Chapter 2: Back to School

The alarm clock woke Jessie up on Monday August 25th. "Oh, it's not fair!" she moaned, trying to drown out the sound with a pillow. When it didn't work she grudgingly got out of bed and got ready for school. Then she trudged into the kitchen where it was Luigi's turn to make breakfast.

"Ready for school?" he asked cheerfully. Putting her breakfast on a plate.

"Physically or mentally?" she mumbled. He set the plate in front of her: pancakes with two slices of butter, a piece of bacon, and two sausages in the shape of a happy face with its arms raised in excitement. She bent the bacon the other way and made the sausages face toward her instead of away.

"That doesn't help," Mario told her.

"How do you know?" Jessie asked.

"I used to do the same thing," Mario answered. "It didn't work then, I assume it won't work now."

"Assuming is a dangerous thing," Jessie said, now starting on her food.

"That's an interesting opinion," Mario said. "Not that it's very original."

"But it makes for a good thesis," Jessie said matter-of-factly.

"What makes you say that?" Luigi asked, now working on his food as well.

"Because I already prepared a six page essay on it," Jessie replied.

Mario gagged on his orange juice while Luigi blurted, "Six pages? How the heck did you manage that?"

"I didn't get into that one as much as I did the other ones. The one about time got up to about seventeen," she answered conversationally, now done with her pancake.

"Seventeen pages?" Mario exclaimed. "Why would you write such long essays in your free time?"

"Eh, I was bored," Jessie answered, finishing her bacon.

"How many more did you write?" Luigi asked.

"I dunno, but I had a hard time fitting them all onto just one shelf," Jessie replied.

Mario and Luigi stared at her in stunned silence while she ate her sausages. When she finished she said, "How do I get to school?"

"Oh, the Lakitu should be showing up in a few minutes. They lead the way to school every morning and the way back every afternoon for about a month until kids can find their way by their selves," Luigi answered, breaking out of his trance.

"You better get outside and wait for him to come," Mario suggested. A few minutes later, Jessie was walking along with a few other kids behind the Lakitu to school, and Mario and Luigi were in her room looking at the essays she had written and left visibly on her shelf.

'

"So this is the high school?" Nicole said.

She, Jessie, and Ian were standing in the atrium of Toadstool High School. It was similar to a castle, which was why Jessie hadn't realized what it was previously. She had actually seen it many times before. There were lists on the walls with the homerooms of everyone who wasn't a freshman.

"Sophomores!" Ian declared. "We are officially sophomores!"

"Oh, yeah!" Jessie added. "Which means we need to find the list with the sophomore homerooms." They wandered around the room looking for the list with their homerooms on it. When they finally did they were relieved to see that they were in the same one.

"Now all that's left is to find it," Nicole said. They looked around the huge room and saw a bunch of hallways and staircases leading off of it. It was certainly a large school with many places to take the wrong turn.

"We're doomed aren't we?" Jessie asked, all of them having realized how lost they were going to be. Ten minutes later they found a map of the school and realized they were on the wrong track. They turned around and ran through the nearly empty halls halfway across the school. Half a minute before the bell for homeroom rang, they emerged breathing heavily into their homeroom. It was a science lab, apparently, because instead of desks there were tables with multiple seats around them. They found an empty table and plopped down just as the bell rang and heaved a sigh of relief.

"Good morning, sophomores," said the teacher, a mole. "Welcome to the new school year. My name is Hanz Reno, Mr. Reno to you. I am not necessarily your teacher, and there is a chance that we will only see each other when I give you interims and report cards. So, until I learn anything to the contrary, I will simply give you emergency forms, locker info, and schedules. I've also been instructed to tell you that if you are interested in any fall sports to go to Mr. Baer's office to get the proper paperwork and information." That was about the only thing he said. The rest of the class period he spent handing out emergency forms and locker info. Then he finally gave the schedules out to everyone... except Jessie, Ian, and Nicole.

"Hey! What gives?" Ian exclaimed when the teacher sat down behind his desk after handing out all of his papers.

"I dunno, let's go find out," Jessie suggested, standing from her seat and leading the way to the teacher's desk. "Mr. Reno?"

"Can I help you?" he asked her.

"Uh, yeah," Nicole answered. "You see, we didn't get our schedules and we were wondering... well, why?"

"I see," Mr. Reno said. "I didn't think I had any new students in here. You were supposed to go to study hall one to take placement tests."

"Placement tests?" Ian asked.

"To find out what classes to put you in," Mr. Reno answered. The bell rang.

"Okay, and when do we need to be there?" Ian inquired.

"They want you there in ten minutes," Mr. Reno replied. "I'm sorry I didn't realize you were new, I was supposed to release you about five minutes ago."

Their eyes widened in horror. "Okay, thank you, bye!" Jessie said quickly as they turned and grabbed their things. They walked out of the classroom, but as soon as they got into the hallway they began sprinting about every corridor looking for that particular study hall. In fact, they found three others before finally making it to number one. This time they entered just as the bell rang.

"Oh, he better hope he doesn't have me in any of his classes or else I am going to give him-!" Nicole was cut short by a mushroom calling out over the cafeteria for everyone to find a seat in the section for their class. Jessie looked around and thought something seemed wrong with someone nearby in her section. Then she realized it, the shy guy sitting in her section was around her own height. She knew some shy guys were anomalously taller than most, so she shrugged it off.

Jessie, Ian, and Nicole had to sit away from each other. They followed the mushroom's instructions to fill out the forms on the front of the tests. Then they were told to start the test. Whenever someone finished a section of the test they were to raise their hand and a test coordinator would come mark the time that the section was completed. When they were done with the test, they took it to the table set up near the door and gave it to the mushroom from before.

While they were given the whole school day to complete the test, and most students finished at around mid sixth period, Nicole was done at early fourth period, Ian mid third, and Jessie at late second. The mushroom was astounded at this and nearly fell back out of his chair when Nicole finished early as well. When they finished, they each left the study hall, with instructions to go their counselor's office first thing the next day after checking in with their homeroom teacher, and waited for the next person in the courtyard nearby.

"Is anyone else surprised at how easy that test was?" Nicole asked when she'd finished too. They could see the mushroom walk down the hallway into an office with their three tests.

"Yeah, even considering how intelligent we all are, it's still kind of odd that we would be done this much quicker than the other kids," Jessie agreed. Just then, they heard a door open and looked automatically to the office the mushroom had disappeared into, but saw that the door was still closed. Instead the study hall door was swinging shut and someone was disappearing around the corner. Another test coordinator came out, as well, and peeked into the office, apparently handing another test to the mushroom.

"I guess we're not the only ones who thought the test was easy," Ian said. They continued to sit in the courtyard all day, waiting for the other kids to finish their tests. The mushroom eventually came out of the office and went back into the study hall. It wasn't until sixth period when someone finally finished their test. After that, they came out in groups here and there.

When seventh period rolled around, Jessie suggested that they go to Mr. Baer's office to find out about sports. It took them nearly till eighth period to find the office. Jessie and Nicole got their information on girls' soccer, and Ian got information about boys' soccer. Finally the final bell rang and they could go home. Jessie made her way to the pipe house while Ian and Nicole went back to the castle.

'

"So how was your first day of school?" Luigi asked when Jessie got home.

"Odd and boring and confusing," Jessie answered, plopping down on the couch.

"How so?" Mario asked.

"Well, the confusing part came whenever me, Ian, and Nicole had to go anywhere, because that place is terribibly confizzling," Jessie explained. "Boring because we had to take a really easy placement test to find out what classes we would be best suited in. And odd because it was so easy. I mean, me and Ian and Nicole all got done around third period whereas no one else who took it got done until at least sixth. Well, except for one kid who got done around end of fourth, but still."

"Hmm," Mario pondered. "Well, I guess we'll just see what happens."