The rest of the night was great. We ate ice cream and watched movies until Mika’s mom found out, and then we flopped onto Mika’s queen bed and complained to each other about how full we were until she dozed off. Usually, I have no problem sleeping over at her house, but tonight things are a little different. Tonight I have to figure out where I’ll go tomorrow, and what I’ll say to my parents when they find out I’ve been accused.
I know they won’t believe I did it. They know me. I mean, come on, they are my parents. And as I lay there thinking of what would become of me in the morning I made a decision. A decision that has had a lot of impact on my life. A decision that practically controls my life. The decision that I would go to school tomorrow, just like a normal person. With only one not-so-normal bit. I would be going to school as Olivia Reed.
And unlike the sleepover school did not go so well. Mika’s dad dropped me off at school right before Mika’s entire family started on their long drive to Kansas. As I waited for the bell to ring I wandered around the school. I found my locker and I found my first three classes, but after that things got confusing.
A few minutes before the bell rang I realized that our teachers are probably going to need to call attendance, and well, I can’t exactly tell them I’ve changed my name. So I sneak into my first-period teacher’s classroom and hack into Mr. Mercedes’s computer. Honestly, I have no clue what I’m doing, or if this is even legal. Chances are though, it’s not.
I easily get onto the student profile thingy and find my name. He doesn’t even have any passwords set up, which is unusual for a teacher. I highlight my name under a picture of me from last year and press some random buttons until a long string of code appears on the screen. I find my real name in the code and replace it with Olivia Reed. When I’m done making the appropriate modifications, I click out of it and back to the normal attendance page.
Now my name has been changed and I lean back in my teacher’s chair feeling pleased with myself. Then just as I‘m about to leave the classroom, I notice a little list off to the side. The type is in small print so I have to lean close to the screen to read it. The list is labeled Apply To and then beneath that, the list has all my periods written in order.
I click the little boxes beside each class and then click the Save Changes button. Then I hear the stomping of feet down a hallway. I hurriedly X out of the attendance app and use my sleeve to wipe any fingerprints off the mouse. The stomping gets louder, as does my pulse. I can feel it vibrating through my body.
I know I don’t have time to hide, and it would only make things worse so I sit on the desk and make it look like I’ve been waiting for ages. Suddenly, a large man bursts through the door and stops when he sees me. I paste a big smile on my face and say with my best innocent girl voice, “Are you Mr. Mercedes?” He gives a nod, so I continue, “I’ll be one of your students this year, Olivia Reed. Actually, I‘ll be in your first-period class!”
He smiles and nods again, “It’s nice to meet you, Olivia. If you’ll just take a seat, the bell will ring any second now.” I do, and Mr. Mercedes walks over to his desk. I can see him open the attendance app and I hold my breath. I don’t trust myself to breathe so I don’t. I sit there and wait. In only a few seconds my palms become wet with sweat and my whole body gets cold.
My heartbeat hammers in my chest and I feel like I might explode when Mr. Mercedes finally says, “Ah. There you are, Olivia.” I let a breath of air enter my lungs and immediately I feel better. It worked and now I can relax. Then the bell rings and my muscles tense again. Aside from everything else that’s happened, I’m just also normally nervous about my first day of middle school. And while all my fellow new 6th grader had their parents to tell them everything would be okay, I didn’t.
Suddenly a mob of students rushes in the open door. Mr. Mercades looks slightly surprised to see them all flooding through the door, but soon he switches into teacher mode, and takes control. “Now, Now” he scolds kindly, “That’s not the way we do things around here! Go back outside and line up!”
“Back outside?” the students echo, but they reluctantly head back outside and form a line just in front of the door. I figure I should probably participate, so I grab my backpack and head to the end of the line. By the time I get to the back, all the students were already heading inside. This school’s a lot bigger than my old one. I guess my classes will be bigger too.
I smile to myself and follow my new classmates back into the classroom. Inside people are grouping at random desks. I give Mr. Mercedes a puzzled expression. “Are we supposed to be sitting in clumps?”
He chuckles and smiles, “Don’t worry Olivia, you can sit anywhere today!”
I smile back at him and place myself in a desk next to the window. A girl with blond hair and freckles comes over and joins me.
“Hi,” she says.
“Hi,” I say back. I could feel her happy energy, and it seemed to cheer me up. I glanced out the window, unsure what to say. Luckily Mr. Mercades starts to hand out papers. When I get mine I pull out a pencil and start to fill it out. It was a basic get to know you form. I wondered if I should be changing other things about me, other than just my name. Would people be able to find me by just my favorite things? I put in my real favorite color, and favorite animal and food, but when I got to, where’s your favorite place to be? I stopped.
I know I should probably change my answer to this, but all that had happened suddenly struck me. I didn’t want to lie about anything else, but I knew I would have to if I didn’t want to be caught. My favorite place to be was really the park in the middle of the city. I love it there because it’s such a nice open space. I hate feeling trapped, and I hate cramped spaces or spaces with lots of people. It’s not claustrophobic exactly, because I’m not actually scared of enclosed spaces, I just don’t like them.
I figured I should probably change my answer to somewhere I really don’t like, so I decided to put down the museum. In truth, I hate going to the museum. There are always so many people there, and it’s indoors. I much prefer doing things outside. I make my way through the worksheet slowly as Mr. Mercedes introduces himself, and the blond, who’s name I soon discover is Heather, and I chat. The next few periods flew by and soon it’s lunch.
I wasn’t sure who I would sit with, but I had planned to find some of my old friends from elementary school. My plans changed when Heather ran up to me. I was standing in the middle of the patio underneath the shade of a tree. I had brought a book just in case I didn’t find any friends to sit with, so at least I would have something to do. I had put my backpack in my locker, as we weren’t allowed to have them at lunch. It was a good thing that I had packed my lunch before I went to bed last night, and although I had put a sandwich in the fridge to add to my lunchbox the next morning, I hadn’t exactly had the time to do what I’d planned.
My lunch was smaller than I would have hoped, but that was the least of my problems. Heather and I found a nice grassy spot to sit down. It was a hot day, so I took off my sweatshirt, but then decided against it. I had been wearing this shirt last night, but the sweatshirt was new, and no one had seen me in public with it yet. Over the course of the day, I had taken many precautions so that I wouldn’t be recognized. For example, I always wear my hair down, but today I put it in a high bun. I had also changed the way my handwriting looked, the way I talked, and pretty much anything else I could think of to keep my secret safe.
I set my book down on the grass next to me, and I noticed Heather had brought a book as well. “That’s a really good book, by the way,” Heather tells me. I look over at her book and read the title.
“Hey, I just read that book!” I exclaim, pointing at her book.
“Yeah, it’s really good.” I nod my head in agreement, and dig into my lunch, doing my best not to think about what’s going to happen after school.