"First off," said the teacher, "you must all spread out and go to different places in the room. Afterward, you have a few minutes to walk around and introduce yourself to other people. Make sure you tell them your name, what you like to do, and a fun fact about yourself!"
A panic instantly overtook my mortal body. There were so many people in the room, and I didn't know any of them! How was I supposed to decide - first of all, where to go, then secondly, who to talk to, and then finally, what to say to them? My mind went blank and I froze like a deer with headlights as I saw the rest of the class wandering off to various places in the room while the teacher danced and clapped their hands rhythmically to the music playing in the background, all while ringing a hand bell. I started to notice one of the boys, who was wearing glasses and clutching a notebook in his small, sweaty hands start to approach someone else, and was very confused, until I remembered that I had my Lucky Penny in the pocket of my blue rain jacket that I was wearing. I chuckled to myself. I knew how I would find the answer now!
I began flipping the Lucky Penny both frequently and frantically, using its power to eliminate students left and right until only one other student besides myself was locked deep in conversation with someone else. I decided that the Lucky Penny had chosen that person, and before I could realize it, I found myself walking towards a small, dark haired girl in an oversized orange coat with a big number 84 printed on the back.
"Hi," I asked.
"What's up," she replied. "Uh, my name is Tiffany, and I like, uh, recycling." Despite the stressful situation, she seemed really relaxed, and it showed in the inflection of her voice.
"I'm Maddie, and..." I started to reply, but then suddenly drew a blank in my mind. What did I like? What was a fun fact about myself? What even was my life up until this point? A thousand thoughts spun through my head, and I tried to grasp onto one, stuttering in silence. It was all an enigma.
"Well," I continued, after a few minutes of thinking, "I don't really know what I like. But a fun fact about me is that I found this acorn out on the playground earlier. You can have it if you want." I reached into the other pocket of the blue rain jacket that I was wearing and held the acorn out to Tiffany.
"Wow, thanks!" she said, a hint of enthusiasm entering her voice. "I bet if I plant this somewhere and take good care of it, it'll grow up into a great big tree!" Even though it was only an acorn, she still seemed really happy to receive it. It's the thought that counts, I guess.
"Oh yeah, I almost forgot," Tiffany added, putting her hand to her chin as if she was thinking about something. "My fun fact. I'm actually named after my mom, so that makes me a junior. So everyone calls me Kiki instead so we don't get confused with each other."
"Kiki," I repeated. "Okay, I'll try to remember that. Nice to meet you, Kiki!"
Suddenly, the teacher's voice rang out, loud and clear as a bell, just like the bell they were ringing right now. "Attention everyone! Only ten minutes of centers remain! Make sure that you use them wisely!"
The panic returned to my mortal form. Crap! I thought, mentally kicking myself. I had no idea how much time had passed, but I had only spoken to one person. There were many other people that I didn't know. I put my hands on my head and started spinning, trying to drown out all the noise. I shut my eyes. Just as I was remembering that I could use my Lucky Penny to help me pick the next person to talk to again, a firm hand grabbed my shoulder, stopping my in my place.
"Hey, are you okay?" It was that boy from earlier, with the glasses and the notebook. No wonder, I don't think anyone else's grip strength would have been strong enough to stop me. He must clutch that notebook very tightly. Whatever secrets must be inside must be very valuable to him. "You were spinning pretty fast, is something wrong?"
"No, I'm just..." I began. Embarrassed. Confused. Panicked. All of those words could have been used to describe the way I was feeling right now. Though my body had stopped spinning, my mind continued to whirl, the words flying around like the colors of the wind. "Oh, right! I forgot about what we were supposed to be doing. Hi, my name is Maddie, and uh, I like… centers?"
"I'm Jordan, and I like brushing my teeth. My fun fact is -"
"Jor-bah's fun fact is that one time, he was wearing some really tight jeggings, and he jumped in the water. Then, he farted, but since it was under the water it just made a bubble in his jeggings, and the bubble got so big that his jeggings exploded!" The boy with the drawn-on facial hair strode up to Jordan confidently and clapped him on the back. I couldn't help but laugh hysterically at the absurdity of this fun fact.
"Why'd you have to tell her that one, Owen?" asked Jordan, looking down at the ground like he wanted it to swallow him up. "It's embarrassing."
"That's okay," I replied breathlessly, wiping a tear from my left eye. "My fun fact is that I'm actually pretty embarrassed too." Jordan's face lit up a bit as we empathized with one another, while Beard Boy only raised his left eyebrow. I turned to him. "So your name is Owen? And why'd you call him Jor-bah?"
"Yep!" answered Owen, grinning and putting his hands behind his head. "And, well, I call him Jor-bah because that's his name, but mostly just because he's my boy." he clapped Jordan on the back again. "I'll let him explain."
"I'm not your boy," muttered Jordan. "We just met five minutes ago."
"Yeah, but we just shared our darkest secrets with each other, right? That makes us boys, so we're the best of pals! Heck, Maddie here's my boy now too, even though she's a girl!" I blinked once as I tried to process the words that Owen was saying.
"A-anyways," continued Jordan sheepishly, "my real fun fact is that he calls me Jor-bah is because of the way I write my name. You see, I write my lowercase d's backwards and always draw an extra-long stem on my n's, so Jordan looks like Jorbah when you read it." Unbelievable.
"That's pretty clever," I said, a single drop of sweat appearing on my furrowed brow. Suddenly, I snapped my fingers as if I had an idea. "I know! I can start writing my lowercase d's backwards too, and you can call me Mabbie!"
"Yeah!" agreed Owen. "And both of you can Call Me Maybe!"
"Speaking of which," I said opportunistically, "Owen, since you're my boy now, what do you like doing? And what's your fun fact?"
A brief glint of acknowledgment flashed across Owen's eyes, but quickly faded into another grin. "I like to make people laugh. And as for my fun fact, it's actually more of my darkest secret than anything else. You ready to hear it?" Without actually giving me a chance to respond, he leaned in towards both of us and whispered rather loudly. "I'm actually the president of the school." Both Jordan's and my face contorted into shock, followed by disbelief. Owen giggled at our reactions. "Just kidding."
Any further discussion that could possibly have followed that shocking revelation was interrupted by the teacher once again. "If you can hear my voice, clap once!" A few people clapped. "If you can hear my voice, clap twice!" More people clapped. "If you can hear my voice, clap three times!" The most people clapped! Everyone was now quiet and paying attention to the teacher. "Okay class, centers are now over. I hope you enjoyed getting to meet some of your brethren and make new friends!" I glanced around nervously. Out of everyone in the room, I only had talked to three people. Had everyone else already met each other? Despite the purpose of the activity, was I actually still being left out? "It's okay if you didn't get a chance to talk to everyone, we're going to keep doing centers every day, so don't worry if there are still people that you want to talk to." That was a relief. A hurricane relief. "Now, it's time to move on to the next stage of the day. Today, you will all be assigned pen-pals from the first grade."
A blonde girl with nice teeth raised her hand. "What's a pen-pal?" she asked, a question mark appearing near her head.
"That's a good question. That's a very good question," replied the teacher, "but what I'd really prefer to shed light upon is another issue that affects all of us. You lot still haven't been given your assignment books yet!" After drawing their coat to one side, the teacher flung it wide open, a flock of mead composition books flying out and conveniently landing in each of our eager hands. "Make sure you write your names on them at some point, so you don't lose them or get them switched with somebody else's. Now please!" the teacher again gestured melodramatically. "Give a warm, Alabama welcome to the class of year 373!"
"What's a Alabama?" asked the blonde girl again.