CHAPTER 1
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
(Discard Monday—Sept. 6th)
“Snake River Middle School.” I read the brown-and-white marquee as we drove up to my new school. “Home of the Spuds.”
“This is gonna be great,” my dad said, grabbing me by the shoulders to give me a little fatherly shake of encouragement. He had a habit of hamming it up like this whenever things got difficult. “Your first day as a Spud.”
“I can now die a happy man,” I muttered, watching as row after row of kids filed out of three black-and-yellow buses and funneled toward the school entrance. The school year had started a couple of weeks ago, so not only would I not know anyone, but I was going to have to play catch-up. Not that I couldn’t do that superhumanly fast, it just meant I was probably going to have to spend more discard days at school for the next little while instead of staying home and playing video games. Never a good prospect.
My dad scrunched his face. “That’s not like you, son. This is sixth grade. You’re in middle school now. Finally moving up to the big leagues, am I right? I thought you were excited for school.”
“Kinda depends on the day, Dad,” I said.
“I get it,” my dad said, patting me on the knee. “Change is hard. It’s a new school with new kids and teachers, but just think of it as an adventure. Put on a brave face, kiddo. You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”
I raised my eyebrows. “You’d be surprised.”
My dad glanced down at his smartwatch, and his eyes went wide. “Speaking of which, I don’t want to be late myself. I gotta jet. Remember, you’re taking the bus home.”
I nodded, grabbed my backpack, and exited the car. I was almost to the front door of the school when I heard my dad’s voice again.
“Love you, buddy!”
A few girls in front of me snickered as I turned around and waved at my dad. I pulled out a pocket-sized notebook with the words Discard Day Do-Overs written across the front in black marker and made a quick note for the sticky day.
Embarrassment: Prevent Dad from shouting “Love you, buddy” in front of the whole school
If I had a dollar for every time I had to undo an embarrassing comment from my dad, I could buy my own private island and a helicopter to take me there. That said, it was impossible to prevent them all, even with a discard day to prepare. My dad’s ability to generate cringe-worthy moments in public was a force of nature. You couldn’t stop it; you just prepped all you could, laid low, and hoped for the best.
I pinballed my way through the press of students, running into no fewer than five bulging backpacks on my way to the front desk. I wasn’t sure what these kids were toting around, but half of them looked about ready to climb Mt. Everest. The admin looked my name up on the computer and gave me a map of the school, circling my locker and classroom locations with a yellow highlighter. I studied the map before rejoining the crowd, eventually catching the right stream of students to whisk me away in the direction of my first-period class. Breaking free of the swift current of kids to visit my locker was a lost cause and would probably have to wait until lunch.
Classroom 013 came into view, and I made my exit, slipping between two towering boys, one with dark whiskers speckling his jawline. I definitely wasn’t in elementary school anymore. I walked in and stood at the front of the classroom, observing the typical pre-class chaos. Kids talked, laughed, showed each other their phones, and imitated dance emotes I recognized from the video game Warcraft of Empires. To be honest, it wasn’t really all that different from my Texas school: columns of desks in the middle of the room, floor-to-ceiling wooden cabinets at the back, a bank of windows to the right looking out over nearby farmland, and pictures of world-famous landmarks and historical events covering any remaining wall space. I turned to see a poster on the door of a cartoon horse holding hands with a smiling potato above the words Be a stud, befriend a spud. So I guess that was different.
I pulled out my notebook and surveyed the class. I’d never be this obvious about it on a sticky day, but I needed to start mapping out potential friends and spotting bullies. When you went to school for twice as long as anyone else in my grade (with the exception of maybe Bruiser Bigelow, who’d been held back like three times), you had a better feel than most kids for how school worked. First order of business would be to bucket them into stereotypes: jock, nerd, VSCO girl, and so on. These were the faces they showed the world, but I’d spent enough discard days spying on and teasing reactions out of people to know that everyone had a second face. Everyone. Today wasn’t for second faces, however. It was the initial assessment. Plenty of discard days ahead to see who these people really were. I studied the students and started jotting down a few notes.
Follow-up: Middle of classroom. Boy with long brown hair wearing a Mario Bros. shirt and a Zelda symbol wristband. Playing portable game on handheld console, NOT phone. Video game purist. Gamer and proud of it. Definite potential friend.
Follow-up: Tall kid in front. Sitting on top of desk. Black hair. Expensive haircut. Dressed like an adult (no graphics or characters on shirt), brand-new shoes, laughing at own jokes while others force their laughs around him. Appears athletic. Name most likely has an “x” in it even if it doesn’t need it (e.g., Knox, Maddox, Paxton) or has a quarterbacky sound like Peyton, Carson, or Colt. In position of social power. Cool kid. Jock. Potential alpha bully.
Follow-up: Pale girl with dark hair in back corner of room. Has hood on with panda ears. She has a sketch notebook open and is staring longingly out the window. 95% chance she is drawing manga characters. Will most likely keep to herself. Anime geek. Nonthreatening.
Follow-up: Pretty girl toward the back left. Styled blond hair. Sporting Kardashian-level makeup. Currently taking selfies with one hand and has Starbucks cup in the other. Looks disinterested in those around her. Could be top of the social ladder.
Follow-up: Tan boy near the back with parted and slicked hair. Work boots, jeans, pearl-snap shirt. Quiet, but has easygoing smile. One of the only kids not looking at a phone. Farmer of some type. Will most likely know more about potatoes than his peers.
I made several more notes before the final bell rang. The students all scrambled to their desks, and I pocketed my notebook, knowing that I’d have a few more prime chances in the day to continue mapping out the social scene: lunch, time in the halls between classes, and on the bus.
“Good morning, my bright-eyed social studies students,” Mrs. Marlow announced from her desk at the front of the classroom as she clapped three times. She was about my mom’s age with a pleasant, round face and long, curly, black hair.
“Good morning, Mrs. Marlow,” the class said, followed by three loud claps. I guess that was a thing here.
Copyright © 2021 by Mike Thayer
Map illustration copyright © 2021 by Serena Maylon