The smell hit her first; it was like she was eleven years old again on the first day of middle school. It was the smell of whatever plastic they used to make the drab brown seats, the smell of a dozen packed lunches, the smell of unwashed hair and sweaty skin and runny noses.
All school buses were the same.
She tried not to cry.
She took an empty seat in the middle of the bus and pulled out her phone, staring at it until it lit up with a couple of bars of service. She sent a message to Sal:
Got to Maine yesterday. Haven’t had service. I’m omw to school now. I miss you so much and I don’t feel good, slept on the floor and will never be warm again. Also will definitely be murdered in this house. Other than that everything is great.
It was a thirty-minute ride to the school. Bells Hollow High School was a small, unassuming building, nothing at all like her enormous high school back in California, which was brand-new and housed over fifteen hundred students. There were currently eighty-one seniors at Bells Hollow High.
Well—the fewer students, the easier it would be to avoid them all.
She pushed through the double doors and walked into the front office, which was right across from the entrance.
“Hi,” she said to the woman at the front desk. “I’m Jane North-Robinson. It’s my first day.”
“Jane, of course! It is so nice to meet you. I’m Rosemary,” she replied. “This is a lovely surprise; we weren’t expecting you until Monday!”
Jane forced a smile and shrugged. “I thought—why wait?”
“I like that attitude! I have all your paperwork ready somewhere.…” Rosemary opened a filing cabinet next to her desk and pulled out a manila folder. “Your locker assignment is in here, and your schedule of classes. Let me just call Alana—I think I saw her walk in a few minutes ago. She’ll be your buddy. It’s something we do here; we just find it’s really helpful to have someone you can turn to with all your questions.”
Rosemary lifted a telephone receiver from her desk and Jane heard the announcement system crinkle to life in the hallway.
“Alana Cansler to the front office please,” Rosemary said into the receiver. She hung it up and smiled at Jane. “So, how was your trip here?”
“Fine,” Jane said. “Thanks.”
“What do you think of Bells Hollow so far?”
“I haven’t really seen that much of it. It seems nice.”
Rosemary seemed to have exhausted her supply of small talk. She smiled a bit awkwardly until the door opened behind Jane, then she lit up and said, “Oh, here she is now! Alana, dear, this is Jane!”
Jane turned around. Alana was a white girl with shoulder-length brown hair, bangs, and tortoiseshell glasses. She was wearing overalls with a white long-sleeved shirt underneath. She stuck out her hand energetically, and Jane took it.
“Nice to meet you!” Alana said.
“It’s nice to meet you, too.”
“Why don’t you two get going; Alana, will you show Jane to her locker? Jane, if you need anything, just let me know, all right?”
“Thanks,” Jane said.
“I thought you weren’t starting until Monday?” Alana said as soon as they were in the hallway.
“My internal clock is a mess. I woke up super early. It was either this or help my mom clean.”
“You’re from California, right? This way.” She led Jane down one of the hallways that branched off from the main entranceway.
“Los Angeles,” Jane confirmed.
“I’ve always wanted to go to California. Is it nice?”
“I love it, yeah.”
“Well, Bells Hollow isn’t that bad. As your first-day buddy, I’m supposed to tell you it’s amazing, but it’s definitely not amazing. It’s just not bad. It’s fine.” Alana laughed. “Sorry, I should be selling it more. This is you.”
They’d reached locker 101. Jane consulted the paper that Rosemary had given her and found her combination. She opened it on the first try, put her jacket inside, then closed it.
“So have you seen much of the town yet?” Alana asked. “Where do you live?”
“I live in my grandmother’s old house,” Jane replied.
“Oh, who’s your grandmother?”
“Emilia North.”
Alana blinked. “Emilia North?” she repeated.
“Did you know her?”
“It’s a small town; everybody kind of knows everybody.” Alana paused, fidgeting a bit. “Do you mind if we stop at my locker first? We still have a minute.”
“Sure, of course.”
Alana’s locker was in the next hallway; it just took a few seconds to reach it. She opened it and started pulling books out, then asked, “So… you live in North Manor?”
“Yup.”
“It’s been empty for a while.”
“Two years. Since my grandmother died.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thanks. I didn’t really know her that well.”
Alana zipped up her backpack, shut her locker, and turned to Jane. She looked a little embarrassed.
“What?” Jane asked.
“It’s so stupid.”
“Just tell me.”
“I feel like a jerk. But if I don’t tell you now, someone is definitely going to tell you eventually.”
“Tell me what?”
“It just has a nickname. That house.”
“A nickname?” Jane repeated.
“Like… a not-nice nickname.”
“Okay.…”
“People call it the creep house. It’s so juvenile, I know.”
“Creep house?” Jane laughed. “I can think of at least a dozen more imaginative names for that house.”
“I didn’t say it was imaginative,” Alana said, smiling. “But still, it’s rude. People here are just bored. There’s not a lot to do, you know? The closest movie theater has been closed for renovations for two years. What’s California like? I’m sure there’s just, like, too much to do, right? On Friday nights do you just go hang out with celebrities?”
“There are a lot of celebrity meetups, yeah,” Jane said seriously. “They get kind of boring after a while.”
“And was everyone… You know?”
“Was everyone what?”
Alana gestured at Jane’s hair. “I mean… So blond?”
Jane laughed out loud. “Yes,” she replied. “Only blonds allowed.”
They had the first three classes together, and later, when the bell rang for lunch, Alana led Jane to the cafeteria. Jane purchased the least offensive-looking thing on the lunch menu: a semi-greasy piece of cheese pizza. Her old school’s cafeteria had been huge, with options for every single kind of diet. There wasn’t even a salad in this place; she made a mental note to start bringing her own lunch.
“Over here,” Alana said, leading the way to a table near the middle of the room, where she introduced Jane to a handful of people whose names Jane forgot almost immediately. She sat between Alana and Susie, a black girl with box braids that fell long and straight down her back.