seen before. She's taller than me, and has that whole world-class beauty thing going for her. If I had to describe her, I'd say she was a cross between Halle Berry and Wonder Woman (see, I know some cultural references) but that description doesn't quite get at the whole I'm-smarter-than-you-are-and-you-better-respect-it thing she can do with her face.
She's wearing that face now as she drags me down this wide hallway filled with badly dressed kids who are, I guess, my age. They all watch me stumble, looking at me like I'm the strange one, when half the guys wear pants that hang off their butts and bag at the knees. Don't they watch TV? Don't they know that's-in the words of Alicia Silverstone of Clueless fame-so five minutes ago?
The whole place is in Sensurround-everywhere something new. You come in the main double doors to more double doors, only this little airlock part smells like bubblegum, hairspray, and cigarettes (which I thought were illegal). Then you go through those doors and the metal detectors and you're in this big echoy room with brick walls and a high ceiling and a lot of glass.
Trophy cases line up near the open window that leads to the office, and hallways branch off each side. Only you can't see all that right off because the big room is filled with kids my age. Some of them are talking really fast and some of them slouch against the brick wall and some of them have coupled up and are groping near the trophy cases (where, I guess, you can't easily see them from the window). Everybody has backpacks except me, and everybody knows everybody except me, and no one looks at me, but all the guys stare at my mom, which is, I gotta say, totally normal.
She marches right up to that window, says, “Serena VanDerHoven for Principal Meyers,” as if she's my stepmom Hera (wife of Zeus and one of the Powers That Be) and Principal Meyers is some poor captain of the guard. The woman behind the window, who is clearly younger than Mom but nowhere near as pretty, says she'll take care of it, and we should wait, and we do, and I watch these kids move around like amoebae in that one science experiment I got to do in Athena's temple class before Dad pulled me out to be head of all magic.
In movies about high school, there aren't this many students, and all of them dress better than they do here, except for the handful of losers and the theater club (upgraded losers) and of course, our hero (or heroine), who learns how to dress and how to talk and how to Fit In.
I watched a lot of movies to get ready for this, not to mention lots of TV shows and tons of YouTube videos. So while I'm prepared for lots of drama and tons of backbiting, I'm not quite ready for all this space filled with so many people who haven't even noticed me, even though I'm the best-dressed person in the room.
The woman behind the desk bleeps open a door that almost magically appears in the wall (I say “almost” because once I stared at it, I realized the door was cut into the wall; I just hadn't noticed it before). Mom yanks me through the door, and I trip over the sill, and Mom says something about my Jimmy Choos, which I don't think anyone should say in the office of someone in authority.
Back here, it smells like coffee. Computers run on nearby desks and so do some security feeds, mostly of the outside of the building, which surprises me (there are kids out there smoking and, from what I gather from some disgruntled employee, one teacher). Lots of desks are sprawled haphazardly and there are dying plants on most of them, along with stacks of files and uncapped pens in pen containers. A few chairs have sweaters hanging off them, which seems weird to me, given how warm it was out front, but the longer I'm in here, the more I realize it makes sense, because air coming from the vents is icy cold.
A wood door is open in the back, and on it is a sign that's got to be older than Mom. It says Principal's Office, and since I've heard such awful things
She's wearing that face now as she drags me down this wide hallway filled with badly dressed kids who are, I guess, my age. They all watch me stumble, looking at me like I'm the strange one, when half the guys wear pants that hang off their butts and bag at the knees. Don't they watch TV? Don't they know that's-in the words of Alicia Silverstone of Clueless fame-so five minutes ago?
The whole place is in Sensurround-everywhere something new. You come in the main double doors to more double doors, only this little airlock part smells like bubblegum, hairspray, and cigarettes (which I thought were illegal). Then you go through those doors and the metal detectors and you're in this big echoy room with brick walls and a high ceiling and a lot of glass.
Trophy cases line up near the open window that leads to the office, and hallways branch off each side. Only you can't see all that right off because the big room is filled with kids my age. Some of them are talking really fast and some of them slouch against the brick wall and some of them have coupled up and are groping near the trophy cases (where, I guess, you can't easily see them from the window). Everybody has backpacks except me, and everybody knows everybody except me, and no one looks at me, but all the guys stare at my mom, which is, I gotta say, totally normal.
She marches right up to that window, says, “Serena VanDerHoven for Principal Meyers,” as if she's my stepmom Hera (wife of Zeus and one of the Powers That Be) and Principal Meyers is some poor captain of the guard. The woman behind the window, who is clearly younger than Mom but nowhere near as pretty, says she'll take care of it, and we should wait, and we do, and I watch these kids move around like amoebae in that one science experiment I got to do in Athena's temple class before Dad pulled me out to be head of all magic.
In movies about high school, there aren't this many students, and all of them dress better than they do here, except for the handful of losers and the theater club (upgraded losers) and of course, our hero (or heroine), who learns how to dress and how to talk and how to Fit In.
I watched a lot of movies to get ready for this, not to mention lots of TV shows and tons of YouTube videos. So while I'm prepared for lots of drama and tons of backbiting, I'm not quite ready for all this space filled with so many people who haven't even noticed me, even though I'm the best-dressed person in the room.
The woman behind the desk bleeps open a door that almost magically appears in the wall (I say “almost” because once I stared at it, I realized the door was cut into the wall; I just hadn't noticed it before). Mom yanks me through the door, and I trip over the sill, and Mom says something about my Jimmy Choos, which I don't think anyone should say in the office of someone in authority.
Back here, it smells like coffee. Computers run on nearby desks and so do some security feeds, mostly of the outside of the building, which surprises me (there are kids out there smoking and, from what I gather from some disgruntled employee, one teacher). Lots of desks are sprawled haphazardly and there are dying plants on most of them, along with stacks of files and uncapped pens in pen containers. A few chairs have sweaters hanging off them, which seems weird to me, given how warm it was out front, but the longer I'm in here, the more I realize it makes sense, because air coming from the vents is icy cold.
A wood door is open in the back, and on it is a sign that's got to be older than Mom. It says Principal's Office, and since I've heard such awful things
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