In The Rumor Mill

Hiatus

2008-01-14T07:39:06Z

Won't be able to update for a while, unfortunately. I plan to have as much written as I can by the time I come back, though. Sorry, everyone.

Part 13: How to talk about sports

2008-01-02T06:53:07Z

"So what're your winter and spring sports?" Helen continued as we walked.

"Well, I'm going to try out for squash in the winter and tennis in the spring," I informed her shyly. My shyness was for once not due to me being socially clueless; this time I was just embarrassed at my answer. Too many racket sports for one person, or something.

"Hey, that's cool. How long have you been playing?" Helen wanted to know.

As we continued to discuss my racket-bound sports history, I realized that I had very little desire to be friends with Helen. Don't get me wrong, she seemed nice enough. But...single-minded. Sports, sports, and sports. I could handle a bit of sports talk, but I suspected that Helen and I would run out of things to say to each other almost immediately if we ever tried to have a conversation past social chitchat.

Particularly if it meant I had to pretend to like baseball.

Still, I didn't want her to hate me or anything. And she was being nice enough to walk back to Bartlett with me and keep me company. I had no reason to blow her off.

After she'd asked me a few more questions about tennis, I started to get the feeling that she was running out of questions and I was running out of answers. I always seem to be the one who answers questions rather than asks; and then I feel guilty for not keeping up my end of the conversation. Guilt already setting in, I asked Helen about her own sport teams.

"I don't officially play a sport in winter; I'm the men's varsity hockey manager," she said proudly. I suppose it was some sort of achievement for her? I wonder what one has to do to become a manager. "In spring I play lacrosse. It's awesome!"

I played lacrosse once in middle school, as a required three week sequence in Physical Education. I was terrible at it. I actually did better when they gave me a leftie stick by accident.

"It's always more fun when you have a team," I supplied instead. True, and not anti-lacrosse.

"Which is why soccer rules, right?" she asked, and winked at me.

I smiled and nodded. It seemed like the thing to do.

“So what position do you play, again?” I finally asked her, desperate for conversation. I had a decent memory of her kicking a ball at me, which meant she was on offense, but at this point I’d have asked her where babies came from if I thought it would keep the conversation going.

“Striker, if I can. Left if I can’t,” she told me smugly, “but usually striker. Why?” It must be something about strikers, but they always seem to think they’re the most important player. The concept of “team” sports must not have reached them quite yet.

“It’s good to know where my teammates are, is all,” I supplied weakly. It was a decent enough excuse, but not one I’d be pulling out again anytime soon. Goalies were supposed to know where their teammates played, but also be flexible enough to adapt to situations. Unless your team was flawless (which would be something akin to a miracle) people were going to get mixed up. You’d wind up with three defense and six forwards, or your entire team playing sweeper, or everyone in the center or the left or the right. Goalies who didn’t know how to adjust were goalies who didn’t win very many games.

We lapsed into an awkward silence that seemed to stretch out on and on and on. I was just about to blurt out something, anything, to break the awful emptiness when I realized we’d made it back to the dorm. I’d been so caught up in feeling awkward I’d barely paid attention to where we were going.

“So, um, thanks for walking back with me,” I thanked Helen politely, though without much enthusiasm. It had been nice of her to come with me, but a sports conversation interspersed with uncomfortable moments wasn’t my idea of a fabulous time. If there’s one thing I think I do well, it’s telling the truth without telling the whole truth. Judges would hate me. But I did tell her the truth- it was nice of her to walk me back.

We just didn’t have the world’s most electrifying conversation.

I could’ve walked inside the dorm with her, but I had no desire to extend the tongue-tied feeling I was getting. Instead, when we walked inside and into the stairwell, I walked immediately downstairs.

“Hey, where ya going?” Helen asked, peering over the staircase after me. “Is your room down there?” She laughed. I didn’t think it was particularly funny, since only the laundry room and storage room were downstairs and she knew perfectly well I wasn’t in either. But I laughed anyway. I didn’t want to give her a reason to dislike me. It would make for bad team dynamics.

That’s what I was telling myself, anyway.

“Just putting my cleats downstairs so they don’t smell,” I informed her.

“Aw, what’s a little smell,” Helen said dismissively. “Just stick ‘em in a sports bag or something.”

“Won’t the bag smell, then?” I asked. Correct response: yes. And then your father gets upset and starts spluttering uncontrollably and insists that you dispose of the bag immediately.

…purely hypothetically, of course.

“Whatever. Same applies,” she said lightly, and disappeared upstairs. I breathed a sigh of relief.

She was a nice girl, but she wasn’t going on my list of People to Befriend any time soon.

Part 12: How to talk baseball

2007-12-30T04:43:53Z

The rest of practice was more of the same. Run, dive, get covered in mud, get kicked, get up. Repeat, repeat, repeat. As the defense warmed up they got better, and I had to adjust to having a functional player in front of me. At home I’d played for the B team because I couldn’t make A team practices; no one held it against me, but it meant I was used to playing goalie and all four defensive positions.

This being a varsity team and all, it was a profoundly useless skill. It was more detrimental than anything, since I positioned myself differently than the other goalies (who came from more defensively competent teams) and it often left the goal wide open.

As we went through various drills, the feeling of relative equality I’d gotten at the beginning of practice had worn off with a vengeance. I wasn’t as tall as Caitlin, I wasn’t as large as Hannah—being skinny is not an asset in a soccer goalie—and I had smaller hands than both of them. Combined.

My father bought me the smallest size of adult goalie gloves once. You could fold the entire top inch of the glove’s fingers down without once touching my fingers. After that, we returned to children’s sizes. Hannah, on the other hand, looked to have one of the largest sizes of women’s goalie gloves on the market.

It’s like a math problem. Bigger person + bigger hands = better goal coverage. Geometrically, I was at a disadvantage from the start.

It occurred to me at the end of practice that I really didn’t like the team that much. No one had really said anything to me, or each other. I’m sure that this means that they are Intense and Dedicated, but… team spirit? General friendliness? When did that go out of style?

Though I really had no leg to stand on; I hadn’t exactly gone around and introduced myself. But if staring awkwardly at the ground counted as being friendly, I was definitely the school’s new social butterfly.

Helen came up to me at the end with the girls who’d greeted her in a cluster behind her. I recognized one of them as Jess, because she’d been one of the first to introduce herself, but that was the only name I came up with.

“Hey Abby, can you find your own way back? We’re going to go say hi to some people,” she explained, looking awkward. I guess she felt like she was abandoning me or something (which she was) but I didn’t really care. It was more insulting that she thought I couldn’t find my way back to Bartlett. Um, yeah, it’s about a two minute walk, with only one turn in it. Obviously far too complicated for my limited brain.

Not.

“I’ll be fine, don’t worry,” was all I said to her, smiling at her anyway. I didn’t really think she’d meant anything by it. Helen seemed more like she was trying to watch out for me than to be condescending. Just because she did both didn’t make her a bad person.

I left the water bottle on the bench next to the coach while he was talking to one of the other players. I saw him see it, but because he was still talking I didn’t have to face another lecture on forgetting my water bottle. Cowardly but effective. As soon as he turned back to his conversation, I hurried off.

As I headed back, one of the team members spotted me and walked over to join me.

“You’re Abby, right?” she asked me. “From Bartlett?”

“Yeah,” I answered. I hadn’t the faintest idea what her name was, and my face must have said so, because she introduced herself.

“I’m Helen. I’m in Bartlett too. Want some company?” she offered brightly.

“Sure,” I agreed immediately. I knew she hadn’t introduced herself as a sophomore; I couldn’t remember if she was a junior or a senior, but either one made her an upper-former. And from what Helen—my big sister Helen, Helen Mason—had said, newbs were nice to upper-formers. Complete with the implied Or Else.

“Goalie, huh? I wouldn’t want that position. Tried it once, took a ball to the face and never went back,” she reminisced. “So you’re in my dorm, huh.” It wasn’t a question. “You gonna watch the next Red Sox game?”

Years upon years of Yankees versus Mets rivalry in school warned me that this was not a simple question about when I would be in front of the television. If I took the side of one team over hers (and it was pretty obvious where her loyalties lay) I was going to be off her cool list forever.

So my options were three: say yes, say I supported a different team, or tell the truth. I felt that lying would be a bad way to start out the year, and from experience it wouldn’t get me in as much trouble as being as Yankee or Met fan would. So I went with that.

“Probably not. Too many Yankee/Met fights in my school turned me off baseball.” This was stretching the truth a bit. It was true in and of itself, but I also thought that baseball was totally boring after the first inning and not worth watching. That would definitely not go over well, though. “I watch hockey with my dad instead.”

“You don’t like baseball?” Helen sounded horrified. Pretending to be a Sox fan might have been a better option. But then I would have had to come up with plausible reasons for being a New York Sox fan (of which I was pretty sure there were none), and information about the team. Or at least demonstrate a general knowledge of baseball. I really don’t know anything about baseball.

“It’s not that,” I lied nervously. “It was more self preservation at school. And no one in my family watches baseball. At least my dad watches the Rangers with me.”

“I guess,” Helen said, still sounding skeptical. “You have to try at least one game, though. Move past those crappy New York teams and watch a real team play.”

One thing I did know was that the Red Sox hadn’t won the Series in the last 80 years or more, and the Yankees won six of the last seven. It didn’t seem political to mention that, however. “I’ll try a game, sure, now I’ve got people to watch with me.”

I knew there was no other correct answer to her question, but all of me was wishing there was. I’d just committed myself to watch an entire baseball game; not just one inning, but all nine.

I was going to be so. Damn. Bored.

Author Update

2007-12-28T06:49:23Z

A character list is in the Links menu now! The full list in order of appearance, with very short blurbs, is at the top. Then there's two lists at the bottom for quick viewing; Bartlett residents and members of the soccer team. Of course, these are only the people Abby knows. It would be a massively awful soccer team if it only had 8 people.

(And I totally didn't realize until I wrote it up that Abby's met two people from each grade on the soccer team, counting herself. I guess I'm as chronically organized as her mom, even by accident.)

Part 11: How to try out for soccer

2007-12-28T03:39:12Z

I survived warm-ups, which impressed me. I’m sure it impressed no one else, but running is possibly my least favorite activity in the world. Running laps, therefore, is not my strong suit. Everyone always thinks this is very weird for someone who wants to make varsity soccer, but why do they think I became a goalie in the first place?

Stretching was blissfully consistent with any other sports team in existence. We stood around the edge of the circle in the center of the field. The captains counted off ten seconds for each stretch, then yelled the next one. As a bonus, this system neatly prevented me from having to actually talk to anyone.

Once we were done, the coach walked—though pounded would be a better word—to the center of our circle and glared around at all of us equally.

“I am Coach Perez. Introduce yourselves quickly, name and age and dorm. Then divide: offense in the center of the circle, defense on the far side, goalies on the near side. Quickly!”

Very friendly, isn’t he, I couldn’t help thinking, but I didn’t dare say it out loud. Instead, I tried to focus as people went around and said their names.

“I’m Jess Stewart, and I’m a junior in Barker.”

“I’m Anna Riosso, also from Barker. Senior.

“Kara, senior, Mirwell.”

By the time they reached “Ella, sophomore, Catt 2” I had totally lost track. The only two I retained, besides Helen because I already knew her, were the ones who had been introduced as the other goalies.

“Hannah, a freshman in Catt 3.”

“Caitlin. I’m a sophomore in Dover.”

Helen had mentioned in her letter that the team’s old goalie had graduated, which was the only reason I was trying out; no team would take on a second goalie when they already had one. So I assumed both the other girls were also new. I knew St. Luke’s took a number of new sophomores, and that her getting wasn’t a huge feat I should be intimidated by… but that meant my emotions would have to listen to logic. I was intimidated as hell.

The fact that the other freshman was at least four inches taller than me and probably about twice my weight wasn’t helping calm me down any.

Dividing up was easy, but dull. Caitlin, Hannah and I were all in roughly the same area on the near end of the circle, so we only needed a few steps to get to our appointed locations. But the goalies are last ones the coach notices. Every time. So Coach Perez had to talk to all twelve offensive players and send them off places, and all ten defensive players, and then he finally got to us.

“Here,” he said curtly as he handed me a water bottle. “Return it after practice.”

I blushed to have been caught without a water bottle in front of what was basically my competition. Without bothering to question where it came from, I put it on the ground (though that was mostly to lean forward to hide my bright red face).

“It’s a basic drill to start. Two offense against one defense, and you. Switch every four pairs,” the coach ordered us, and walked back to his bench.

Well, no one said you had to be talkative to coach soccer, but wow. Just wow.

I quickly discovered that this was exactly like soccer camp. I never went to a soccer camp for more than five days—the whole not wanting to run thing interfered—but it was still essentially the same. You still stood around and waited until it was your turn briefly, then stood around while the defense failed to do anything at all, then banged yourself up diving for the ball.

I think I got more banged up than the other two, though. I seemed to get kicked more, certainly. Since I was the same size as Caitlin and half the size of Hannah, this did not reflect well on me, and had the downward spiral effect of slowing me down to the point where I’d get kicked again.

On the plus side, getting kicked usually meant I had the ball and they were kicking for it, so I guess there’s worse things. Missing the ball, for example.

By the end of the drill I was covered in grass stains but feeling slightly better about myself. I thought I’d held my own. I’d blocked around as many balls as Caitlin or Hannah had. And I only had to beat out one of them, since Helen said Coach wanted a backup goalie as well.

All I had to do now was survive until after the coach made cuts, and I’d be on the team.

Then I thought to myself, Varsity team = running.

I really didn’t know if making the team was exciting any more. Not that I had any choice.

Part 10: How to keep to your schedule

2007-12-25T20:38:20Z

I slept in the next morning, waking up blissfully happy at almost noon. Most people come back from summer vacation nice and rested; I always seem to go back to school more exhausted then when I started. Not that summer school helps any, I’m sure. But I didn’t have class and my father wasn’t around to complain that “the day is almost over!” and so I slept in. Let them think what they would of sleeping in. It didn’t matter to me any more—I was at boarding school now. And I was sleeping in as late as I wanted.

So there.

My newfound defiance did not extend to ignoring the phone when it rang ten minutes later. At that point, I did not actually have pants on yet, and I was only half done brushing my hair. This meant that half of my head looked normal and the other half looked like a bird’s nest had exploded on top of it. Twice. Regardless, when my parents called—and it had to be them, since they were the only people who actually had my phone number—I returned to being the good daughter and picked up.

“Hello sweetheart!” my mother gushed. “How was your first day?”

“It was fine,” I told her vaguely. To be fair, I wasn’t fully awake yet.

“Fine? What does fine mean? Fun? Are the people nice?” she inquired.

“I hung out with the girl across the hall again and then went to bed?” I answered, confused. What did she want? I hadn’t really done anything of note. Fine really did sum up my night.

“Well, that doesn’t sound too bad. Do you need anything?” my mom asked me, for the second time in twelve hours. Sadly, that was fairly restrained, for her.

“Nope, I’m ok. Thanks though. I do need to go to lunch, though,” I pretended to fret. I was neither hungry nor in any particular rush to eat, but I really wasn’t interested in a long conversation with my mother before I was functionally awake.

“Oh… well, go eat then. I’ll talk to you later, though,” my mother ordered rather than asked. I made a noncommittal sound and hung up. I was quite sure she’d call me without any encouragement, but that didn’t mean I should give her some.

I considered my options. I could go to lunch like I’d said, but the contrary part of me didn’t want to. I could try to find something to do on my computer, which would probably mean a game of some sort. Or I could go out and attempt to socialize.

The last option was by far the least appealing, but it came with a strong feeling of “you should be doing this, you know.”

The computer won.

Two hours later I’d successfully completed three Zoo Tycoon scenarios and very little else. I’d managed to find a pair of pants at some point, but my hair was still making me look like an escaped lunatic. I was about to start a fourth game when I saw my alarm clock, realized that I only had twenty minutes until soccer practice, and panicked.

I made a token attempt to calm my hair, but in the end I twisted it back into a ponytail and prayed no one would notice. Changing into sports clothes was relatively quick, but my soccer equipment… just no. It’s an unwritten rule that you never try to put tube socks over shin guards quickly. It’s kind of an oxymoron. Quickly just doesn’t happen. When I was dressed, I grabbed my goalie gloves and ran out of the room and up the stairs to Helen’s room.

After all, I certainly didn’t know where I was going without her.

She’d been standing outside her door waiting for me. “Come on, we don’t want to be late,” she said hurriedly, and sped out the door with me trailing frantically in her wake. She was almost three inches shorter than me and her legs had to be even more than that, given her proportions; regardless, keeping up with her was a challenge. One that did not bode well for tryouts.

Luckily the field was nearby. We crossed the road my parents drove in on, then jogged across a bridge and there we were. There were about twenty people already there, but nothing seemed to be happening yet.

Helen was recognized by a number of the girls there, and they ran down to say hello and give her hugs. She was too swamped to introduce me to all of them and I was feeling shy, so I walked over to the bench where there was a more manageable group of three people.

One of the girls sort of reminded me of a former schoolmate, Lauren. She was a little taller than me, with dirty blonde hair in a ponytail and intense gray eyes that made me want to run right back to Helen. The other girl was like no one I’d ever met. At my old school, I was one of the tallest girls, but we were all skinny. This girl was taller than me (it didn’t happen often, but it did happen) and she was huge.

I don’t mean huge in a bad way, though… it was more that she must spend all her spare time working out, and it showed. She was just an athlete. I looked at my pencil-sized arms and legs, gulped, and sat down on the other end of the bench.

The third person turned around at the noise, and I immediately identified him as the coach. He was middle aged, and he was a man. Not a difficult deduction. He was also Hispanic, and looked very fierce.

“Your water bottle! Where is your water bottle?” he demanded.

“Um… in my room…?” I admitted even as I realized it. Drat. I always forget the blasted thing.

“Next time, you will bring it, or you will leave. Sit.” He eyed my goalie gloves. “You are the last goalie, then. You three get to know each other. I will find you a water bottle.” And with that he stormed off in the direction of the equipment pile.

The other two girls eyed me, and I eyed them right back. Now the coach had (sort of) introduced them, I focused on their goalie gloves.

“Hi?” I said faintly. I was feeling very, very small. Or weak. Or both. My ability to make the team was suddenly very much in question.

Part 9: How to discover your schedule

2007-12-22T17:42:26Z

The problem with hanging out in Laura’s room, apart from the overwhelming sense of room-inferiority I was getting, was that she was still unpacking. I’d had my Resident Crazies (my parents) to obsessively unpack for me, but Laura’s parents were safe and snug in their nice warm state down South. So I was sitting on Laura’s bed awkwardly while she ran back and forth around the room, carefully placing things into drawers or hanging up her dresses. And I was feeling very useless, but she refused to allow me to help. Considering how much I hated my parents ‘helping’ me unpack, ok, that was fair. But… useless! Very useless!

In the end, I resorted to exactly what I’d been trying to avoid. “Hey, um, do you want to maybe watch a movie? You could unpack while you watched,” I suggested. Movies hadn’t gotten any more social since I’d last considered them as an activity, but at least I’d feel like I was doing something. Sort of.

“Oh, that’s ok, but thanks. I don’t want to stay up too late. We have to go running early tomorrow so we’re done by Playfair,” she answered quietly (having your head stuck in a closet will do that, though).

“Playfair? Um… that sounds familiar…” I let my voice drift off, because it didn’t sound familiar in the slightest but I didn’t want to admit I had no idea what she was talking about.

“Kelly told me about it. Everyone’s here by 5pm tomorrow, so that’s when we have Playfair. It’s a bonding thing,” Laura explained.

Bonding games. I was not excited by this description at all. “Bonding games” always seem to require explaining to people what my favorite ice cream was. And if I don’t care what their favorite ice cream is—and I really, really don’t—I don’t see any reason why they would care what mine is.

My face must have shown my overwhelming lack of enthusiasm, because Laura laughed and hastened to assure me that it wouldn’t last that long. “And anyway, there’ll be better stuff to do tomorrow night,” she added.

I was now feeling completely uninformed, but hanging on her every word so that I didn’t miss out on anything else. From my vast experience of a few hours with her, Laura didn’t seem like she’d laugh at me for not knowing our schedule. She was too…proper, I guess the word would be. In keeping with her very elegant appearance. I might just be judging her by her outfit, of course, but I’d rather take my chances with her than with total (well, less than three hours acquaintance) strangers.

“Ok, so, what’s tomorrow night?” I asked, looking (and feeling) sheepish.

“Tomorrow night is dorm bonding. Fewer people than Playfair and better games. At least, that’s what Kelly said,” Laura answered. “I really don’t know that much about it, I’m sorry.”

Well, at least I wasn’t the only one. “It’s ok. I’m sure I’ll find out tomorrow.”

“That’s the plan,” Laura agreed. “I just wish it didn’t involve early morning practice.”

“Yeah…” I replied, thinking back. “My practice isn’t until 3, though.”

“That’s much better,” Laura said. Rather after the fact, but maybe I shouldn’t have said that. I just essentially gloated about my afternoon practice. Great job, Abby.

“Yeah. Um… I should let you sleep?” I hadn’t intended it to be a question, but my voice sort of disappeared upwards until it was. Now I sounded desperate for company; while that was entirely true, I’d rather not be quite so blatant.

Laura was very nice about it, though. “Probably. I’ll see you at lunch though?”

“I’ll try to find you,” I promised. I had absolutely no idea where the cross country team practiced, when Laura’s practice was over, or when I was waking up. All things considered, “trying” to find her seemed the much safer bet.

“Sounds good. I’ll see you then,” she nodded.

I returned to my room and checked my watch. It was barely 9pm. With a sigh of sheer boredom, I grabbed my computer and logged into Neopets.

So all my friends had stopped playing in sixth grade. What did I care? It had flash games and I had nothing better to do. Destruct-O-Match it was.

And then Meerca Chase.

And then Neopian Invasion.

I was playing Pteri Attack when I finally fell asleep around 10. My last thought was how massively ironic this was. I’d felt stifled at home with a 10pm lights out, and usually hid in the bathroom to read after I was “asleep.” I’d picked St. Luke’s because it didn’t require students to go to bed at a particular time.

And as soon as my parents were gone…

I was asleep by 10pm.

If there is in fact a higher power, it was probably laughing at me.

Part 8: How to avoid becoming an icicle

2007-12-21T15:17:09Z

I dug up my books from the pile of suitcases but I couldn’t find anything I really wanted to read. I’d reread most of the ones I hadn’t read in a while on the drive to school, and I’d read all the others too recently to have any interest in reading them for at least another few months.

I could’ve pulled out a DVD, but that felt like cheating. Hanging out without actually talking doesn’t really count, I don’t think. So I pulled out my deck of cards and knocked on Laura’s door again.

“Hey, uh, did you want to, um, play cards or something? There isn’t much to do…” I held up the deck of cards so my hands had something to do.

“Oh! Well, I’m still unpacking, but you can come in and hang out if you want,” she offered.

I hesitated because it felt like intruding—this room was her equivalent of a house for the rest of the year. But the prospect of having nothing to do and no one to talk to for the rest of the night won out finally, and I ventured inside the door.

It was one of those surreal moments when you wanted to both gape in awe and envy, and go shrivel into a tiny inferior fetal position. My room felt thrown together, but Laura’s actually looked like a room. She’d made her bed perfectly and added lots of decorative pillows and a small stuffed animal of unidentifiable species. There was a matching rug on the floor, neutral art posters on the wall and little potted plants (which didn’t even seem to be plastic) in various unobtrusive locations. Even her lights had pretty lampshades, unlike my ugly metal desk lamp.

“Wow… your room is awesome!” was what I finally managed to get out. The fetal instinct was winning out strongly; my room felt so dull when compared to hers.

“Thank you,” she said with a smile. She sounded almost surprised, which in turn surprised me. How could she not know how great a job she’d done on her room? She isn’t local, I remembered. Maybe rooms like this were common in Georgia? I had no idea. I’ve never been to Georgia.

I wandered in a little further, and saw the chair. It was just a simple armchair (which of course coordinated perfectly with the rest of the room just like everything else) but it was covered in dresses. They weren’t fancy or expensive, just stunning. My personal collection of dresses was limited to what my mother had bought me for fancy occasions, which happened about once every three years and I then immediately outgrew. Laura seemed to have an endless supply, and they were all brightly colored and pretty and… well, I was a tiny bit jealous.

Maybe more than a tiny bit.

“I don’t think you brought enough dresses,” I told her very seriously.

“You don’t? You think I’d need—oh!” She looked sheepish. “You’re teasing.”

“A little bit,” I admitted. “They’re gorgeous, though.”

“Thanks!” she replied, beaming. She picked up one near the top; it was blue edged in yellow, a spaghetti strap sort of thing that was fitted around the chest with a loose skirt. “I think this is my favorite. It took me over a month.”

Ok, now that I had not been expecting. “Wait, you made them?” I exclaimed.

“Well, not all of them,” she answered, digging through the pile. “This one, that one, that one—a few on the bottom too—I got the rest in a cute little boutique in Savannah. Kelly brought me there originally.”

It took me a moment to realize she was talking about her sister Kelly, and not my sister Kelly. “Right. Well, she’s got good taste, then.” I looked over the pile again. “Out of curiosity, though, when were you planning on wearing them?”

“Well, I thought I could wear them to Seated Meal,” Laura replied. “Aren’t we supposed to dress up? Kelly says she wears dresses a lot.”

“I’m sure they’ll be fine,” I agreed, though inside I was panicking a little. My mother’s idea of appropriate seated meal attire had been slacks and blouses, and I had about three of each. If I’d felt outclassed by Laura in terms of physical attractiveness before, the mental image of us in our Seated Meal outfits standing next to each other was not helping. There was one saving grace, though. “But, um, we’re in New Hampshire.”

“Well, yes,” Laura nodded with a smile. “I noticed.”

“Aren’t those going to be kind of cold?”

Laura stared at them in confusion. “Oh, you mean in the winter? I’ll just wear a coat to dinner, and thick tights. That should be ok, right?”

It took a lot, but I managed not to laugh. I just gave her facts. Facts were safe. And not funny. Not funny, Abby, don’t laugh…

“Well, it gets down to 0 degrees in Connecticut. So it’ll be the same or colder here, I’d guess. You may want to change in the cafeteria?” I suggested. “And just wear winter clothes when you walk over.”

“That’s not a bad idea. Thank you,” she said again. It was the third time she’d thanked me since I came into the room. Was she as nervous as I was? Possibly. Or just more polite. Probably both.

“Any time,” I told her with a smile. It wasn’t exactly a leap of intellect on my part, but giving useful advice made me feel like maybe we were getting along. Like maybe making friends wouldn’t be so bad after all.

I guess I’d find out tomorrow.

Part 7: How to survive a phone call

2007-12-19T16:01:29Z

Laura and I chatted on the way back, but she seemed to sense that I was twitchy about something and so we concentrated more on getting back to the dorm than exchanging life stories. She disappeared into her room once we got back with a smile and a promise to see me later. Considering she lived directly across from me I was sure I’d run into her again one way or another, but it was nice of her to say it.

Compared to my response of “Yeah, um… thanks for coming, I’ll see ya later,” she’d been positively eloquent.

This left me with the challenge of calling my parents. My phone was a cheap thing from WalMart, but with awesomely massive buttons, which my father had helpfully left it on top of the directions we’d gotten from the school on how to phone calls. The fact that he never actually read the directions for anything and was therefore being rather hypocritical seemed to be completely lost on him. Regardless, I had no issues reading directions, and settled down with my school calling card to figure out what I was doing.

It wasn’t very hard, in the end. All you really needed to know was that you had to dial 9 to reach an outside line. This seemed like an extremely bad idea to me, since after dialing 9-1-800 a few times, I’d realized that if I pressed the 1 key twice by accident, bad things would happen, meaning angry policemen and lots of people yelling about prank calls. As it was I misdialed the calling card number at least three times, and was about ready to throw the phone at the wall when it finally started ringing.

“Hello? Abby? Is that you?” My mother’s anxious voice came on the line about three seconds later. I’d called on our second line, which only my immediate family had the number to; since I was the only one of the four of us not in the house, my mother’s guess at my identity was not what you’d call rocket science.

“Hi Mommy,” I mumbled. “Sorry I took so long to call…”

“It’s all right, sweetheart, I just worried. How’s school? Have you made any friends? What have you been up to?” The questions came so quickly it took me a moment to sort them out in my head. Then I wanted to laugh at her, because I’d only been at school five hours; honestly, how much would there be to say? But I was probably on thin ice about the phone call anyway, so I just answered her. Or attempted to.

“Um… just unpacked, really. I went to dinner with the girl across the hall from me, though. She seems nice?” I’d known Laura all of an hour and wasn’t prepared to pass judgment on her personality in anything other than vague-question form, but my mother certainly was.

“That’s wonderful! You’ll have lots of friends in no time! I’m so glad you went and talked to people.” I was far less enthusiastic about my social progress, since as far as I could see I’d only asked Laura to dinner to avoid eating by myself, but anything I did my mother approved of was fine by me.

“So how was your trip home?” I asked instead.

“Not terrible. Your father insisted on taking I-95, of course, even though I told him we’d hit traffic- but of course he doesn’t listen. And then when we hit Boston rush hour it’s all my fault. You know how he is,” she said wearily.

“Yeah, I know,” I said. In point of fact, I really didn’t care. In the greater scheme of things, whether or not my father follows my mother’s navigational suggestions is definitely not a worrying priority. I’ll worry about that after junior year; then I’ll be sixteen and old enough to get a driving permit. This is otherwise known as the Age When Such Problems Will Apply to Me.

“Your sister says hello,” my mother continued, though I doubted very much that Kelly had done anything of the kind, “and your grandmother says to tell you she misses you dreadfully and you never should have gone farther—“

“—than she can drive while a lamb chop defrosts,” I filled in. It was only the eighth time I’d heard it, after all. My grandmother can be a lot of fun, but only the first few times she says things.

“Exactly. But you’re ok? You don’t need anything?” my mother asked worriedly. I rolled my eyes, reveling in the fact that for once, she couldn’t see me do it (and scold me accordingly).

“I’m fine, Mommy. Laura and Helen are nice, and Mrs. Stetson seems ok so far,” I said, then immediately regretted it.

“You’ve met Mrs. Stetson? Why didn’t you say so? What’d you think of her? Does she know what she’s talking about?” The questions continued for a bit longer, but I zoned them out. Finally I cut back in, impatient.

“I didn’t get to talk to her that much. She just looked at my academic plan and said it was fine. And then I left,” I finished. The tale of the Age of Empires CD would be a strike against my adviser in my mother’s eyes, so I saved it for my dad.

“Oh. Good. I’m glad she approves. But you’ll let me know if you have problems, or if you need anything? We miss you, you know,” she said.

I felt suddenly guilty. My father was the one who’d gone to boarding school; my mother was panicking and I wasn’t exactly making this easier on her. But my eye was caught by the bright neon post-it notes in my trash, and all the reasons I’d decided to go to boarding school in the first place returned in a rush.

“I miss you too, Mommy. I’ll talk to you later, ok? I have to go,” I said, and let her go.

Now I just had to figure out what to do with the rest of my night.

Part 6: How to navigate a cafeteria

2007-12-18T21:49:07Z

By the time we reached the cafeteria, Laura and I had established basics about our lives. We even spent a few minutes discussing religion when she mentioned that both her parents were ministers. I couldn’t even imagine coming from a house like that, but Laura seemed perfectly normal, so I guess it wasn’t too bad. No waving crosses in my face, at least.

Laura took off her coat as soon as we got inside the door of Hill, but I stopped her. “There’s more coat racks around the corner. Your jacket will probably warmer if you don’t leave it right next to the door,” I suggested.

“My thin Savannah blood thanks you,” she said with a grin, and we both left our coats at the end of the hall instead. As we walked past, we passed wall plaques with the names of graduates of each class year, and I took a moment to look for my father’s graduating year. He’d told me he was right at the end of the hall, and I wanted to see the name.

“Hey, my dad’s not here!” I finally exclaimed when we’d gotten to the cafeteria entrance. “He’s supposed to be at the end of the hall.”

“He went here? What year was he?” Laura asked. I realized rather belatedly that I hadn’t mentioned that my father was an alum.

“He was ’78, and my uncle was ’79,” I replied distractedly. I was mentally sulking a little. I’d wanted to tell my dad I saw his class year on the wall, and it just wasn’t there.

“I’m sure one of the teachers will know,” Laura offered. “There’s probably someone inside we can ask.”

“Whatever. Food first!” I proclaimed, and she followed me laughing as I sped up. Of course, being a cross country runner, she quickly passed me. Even in four inch heels. Not the world’s best ego boost.

Laura nearly walked past the entrance to the food (which was admittedly a sharp turn) so I hauled her back essentially by the back of her neck. Or shirt, rather. “Sorry to grab, I just…um…yeah, it’s actually that way,” I finally gave up on attempting to find an excuse for being so presumptuous and just pointed. In retrospect, a “you’re going the wrong way” would have worked just as well, but hey. That would take social skills.

She didn’t seem to mind, though; or if she did, she was far too polite to say anything. I seemed to be failing in that department, so I kept my head down to hide my blush and grabbed my tray and silverware.

Then, of course, the tough part: picking what I wanted to eat.

Boarding schools had reached the point where if they had a major failing- bad food, for example- they’d lose all their applicants to other boarding schools. So the bright side was I knew the food was edible. The hard part was finding the food that was most edible, that I would actually want to eat. My mother had a mental list of foods my sister and I would eat. It wasn’t very long.

There was a hot food line, which looked suspicious and not worth the wait- some form of fish, potatoes and an unidentifiable squash. I considered the potatoes, but it just wasn’t worth the line. So I investigated the other options. Dessert table? Yum, brownies. I skipped the soup and deli lines, but this led to the pasta bar. My face probably lit up enough to light the whole building at that point. I am utterly addicted to pasta. I took a plateful, added butter and parmesan, then got apple juice and some carrots to make myself feel better about my food choice.

Laura had gotten all the hot food, plus a plateful of salad, and no dessert whatsoever. I pretended I wasn’t being massively unhealthy- except for the carrots, of course- and followed her into the seating area. It was almost completely empty, except for teachers; not many students came back for preseason, comparatively speaking, but the teachers lived here year round. At least, I thought they did. They had the houses, after all.

We picked a seat one set of tables past where the teachers were sitting by a mutual unspoken agreement that the teachers were more than slightly intimidating. Then the hard part was making more conversation. Laura seemed nice enough, and we hadn’t had too much trouble talking on the way over, but on principle I had issues holding up my end of a conversation for long periods of time.

“So how was it growing up with two ministers as parents?” I asked.

“Not as bad as people usually think,” Laura informed me. “Baking for the church charities is always fun. It’s a big family event, and I like spending the time with my sisters.”

“Kelly’s older… and the other? Others?” I inquired after a second to remember what little she’d told me earlier.

“Only one,” Laura told me. “Bethany. It’s from the Bible- obscure reference, though. It’s the town where Lazarus was born. We usually just call her Beth.”

“My name suddenly seems so normal,” I joked. “Abby’s about as average as you get. My mom came up with it, though she’s got a phobia of kids calling me Gail."

Oh, damn. My mom. I was supposed to call her when she got home- and that was over an hour ago.

Part 5: How to find company for dinner

2007-12-14T02:03:31Z

I took my computer back to my room and set about putting away all the little things I’d left packed, like most of my desk supplies. I did my best to keep things organized so I’d know where everything was; I even stacked the index cards in color order. However, I’d rather my OCD tendencies weren’t quite so visible, so I did take a few minutes to pull off all the sticky notes on my drawers. They looked very lonely in the trash can all by themselves (particularly since they were neon green and pink) but I was sure they’d have company after a few days. Junk has always sort of gravitated towards my room.

By the time I’d gotten the last of the random knickknacks out of my luggage and stuffed the extra bags under my bed, it was almost five. I almost didn’t believe my clock until I did the math in my head. I’d arrived at one, and between my unpacking and talking to Helen and Mrs. Stetson I’d wasted a good four hours. This brought up the problem of dinner.

Finding the dining hall wasn’t a problem. I actually knew where it was. I’d been here for a week of squash camp last summer. That was before I decided that I wasn’t cut out to run that much and opted for summer school instead. Call me a geek, but when the options were running outside in July or sitting inside in air conditioning and learning HTML, I was unabashedly on the side of the relaxing option. Even if I’d liked running, I doubt I would have volunteered in 100+ degree weather.

But knowing where the dining hall was didn’t mean I wanted to eat there by myself, so I went upstairs to Helen’s room to see if she wanted to go with me.

She answered on the second knock. “Hey, Abby, what’s up?” she asked.

“I was going to head to the dining hall for dinner. I was, um, wondering if you wanted to come?” It occurred to me rather belatedly that it might not be acceptable for freshman to eat with juniors, and I felt like an utter idiot.

She was nice about it, though. “Oh, I would, but I’ve got to go running before it gets too dark. I’m sure Laura will go with you, though. She’s here early too, for cross country.”

“Oh. Uh, thanks,” I agreed. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised; now that she’d mentioned it, I noticed the athletic clothes she was wearing.

“Where’s Laura’s room?”

“It’s right across from yours,” Helen laughed.

“Ok, thanks,” I mumbled, and fled. I felt even more like an idiot. How had I not noticed the name on the door across from mine?

I slunk downstairs to my room and finally saw that yes, the door across from me really did have a sign that said Laura. It was partially open, but I knocked anyway just because… well, probably because meeting new people is scary.

My first reaction when Laura opened the door was Damn, she’s gorgeous. I liked to think I had good body image (which, by the way, is a rare commodity in an all girls school) but I knew that Laura had me beat. We were built sort of the same, actually; we were both skinny and only modestly curved. But Laura had perfected the elegant, put together and high heeled look that I could never pull off. For one thing, I was far too tall to wear the four inch stilettos she was sporting. But really, I think it was her hair. Mine never behaves. I keep it in a low ponytail and hope it stays there for the most part. But she had chest length wavy golden brown hair that looked totally obedient, and huge green eyes. I gave up any ambition of getting a decent boyfriend on the spot. Laura would have them all at her feet.

Laura seemed to have missed my gawking, and smiled at me. “Hi,” she said quietly. If she was anything like me, it was probably out of shyness. “Can I help you?”

“Oh, right. I’m Abby, your… across-person,” I managed weakly, pointing at my door. “I was wondering if you wanted to go to dinner?”
She looked at her watch, and seemed to start. “I hadn’t realized it was getting so late! I’d love to. Just let me get my jacket.” She vanished back into her room and returned with what could only be considered a winter coat. I was wearing a light jacket against the cold, but honestly…

“So where are you from?” I asked, rather than ask So where on earth do you come from that 50 degrees needs more than a fleece?. I get cold easily, but even I hadn’t pulled out the ski coat yet.

“Savannah, Georgia. What about you?” she answered. I spent a moment wondering why she didn’t have an accent, then decided that was close-minded of me and just answered her question.

“New York. We drove up this morning. You flew up?” One of my stupid questions. It must be a full day’s worth of driving each way from Georgia.

“Yeah, we flew into Boston. My sister came with me,” she added by way of explanation.

“You’ve got a sister here? What grade?” I inquired, curious. I couldn’t imagine having my sister at school with me. Not again, anyway. Kate would drive me nuts.

“Kelly’s a senior,” she told me. “Also, do you know where we’re going? I forgot my map in my room.” By this point we were at the front door of the dorm, and she was eying the cold outdoors with all the enthusiasm of a cat inspecting its bathtub.

“Yeah, no worries. It’s that way,” I pointed in a direction that was roughly where the dining hall was. I knew how to get there, but drawing a straight line across campus in my head was beyond me after only a week of experience with the school.

“Great. So… do you have siblings?” she asked, clearly attempting to start the conversation again.

Not that I didn’t want to make friends, but… did this mean I had to think of positive things to say about my sister?

Damn. That could take a while.

Author Update

2007-12-12T11:53:17Z

So I realized that I get twitchy at night and want to keep writing. So I'm changing the schedule to three updates a week (which seem to get posted a day early, but earlier is better?). At the end of the day, I'm just still getting used to serial form. Hopefully after a week or two I'll have a better idea of what I can get done and how often. But for now, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday it is.

Also, am experimenting with layouts. I'll probably change a few more times before I settle on one I'm happy with, but I rather like this green for now.

Part 4: How to talk to your advisor

2007-12-12T11:37:04Z

When I turned around and saw Mrs. Stetson for the first time, I immediately felt foolish for being worried. The best word I could come up with for her was petite. She had to be at least five inches shorter than me, and at least as skinny if not skinnier: quite a feat, since I bear a striking resemblance to a pencil. She had school-marm glasses and straight brown hair to her shoulders, and a lot of freckles. I don't think I could have come up with a less intimidating looking adviser even if I'd spent lots of time and effort trying to picture one.

"Nice to meet you," I said, for lack of anything better to say. Talking to strange adults who wander into my room isn't exactly high on my list of social abilities, which doesn't actually exist to start with. I guess camp counselors from summer camps count, but they'd always been late teens or early twenties. From the first glance I'd guess Mrs. Stetson was a little older than my parents, and therefore probably wouldn't appreciate being treated like she was at summer camp.

"Nice to meet you too," Mrs. Stetson assured me with a smile. "You have time to talk now, then? My office is just through here, if that's ok." I hadn't even noticed the door- I think I assumed it was cleaning supplies or something like that- but now it was open I could see it led to what was clearly either Mrs. Stetson's study or a small bookstore that accidentally relocated.

"So how was the drive here?" Mrs. Stetson asked once I'd taken a seat.

"Oh. Um... it was fine. Long," I said. It seemed like it would be a bad idea to complain about my parents the first time I ever spoke to her, but that really left nothing to say about the trip.

"Well, I'm glad you made it," she replied cheerfully. "Now, I know Helen will show you around the dorm, and I'll go over dorm rules in dorm meeting on Friday, but did you have any questions for me off the bat?"

"Well, I was wondering how signing up for classes worked..." I admitted, adding to myself because my mother is completely panicking about it. "I know which I want to sign up for, I just don't know how."

"You already know what classes you want to take?" Mrs. Stetson asked in surprise. Poor woman. She'd have to get used to my mom.

"Yeah, my mom had me make a four year plan," I told her. "It's on my computer if you want to look." The fact that even most college students don't make four year plans means absolutely nothing to my mother. I was used to it; my slack-jawed adviser clearly was not. Surely some of her other students had equally crazy parents... or maybe not.

"I...all right," she agreed. I got the feeling it was an automatic reaction rather than an actual response. If I'd been in her place, I'd probably have been the exact same way.

Rather than make her get up, I just brought my laptop into her office. So much for my dad's obsessive wiring job.

"Six classes? That's ambitious," she remarked. "You won't have much time."

"I know. But I've had four years of French and they put me in Advanced 1 Honors," what <i>Advanced French 1 Honors</i> meant I had no idea, "so that should help, right?"

"Sometimes," was the less than enthusiastic response. "And Latin?"

"I took two years. Latin 2 Honors should be fine," I said. Or rather, I hoped.

"Plus the requisite Physics and Humanities, which you have to take. But here- you're taking art? I thought I saw a violin in your room," she asked, sounding puzzled.

"Uh, yeah, it's actually a viola," I corrected. Adviser or not, I <i>hated</i> people assuming I played violin. It was a totally unfair feeling, since most people had no idea what a viola was or what it looked like, but I was still irrationally infuriated by it. "I'm taking the half hour a week lessons."

"Well, if you think you can handle that much work, it's a perfectly acceptable schedule. You've been signed up for classes automatically, but if you need to change anything Helen can show you where the Registrar's office is." She looked up from the computer. "I think that's it, unless you have any other questions?"

I decided to take a chance on a slightly less formal question. I pointed to a CD rack on her desk above her monitor, which was almost invisible between the books. "Just the one. Whose Age of Empires CD is that?"

She laughed, and pointed at one of the closed doors visible inside her apartment. "My youngest, Andrew. He's obsessed with computer games. I have a hard time getting him to even do his homework."

"Nothing wrong with that," I joked, suddenly feeling better about the whole concept of boarding school. A guy in the dorm chronically addicted to video games? It'd be just like having my dad around!

Part 3: How to unpack with your parents

2007-12-11T00:20:49Z

Helen dropped me off in my room with a promise to my parents that "of course she'd look out for me." To my surprise, I rather believed her. No one had really paid attention to new kids at my old school; after nine years together, the new kids are the interlopers. But Helen was one of those people who radiated Truth and Good Will. Either she was planning to keep an eye on me, or Hollywood was seriously missing out. I kind of figured it was the former.

Then again, my social experience was limited to nine years with the same fifty girls. I'm not what you'd call socially adept. Remembering this made my butterflies (and the butterflies' butterflies) come zooming right back again. I guess a moment of calm cheerfulness is better than none.

Particularly since now I was alone with my parents again.

"Where should I put your underwear?" My mother asked me with a frown. "I could put it in a drawer with your socks and bras, but they'll get all mixed up. Should we buy you some drawer separators?"

"No!" I exclaimed, and hastily shoved them into the drawer she'd indicated. You'd think she'd wait to talk about my underwear until my dad left the room, but apparently that was too complicated a thought process. Or something. I knew there was a reason I'd chosen boarding school. "I'll get some later if I need them. I promise," I told her when she remained frowning. It was my standard line to replace the I have no intention of ever owning or using [insert useless room feature here] thanks very much sentence that had been living in my head for the last few months. I mean, come on. Bed risers? The damn things don't even work! Anyway... it worked as well as always, and she drifted out of the room to find a recycle bin for the boxes.

Helpful as always, I decided to pretend I hadn't seen them on Helen's tour. Whatever kept her out of the room and away from my underwear.

This left me with my dad, or rather, with about half of him. He'd wedged himself under my desk and was doing complicated things with wires; I figured I had about a 50% chance of knowing what he was doing, but only if he moved enough that I could see. As it was, I was just looking at Dad Butt.

"Where'd you put your speakers? I need to plug them in too," he mumbled from his crouch. "You're almost out of outlets, too."

"Holy... how much stuff did you just plug in?" I gave in to curiosity and craned my head over the top of the desk. Sure enough my computer, my desk lamp, my floor lamp, my phone and my alarm clock were all happily consuming electricity. I swear, majoring in Electrical Engineering gave him supernatural Speed-Plugin abilities.

The problem with speed wiring is that the wires just get squished behind the desk haphazardly. Most of the enormous tangle against the wall seemed to be my ethernet cable, but it was hard to tell. And since I was the one planning on living with it for the next eight months, knowing which wire was which seemed like it might be helpful in future. Just a little bit.

"Ooook then. You know what, I finished with this bag," I said as I dropped one of the empty suitcases on top of the desk. I didn't bother to mention it had been entirely towels and I'd just stuck them on my closet shelf. "Why don't you put it in the car with the others?"

Lucky for me my dad was OCD enough not to wonder why we didn't take all the suitcases outside at once and headed off on his new mission. I immediately started shoving things in drawers. The more unpacked I was, the faster they would leave. Help is nice, but I can never, ever find anything my mother has put away. And I was sort of planning on wearing those underwear on a regular basis, so actually being able to find them would be awesome.

The only thing left to do by the time my parents got back was trivialities; jewelry for formal dinner, index cards, the doorstop my mother had insisted I needed. I'd found out three days later it was against fire code. That tends to happen with her "absolutely necessary" purchases, I'd noticed. I kept it anyway; knowing my mother, she'd just buy me another if I got rid of it.

"Oh, you're almost done! Now you just need a way to tell where your clothes are," my mother's voice brought me back to the land of the unpacking. "Your sister's idea works well. Why don't we do that?"

So I sat on the bed and watched as my mother labeled all my drawers with post-it notes. "Pajamas," "Shirts," "Pants" and of course the requisite "Underwear and Bras."

"All done! It'll be so much easier to find your clothes now," my mother said as she beamed at her handiwork. Then she sobered down a bit. "Are you sure you're ok? You don't need anything else? We could always go get-"

"I'll be fine. Helen was nice, right?" I gave them both hugs and a kiss on the cheek. "She'll take care of me."

"I suppose...but call me if you need anything? And call us when we get home. We'll be home in four hours. And you know the number?" Not only did my mother have an endless supply of worried questions, she seemed to have forgotten that I'd had our home number memorized since fifth grade.

"I know the number, I'll call tonight, I love you both. Have a good trip home!" Hint, hint.

My dad was pretty calm about the whole thing, actually. He gets major Dad Points for that. I guess he'd been a student here too, but still. Apart from the Wiring Knot of Doom, things went smoothly. And of course, he got my crazy post-it note mother away from my bureau. I think I may owe him my soul for that.

Since my room looked out over the parking lot I leaned over to wave goodbye as they left. This meant that I completely missed seeing someone walk up to my door.

"Abby? It's Mrs. Stetson, your adviser. Welcome to the dorm! Do you have time for a quick chat?"

I got the really bad feeling I'd just jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire, but... what the hell. I'm a pyromaniac anyway.

Part 2: How to get information overload

2007-12-08T11:05:34Z

First stop on Helen's tour was the lounge and kitchen area, probably because it was immediately below my room. The lounge was little more than a few couches and a television, but the kitchen had a nice table, some serious-looking chairs (what kind of dorm kitchen has massive wooden chairs with armrests? Not that it isn't kick-ass) and a full complement of cooking utensils. Stove, oven, microwave, sink, dishwasher, and a massive fridge. Since we weren't allowed fridges in our rooms, I was particularly interested in the fridge. Presumably I could keep stuff in it?

"Totally! Just write your name on it," Helen told me when I asked. "Nameless food is dorm food. Also, if you cook, clean up. Mrs. Stetson gets... irritable... when the kitchen is messy." From the pause, I assumed this to mean that Mrs. Stetson would blow up like a pack of C4, but as she'd been assigned as my academic adviser, I figured I should try to avoid getting an impression of her before I'd even met her.

Yeah, like that was gonna happen. But I could try.

"Oh! And couches are for upper formers. If they're empty, go ahead, but you move if an upper former arrives. It works. You'll enjoy it when you're a junior," she said with a grin. I raised an eyebrow at her, because she'd only been a junior for two days and probably had no idea, but she just nodded innocently. I wasn't going to push it. I was new here- a "newb"- and I didn't want to make enemies before school had even started. Particularly not if I wound up on her soccer team.

Playing goalie for a team whose teammates hate them... well, it's the best way I can think of to get legally beaten to a pulp every day. At least I got contacts before I came here. Taking soccer balls to the face isn't fun to begin with, but throw "broken glass" and "my eye" into the equation and my life would probably suck majorly for at least six months.

Helen seemed perfectly content to let me picture all the gruesome injuries I could receive while we walked down the dorm hallway, but she'd stop periodically to point things out. "Water fountain" was relatively self-explanatory. The "bathrooms" and "Mrs. Stetson's apartment" doors had helpful signs telling me the exact same thing. By this point I was feeling like I could have done just as well walking around by myself, except for the comment about the couches.

"I almost forgot! Laundry room!" Helen exclaimed when we'd covered the first floor. It hadn't taken long, since the hall was only long enough for maybe five doors on each side, counting the ones she'd shown me. Second and third floors were identical to the first but without the lounge; at least, from what I'd seen of my second floor, they seemed to be. But if there were laundry machines, they were either invisible or elsewhere.

Sure enough, they turned out to be in the basement. For such a bare space, it had a surprising number of rules.

"So this part's for storage," Helen waved at a large empty room with a huge door. "It's locked most of the time, so unpack quickly. This area-" a gesture at the back of the stairs "-is where you dump your soccer stuff after practice, so your room doesn't smell like cleats. Believe me, you'll want to. Now, machines!" We entered the last room, an empty concrete space with two washers, two dryers and a wooden shelf above them.

"One load in any machine is 75 cents. You can keep your soap here on the shelf (with your name on it!) or in your room. It's safer in your room, but a pain to lug around. And no leaving stuff lying around. Mrs. Stetson will get annoyed, and anyway, it's kind of weird. Clothes are decorative on people, not basement floors."

She had a point, I suppose. But I felt like I was missing vital information. Huge butterflies had taken up residence in my stomach and developed butterflies of their own. This was not going to be like home in the slightest.

I didn't even know how to do laundry to begin with.

She hadn't explained laundry. Did that mean she assumed everyone knew how? Was I going to sound like a moron for asking? Or like a snob who didn't do her own laundry? My mother had always done my laundry, but I guess hers hadn't... or it just hadn't occurred to her to explain... argh. I didn't know what she'd think.

"So...um...any suggestions on how to do my laundry?" Dear lord, I sounded like an idiot.

"Wait, you've never done your own laundry?" Helen sounded surprised, but not weirded out or insulted or anything. I thought. I wasn't sure. "Ever?"

"Uh, no," I admitted. By now I was pretty sure my butterflies' butterflies were thinking about getting butterflies. I really didn't want her to think I was dumb or stuck up.

"Well, why don't you just come by when you've got a load to do? It's easier to explain if you've got clothes with you," she suggested. I relaxed a little. I guess that made sense. I still had a feeling of 'well, you could probably still explain it' but for now her offer would do. At least I had someone I could ask questions.

Or would I, once my parents left?

No, no no. Worrying in advance was just a waste of time. It was. I would worry about that when my parents left. Helen had been nice and helpful and she was going to explain things to me and I shouldn't doubt her.

But there's so much to learn and so little time before classes start...

I guess I'll just have to get used to information overload. I have this sinking feeling laundry is just the start of a long series of "You don't know how to what?" conversations.

But like I said before... one hurdle at a time. I hope.

Part 1: How to be a newb

2007-11-28T23:03:24Z

So help me, I am never driving to school with my parents again.

Amendment: I am never driving anywhere with my parents again.

I know it's good natured fighting. They're just bickering over what highway to take. One of the least interesting fights ever to take place on this earth, probably. But four hours of "but we don't want to hit Boston traffic!" is three hours and fifty nine minutes too long.

I tuned them out when I saw a big red sign in the road that said "St. Luke's High School," and started paying attention to my surroundings instead. It's mostly trees. After a lifetime in Manhattan, I felt like I'd volunteered myself to spend high school in the middle of an enormous version of Central Park. It felt like a park, too; it's well tended and utterly gorgeous. Whatever happens in high school, I'll say this much- it'll happen in damn pretty surroundings.

My dorm name was written on the letter my Big Sister had sent me. Bartlett. My dad had lived there when he went to SLHS, and so we got to the parking lot with minimal trouble. I tried to figure out where we were going on our way in by keeping track of road names and signs, but I gave up pretty quickly. There were a lot of roads and very few signs. I was going to be walking around with a map in my backpack at all times, I could tell already.

Bartlett was oddly comforting to look at. It could've come out of any of the boarding school brochures I'd seen; large, brick and old fashioned. there were three identical buildings right next to it, in a rough square my father informed me was known as the Quad. He told me the names of the other three buildings as well, but I wasn't paying attention. I was supposed to be living here for four years; I wanted to look at it! Names would come later.

The first thing I noticed when I got out of the car was the temperature. It was only just September, but I was already regretting leaving my sweatshirt in the car. Considering I was wearing jeans and a turtleneck, this seemed like an ominous sign for the winter, but I ignored the chill as best I could and went to help my dad with the bags. My mother had adjusted to the idea of me leaving by seizing on the excuse for a shopping expedition, and I still wasn't entirely certain I was going to fit in my room once my bags were inside. They'd taken up the entire trunk of the station wagon and the empty back seat next to me as it was.

The dorm was practically empty, since apparently no one else's parents had decided that leaving at 8am in the morning was absolutely essential to my life and future happiness at boarding school. There was an older girl sitting in the common room watching a Red Sox game and humming what would have been "Pump It Up" if it hadn't been so incredibly off-key. She was the only sign of life, though, and years of avoiding Yankees-Mets fights told me I should wait to introduce myself until she was done with her baseball game.

That was my excuse, anyway.

My room was on the second floor, and by the time we'd lugged all of my bags into my room, someone else had turned up. My mom had to point out the newcomer since I was trapped behind an enormous pile of suitcases and couldn't actually see the door. She was stocky, and a few inches shorter than I was, and looked very solemn. I had a knee-jerk reaction of Oh damn, what'd I do? Is this her room or something? It has my name on the door! before she introduced herself.

"You're Abby, right? I'm Helen, your big sister."

"Helen! So nice to meet you! I'm Ella, and this is David, Abby's parents." My mother spent the next few minutes chatting with Helen about her life in Idaho, her classes and her position on the soccer team while I started organizing my shirts into drawers. I focused again when I heard, "Oh, Abby plays soccer too! She plays goalie. Will you be on her team? It would be so nice if she had a friend there!"

"Moooom," I objected, and looked at Helen instead. "Practice starts tomorrow, right?" When my parents are gone?

"Yeah, tomorrow at 3. I can give you a tour of the campus till then if you want," Helen offered. She seemed to have no more idea what to do in this situation than I did, but at least she was offering to get me away from my parents for a while.

"Sure, that'd be great. Thanks," I agreed automatically. I wasn't really sure if I should crack a joke or just agree with her, or what? Meeting new people wasn't my forte. I'd been in school with the same people since kindergarten, so what did I know of making a good impression?

A least a little, apparently, because Helen smiled and moved away from the door so I could clamber my way over a huge rolling bag and squeeze outside. I promised my parents I'd be right back, with every intention of making "right" last as long as possible," and headed down the stairs after my big sister.

"Dorm first," she told me. "Mrs. Stetson doesn't give newbs any slack, so I'll walk you through the ground rules."

"Newbs?" I asked, puzzled. It was blatantly self-explanatory, but she was using it like an everyday noun.

"Yeah. You're new here, so you're a newb." She grinned, but it was a nice grin. No one in Manhattan had nice grins. I gave moving to Idaho a few seconds of serious consideration. "Welcome to the world of Slice lingo."

"Slice?" The word was as confusing as newb was not.

"Yeah. Slice. SLHS? If you pronounce it out, you get Slice. Kind of." She gave a half-grin, and turned the corner into the common room. "You'll get used to the lingo eventually. For now, don't worry about it."

"If you say so," I acquiesced. but felt rather intimidated nonetheless. I knew boarding school would be a change; that was why I'd signed up in the first place. But a whole new language to learn...

What had I gotten myself into?