Chapter Two
It's a Small World After All

You wanna know how I ended up in Shallow Lake?

Well, it started with being kicked out of every school in the tri-state area.

Now before you go pegging me as some crazy juvie who likes to blow stuff up, just know that there were only three, and one had been a hippy school. Yeah, like a school where you sat on beanbags and talked about how lava lamps were a metaphor for life.

After the last one kicked me out, I figured I'd get sent to some school in North Dakota or Louisiana next. That's when Mom pulled a fast one on me.

"How would you feel about going to public school?" she asked after I broke the news to her. My mom thought cell phones were linked to brain cancer and food that wasn't organic was soaked in pesticide. Sending her only kid to a public school was one of her worst nightmares.

Of course I told her I would. She confessed that she really missed me and thought Shallow Lake was a pretty good town. I'd never been there longer than a few weeks at a time for school breaks. All I knew was that it was a small town with a school, convenience store, and not much else.

We'd ended up in Shallow Lake by what can only be described as a gold digger move on my mom's part.

A few years ago we were living in New York. I went to some fancy alternative school and Mom waitressed at a café while she tried to take college courses. Money was obviously pretty tight.

One day a bunch of guys strolled into the café while my mom was working. She later learned that they were there in New York for some big business convention. Anyway, they were nice enough, or so she thought.

I really wish the story ended there. Unfortunately, one of the guys kept coming every day. By then my mom was able to conclude three things: he was a huge slob, was made of money, and had a huge crush on her. All she did was encourage him a little bit, and in three weeks…bam! They were getting married.

At least, that's how the story goes in my head.

Gabe Ugliano owned the aforementioned sole convenience store in Shallow Lake, Michigan. His great grandfather had founded it or something, and it just fell to him by default. A guy like Smelly Gabe, as I liked to call him, would never have had the brains to start something like that.

Mom knew I hated him. After a few weeks of living together with more than a few disagreements, she saw that things were never going to work out. She had to take a side, so instead of kicking Smelly Gabe to the curb, I got shipped off to boarding school.

She obviously couldn't put up with him anymore, so she wanted me back to help lessen the burden known as Smelly Gabe. I wished she would just break up with the guy, but he was paying for her online classes, and all she had to do was pretend to love him.

Unless, you know, she actually loved him.

No, that couldn't be true. Gabe Ugliano was physically impossible to love. He was a big ungrateful pig who thought he was the master of the universe.

And I was stuck living with him.

The first day of school was always terrible. I knew that. The new kid was the center of attention for a few hours, next rumors started circulating about them, and then they spent a variable amount of time being a loner before finding a place to fit in before the next move.

I'd done it at least 12 times. I was a self-proclaimed expert. One day I'd write a book about it.

The school itself was incredibly small. I had no problem finding my locker. However, I did not expect to find a guy standing next to it, almost like he was waiting for me. Tall, blonde, and tan – he looked like he'd stepped straight out of a Hollister photo shoot. Obviously, he wasn't a freshman.

Then I wondered why someone who was obviously not a freshman was standing next to the lockers assigned to the freshmen. Maybe he had some underclassman girlfriend whose locker was right next to mine. Yeah, that was probably it.

Sighing, I went to go open my lock. 10-25-10…or was it 25-10-25? Great, I'd already forgotten my combination. At least there hadn't been lockers at the hippie school. There also hadn't been any deodorant.

Might as well start trying now, I thought. Maybe I'd be ready for my first hour English class. Dropping my heavy backpack to the ground, I started plugging in numbers.

"Are you Peter Johnson?"

I could have jumped. It was the older kid…talking to me. "No, not me," I mumbled, focusing on the lock. I stopped at the last number and pulled. No luck.

"New kid?" he tried again, sounding irritated.

"Yeah, but my name's not Peter. I'm-"

"Don't know. Don't care. Listen, I'm assigned to you." I looked out of the corner of my eye at him. He had this look in his eyes…like he was the kind of guy who would start a house on fire just to watch it burn. "I have to show you around today and help you fit in. After that, stay out of trouble and we never have to see each other again."

I tried one more combination before looking up. "Um, okay. Sure."

He figured me out in all of two seconds. "You already forgot your locker combination." It wasn't even a question.

I shook my head and he shoved me over. "Move." He spun the lock around a few times, and it clicked open. "20-15-20. Try not to forget this time."

"Um, thanks." I was too intimidated to ask how he knew my combination, or more importantly, realize a guy like him knowing my combination probably wasn't a good thing.

He tapped his foot impatiently while I started putting all my binders in my locker. As a freshman, you took pretty much the same courses at any school. The only electives I'd gotten to pick were tech ed and some ag class.

"Underwood!" the guy shouted. I looked over my shoulder. A nerdy kid with a mop of curly hair stopped and looked in our direction. His eyes widened in disbelief – or maybe fear. "Yeah, talking to you. Get over here."

He came over in a walk that was more of a lopsided gallop than anything. "You want a new friend? Of course you do. Show the new kid around the school for me."

"I, uh, umm…" he stuttered.

The upperclassman ignored him. "Okay, Peter. If a fat balding guy asks you how your first day is going, say Luke gave you a very nice tour and helped you make some friends," he said slowly, like he was talking to a little kid. "Understand?"

I gulped and nodded. Luke took off, leaving me with some other stranger. I was starting to feel like a cargo sack tossed from one person to the next.

"Um, I'm Grover," the guy said, running a hand through his mop of curly hair. He had a bad case of acne and stood kind of hunched over. "So…do you have English or government first hour?"

"English."

Grover's face lit up. "Me too. It's on the second floor. I can…umm…show you where everything is on the way up there."

I'll admit it. I kind of didn't want to be seen with Grover. It was obvious that he wasn't the most popular kid, and I really didn't want to be branded an outcast on the first day at my new school. "That's okay. I'm sure I can find it."

"Oh, well…okay." He didn't do a good job hiding his disappointment. "I guess I'll see you around then."

Our class didn't have more than 50 kids. I'm sure he would.