I walk glumly to school, eyes on the sidewalk. The air is chilly and the sky is gray—sweater weather. But it’s an illusion. The clouds are actually fog that always “burns off” by midmorning, as the weather reporters like to say. The neighborhood is full of pale wooden ranch houses just like ours. Concrete driveways serve as walkways to front doors set atop a gray concrete step or two. Faded green lawns stretch down the block, punctuated by the odd rosebush or line of shrubbery—or even odder, a palm tree and a redwood tree next door to each other. There’s even a yard full of cacti.
We live three blocks from school, and as I approach the campus, my heart starts tripping over itself. I would be panting if not for the lump in my throat. When kids in movies and TV shows first arrive at a new school, they always look around and take a deep breath before plunging in, but not me. Pausing for even a moment would be like holding up a big sign saying, “Hi, I’m new! Please stare.” Not that there’s an “in” to plunge into, anyway. The school is basically a collection of long, low, rectangular buildings divided into classrooms and separated by strips of grass and concrete, all sprawled haphazardly around a quasi-central quad. I studied the map over the weekend, but there are so many buildings and so many intersections that I’m sure I’ll get turned around at some point.
Okay, stop. This is ridiculous. New school, new attitude, remember? What was that saying—fake it till you make it? Or how about carpe diem? Or maybe Just Do It?
So in the spirit of faking it till I make it, seizing the day, and just doing it, in—or actually around the first building—I plunge. Without pausing.
Miraculously, I find my way to my first-period class (trigonometry, room 27) a few minutes early. I peek inside. The desks are arranged in classic schoolhouse fashion, in six rows of six, with a table and a whiteboard at the front. The teacher—Mr. Green, according to my schedule—is busy with something at the back of the room. A boy wearing a black T-shirt, torn black jeans, and combat boots—looks like the goth uniform is the same nationwide—lounges at a desk in the middle, picking his fingernails; two girls in cheerleader uniforms sit close to the door, giggling over a phone.
As I falter on the threshold, Mr. Green walks over and greets me. “Hi, there. Who are you?”
“Sana Kiyohara.”
“Nice to meet you, Sana,” he says, and points to the whiteboard. “I’m assigning seats, so check the board and find your seat.” Sure enough, there’s my name printed in a box right in the middle of a grid of thirty-five other boxes. “I see you’re right over there, in front of Caleb,” says Mr. Green. The box below mine is labeled “Caleb Miller.” The goth. Caleb glances up when he hears his name, and I see a nose ring and an eyebrow ring. Expressionless, he goes back to his fingernails.
New school, new attitude. Fake it till you make it.
I walk to my desk, sit down, and say, “Hi.”
His eyes flick up and back down. “Hi.” He continues picking at what I can now see is black nail polish.
“I’m new.” Facepalm. I quit. Forget faking it—I can’t do this.
But Caleb looks up with real interest now. He considers me for a couple of seconds, leans forward, and whispers, “Run.” A joke! I smile. “No, seriously,” he says. “Get out while you can. This place is a cesspool.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because my mom’ll kick my ass if I ditch the first day of school.” He asks me where I’m from, why I moved, and all I have to do is answer. I relax a little. This is easy. As other kids wander into class, Caleb forgets about asking questions and gives me his opinion of each one, starting with the two cheerleaders: “They actually think people give a fuck about them, for some reason.” A tall Asian boy with gelled hair: “Andy Chin. President of the junior class. He thinks he’s the shit but he’s just another dumbass.” A gaggle of Asian girls: “You’ll probably end up being friends with them. They’re nice, but they’re all the same, and I don’t mean that they look the same—they are the same.” What the . . . ? Did he just say—my shock must show on my face, because Caleb interrupts himself. “No, really. They are.”
“Why do you think I’m going to be friends with them?”
He looks at me like I’ve missed something obvious. “You’re Asian. They’re Asian. You do the math.” Sounds like your math is racist, I think, but I say nothing.
“What? Didn’t the Asian kids all hang out together at your old school?”
“No.”
“How many Asian kids were at your school?”
“Like, three.”
“And you weren’t friends?”
“No.”
He is nonplussed, but steadfast. “Well, wait and see. I’ll bet you anything that’s who you end up with. People think they’re unique, but they’re really stereotypes. It’s just the way they are. They want to be in a group, and they’ll sacrifice their individuality to fit in.” This from a guy who probably dresses just like his friends. But I don’t see the point in arguing with this twenty-first-century Holden Caulfield, and anyway, Mr. Green has started talking.
Mr. Green has everybody pair up and interview each other: name, how we feel about math, one little-known fact about ourselves. Apparently he’s one of those math teachers who thinks he’s an English teacher. Caleb and I are partners. When it’s our turn, I introduce him and then wait while Caleb intones, “This is Sana, she likes math but doesn’t love it, and she hates broccoli.” As he lowers himself back into his chair, he adds, “Oh—she’s new.”
He grins at me as he sits down, and I’m so stunned I can’t even react. Anderson High School is huge—2,500 students—so I’d hoped I could sneak by anonymously today, but there’s no chance of that now. I can feel my cheeks burning as everyone perks up a little and kids all over the classroom practically fall out of their desks trying to get a better look at the new girl. I have never felt so conspicuous, so . . . scrutinized, and I begin to understand what writers mean when they say that a character wishes the ground would open up and swallow them whole. Finally I muster up a feeble smile, shrug my shoulders, and wave my hand at shoulder level, the universal sign for, “Hi, I’m really embarrassed.” Andy Chin, class president and alleged dumbass, leans back, flashes a smile, and says with a smarmy wink, “Stick with me, baby. I’ll introduce you to all the right people.” Groans. He holds his arms out wide, in protest. “What? I was being ironic.”
Behind me, Caleb mutters, “No, he wasn’t.”
Finally, we start doing math, and I take notes dutifully for the remainder of class. When the bell rings, I surreptitiously check my map for my Spanish classroom as I close my notebook, trying to make it look like I’m going over my notes one last time.
“Sana?”
I snap the notebook shut and look up. It’s one of the Asian girls. She’s tiny, with huge eyes and an open smile.
“Hi. I’m Elaine. And that’s Hanh, and that’s Reggie.” She gestures to two other girls who are waiting at the door. They wave. One of them is tall and thin, with long, straight black hair, wearing coral lip gloss. The other has her hair woven into an elaborate braid, and has a pleasant, round-cheeked face. “We were wondering if you want to have lunch with us after second period. What class do you have next?”