I followed the proud masses into the main building receiving many looks, and my classmates' reactions came in four main forms.
Most guys looked impressed or slightly annoyed. While most girls giggled and whispered or steered clear of me.
People were prejudiced and their reactions had everything to do with their personal preferences.
I walked slowly reading the name on each door until I arrived at the principal's office. She was supposed to be another one of mom's many friends here. I swallowed my nerves before knocking on the door.
"Come in." A professional voice answered, and I opened the door. The office was big, and inside, the lights were on since the clouds blocked the sun, the heat was set so high, I had to lose my jacket while I greeted her without focusing on a face yet, she must be one of those people who hated the cold too.
"Hello Mrs. White," Olivia had me memorizing her name yesterday.
"You must be Emma's boy," My mother's name was a punch to the stomach that I ignored.
Other than the meeting table and chairs, it was the typical principal's office. My feet took me to the leather chair that was across from Mrs. White's desk. It was full of photo frames for what I assumed to be her family pictures; the walls had many paintings, and a huge map of Alaska caught my eye, it had red pins all over it.
When I finally focused on her, a brunette wearing glasses stood behind the desk, smiling kindly, I hurried to shake her extended hand, feeling a bit awkward.
She looked every bit like the CEO of a major company; I wouldn't have guessed she worked in a school had I met her elsewhere. She was wearing a dark blue shirt, tucked in a short silver skirt, she was very athletic, and I had to make a conscious effort to keep my eyes on her face.
I felt a bit embarrassed for finding her good-looking and familiar.
"How is your day going so far? Was it hard to commute, Emma's boy?" She had brown eyes with a reddish hue to them, reminding me of my mother's eyes, and my own for that matter.
"I'm Theodor Turner," I wanted to change the way she addressed me, I saw recognition passing through her eyes, and then her discomfort. "The bus was very comfortable, thank you for asking." She nodded once, having caught up with my formal tone.
I wanted to keep things professional around here. Keep people at an arm's length preferably. The son of the friend that passed away too early for her time was not a classification I wanted to be under. Not if I could help it, that is.
"Of course," she said. Her long, polished nails picked up a folder from over a pile of other official-looking papers laid on her desk neatly.
"I have your file right here, I see much potential in you." She opened it up and started reading through it. I was an A student and I excelled in sports, principals loved me, nothing new there.
She went the extra mile to have my schedule already printed, we went through it together. She had assigned her assistant with the task of showing me the way to my first class, it guaranteed having more eyes on me, highlighting that the new student was too much of an idiot to follow instructions leading to his homeroom.
Mrs. White smiled at me again, something passed through her eyes too fast for me to catch. I smiled back politely and excused myself.
As soon as I was out of the office, the assistant came running to greet me, she was a woman in her twenties and the difference between our heights reminded me of walking next to Sophie yesterday, I found myself smiling then I quickly removed it once I saw her blushing.
Women in Alaska sure blushed fast.
Other students were now straight ogling. I already stood out as the tallest guy in the hallway, they were making way before pulling each other to whisper about me before, now they got over whispering and started talking about me in a normal voice.
The hallway buzzed with my name as the assistant and I got close to my homeroom, when some students started waving or smiling before we were even introduced, I waved or smiled back at them.
That only increased the number of students repeating the cycle.
Once the assistant and I arrived at my homeroom, she awkwardly tucked her hair behind her ear. "So, um, there you are! If you need anything, anything at all, just let me know!" Yeah, nothing is different about school life, not when I'm inside the building at least.
"Thanks, er, Ms..." I didn't get her name.
"No problem!" She answered in a sing-song voice. Then she bolted just as fast as she came.
.
.
.
I was about to place my foot inside the homeroom before the bell rang, not wanting to come late and attract even more attention — if that was even a possibility at this point — when a man in a tracking suit came running into my view; If only running and waving was the only thing he was doing.
"TURNER! WAIT UP JUST A SEC!" And behold my biggest fan; hopefully, I wouldn't have to stand around with him discussing my career path all day.
I made way for the other students who were about to follow me in, moved the bag that I had in hand, and put it over my shoulder, this was not going to end fast, so I sucked in all the oxygen that was available around me, then prepared myself for the upcoming handshake.
This will not bother me... I lied to myself smoothly. All eyes were already on me even before he came running.
I finally exhaled and met with the coach.
***
I kept my composure throughout the entire talk. He was out to scout me and gave me an entire speech about how promising the football team here was. I had made up my mind already to join them so that made his mission quite easy, he handed me the training schedule, shook my hand again — much more enthusiastically this time — then made a short jump to give me an encouraging double pat over the shoulder.
After all.... I went inside long after the bell.
Homeroom was average. I spotted a pile of coats, so I headed there to put my jacket next to everyone else's.
Students who were still talking while the teacher stood by his table organizing his things stopped whatever they were doing as soon as I turned to face them. Not bothering to be called by the busy teacher, I went and stood by the table next to him with my bag still over my shoulder, I located an empty seat in the row right before the very back where a boy sat alone, I planned on switching with him. The back seat in any class was mine, no one could see anything behind me.
The teacher finally came back to reality. "Oh! That's right. Please introduce yourself, Theodor."
Everyone knew who I was already. I put on my polite smile. "Hello, my name is Theodor Turner, I look forward to a good year with you all." One guy clapped twice, everyone turned around to glare at him; I jumped to his rescue. "Thanks, dude." Everyone started laughing — the teacher looked very pleased.
I tried hard to keep it in and put up with everyone staring, they had no issues doing that, even though I sat in the very back seat.
When the bell rang after two periods of English, two boys who were sitting in the front kept giving each other pep talks until they came over to talk to me, their moves were so synched; they probably had been friends for their entire lives. Both of them had brown hair and green eyes, cousins maybe? They were almost the same height, but one of them was slightly shorter. The slightly taller guy started talking to me.
The rest of the class just stood there eavesdropping instead of heading out to eat or get some fresh air.
"Theodor Turner, how are you doing man?" His eyes twinkled with excitement. If I was not mistaken, these guys were a part of the football team. "Theo," I suggested giving him a friendly smile. A couple of my classmates who were not so smoothly eavesdropping nodded to each other.
"You want to walk together for a bit?" he asked.
It was the cafeteria first, math and science, and then it was the gym for today. "Sure, can you show me around while we're at it?"
The whole class was about to show me around, by the looks of it.
"Of course man! I'm Elijah Johnson, and this is Liam Johnson. We're fraternal twins!" That explained everything. "We've got your back," Liam added, nodding once and smiling widely.
I showed them my teeth as well. "Thanks."
We took our jackets and led the way out for the rest of the class who was following us, Elijah informed me that there was a cafeteria inside the same building; As it turned out, there was a designated cafeteria for each separate building in the school — someone was considering the many snowy days.
Once we reached the cafeteria, a small war broke over who was to sit at the table I was at, though I chose the one with as many chairs as possible.
"So, it's a lot less green than Portland here, huh?" Elijah asked, not bothering to ask first where I came from.
"Yeah." That was all I had to say about Portland.
"It doesn't snow much there, does it?"
"We get a solid one month of snow every year."
"Wow, that's less than half the snowy days in here…" he mused.
"I guess." I shrugged.
"You look okay with all the snow. Tourists usually complain all the time." Liam took over the conversation.
"The weather condition doesn't bother me." It was a lie; I liked the sun.
He nodded twice. His brother, along with the rest of the class brightened up instantly, as if the fact that I had no complaints about the weather meant the world to them.
I wasn't going to rant about the cold when these people were probably going to live and die in this place. No one liked an outsider dissing their hometown, only they were allowed to do that. This much I already knew.
I had no problem placating teenagers whichever state they came from. I gave a smile around the table to the rest of the satisfied audience.
The rest of the day was almost uneventful. I introduced myself proactively whenever I switched a class, the teachers smiled brightly at me, and my classmates were excited to have me. I tried to memorize the name of each of the boys who approached me.
None of the girls were brave enough to come and talk yet, things only got awkward for me right before PE, the starting point to that was the boys' lockers.
My friendliness was news that spread around like fire, so as soon as I started taking off my clothes, the herds found no problem leaving what they were doing to cramp the space around me. They had a hundred questions to ask — nothing new or original of course. They focused on my diet, my training schedule, and the kind of exercises I usually followed.
PE itself was much needed, volleyball was too soft for me, but I was still able to break a sweat. I tried my best to ignore the fact that there was an audience by the glass doors and windows, still, I delivered a couple of too-fast hits to the poor boy across from me, he was unable to block them.
It was still okay this far out.
The worst point of my first day at Anchorage High was when one of my PE classmates, the first girl to come and talk to me today, handed me a small notebook and then asked for my autograph.
"Um, do you mind signing this for me? I'm a big fan of yours."
I damped my towel that was hanging over my neck with the sweat that was all over my forehead, then took the towel and wiped both my hands before I threw it again over my shoulder. I looked from the notebook to the eyes of my self-proclaimed fan, her brown hair was braided, and she was in the school's PE uniform.
She was nervous, fidgeting in her place. I wasn't about to embarrass her in front of the hundred eyes that were on us, but I didn't appreciate the occurrence that was a first in both high schools. I took the notebook from her hand and waited until she made eye contact.
"Can you ask me to write anything else? I'm hardly a celebrity."
"What? Some of the guys here were traveling all the way to Portland just to see you play."
Her eyes got all teary, she must have missed the part where I offered to write something else and took my comment that followed as a rejection. I sighed long and immediately regretted it. The tiny thing flinched back.
"What's your name?" I asked, surrendering.