“Are you even ready for today?” I thumbed behind me. “It’s chaos out there. You should probably hide in here.”

He raised his thin eyebrows at me. “It’s already been a day and school starts in five minutes.” He pointed at me. “Don’t be late.”

“I won’t.” I paused and turned back toward him. “Who’s that girl sitting out front? I don’t think I’ve seen her before.” I tried to be as nonchalant as possible.

“She’s a new student from Buffalo, New York. Just got into town last week.” He didn’t elaborate, but I wanted to know more about her.

“Oh. What grade is she in?” She looked to be around my age. When I smiled at her, she gave me a soft smile back. She had long blond hair and the prettiest eyes. She screamed money but didn’t seem to be snotty like the other kids whose parents were wealthy at our school.

My dad pointed at me as an idea struck. His eyes widened. “Hey, why don’t you take her around for a quick tour and then sneak her into assembly? I called for Gabby to come down and show her around since they are in homeroom together, but she’s taking forever.”

All my senses jumped to attention. “Okay. She can show me her schedule. No problem.” For the second time today, my dad asked me how he looked. “You look great, Dad. Now go encourage those young, impressionable minds and make a difference.” I followed him out, completely freaked about meeting the new girl, but also extremely excited about it.

“Well, it looks like Gabby came through after all.” He pointed to Gabby and the new girl walking out of the office together. The excitement quickly vanished and was immediately replaced by regret. Had I just stopped and introduced myself, I could be getting to know her, one-on-one. “Maybe she’ll be in one of your classes. She’s a junior, too. Get to homeroom. I’ll see you in a few minutes.” The first bell rang which told us we had two minutes to get to homeroom. I made my way to class and said hi to several people along the way. I still didn’t know the new girl’s name. I only knew she had homeroom with Gabby. Would she be in any of my classes? Where did she live? Oak Grove had two high schools and if she was going to Oak Grove, then she had to live within five miles of me. I walked into homeroom to applause and stopped at the front of the room.

“Oh, yeah. Looking good, boss,” Wyatt yelled.