As I sat in the shotgun of my mom’s old Honda Accord, my fingers drew unconscious patterns on the soft, carpet-like material of the seats.  I stared blankly out the window, my eyes fixed on the vibrant greens of the foliage melding with the dull grey pavement in the misty sunlight.  Unasked for, my thoughts drifted back to the last time I had entered a new school, in Marlboro.  As events flitted through my mind, an even mixture of elegant butterflies and sickly spiders, I came to rest on one particular image. 

It was the third day of school, and the weather had not yet received warning that it was September.  The sun was torrid and the air stifling, and our pleasant-faced teacher had taken pity on us and had magically produced two gallons of beautifully cold chocolate ice cream.  As one being, our class sat up, peeled our legs from the blue school chairs and dragged ourselves toward the ice cream with the air of a starving man in sight of food.  When I finally clutched a thin styrofoam bowl filled with three scoops of heaven in one hand, I sat down and dug in.  I brought the first melting spoonful to my lips, my eyes closed, ready for the cool sweetness to explode on my tongue and slide refreshingly down my throat, but instead, I felt a sickly splat.  I glanced down at my shirt, horrified to see a dark brown blob dripping down the brand-new lavender fabric.  I ran, first for a napkin, then to the sink, to the hoots and laughter of my peers, but it was all in vain.  For the rest of the day, I walked around with a big, chocolate-colored stain plastered across my chest, my cheeks permanently flushed.

Now, in Beckettown, the car stopped, jerking me out of my contemplation.  I cringed internally at the memory.  My mind was reeling as I stepped out of my mother’s welcoming car and into the cool morning air that just hinted at the mid-August heat that would soon manifest.  I stood up, my legs shaky on the pavement, and glanced around me at the sea of unfamiliar faces, all of them bent to the ground, lugging backpacks toward the big double-doors.  My heart was jittery, as though it would fly away if it beat any faster, but it was only just keeping pace with my mind as it ran over and over the million possibilities of how this day might end.  I turned back to the car to get my backpack and took a deep breath.  My eyes met my mother’s, and she sent me a sympathetic smile.

“Good luck,” she said.  I nodded silently, pulled my backpack onto my shoulders, and again turned toward the school I was to call my own.  Clumsier than usual in my nervousness, I wobbled toward the stairs, pausing often to allow hordes of faceless students to walk ahead of me as we funneled into the school.

There was a teacher standing to the right of the door, gripping a silver coffee cup, his lavender dress shirt brushing up against the brick wall behind him, greeting students as they passed.  I stared down at my brand-new black converse as I went by, hiding in the multitudes of people.

My eyes took a moment to adjust to the cool fluorescent lighting in the building as my nose was tickled by the subtle scent of tangy orange floor cleaner mixed with new office products and perfume.  The sea of people dissipated somewhat, diffusing into various hallways.  The open lobby, with its low ceiling and white-board sign with pale, streaked marker welcoming students to a new year, seemed dim in comparison even to the thin rays of morning sun outside.  I glanced around the room, remembering the short tour of the school I had taken with the guidance counsellor only a week earlier.  It did little to counteract the newness of the building.  I started toward the stairs, where I knew I would find my locker and most of my classes--that, at least, I remembered.
I glanced to my right and to my left, staring down the identical bright white hallways with their whitewashed cement walls and mottled linoleum floors.  There were people spilling out of the purple-rimmed doorways, greeting each other with smiles and laughter, picking up old conversations.  I started up the stairs, pausing timidly to allow others to pass me, terrified of getting in anyone’s way.

When I finally reached the 8th grade hallway, lined with its dull green lockers and purple walls, I pulled out my course schedule and checked the room number of my advisory.  I walked past the doors, my head lowered, avoiding the eyes of those who passed me.  Reading the purple-and-white plaques, I eventually found my advisory in Mr. Cartwright’s room.  I slipped inside just as the first bell rang, my stomach turning in knots, worried that someone would laugh at me, or the teacher would dislike me on sight, or I would trip on something.  Already there was someone in the room, a girl with long ginger hair who smiled at me as I walked in.  I smiled back, but my heart wasn’t in it.  Mr. Cartwright, whose shiny bald head was surrounded by a strip of grey hair, looked up at me from his computer with watery blue eyes as I walked in.  He didn’t smile, but his face relaxed a little.

“Are you Gwen?” he asked, a little gruffly.  I didn’t know if this was his usual tone, or if I had done something wrong.

“Yes,” I said quietly, my voice nearly shaking.

“Welcome to BAMS,” he said simply, and turned back to his screen.  It took me a moment to realize that BAMS stood for Beckett Area Middle School.  I put my bag on a desk in the room and sat down in a chair.  People began to trickle in, settling on desks and chairs, until about ten people sat in a cluster in the back of the room.  The second bell rang, and Mr. Cartwright stood up and welcomed us all to eighth grade.  He spoke for a little while in a low voice that put the room to sleep.  Even I, my nerves taught, nearly closed my eyes.  Then he introduced me, drawing advisory’s attention in my direction with a gesture.  I felt my lips smile and wave at the unfamiliar faces that turned toward me, their expressions vacant.  Then, I turned back to stare at my bag on the desk as Mr. Cartwright lapsed back into his “start-of-school” speech, his voice rising and falling hypnotically.  Glancing around the room, I smiled internally at the faces my advisory members made at each other as they blatantly ignored their teacher.  In my desk, in the middle of a group of people, I suddenly felt entirely isolated. 
Finally, the bell rang, and I checked my schedule.  English.  I pulled my backpack onto my shoulder and made my way to the door.  The hallways had filled with people, and I slipped comfortably into the anonymity of the crowd.  When I reached the door of my class, I felt the cold fingers of dread curl in my stomach.  Before, I had been excited about my classes, hoping that they might prove more interesting than those at my previous, much smaller school.  Now that one was actually upon me, I was terrified that I would make a fool of myself.  Perhaps I would answer a question wrong, and for the rest of the year I would be the laughingstock of the class.
My teacher, Ms. Turner, stood at the door, and she greeted me as I walked in.  She had short, spiky brown hair and glasses set upon her long nose that she adjusted unconsciously as she confirmed that I was the “new girl.”
I glanced around the room, taking in the clean wooden desk in the back of the room and the simple beige school-desks standing in pairs on the spotted white linoleum.  My heart sank.  I knew that I would be the one who ended up alone; in all honesty, no one knew me.  A few kids dotted the room, standing in twos and threes around the desks.  Seeing that no one else had sat down, I stayed standing also, staring out the window at the brightening sky as the sun burned off the last of the morning fog.

Warm laughter drew me from my thoughts, and I turned around just in time to see a vibrant girl with thick, curly, dark brown hair and a blue t-shirt that said, “Cake or Death” on it step into the classroom.  The way she laughed, was as though she had just heard a wonderful joke, but it seemed that she had simply been saying hello Ms. Turner.  Little did I know that in a few short minutes I would discover that such witticisms were entirely normal greetings for this eccentric character.  It was hard to keep from smiling at her lighthearted demeanor, so when she looked around the classroom and saw me, I grinned.

To my complete surprise, she made a beeline toward me. “Hi, what’s your name?” she asked with a wide, friendly smile that lit up her whole face.

“Gwen,” I said simply.  “I’m new.”  I smiled in response as I did so, just as I had done so often that day, but it was much easier this time.
“I’m Kaya!  You seem cool.  Do you want to sit with me?” she asked, gesturing toward a grouping of two dull beige desks. 
I grinned, my first real smile of the day stretching across my face.  “Sure, thank you!”  Our English teacher allowed the class a few minutes to chat, and in those few short minutes, I became well-acquainted with Kaya, whose bubbly personality and constant smile were, I found, contagious.  Half a class later, I already had to work to remember the feelings of isolation I had felt only an hour before.

A little over a month later, the leaves had brightened and fallen to the ground in a crisp layer of exquisite autumn, and the smell of pumpkins and apples mixed with the hint of coming ice on the brisk air.  I sat in a cocoon of soft, fluffy comforter in one corner of Kaya’s L-shaped couch, secrets and stories rolling off my tongue, smooth as chocolate.  It was after midnight, and the big picture window was a dark shadowed mirror in the warm light of her living room.  Our voices rose and fell, dissolving often into helpless laughter.

“So last September, I started at BAMS, and here I am,” I finished lamely.  I paused.  “Wait a second, did I just tell my entire life story?  I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to talk so much!”

Kaya grinned, her eyes bright in the warm lamp light.  “It’s okay, I told you mine too.  We’re even.”
I thought for a moment, gazing out into the night, my vision blurred slightly by fatigue.  “I guess you did.  I don’t think I’ve ever done that before.”
“Really?  Never?” Her voice was incredulous.  “Haven’t you ever had a sleepover?”
I laughed easily.  “Of course, but Marlboro’s weird.  All the secrets were kept secrets, if there even were any.  We all just kind of hung out, gossiped, and probably watched something geeky like the Lord of the Rings.”
“Well, I mean, that sounds like a good time to me,” she admitted with only a little bit of sarcasm, “But what about real sleepovers?  Where you talk to a really good friend of yours and tell them everything, even your darkest secrets?”

“I don’t know.  I guess I’ve never really had someone I can talk to like that.”
“Really?  Ever?”
“Well, maybe it’s because I moved a lot, but I guess not.”
“No, I had friends last year, but I didn’t have anyone I could really talk to either.  And, like I said, it wasn’t a great year.  But I always at least had my mother and my sister if I needed them.”
“Well, it’s good you had them,” I smiled sympathetically.
“Hey,” she said suddenly, tapping me on the shoulder playfully.  “Now you have someone you can really talk to as well.”  She pointed conspicuously at herself, nodding vigorously.
I laughed for the millionth time that night, feeling more at home in my own skin than I had in a long while.  “Hey.” I tapped her on the shoulder.  “You do too!”
She beamed.  “Want some ice cream?  We’ve got chocolate.”

“Ice cream?  It’s two AM!” I cried, shaking my head in disbelief.  Then I thought about it.  My mind dwelled for a moment on the hair-raising embarrassment on that third day at Marlboro, but it hardly registered amongst the comfort and cheer I was feeling at that moment.  I grinned, my smile matching Kaya’s.  “Well, why not?”

And together, ice cream in hand, we talked until the sun came up for the first of many times.