Nothing happened for several more days, and then, all of a sudden, school started.

I woke up that day in a state of total disbelief. There was no way school could be starting. My parents were supposed to come and rescue us before that. I guess in my mind, I'd pegged the beginning of school as impossible. To me, it would never happen, because Penny and I weren't really supposed to be in that dusty town with two dusty old people. The whole thing was made up to torture us, but starting school just seemed unreal—something mom and dad would never make us do—so when the day came and Great Grandma woke me up early with a huge grin and a "Happy first day of school, kids!" I could hardly stomach it.

"I'm not done sleeping!" I almost yelled at her.

She shuffled around to my bed in her robe and slippers. "Now is that any way to start the day?"

I buried my face into my pillow in response.

"Robbie, you'll have a great time. Meet all the kids in the neighborhood. You know, you really haven't met any of them at all, yet. I thought you would have, by now."

She was not making me feel better. Nothing that old raisin said could make me feel better. Did she not realize that we lived in the middle of nowhere? What neighborhood was she even talking about?

"Come on, Rob," Penny cheerfully chimed in. "It'll be fun!"

Fun? Not likely. But I motivated myself enough to get out of bed, mostly because I wanted to please my little sister. She was always so happy; I couldn't spoil her first day of school just because I was determined to hate mine.

I dressed myself without caring and ate a bowl of cereal, telling Great Grandma that I didn't want all the scrambled eggs she'd made. Mom never made eggs on the first day of school. She always made waffles with chocolate chips in them. Penny ate the eggs. Traitor.

Back home we took a bus to school. That was when we lived in a neighborhood that actually had enough kids to fill a bus. Here, since we were on a farm at the end of a dirt road and most other people lived somewhere I had never even seen, there was no bus. We couldn't walk, either. It was too far, and we didn't even know the way. So, to make the morning worse than it already was, Great Grandma declared that she was going to drive us to school. At that point, I almost didn't even care, because I was going to look like the biggest dork-of-a-new-kid no matter what; having my great grandmother drive me was just icing on the cupcake. I wasn't going to like anybody there, anyhow, so instead of arguing, I just tucked my resentment into a hole in my brain and schlumped into the back seat of the car, letting Penny take the front.

My sister chattered the whole way there. I don't even know what she talked about. Her voice was like someone incessantly sharpening a pencil, so I just tuned her out and watched the town move by the windows. The school wasn't really all that far. It was too far to walk, but I thought that if I'd had a bike, I could easily have ridden there. When we moved, I had refused to bring my bike, because I knew I'd be back home soon and wouldn't need it. In my imagination, the bike was still waiting in the garage at our real house.

Kids were all over the outside of the building. My stomach hurt when Great Grandma pulled her enormous maroon metal beast up to the front and braked, claiming that this was our stop. At least she wasn't going to get out and walk us in.

We got a lot of stares as we got out of the car. My sense was that this was the kind of place where everybody already knew everybody, and new kids didn't show up too often. I could feel my face turning red from all the eyes on us, but I just stared at the ground and walked my little sister into the building

Inside, I occupied myself with helping Penny find her classroom and meet her teacher, even though she insisted she didn't need my help. She probably knew I was just trying to kill time before going into the eighth grade room, but I couldn't wait forever. So after leaving my sister, I wandered to the second floor and found the class that had a sign reading "Mr. Cook, 8th Grade Homeroom," took a deep breath, and walked in.

No kids were in there yet. I'd taken that deep breath for nothing. The only person in there was a man, who I guessed was Mr. Cook.

I would've scooted back out into the hall to avoid him, but he saw me and said, "Hello there! And what's your name, sir?"

I looked at the windows. They had the flags of different countries stuck up on them. I wished I were in a different country. Taiwan, maybe. "Robert," I said.

"Robert Mortimer?"

I nodded, then glanced at the desks in groups. I hated groups.

"I'm Mr. Cook," the man said, walking over to me. "It's nice to meet you, Robert. You're our new student, this year!"

I guess he expected me to be excited.

"Where are you from?" he tried.

I shrugged and instead said, "My sister and I are staying with my Great Grandma. She has the big farm—"

"That's right. The old, defunct farm. What a neat place!"

Looking up at him for the first time, I saw he was not that old. He resembled a spider monkey, long arms and legs and a stupid smile under his glasses. "What's that mean?" I asked.

"What does what mean?"

"De—"

"Funct? Defunct?"

"Yeah."

He beamed like he was happy I'd asked the question. "It means out of use. Not working anymore. Broken."

"Oh." I didn't say anything else but felt awkward. Kids didn't have conversations with their teachers like this.

"Well, Robert, why don't you go ahead and find a locker. You'll get first pick. See that entranceway at the back of the room? That leads into a little spot where all the eighth grade lockers are. Pick any of them you like, and then there're white labels on them. Take a marker and put your name on the locker you choose."

I obliged, mostly to get away from him.

The locker room was at least empty of people. I let out a big breath once I got back there. It was kind of dim, and I wished I could just sit in there all day, letting the rest of the kids have classes while I hid from all of them. Some feeling like crying pushed on my chest from the inside, but I balled my fist and gave my ribs a few punches, telling that feeling to go back where it came from.

"Are you ok?" said someone, and I spun around to see that kid from the store, Alex, standing in the entrance. He looked kind of concerned. I was too startled to say anything, so he explained, "Why are you hitting yourself? Do you have a cough or something?"

"Uh, yeah," I mumbled. "I have some . . . some stuff in my lungs. Trying to cough it up."

"Oh." He still stared at me like I was weird. "I have cough drops if you need them."

I shook my head, then turned back to the lockers. I picked the one farthest away from him, at the very end of the line, up top, by a window that I wished I could fly out of. I wrote my name on it with a black marker that was in a basket hanging on the wall. By the time I was done, Alex was gone. I heard voices and knew the other kids were starting to come into the room. There were two choices: stay in the locker room and have to deal with each one-on-one when they came in, or creep back out into the classroom and sit aside while they congregated. I chose the second option and slinked out the door, almost bumping into a couple of girls.

Even though I'd not wanted to talk to Mr. Cook before, I sucked up my pride and went to ask him where I was supposed to sit, because finding my seat and planting myself there was much better than being left to wander around the gathering eighth graders I didn't know. He told me to sit where I wanted, so I did. Farthest away from everyone, next to the windows, at the corner of a group of desks.

The morning bell rang, and I tried to occupy myself with putting my school supplies in my desk so that I didn't have to look at or talk to anybody. I didn't care about my stupid school supplies. I hated them. I just threw them all over the inside of the desk and scowled at them as I did, like it was their fault I was in this situation.

Mr. Cook talked to all the students, but I didn't listen until he started telling them to find seats. They could sit anywhere, he said. And just like I guessed, they sat everywhere, except by me. Then there were two kids who didn't have seats at the end, so they came and sat across from me only because there was nowhere else to go. Alex sat on the other side of the room, I noticed, with three other boys.

The kids across from me were a boy and a girl. They both looked like big nerds. My face felt hot, and I didn't talk for the entire class period.

The way the school day works was like this: we started in homeroom, and then Mr. Cook taught us social studies. After that, we moved in our group to the sixth grade homeroom teacher, who taught us science, and then to the seventh grade homeroom teacher, who taught us math, and the fifth grade homeroom teacher, who taught us English. Somewhere in there, we had lunch (which I spent hiding out in the bathroom), and then we also went to a music class. At the end of the day, we were back in the eighth grade homeroom.

By the time Mr. Cook had explained all this, I was tired of his voice. Surprising as it was, at the end of school, Great Grandma's house actually seemed like a better place to be.

When the bell rang at the end of the day, I felt only relief. I was the first one at my locker and nearly knocked some other kids over in a hurry to get out of there. Mr. Cook said something like "goodbye" but I didn't stop. I just kept on. I had to meet Penny by the front entrance.

Penny took forever to get there, and when she did finally exit the building, she was talking with a group of kids like she'd already made a million friends.

"Why are you so grumpy?" she asked upon seeing me.

"I'm not grumpy."

"Your face looks like it is."

I would've said something but a bunch of other kids were all pouring through the doors and somebody actually yelled my name. I turned around out of instinct, and then I saw it was that Jay kid again.

"Hey Rob!"

I just stood there and let him jog over to me.

"Wanna see something?"

Sunshine was in my eyes, so I held my hand over them and looked him over. He sounded like we didn't even just have our first day of school or anything. "What?"

"Come here."

He half-jogged off before I told him, "Can't. My Great Grandma's waiting for us."

"It'll just take a minute."

I wanted to, but I couldn't. "Nah, sorry," I said, then turned and walked with Penny away from that place. Great Grandma wasn't even there yet.