24&29

The miraculous part is that I figured out – all by myself – that the girl behind the front desk was the receptionist. She was staring at me the entire time I had, like, this major ‘oh’ moment. So I approached her, scratching my head.

She pasted on this really fake smile. Like, it was the kind of plastic grin that concealed the overpowering urge to strangle someone.

I decided to keep my distance.

I slid the paper with… whatever was on it across the table. She took it in this really weird way. Like, the way a cobra would strike. Anyway, she scanned the paper quickly and handed me a key, a piece of paper (paper, paper, so much paper!) with my schedule on it, and a student handbook. I never did understand the purpose of student handbooks. I used to think it was, like, a substitute for when you ran out of toilet paper, but after one very unfortunate experience, I learned that it wasn’t.

“Just go right on straight, and look for the door that says 479,” the receptionist lady said. I politely smiled at her and quickly went ‘right on straight’. I turned around and stared at her back. I gave her the finger and strode off in search of Room 479. I stuck the student handbook and my schedule under my other arm. I took my key out of my pocket and jabbed it in the keyhole. I pushed the door open.

I dropped the duffle bag to the floor. Maybe I had even dropped the student handbook and my schedule, because at the next scene, it wasn’t with me. To hell with the handbook. If Dean Kenton seriously thought St. Dom’s students would actually read this, then he had some major head problems.

That was when I realized the weight of the situation. That’s when I realized just what had happened. That was when I realized where I was.

I was in St. fucking Dominic’s Academy. And it was grand. The walls, the marble floor, the high ceiling with the chandelier – everything about this dormitory room was simply amazing. There was a big four-poster bed and another one on the “second floor.” The “second floor” wasn’t really a second floor. There were, like, three steps separating it from the “first floor.” The “second floor” had a giant Spanish-style window on the wall. If you look out of it, you could see the entire Santa Barbara, from the skate park to the dock. The two “floors” had their own wooden study tables and a reading light on the header of the bed. There was absolutely no TV to be seen anywhere, which was a huge letdown for me because I would miss out on a lot of Cartoon Network.

Soon enough I became very bored with the room, so I decided to walk around Ledger Block. I found myself back at the reception desk, after getting lost in my own building. All of a sudden I felt like I had checked into a hotel rather than a school.

So since I was really bored, I walked up to the glass doors that led into Ledger Block and basically I just stared out of it in silence. I got bored of staring outside the doors, so I told myself to terrorize the receptionist instead.

So I turned around and she was there, scowling at me – and I could tell she was scowling at me because her eyes looked fucking vicious and they were boring straight into my forehead and I swear to God steam was coming out of her ears – even though there was another student in front of her.

I took her hostility as a warm invitation. For some reason, I found joy in pissing her off, mainly because there isn’t a TV in my dorm room. So if Dean Kenton kicked me out, I would’ve just told Mom that they were trying to drive me insane by depriving me from any form of entertainment.

I leaned on the table. “Hi, me again,” I chimed in. For the first time, I looked at the receptionist’s nametag. Velvet Hawkins.

She flashed me this look of complete and utter detestation. There was an undeniable fire in her eyes that told me she wanted to massacre me right then and there.

Didn’t stop me.

“Whacha doin’?” I asked.

The kid next to me stared at me in this really weird way. Like instead of feeling the intense hatred I did for this Velvet Hawkins lady, he wasted his time thinking I was mentally disturbed.

I stared back at him.

“Being pissed off,” Velvet Hawkins replied, leafing through a pile of paper. She made a scratchy noise in the pit of her throat. She sighed heavily. “You?”

I was actually pleased in a bad way that she answered me. “Pissing people off. You havin’ fun?”

She made that throaty noise again. “Yep. So much fun.” Her voice dripped with offensive sarcasm. I secretly smiled to myself. “Here’s your schedule and a student handbook,” Velvet Hawkins told the guy next to me. “Oh, I almost forgot. Here’s your key. You’re in Room 479.” I felt my face brighten, but I instantly glowered when I saw that Velvet Hawkins looked horrified. She quickly concealed what pity she had for the kid. She cleared her throat. “Just go straight on and look for the door that says 479.”

“Hi, roommate!” I said cheerily. “We got a pretty stellar room.” I stuck my hand out. “I’m Mikey.”

The poor guy looked like he was about to faint. “Roommate?” he asked hysterically.

I dropped my hand and lowered my gaze to the floor. “Yeah. Sorry if that’s such a downer for you, but if it makes things better–”

“No, no,” he interjected. “It’s fine, really.” His eyes, for a fraction of a millisecond, flicked to Velvet Hawkins and then back at me and then back at the floor.

Velvet Hawkins seemed to choke on her own saliva. She looked like she was suppressing a huge uproar of laughter. She was demented – so fucking demented.

I turned to the guy. “Here, I’ll lead you to the room,” I muttered.

He gave me a small smile.

We were walking to Room 479 of Ledger Block when he chuckled and said, “That was pretty fucking cool.”

I looked at him like he was trying to convince me that the world was actually an octagon.

“I meant the way you pissed the receptionist lady off,” he explained, giggling.

My lips itched to crack a smile. “Actually I thought I came off as mental.”

“What makes you think you didn’t?” he retorted, smiling.

So this guy had a sense of humor after all.

We were standing in front of Room 479. I put my key in the keyhole and twisted it. Before I could swing the door open, he said, “I’m Frank, by the way.”

I smiled to myself. “I’m Mikey.”

He giggled a little bit. “I know.”