight."

"Sure, Jessica. Anything to help you get a good education."

"Oh, and also this one kid Benton handed out rocks to the class in Homeroom, so Frankie and I decided to call each other Carnelian and Jasper."

Namęšéme chortled at what I'd been saying. "Sounds like you had a pretty good day, if you ask me."

"You want me to show you?" I took the jasper from out of my backpack and handed it to him. "Doesn't it look cool?"

"Well, it certainly looks like you, that's for sure." He ruffled my hair. "I think you're going to do just fine."

"You, uh, you think so?"

"I know so."