Hey, happy 2020 guys!

I know I haven't been active these past few months, it's just I had a lot of schoolwork to do, and it was just all so much.

Anyway, happy reading!

CINNAMON

Eventually, we come across the cafeteria. "Woah," I gape as we walk into the huge room.

Just like everything else in the school, it's as clean as anything I've ever seen. Race looks at my bewildered expression and laughs.

"What, you ain't never seen a cafeteria before?" Race teases, then waves me into the room. I step out of the doorway and hear faint talking.

After having spent way too long picking out cereal from the ample selections there, I join Race in standing in the middle of the cafeteria. He's not doing anything, just squinting slightly. I stand on my toes and peer around the room. "What are you looking for?" I ask.

He looks at me. "I'm not looking, I'm listening." After a while, we hear a loud crash coming from the corner of the cafeteria, followed by much shouting and a few obscenities. Race, somewhat ashamed, points in that direction. "That should be them," he says sheepishly, chuckling slightly.

We walk over to the corner, where we find a boy of about seventeen with messy dark hair sprawled on the floor as if he had just fallen from a chair. Judging by the sound we had heard a short time before, he was probably the cause of it. The boy's clothes and face are spattered with a dark blue liquid, and an empty cup with traces of the same liquid is beside him. However, he's laughing his head off.

A tall figure of about the same age is standing over the first boy, chewing him out. From under the commotion coming from the table, I could hear the words "What in the name?!" and "Paint water". The boy has neat hair tucked under a newsboy cap and he has his hands on his hips as if he were scolding a small child that had touched something he wasn't supposed to.

Next to the tall boy, there's a girl. She seems a little older than these two. With one hand she's clutching the corner of the cafeteria table, doubled over in laughter. Behind her, an array of other kids – mostly boys, I observe – display a wide range of emotions: some are laughing so hard tears are streaming down their faces, some are shocked and have their hands on their mouths.

Race steps up to the boy covered in paint water and laughs down at him as I follow him. "What the hell did you do now, Jack?" Race asks, half seriously.

I offer my hand to Jack and help him up. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, yeah," Jack responds, trying to brush the water off his shirt like he would to dust bunnies. The smell of the paint just grows stronger as he casually, then somewhat frantically tries to wipe down his shirt. Noticing me watching him, he flashes a quick smile.

"Sorry, but I'm pretty sure that'll just rub in the stain more."

He looks at me, then the shirt, a look of slight disappointment on his face. "Yeah, I knew that." He wipes his hand on his pants, then offers it to me. "Jack Kelly."

"Nice to meet you, Jack," I say in return. Jack smiles again. He really is charming, I think to myself.

Jack turns around to the boy with the neat hair and pats him on the shoulder. The boy with the neat hair shrugs away from him.

"Jack, you have paint water on your hands, and this is a new shirt. You should –"

"Aw, lay off it Davey, just relax, okay?" Jack replies, wiping his hands again before putting one on Davey's shoulder. "Just relax," he says again, a bit softer this time. Davey inhales and I can see his shoulders relax a little. He looks at me and offers a quick, tight-lipped smile.

Race walks up to him. "Kid, this is Davey. Davey, meet the new girl."

Davey walks up to me. He's a lot taller than he looked a second ago. He just offers a simple "Hi."

Race plops down on the bench next to Albert, who's already shoving spoonfuls of Lucky Charms into his mouth, and, seeing I didn't take a seat right away, pats the empty space next to him. "Sit, sit."

I sit down and shift in my seat. I turn around to where the paint water incident just occurred, and I see the girl kiss Jack and walk over to the other side of the table as Jack turns beet red with a goofy grin on his face. Race taps me on the shoulder, then points to the girl.

"I didn't get a chance to introduce you to her. That's Katherine, and Jack's girlfriend. Honestly, I don't know how they became a thing. She's so smart, and he's – well," Race says, turning to the corner of the table where Jack now sat, trying to catch a piece of fruit in his mouth and nearly choking in the process, then turning back to me with a grimace on his face. "Well, he's Jack."

I chuckle as Race turns his attention to Albert, then feel something metallic hit my back.

"Sorry about that," someone says, probably the person who hit me with that thing.

Abruptly, I turn around to find myself face to face with a metal crutch. Upon looking up, I'm almost blinded by a smile.

"Sorry – again," the boy says. He sticks out his hand. "I haven't seen you around before. You must be new." He has an accent too, although it's much more subtle than Race's. "I'm Charlie, but most everyone calls me Crutchie."

As I shake his hand, I remark, "That doesn't sound very nice."

He shrugs. "I'm alright with it. It's better than the other names people call me. Besides, I like Crutchie better than Charlie."

"Why?" I ask.

His face twists into a thoughtful expression. "Dunno. I guess… well, in the world there are a million Charlies. Common name. Crutchie, however…" he smiles, almost to himself. He points to the open spot near me. "Someone already sitting here?"

"Nah," I say, and I take his crutch as he sits down. He smiles again, and I can't help but smile back.

I hear Race over my shoulder. "Hey, Crutchie, good to see you again!" He reaches across me and slaps him on the back.

Crutchie smiles, rather sheepishly. "Hello Race."

I laugh. "Does everyone have a nickname here?"

"Pretty much," Race responds as he finishes off his cereal. "I've even thought of one for you."

I blink. "Already? What is it?" Crutchie looks curiously between us two.

"You can tell me if you don't like it," he says, glancing at the ground.

"It's okay, I want to hear it," I insist lightly.

"…Kid, I was thinking about Cinnamon," he says. He looks at the ground again, for longer this time. "…Like I said, if you don't like it –"

"No," I cut in. "I think it's nice. I don't know how you got this accurate, actually."

He looks up. "Huh?"

"This is going to sound crazy, but… I actually put cinnamon on just about everything."

A long silence. Then, laughter from Crutchie. "You really got it on the nose, didn't you?" he laughed. Race looked down, blushing.

"Cinnamon," I say, testing how it rolls off the tongue. "Cinnamon." I shrug. "I like it better than my real name."

"What's your real name?" Crutchie asks.

"It's Cassidy," I say, cringing. "My friends would call me Cassie – so, really that means that not many people called me that." I laugh in spite of myself.

Crutchie chuckles. "Sheesh." As I finish off my bowl of cereal, the bell rings.
Crutchie points to the door. "That's the orientation bell." He smiles, and I notice it's a bit crooked. It's okay though, it suits him. He sticks out his hand again. "Well, Cinnamon –" I laugh a little, and his smile grows bigger –"-It was nice meeting you." I take his hand and shake it; it's calloused and warm. It's a strange feeling, but a nice one. He gets up with less difficulty than he had sitting down. "See you in a second?"

"See you in a second," I reply as he walks away. I feel a slap on my back. It's Race.

"C'mon kid, we'd better get to orientation or the principal's going to feed you to his vintage printing press."