First Day, First Impressions

It was exactly the same as the year before. Same brick doors scratched up desks, and linoleum floors. The same old school that I had attended for the past 12 years of my life. Lucky me.

I mean I didn’t hate school. But I wasn’t the girl to rush of the school waiting to learn the newest fact over World War II either. I was in the middle, just suffering through year after year, waiting for something better to come along. And something did, come along I mean.

“Who is that?” I asked Lynne who was fussing in her locker making sure everything was properly organized. That’s my best friend Lynne for you: obsessively neat, hardworking, and a gossip magnet. She knew everything about everybody without even trying, even after an entire summer spent on a beach in the west coast miles away from West Chester, New Jersey.

“That’s the new social studies teacher,” she said not even bothering to look. She had to know who I was talking about considering all the attention he was claiming as he came down the hall. Girls were swooning, literally. And let me tell you he was getting some pretty nasty look from the male population, what with all the girl attention being on him.

“So what’s his name?”

“Mr. Carlson. His story is he’s fresh out of grad school and tried to get into some pretty boy prep school. This was the only job opening though.”

“Oh.” Poor guy, wanting to get a top-notch job and getting stuck at this rundown place, I knew how he was feeling. “Must be rough.”

Lynne shrugged and reapplied her chap stick. She seemed satisfied at the state of her locker and turned towards me, “Ready?”

I nodded and followed her to the cafeteria where our crowd hung out last year before classes started. Inside the usual chaos reined. Kids doing insane things and lunch ladies trying to keep peace, you can guess who was winning.

We slid over to a group we’d associated with last year. The farm boys, who lived on a family owned farm and whose destiny was to grow old with cows and corn. Not the brightest group, but they were the sanest in this place. Plus they were funny.

“Hey guys, long time no see. Good summer?” Howard slid over he always was the nicest.

“Did you see that new teacher?” Jamie said.

“Man all the ladies are like crazy over him,” Nort said sadly, “He’s going to leave none for us normal guys.”

“We saw him, he’s not much but a pretty face,” Lynne said calmly.

I was only slightly surprised; Lynne never seemed to care much for guys who went off the hot radar. She tended to believe guys like that were sneaks, liars, and cheats. Usually she was right about this and kept me from making a lot of bad choices. Lynne tended to go for the guys who were straight up nerds, or really nice guys girls usually only saw as friends. Like Howard, who whenever she looked at him blushed a little bit.

The warning bell rang and kids began to pour out of the cafeteria and leave to their first official class. The nerds running, eager to get the front row seats. The jocks ambling, not caring the least bit where they sat as long as they sat near each other. Trailing were the skater and punks who were probably already conjuring brilliant plans to skip class.

I had to throw away my rock hard French Toast so I’d lost Lynne in the crowd and was surprised when someone was tapping my back. I spun around so fast I almost tripped and fell on my face.

Luckily someone caught me.

“Whoa, you ok there?”

A very cute someone.

“Troy, wow, it’s been awhile.” Troy Conner. He, of course, had been the one who’d tapped me on the back, which meant he’d also been the one to catch me. Troy Conner, Chester High School’s man of mystery, star basketball player turned punk and one of the cutest guys in school. Not to mention former lab partner to yours truly.

“How was your summer? Work at any art shows?”

Did I mention that we share an insane obsession with funky art? “Yes, well, a little. Mostly I worked as a nanny for cash though. You know college.” He probably didn’t know, but I was nervous and on a roll with babbling out nonsense.

“Yeah, I do. Got to save for college somehow.”

I nodded, or I thought I nodded. But to be fair, I wasn’t on a proper thinking level. Actually, I wasn’t really thinking at all, just waving my hands around and saying whatever came out of my open mouth. It’s how I usually got myself into trouble, a lot.

The first bell rang seconds before I walked into class. Great start to a good impression, but it wasn’t my fault, well not entirely. Somehow my English teacher didn’t see it that way and bam I got an essay first thing on the essentials of being a more productive student. Yeesh, welcome back indeed.

First days are the best and worst days of the school year. They are the best because you can get away with things, usually. They are the worst because they get very repetitive and boring with all the here’s your syllabus and this is what I’ll be teaching you this semester.

That’s why walking into Mr. Carlson’s class I received a huge shock. There was our teacher sitting cross-legged on his desk. His desk.

“Um, I-” I stared vaguely out at the sea of faces hoping one would clue me in.

“Welcome, take a seat, I don’t bite.” He smiled waving me in, and I sat down uncertainties and all.

I’m nowhere near as bad as Lynne about proper order in life. My room was a pigsty to prove it. But I couldn’t help but wondering if this was only a trap to catch us in wrongdoing.

Apparently, none of my classmates shared these worries as they were enjoying sitting on their desks, the floor, some listening to their music, others chewing cookies. Ok, I thought, relax; stop being so obsessive over all of this.

“So this is World History, 11th grade, if that sounds wrong, then your shit out of luck.”

Uncertain giggles erupted, especially from the girls. I sat patiently

“My name’s Mr. Carlson, and you can call me Mr. Carlson, Carl, Car, Joe, Bob, or anything else you come up with.”

More laughter, this time I joined in. His laughter was very infectious.

“So let’s star out our World History with a bang, and hopefully I can say that by the end of this semester and year I can say I’ve made an impression on you. First, we talk about our own history, let’s start with you.” He pointed at Joe who was looking at him slightly disgruntled.

“What’d you mean?”

“Tell me your own personal history, what make’s you you.”

“I, well I bought a car.”

“Excellent! Now where did you buy this car?”

Unlike most families around here, Joe’s was ungodly rich enough to buy new cars for their teenage children rather then picking them up second, third, or even fourth hand. “At Big Richardson’s. It’s a 2007 Chevy Malibu.”

“Yes, so you bought a car, and just changed the history of this world.”

Now Joe was staring at him with outrageous disbelief. “How’d you figure that?”

“Well, I presume you paid for the car.”

“Yes.”

“Now, you purchased the car from that dealer, aiding that dealership in it’s sales and allowing it to profit. In turn, this aids the economy around here, especially in that particular brand. This will figure into the US economy and changed the economy of the world simply by buying that car.”

Most people were staring somewhat awed. A few looked skeptical. Joe was looking as if he wished he’d never opened his mouth.

“Never knew one action has a huge effect? What about you? How did you change the world this summer?” He was pointing at me this time. Oh boy.

“I’m not sure I really did anything to change this world.”

“You must have done something.”

“I watched TV.”

“And?”

“I worked as a nanny this summer.”

“And by working as a nanny what’d you do?”

“I played with the kids, fed them-”

“No, no, no,” he was smiling now, showing off his perfect white teeth, “What’d you do to affect those around you?”

I thought for a few seconds. “Well, I guess I was a figure in that families life. I made their lives a little easier.”

“And?”

“I set the bar for the service I gave them.”

“And by setting that bar, high I presume, you have affected any others who might now apply for that job. You also affect how they were able to run their daily lives and in turn how their own lives affected others. Very impressive.”

I was stunned. Even after he turned to someone else I was impressed how he made my job seem so worthwhile. So far this year was turning out great.