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Headmaster Turnbull walked out the office and I followed him. The sea of green and brown uniforms was gone. Everyone was in their classes. I held the paper that he gave me with as little care as possible and it escaped my hand. Headmaster Turnbull grabbed it from the ground and handed it back to me.
“You will have to hold on to this until you are accustomed to your classes.” Headmaster Turnbull said.
I took it, folded it as small as I could, and put in one of the side pockets of Grandad’s backpack that he gave me. I followed him up one short flight of steps to the second floor of one of the long buildings. Another similarly built building stood next to this one and then a long one-story building, created an open square that surrounded the concrete stage. Seemed to be an easy escape but I didn’t need to escape cause I wasn’t gonna be there long.
He was quiet so I was quiet too. I didn’t even think that I’d be interested in talking to this sweat-less man in this suit that made me sweat. We passed by window after window, each opened wide. Students in desks faced the teacher. No one was saying anything, just the teacher at the front of the room talked. The windows were wide enough that a couple of people could squeeze through at the same time, if they really wanted to. I found myself wondering what they did for lock down drills in this school. Where would they hide with all the open windows? But, then, I remembered that I wasn’t gonna be there long.
“You have been placed in the fifth form!” Headmaster Turnbull said.
“Huh?” I asked. “What’s that?”
“This is our equivalent of your eleventh grade.” He continued, “Your grandfather indicated that you have just started the eleventh grade, therefore, we are going to place you in this form until your transcripts arrive.”
They were really going all out to make me think that this was actually happening, that I was really going to be staying.
“I won’t be here long,” I said with confidence.
“Nevertheless, you’ll still need to know where you are going to be while you are not here long.”
“I guess,” I shrugged.
“Guessing a thing is not knowing a thing,” Headmaster Turnbull said, “It would behoove you to stop guessing.”
“Be-who?” I asked but he didn’t answer.
He stopped at one of the opened doors. We would never have our classroom doors opened in Orlando, no way! All the classroom doors were shut in Orlando. Some were even locked. This one was wide open like they didn’t have no active shooters on this island. He stepped in so I stepped in too. The teacher stopped talking and every pair of eyes in that room turned on me and Headmaster Turnbull but mostly me cause something told me they’d seen Headmaster Turnbull before and his hot suits. The teacher was a tall, skinny, dark skinned man. He looked like he may have been my age, but he couldn’t be, cause he was the teacher. He wasn’t wearing a suit like Headmaster Turnbull, just a long-sleeved shirt, tie and long pants. Most importantly, he didn’t look as hot as I felt. I knew by now that my arm pits must have been showing rings of sweat. They felt damp.
“Pardon me, Mr. Benjamin,” Headmaster Turnbull interrupted. “We have a new student today!” This man really sounded excited that I was here. I had been the new kid at a few schools before but never had an introduction like this. In fact, I don’t think I’d ever been walked to class before. It was more likely that I got walked to the office rather than class. This was new, but I still wasn’t going to get used to it - this fake niceness. I just kept telling myself that I wasn’t going to be there long. As soon as my suspension was up, Ma was gonna come get me and before they messed with my hair too. “He’s transferred from the States!” Headmaster Turnbull continued.
I said nothing. Didn’t nod my head or nothing cause I was sure this man wasn’t supposed to be giving out all my information like this and especially not in front of the entire class.
“This is Mr. Kadeem Johnson.” He said it like my name was important or something.
“Welcome, Mr. Kadeem Johnson!” Mr. Benjamin greeted, his voice loud and deep like he didn’t even need a microphone. The teachers in Orlando had microphones hung around their necks.“Class?” He asked.
“WELCOME, MR. KADEEM JOHNSON!” The whole class shouted in unison. It was weird to hear my name called like we were in some sort of a movie and these robot kids were all conditioned to do whatever was told to them. God, I knew I had to get out of this place cause this was not a good sign. Ma made me watch this old movie once cause she was in love with one of the characters. The school’s faculty was all aliens or something like that and they took over the school. These kids reminded me of that, except, it was the teachers who were aliens in this movie and not the students. This whole thing was like an alien movie to me.
“We have a seat right in front for you, Mr. Johnson!” Mr. Benjamin said. Headmaster Turnbull looked at me and nodded his head to the seat then walked out. I instead walked to the empty seat in the back of the room. I’d already spotted it as soon as I walked in. The plan: go in, lay low til the end of my suspension, get back home to Orlando where I belonged. Before I could put the heavy backpack Grandad gave me down on the ground to make myself comfortable for whatever length of time this was going to be, I heard, “No, this seat,” Mr. Benjamin said, “the one in front!”
“I’m nearsighted!” I said. I’ve used this excuse for as many times as I could remember to be able to sit in the back row of every classroom.
“Perfect!” Mr. Benjamin said and clapped his hands together. “Then the front seat will help you to see even better!”
“Huh?” I asked. “I can’t see if I sit up close!” I said. I mean who was he? I just wanted to sit, blend in, or even better, disappear. “Teach your class and leave me alone,” I thought, but didn’t say. But, he had everyone staring at us and what was happening. I wanted to roll my eyes then and there, but I knew that wasn’t going to help.
“Mr. Johnson.”
“Kadeem!” I said, agitated. “Just call me Kadeem!”
“Mr. Johnson!” He repeated like I didn’t just ask him to call me Kadeem. One thing in Orlando, it didn’t matter what your name was, teachers always asked what you wanted to be called. This dude didn’t budge. “Nearsighted means that you are incapable of seeing objects from afar. Sitting in this seat,” He pointed to the front seat, “will be the best choice for you.” I dragged myself to the front seat making sure that my feet noisily dragged against each part of the floor I stepped on. Once there, I slouched. I already couldn’t wait to leave this guy’s class.
Mr Benjamin turned to write on the board but talked at the same time. “You’ve joined us just in time, Mr. Johnson.” Dude, leave me alone. He did not help with this plan of blending in at all. “Just as you walked in, we were discussing orders of operations.” He spun back around, “tell us your order of operations, Mr. Johnson!”
Dude, really? I was sure that this could be considered bullying. Here I was, my first day and he did not make me feel welcomed at all. I felt like he was putting me on the spot.
He and the entire class waited so I said, “Huh?”
“Numbers are numbers wherever we are in the world. Some may say the same number in a different language, but it is the same number nonetheless.” His gaze moved from me to the entire class. “We also use the same order of operations all over the world to arrive at the correct answer.” He gazed at me again. “I’m simply asking for you to share the order of operations with the class.” He turned to the board and printed 62 × (8 – 6). “How would you solve this in America? What would be your order of operations?”
He waited for an answer, so I said, “I don’t know.”
“You do know,” he encouraged.
“I don’t!” I shot back.
“All right,” he said. “If you don’t know the order of operations, then tell us the answer.” He handed me a white piece of chalk. As soon as I moved out of my seat, Mr. Benjamin plopped down in it as though he was now the student and I was the teacher.
I stood and stared for a moment at the problem written on the board, half thinking about how to solve it and half thinking about how I ended up here. I should have left that last fight alone. Walked away. Stayed out of Dean Monti’s office. I could’ve been murdering zombies in Call of Duty right now. Instead, I stood in an alien classroom. Eventually I scribbled 72 on the board and walked away.
“Good job, Mr. Johnson!” Mr. Benjamin said and I didn’t know why it irked me that he called me Mr. Johnson but it did. It was almost if he was making fun of my name or something. “But you’re not done.”
“That’s the answer!” I said confidently cause I thought I was at least good at math, Math and defending myself.
“Yes,” he confirmed, “but how did you arrive at this precise number?”
“I don’t know!”
“You don’t know, you don’t know, but your answer shows us that you in fact know, Mr. Johnson!”
“Ok, I just know that I gotta take care of the stuff in the parentheses first, then exponents and then the multiplication.”
“It is not exactly how I would explain it,” he said and moved from my seat. I returned his chalk and quickly sat down. “However, Mr. Johnson’s answer is correct. In the United States, Mr. Johnson,” his gaze fixed on me again, “you may know the order of operations as PEMDAS, parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, subtraction. However, here, we call it BODMAS.” He wrote this in large letters on the board next to my solved problem. Then he said, “Brackets, orders, division, multiplication, addition, subtraction. Everyone,” he stopped and looked at each one of us, rather dramatically, “this is our order of operations. Never forget it!” At that moment, a bell rang and Mr. Benjamin took his briefcase and walked out the classroom leaving us there. Everyone in the class began to talk, everyone but me. I didn’t want to admit it, but that felt good, knowing something, being right.
I put the backpack Grandad gave me on my one shoulder so I could head to the next class, wherever that was. At the door, I heard, “Is way you goin?” Her voice was soft and concerning.
“Next class,” I looked back and answered cause, you know, it was a female’s voice. Plus, I was the only one leaving so she must’ve been talking to me. No-one else picked up their bag. No one else headed for the door. In Orlando, when the bell rang, nothing kept us from running out in to the hallways. We even packed up before the bell rang cause we knew the schedule. I had also decided that this, whatever Ma was doing, I was gonna use it to change so that when Ma came back after my suspension stint, she’d find a new person, new Kadeem. I was gonna do a 180 and Ma was gonna be proud.
“De next class is in here,” she said. She was shorter than me so that meant she was really short. Her brown shoes looked just like the ones I was wearing, no difference at all. Our only difference was that she was wearing a green skirt and I was wearing long khaki pants. Her hair was braided like mine but much longer, maybe thicker and not shaved at the sides like mine. Her skin was a darker shade of brown than mine but that may be because she’d lived under this sun longer. I just got here. She wasn’t wearing those fake eyelashes that made girls look like they got feathers on their eyes either. The skin on her face and neck were the same smooth brown which meant she must not have been wearing fake-up. No big earrings. No lace front wigs. Just pretty with no help.
“Oh,” I said, making a conscious effort not to stare, but I’d looked at her long enough to see just a small hint of green in her eyes that sparkled. I took out my schedule from the side pocket and unfolded it. She was right, no room numbers on the page, just the names of the classes. Headmaster Turnbull didn’t even explain that to me. As much as he had to say about my hair, he sure didn’t say anything about me staying in the same classroom.
“Yeah, most of our classes is in here” She plucked my schedule from my hand. “Lemme see your schedule.” I didn’t get a chance to protest, not that I would’ve. “Yeah, it look like you gon’ be in here wid de rest of us til we go to French and Band. Band is up in de band room, de building close to de office. Me no know how day put de noisiest room next to wa ‘pose to be de quietest room.” As she said that, I was thankful that Ma talked the way this girl did with me, because I knew exactly what she was saying.
“May I have my schedule back?”
“Yeah, yeah,” She said. “It look like you going be lost though so you better learn quick.”
“I won’t be here long!” I said with confidence, hiding my own uncertainty.
“Not wid you hair so for sure.” She looked at my hair with surprise, tiptoed and playfully pulled one of my plaits. Her fingers were long and slim with short fingernails. I noticed this because most of the girls I knew wore long, colorful nail extensions, some with diamonds in their designs, not real diamonds, of course. At least I didn’t think so. “Me aint even know how day let you in here wid you hair like dat. You people must have some pull.”
“Like I said, I won’t be here long. No use in me cutting my hair or making any drastic changes,” I said. “The most I’ll be here is for a week. Then I’m gone.”
“Well, while you here. I is Tess, dat’s Amanda, and dat’s And-tony.” She pointed to the two other students in the first row. Everyone else stood but talked, slightly similar to the sound of the market Grandad took me to on Saturday, except there wasn’t no chopping sounds. Here, I guessed, teachers moved from class to class instead of the students. Where did teachers keep their microwaves, mini refrigerators, snacks? This was weird for sure. Maybe, the teachers were, in fact, like the teachers in The Faculty movie, aliens, while the students were their victims. Either way, I was glad for Tess’s help, so I sat and waited for the next teacher to arrive to class.