The jarring sound of the iPhone alarm, mixed with the drastic increase in brightness caused by the lights being turned back on jolted me awake. In that instant, I saw Jacques' intense concentration over his map of the playground break, as Rachel observed both of us silently, but non-judgementally.

"Rise and shine, sleepyheads!" said the teacher cheerfully. "Naptime is officially over! Everyone please report to your assigned seats. You will be able to recognize them by the name tags on the top, and the pictures of you on the tables. They've been divided into islands of four, for your… convenience."

My head still kind of fuzzy from having just been awoken, I yawned, stood up, and stretched. As I closed my eyes and flexed my arms above my head, little galaxies swirled beneath my eyelids. It was pleasant. I opened my eyes and started looking around for the spot at one of the tables with my name and picture on it. It was a bit of a relief not to need to use my Lucky Penny to make a decision. I had used it so many times today that it was starting to feel a bit sore. Interestingly enough, when I finally came across my spot at the table, it had not only a nametag with my name on it, but also a photo of my face that I didn't remember being taken. Before I could wonder more about this, a voice interrupted my thoughts.

"Good afternoon, Maddie." It was Julia. "How was your nap?" Jacques was close behind her, and upon reading the other nametags and photos at the desks, I saw that they were grouped with me for whatever was about to happen next… along with -

"Long time, no see, guys!" Owen suddenly appeared behind me and clapped me on the back. It felt good to be a part of his friend group. "Well," he continued, "now that we've got the Avengers assembled, let's all see what's up next." He took a seat, kicking his timbs up on the table.

"Hey!" suddenly the teacher was beside him, holding up both hands with an annoyed expression. "Feet go on the floor, not the table!"

"Aww man!" said Owen, sounding a bit like Swiper the Fox from Dora the Explorer before putting his feet back on the floor. "But my mama always lets me do that at home!"

"BAAAAH!" Everyone, including the teacher, jumped in shock after that noise somehow suddenly emanated from the mouth of Jacques. Owen began laughing hysterically. "What the heck was that?!"

"It is another talent I possess," replied Jacques seriously, his unblinking eyes staring down Owen. "I am also a lie detector. Whenever someone tells a lie, I go BAAAAH!"

I thought that was a little unusual, but nowhere near the strangest thing that had happened today.

"That's a very… noble talent to have, Jacques," remarked the teacher, "but I'd appreciate it if you'd keep it to yourself."

"I don't," said Owen, between breaths. "Hey Jacques, you see all this facial hair? IT'S ALL REAL!"

Jacques' face turned red as he attempted to restrain himself, but to no avail. The urge was just too powerful. "BAAAAH!" Owen hooted n' hollered n' tumbled out of his chair backwards laughing, tears screaming down his face.

"Oh, oh! I got another one!" Owen said, doing his best DJ Khaled impression. "I'm actually the pres-"

"That is sufficient!" cut in Julia. "You are hurting him!"

"Yeah," agreed the teacher seriously. "If you keep this up, Owen, you're going into time out." Owen calmed down at the threat of a time out, and got to his feet, still a little shaky from the hilarity of the absurdity of the situation. "Okay, I'll stop. For now. Anyways, what's up with these groups? Are we gonna play charades?"

"No," replied the teacher, putting a piece of paper at each of our seats. "This will be a math quiz. You will have a minute to answer as many of these addition problems as correctly as you can. So please, be seated so I can get this started."

"Whoa, so it's like a race?" asked Owen excitedly. "Awesome! I'm totally gonna win for sure!"
"BAAAAH!" went Jacques, and Owen stifled a giggle with enormous effort.

Within a few minutes, the teacher had gotten to entire class settled down and explained the situation. They pressed a button, and the background music changed to "Mans Not Hot" by Big Shaq.

"Ok, are you lot ready?" asked the teacher over the music. "3… 2… 1… Begin!"

Aside from the sound effects being spat by Big Shaq and the scribbling of number two pencils on paper, the room was silent for a whole minute as the little brains of the kindergarteners tried to do the impossible – simple, grade level algebra. I couldn't quite finish all of my problems, but I was able to get most of them done by the time the teacher rung their hand bell to get us to stop.

"Time is up!" exclaimed the teacher, holding up their hands. A bunch of pencils clattered down to the surfaces of the tables simultaneously. "Who was able to finish all of the problems?" Four hands shot up – Julia's, Owen's, Eli's, and the long-eyelashed boy with the red flannel shirt's. These students seemed to have singled themselves out as the four smartest students in the class, and two of them were sitting at my table. Wow.

"Wow, so fast!" exclaimed the teacher, their hands on their belly again. "Let me go around and check the answers!" First up was Julia. She looked nervous as the teacher's eyes flitted back and forth across her paper for a tense moment.

"Wow, congratulations!" said the teacher, putting down the paper. "A perfect score!" Julia let out a subtle sigh of relief before flipping her hair. It only made sense that Julia was so smart, since both of her parents were doctors. Next, the teacher stepped next to her to inspect Owen's paper. During this moment, Owen stole a glance at Julia's paper as the teacher's eyes narrowed. After reading the whole quiz through, they bent down to review something with Owen. "I couldn't tell what this number is, is it a 1 or a 7?"

"7" replied Owen without any hesitation.

"BAAAAH!" countered Jacques with an equal amount of hesitation. Owen gritted his teeth. "Okay, fine! It's a 1."

"Then I'm afraid to say..." concluded the teacher, "that that is incorrect. You missed only one question, but that still exceeds expectations by a lot."

The flannel boy snickered. "That's what you get for trying to cheat!"

Owen put his hands behind his head and grinned. "Then let's see how many you got wrong, Randy-boy!"

The teacher crossed the space to the next table where flannel boy, supposedly named Randy, was sitting, and picked up his paper. After inspecting it for several seconds, they bent down and asked him quietly, "Is it okay if I share with the class how many problems you got right?"

"Of course!" said Randy insolently.

"All right," said the teacher, rising to their feet. "You got 24 questions right, meaning that you missed six. But on the upside, you were still able to answer all of them in a minute, which exceeds expectations."

Randy's confident smirk vanished from his face as Owen's grin only grew wider. Both parties were silent as the teacher continued their trek over to Eli and read over his paper.

"Wow! Another perfect score!" Eli blushed and pulled his yellow helmet over his eyes in embarrassment as the whole class, including Julia, turned to look at him in respect of his crypn.

"Now," continued the teacher. "Eli and Julia, do you want me to hang up these perfect quizzes on the achievement board?"

"Yes, please," said Julia immediately, while Eli shook his head reluctantly, his helmet still covering his eyes.

"All right," said the teacher, pinning Julia's quiz to a purple-construction paper covered bulletin board decorated with yellow paper stars and titled "Achievement" before whirling around and addressing the entire class. "Okay class, we're about to wrap up your first day at school, so everyone please help clean up the classroom before you leave!"

Randy immediately lept to his feet. "You heard the teacher!" he parroted. "Clean up, clean up, everybody everywhere!"

Over the next few minutes the rest of the class cleaned up while Randy marched in place, singing the "clean up" song while brandishing a broom like a marching baton. Myself, Jordan, he blonde girl with nice teeth, and a boy with a camo shirt, dark hair, and a buzz cut helped pick up the naptime mats, roll them up, and store the in a closet that the teacher showed us. After the classroom had been cleaned, we all got in line to leave the school for the day. I felt a little more comfortable now that I knew both the person in front of me and the person behind me, even if I was conscious of Jacques' unblinking eyes boring into the back of my head.

The teacher beckoned and Jordan began walking through the door to the entrance hallway, followed by everyone behind them, with the teacher guiding everyone along out the door to the classroom.

When it came to my turn, the teacher stopped me and said "Maddie." I looked up to their face.

"Yes?" I asked temporarily. "Am I in trouble?"

The teacher shook their head and handed me two small black chips. "Please take these."

"Thanks," I mentioned, slipping the chips into my pocket along with the plastic shovel and butter sandwich. "Oh, by the way, what is your name?"

The teacher smiled. "As your mama probably says, you're not supposed to call grown ups by their first names." They were right about that, yes sir ree bob. "But you may call me Mr. Pony. See you tomorrow, Maddie."

"Hey!" cried Randy from four spots behind me. "Stop holding up the line, or your really gonna be in chubble!"

"Sorry!" I hurried out the door. As I waited out in the playground for my mama to come pick me up, I took the two chips out of my pocket to take a better look at them. They were about an inch across, relatively flat, and square all except for a small cutout in the top left corner.

"What are those?" I turned around to see Jordan peering over my shoulder at the chips.

"I don't know," I said, as I heard Owen shouting "Those are my Crocs!" in the distance. I held one of the chips up between my thumb and index finger so we could take a better look at it. "But I'm sure I'll find out someday." Our conversation was cut short by a car horn honking.

"Maddie!" It was my mama.

I slipped the chips back into my pocket. "I've gotta go," I explained. "See you tomorrow, Jor-bah."

"Uh… yeah. See you." he waved as I jogged towards the vehicle. And with that… my first day of school came to an end.