Magic School, chapter 5 (Patreon)

The mad scramble for carriages started in earnest once the lights overhead started flashing blue and green… blue and green… blue and green.  The red-headed girl who got caught with lipstick stopped outside Jake’s carriage.  “Do you mind if I sit in here? The whole bubble chain is getting full.”

“Sure,” said Jake. There were a few other carriages with only one person each, but many of the carriages were overstuffed with students.

The girl gave a relieved sigh and started to haul her trunk up. It clearly wasn’t featherlight and the outside was scratched and bashed. Jake silently vowed to never send his trunk down the slide if that’s what happened. He’d never owned anything so nice in his life as his trunk, and he wanted to keep it nice.

Her older brother came over and checked over his shoulder where his mother was fussing over two younger kids before he casually flicked his wand.  The trunk sailed up and into the carriage.  “Ally, I’m going to be down with a bunch of my buddies. Are you okay here?”

“It’s Alicia, not Ally,” she said.

He sighed. “Alicia, are you okay here?” he asked with exaggerated frustration.

She narrowed her eyes. “I’m fine.”

“Awesome.  See you later. Be good, but not too good. We have to uphold our lack of a good reputation.”

“Bye,” said Alicia, but her brother was already darting through the parents who were pressing closer and closer to the carriages.

“Brother?” Jake guessed.  He’d seen foster families that large, but foster families didn’t all have the same red hair and freckles.

“Yeah.  He’s a pain,” she said.  “I’m Alicia Stewart.”

“Jake Newhouse,” offered Jake.  He immediately regretted it.

“Whoa. Seriously?  Jake Newhouse?  The defeater of Hardrada? The holder of Newhouse family magic?  This is awesome.” She flung herself across the carriage to sit next to Jake.

“I don’t know much about any of that,” said Jake. “I grew up in the non-magical world.”

“You mean normie?”

That name felt vaguely offensive, although Jake couldn’t say why, so he just nodded.

“I can’t believe I’m starting school with an actual celebrity, and someone who was there that night. You know… when Hardrada died. Do you remember anything?” She leaned closer.

“I was too young.”

Alicia had been peering at him, but now she leaned back, clearly disappointed. After a second, she shrugged. “Still, Jake Newhouse.” She whispered her name with reverence.

Jake really didn’t want to talk about himself, so he changed the subject.  “Are all your family mages? I read a book this summer that said some mage families are split with magical and non-magical folks on the same family tree, and others are just magical.”

“We’re just magical, but we’re not… you know.” She quickly added, “I mean, we’re fine with normies. We’re not out blowing up malls because we want to force the Thingvellir to pass laws banning normieborns from the community. My parents stood up against Hardrada to protect the normies. In fact, I think my dad has a normie great uncle who does something with numbers.”

“You don’t know?”

Alicia shrugged. “It’s not like there’s much reason to talk to him, and mostly dad doesn’t bring him up.”

Jake hid his wince.  So Alicia’s family didn’t like it when family members were born without magic.  The books had explained any number of prejudices, including ones against quirks.  At least Jake thought that’s what Alicia meant because if his father’s great uncle had been banished from family reunions for choosing a career as a magical accountant, the Stewards were stranger than Jake had thought..

“I heard you live with normies,” Alicia blurted. “What are they like?”

Jake wasn’t sure where Alicia would have heard that.  Jake had found his own entry in a book about famous mages, and it hadn’t said anything about where he lived, and the Garcia family had seemed surprised to learn he hadn’t been with mages.

“Um… they’re okay.” Jake didn’t want to talk to a stranger about his life. Jake thought about the huge family who had come with Alicia to the station.  “I wish I had a big mage family that could do magic as easily as your brother.”

“Don’t even say that as a joke,” Alicia said with a gloomy expression. “I’m the fifth in our family to go to Chumhouse. Walter was class treasurer and Gilbert was the ulama captain for the Gees and Betty is a shoe-in for class president and Richard… everyone loves him even though he’s a perfect pest. But he’s a smart pest. And it’s just that…” she sighed.  “If I try out for ulama, which I love, everyone is going to either say I can’t live up to Gilbert if I am good, or they’ll say any talent I have is because I’m a Stewart.  If I’m smart, I’m just like Betty and Walter. I’m not smart Alicia. Even if I become popular, I’ll never be as popular as Richard. He could be class president easily if he actually wanted to be. It drives Betty crazy.”

“That sounds horrible,” said Jake.

“It is, and because I have so many siblings, I don’t get my own room–I have to share with Betty. Or my own books–I have Richard’s old ones. Or new tunics–I have to get used, although Betty did have a growth spurt in second year, so I hope next year I can have her hand-me-downs which are pretty nice because she didn’t get to wear them long.  I don’t even have my own pet.”

She opened her trunk and pulled out an enormous mouse with big ears and a huge, fluffy tail.  “Prince was originally Betty’s chinchilla, but she is so busy running for class president that Mom asked me to take care of him.” She stroked the little creature who blinked sleepily.

“I didn’t think chinchillas were pets,” said Jake warily when he saw Prince’s teeth as the creature yawned.

“Magic can tame most creatures.  Well, normie ones, anyway. If you try to tame a thunderbird or a dragon, you’re going to get eaten. And it’s not that I don’t like Prince. He’s great and soft and easy to care for because mostly he lays around and does nothing, but I just wish I had one thing of my own. I even have a used wand.”

Alicia’s ears went pink.  She seemed to realize that she’d just dumped her life history on a perfect stranger, and she focused on the crowd.  Her mother stood with three younger children, apparently all the others had gotten in the carriages. She had a son who looked almost ready to start Chumhouse and two younger kids–one boy and one girl. Jake imagined money must be pretty tight in their house.  Mrs. Johnson complained about feeding and clothing two kids. Alicia’s mother had… Jake counted on his fingers… eight kids. No wonder Alicia never felt like she got anything of her own.

“Until I went to Warts and Mall, I had to wear my second-hand clothes because my foster mother complained that I cost too much money to raise. Sometimes I even wore pants so big that I had to use a rope to keep them from falling off, but mostly I just had church clothes,” said Jake.

“Church clothes?”

“Holey. That’s one of Mr. Johnson’s favorite jokes. If Hardwin or I is sitting at the table in a holey shirt or walking around with a toe sticking out of a sock, he will chortle and say, ‘That’s so holy it must be your church shirt’ or ‘Those are some holy socks, praise God.’ And then he laughs.”

It felt strange admitting that, but Alicia had said so much about her home life that Jake felt that it was only polite to say something.  However, he didn’t tell Alicia that Hardwin had started refusing to wear anything with even the smallest hole, which meant Mrs. Johnson had even less money for Jake’s clothing.

Alicia’s eyes got large.  “You wore second hand clothing?”

Jake nodded and then remembered that magical rules required a verbal answer.  “I did. And I never got a proper birthday present. Sometimes a charity would send something around, but it was mostly clothing which never fit or a toy that was already broken. When people donate to charities, they rarely donate nice stuff.”

“You had it way worse than me,” Alicia said, her voice almost awed.

“Hands and heads inside the carriages.  Prepare for the enchantments.  All families step behind the enchantment line,” announced a loud voice.

A few last students squealed and dove for carriages as they started to glow. The glow grew stronger and then something that looked like a bright string started flowing up from the bottom of the carriage. When it reached the open sides, it kept moving, leaving a film behind.

Jake leaned closer, studying it. “What is this?”

“The bubble,” said Alicia.  That wasn’t much of an answer, but Jake watched as the surface of the film glistened and shone as colors slid across it.  Families waved as the carriages jerked into motion, moving toward the far end of the platform.

At first Jake thought the carriages were magically disappearing, but as they approached the brick wall at the end, he realized they were sinking.

Fear made his toes curl. “Is this safe?”

“Absolutely,” Alicia said.

Jake swallowed nervously.

“Hey,” said Alicia, “thousands of kids get to school this way every year. Mage parents understand how the magic works, so if it wasn’t safe, they wouldn’t put their kids on the bubble.  Back before transarches could reach across the ocean, this is how magical people traveled. Well, except the Vikings who always loved their ships.”

That made him feel a tiny bit better, but he still held his breath when their carriage reached the wall and was dragged under the dark water. The whole frame flickered and then cast a steady light that illuminated the stone walls of the underwater tunnel.

“Whoa.” Each carriage was attached to a snake-like tube that dragged them along, and even when the carriage bumped the walls of the tunnel, the magical bubble held the water out.

“Yeah, the magic is impressive. I wonder how many people it takes to keep the bubble running.”

“I wonder what would happen if it stopped working,” countered Jake.

“Oh, that’s easy.  There are emergency runes that will transport us to the nearest open transarch in case of magical failure. I hear that a group Merlins was experimenting with some barely legal Feral magic on the bubble back in the 1930s. They  managed to destabilize their bubble, and they got thrown out of an arch in Nova Scotia. I hear the principal at the time threatened to make them go home and they all had to agree to never practice Feral magic again while at school. Serves them right, too.”

Jake didn’t understand the difference between feral magic and cultivated magic, so he didn’t comment.  He watched as the bubble left the tunnel and entered brighter water. Jake wondered if it was the Hudson or the East River.

At first, Jake thought this was the coolest ever form of transportation, but then he watched as plastic floated past and the bubbles bumped over the skeletons of rusted old cars on the bottom of the river.  Overhead, shadows of great ships passed like clouds, and they passed through massive patches of brown water.

Then the bubble broke out into a deep turquoise water and the bubble sank deeper. Schools of fish darted past and yellow and orange corals dotted the bottom of the ocean. Seaweed gently swayed in the current, and Jake practically plastered himself to the side of the carriage as he watched it all.

It felt like hours had passed before Alicia said, “Would you like to share my lunch?” She was pulling a crumpled paper bag out of her trunk.

“No thank you,” said Jake. He didn’t want to take food away from her and he didn’t want to take his own food out. He knew what it was like to have the unappetizing packed lunch when everyone else was enjoying pizza day in the cafeteria.  “I’m not hungry right now.”

He went back to watching the ocean floor.  A brown lobster scuttled sideways in search of some prey, but the bubble sped by so fast that Jake didn’t see whether it caught its dinner. Ahead, a lights seemed to drift up and down each side of the bubbles now.  “What are those?” Jake shifted to kneel on the opposite bench so he could see better.

Alicia glanced up.  “Students are moving from bubble to bubble,” she said, brushing off her tunic where crumbs from her sandwich had landed.

“Moving… you mean they’re leaving the bubbles?” asked Jake in horror.  He twisted around so he could look up and the daylight was a very, very long way up. He would never leave the safety of the carriage.

Alicia laughed. “It’s fine. If you’re on the right side, you move forward. If you’re on the left, you move backward.  All you have to do is step off the carriage on the correct side, and the magic will sweep you up or down the bubble line.”

“But…” Jake was probably being irrational. Smart adults who knew magic had developed this system and it sounded like it had been used for a very long time, but Jake still had a visceral reaction to the thought of “stepping off” the carriage when they were so far underwater that it wouldn’t be possible to get to the surface before dying a horrible death.

No wonder some students took aphobia elixirs. He was starting to regret not getting one for himself.

“If you have to go to the bathroom, what are you planning to do? Go in here?” Alicia asked with a touch of sarcasm.

Jake blinked. He hadn’t thought of that.

Alicia rolled her eyes.  “There’s a solid carriage six bubbles ahead of us.  The solid carriages are bathrooms.”

“Oh.” Jake was so happy he hadn’t had much to drink. If he just crossed his legs, he wouldn’t need to leave their carriage.  They were far enough back that the traveling lights didn’t  come near them, but Jake kept being distracted by them when he meant to watch the ocean floor.  One light was moving one carriage at a time, stopping for a few seconds to a few minutes each time.

Even when the bubble moved closer, Jake couldn’t tell who was in it because the surface glowed, making it impossible to see inside.  When the traveling bubble was at the carriage just in front of theirs, Jake scooted back from the side so whoever was in it wouldn’t run right into him.

“Who’s coming?” Alicia asked as she looked up from a comic book. Jake realized that each page was moving, the events happening in a loop that seemed to last ten or fifteen seconds. Some text sat on top of the moving illustration, but the various “OUCH!” and “POOF!” bubbles faded in and out of existence.

“I don’t know.”

Then the traveling bubble reached their carriage and the round-faced boy Jake had seen on the platform complaining that he didn’t have his gloves stepped into it.  “Um. Hi,” he said bashfully.  “I was wondering if you’ve seen any bijoux creeping ivy.”

Jake frowned. “Are you accusing us of stealing your plant?” Lots of teachers had assumed Jake was a bad kid because they could see he was in the system, but he’d never had a classmate be so rude right to his face like that, not without getting to know and dislike him first.

Twin red spots appeared on the boy’s cheeks.

“Ignore him,” said Alicia. “He was raised with normies. He doesn’t mean it.”

The boy bit his lip.  “Oh,” he whispered.

“We haven’t seen it. Sorry,” said Alicia. “I’m sure it’ll show up or someone will turn it in to a teacher when we get to Chumhouse.”

The boy sagged.  “I hope so.”

“I thought ivy was a plant,” said Jake.

“It is. It’s a wonderful plant.” His voice grew more passionate. “When it’s grown, it will develop little sap stones that will get as hard as a gem and they are wonderful for attracting fairies. Some people even make dreamcatchers or windchimes out of bijoux stones because they can summon positive magic and all sorts of helpful magical creatures.”  All the shyness had faded away.

“When they’re young, they can crawl around,” added Alicia, “and they’re known for escaping into places they’re not supposed to be.”

Another traveling bubble came up to their carriage and a tall girl their age stepped in. She had her black hair done up in braids that were twisted around her head like a crown and wore a purple tunic with a high neck and almost invisible purple embroidery.  “Did you find it?” She looked at Jake and Alicia. “Have you seen a piece of ivy about four feet long? It has reddish leaves, and it’s not like normie ivy. It might have been crawling around?” She had a demanding tone that made Alicia visible bristle.

“We already said we didn’t. You’d know that if you’d give us time to answer.”

The new girl huffed. “Have you checked your trunks?”

“Why would we check our trunks?” asked Alicia.

“Think about it. Bijoux creeping ivy can crawl. If you’ve had your trunk open, it might have crawled in there.” She gestured to Alicia’s trunk that was still out and sitting in the middle of the floor.  “You should open it and search for the ivy.”

“No,” Alicia said.

The new girl sighed. “Maybe you were raised in the normie world, and there’s nothing wrong with that. No one in my family has magic, so we can’t even figure out how I turned out a mage when my parents and my older brother are all perfectly normal. However, in the magic world, ivy like the kind Johnny lost can actually crawl really fast. Can you just check to see if it sneaked into your trunk?”

Alicia crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. “I’ve lived in the magical world my whole life, and so have generations of my family. We are the descendants of the Stewards who served as mages for David I of Scotland and Edain of Ireland. Don’t you dare tell me I don’t understand the magical world.”

“Well. There’s no need to be rude. I’m just trying to help a classmate.”  She strode across the carriage accidentally (or on-purpose) kicking Alicia’s trunk as she passed before stepping confidently into the ocean and letting a new bubble sweep her up the line of carriages.

“Sorry about that,” the boy said softly, and then he stepped backward and the bubble with him fell back to the next carriage in line.

Alicia threw herself back into her seat. “Now I have to reconsider all my life plans and potentially go naked for the first three months until mother can afford to send me new tunics.”

“Excuse me?” Jake’s voice broke in the middle.

Alicia picked at a loose thread.  “She’s a nightmare, an utter nightmare. ‘Think about it,’” she said, mimicking the other girl’s tone. “Don’t tell me to ‘think about it.’ And she was wearing purple. She plans to pledge to the Gees. And I have all purple tunics because my family has been in the Gees since Chumhouse was founded, but if I have to live with her, I’m going to hex her three times a day. I’ll be expelled before I can take my exams. This is horrible.”

Jake could admit that the other girl had been a little rude. Or a lot rude. Even if she hadn’t been so quick to assume they were stupid, she’d still had that tone. However, Jake would rather change the subject. “That’s cool about your family. You must be so proud of them,” said Jake.

Alicia shrugged. “Every mage from a feysoul family can trace their line back that far or farther. The Garcias go back to the House of Ivrea and the royal family of Spain, and the Dijarls ruled most of the Danes and the Viking world at one point. So having an ancestor famous for getting turned into a beetle so publicly that even the normies heard about it and woven it into their mythology… not that impressive.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh. At least I have a mage family tree.”

“Do you know the Garcias?” Jake asked as he tried to find any topic of conversation that didn’t turn negative. He could imagine the Garcias in crowns in a royal court. They moved like royalty.

Alicia’s expression turned even darker. “Leysoul racists, that’s what they are. They sided with Hardrada.”

“I thought Hardrada imprisoned Mr. Garcia.”

Alicia huffed. “The Garcias are Feys from way back, same as the Dijarls and Begays and Larsens. The whole lot of them majored in Societal Studies and were quick enough to join Hardrada and help him attack innocent people, but when your family destroyed that monster, they all rushed to claim that they’d been forced to help. Not likely.  People who join the Feys are looking for tools to manipulate the rest of the world.

“That’s not true,” said Jake. “Octavus the First, Lady Iolanthe and Iwen the Strange were all in the Societal Studies program.  They were all great mages.”

“But that was back before the program changed. It used to be about understanding currency and trade and the relationship between trade cities.  It was different before the modern age when the Feys started putting more energy into politics and psychology. Now mages like Hardrasa come out of it. That’s where all your bad mages study how to be bad. They shouldn’t allow the Feys at Chumhouse.”

Jake had read enough to know that wasn’t true.  “Hunter Dijarl was one of Hardrada’s greatest wardbreakers, and he was in the Gees. Benjamin Doblar and Chuck Kenosha were both in the Merlins, and they were put in prison for helping Hardrada.” The Alexes seemed split between powerful mages who had championed good and those who had fought for evil. That was fair because the Gees seemed to have an equal number of members famous for brave or idiotic reasons.  With the exception of the Flakes, all the houses had their own share of horrible mages, and the artists just seemed too distracted to take over the world, at least from what Jake had read.

“How do you know so much?” Alicia asked.

“I read.”

“So you’re headed for the Merlins or Techies.  You know, your parents were Gees, and you can be a total nerd and still join the Gees because you want to make sure you don’t lose touch with things that matter–friends and sports and having balance in your life. Take my sister… she’s a complete nerd and more than a little interested in power since she’s running for class president, but Betty went into the Gees because she wants to make sure she has an open mind.”

“That’s true,” Jake said.

Alicia smiled at him. “I know this has got to be a big change, but if you join the wrong dorm, you’re going to be stuck having to deal with the wrong kind of student for at least a year. Once you declare a major, you can’t change until summer.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“We could go into the Gees together, and I’d have your back.”

Jake frowned. “I hear the Gees dorms are kinda loud.”

“They throw great parties.  Gilbert came home with the best stories about the celebrations they had after winning ulama matches.  You definitely want to be part of that.”

“I’ll think about it,” Jake said.  He turned back to the ocean.  Another bubble was headed their way, only this one was passing by other carriages without stopping.

“If it’s her again, I’m going to kick her in the shin,” Alicia muttered.  Jake moved back to allow whoever it was into the carriage if they stopped.  The bubble did stop at their carriage and Tarben came in with two boys who looked like they planned to become offensive linemen when they grew up. They had broad shoulders and thick fingers mean expressions.

“Hello. There you are,” said Tarben.  “This is Vee Morningflower and Gahbor Begay,” Tarben introduced the boys. Morningflower. Jake had not expected that.

“Garcia,” Alicia said, her voice full of disgust.

Tarben frowned at her. “What’s your problem?”

“You.”

“Well, I would say I have a problem with you, only you’re not important enough for me to care about.” He gave a dismissive sniff.

“That’s grand coming from you, Feyblood.”

“At least I can afford tunics that aren’t two sizes too big and three decades out of fashion.”  The large boys snickered, and Tarban looked back at them with a smirk.

Jake shot to his feet.  “Hey, that’s rude,” he said.

Tarben turned pink.

Alicia smirked. “Yeah, that’s rude.  Run back to Daddy and the Hinter Jarl. This compartment doesn’t have room for racists.”

Jake whirled around to confront Alicia.  “That’s even ruder. You can’t call people that, and you can’t make fun of someone because their father was imprisoned by Hardrada.”

“Imprisoned?” Alicia’s voice rose. “He wasn’t imprisoned. He claimed Hardrada used a thrall spell. It lets the caster use you like a puppet, but no one believes Garcia. Everyone knows he’s a racist just blaming a thrall spell.”

Jake threw his hands in the air. “You can’t accuse someone of lying just because you don’t like them, and the thrall spell makes the whole thing even worse.  His father survived slavery inside his own head, and now you’re making fun of him.”  Tarben crossed his arms over his chest and got a smug expression, which did not help.

“His father lied about that.  His whole family is Feral. They wanted their jarl to win the war and kill all the normies,” Alicia said.

“That’s ridiculous. How do you even kill that many people?” Tarben said.

“See?  See?” Alicia was almost shouting. “You notice he’s not protesting that killing normies is evil. My dad said that Gunne Garcia was never under any spells. He says Garcia’s father didn’t need an excuse to turn Feral.”

“You don’t ‘turn Feral’ you idiot. Either your magic is Feral or it’s not or you’re somewhere between, but you don’t ‘turn’ as if a type of magic is a strain of werewolfism. And if you throw around words like evil, you’d better be careful or your father will be getting a protest letter from mine for slandering my family name,” Tarben warned.

“Don’t even start,” Alicia snapped.

Tarben turned to Jake.  “Be careful who you hang out with. Some people will drag you down into their stupidity.”

“You’re the stupid one if you believe your father’s story,” Alicia shot back.

“Hey, Svala Garcia is my cousin,” Jake said.  He turned his back to Tarben and stared at Alicia.  Maybe she had been nice to him, and he liked her, but he wasn’t going to let people start name calling like that.  Yeah, Tarben was a jerk, but Alicia was totally over the line.

“What?  No, she isn’t. She’s a Feral witch.”

“My grandmother was a Dijarl, the same as Svala before she got married,” Jake said. He assumed the Garcias wouldn’t have lied about that. And maybe he was a little more suspicious after Alicia’s outburst, but he wouldn’t judge the Garcias based on what someone else said.

“But you’re a civilized mage,” said Alicia.

“As if you even know what civilization means. I bet you don’t know which fork to use with escargot,” said Tarben with a haughty look.  He was definitely a jerk.

“Fine, a cultivated mage,” said Alicia. “Happy? I can’t believe–”

Jake interrupted Alicia. “I can choose my own friends.  I like both of you, but if neither of you can be nice, I will find another compartment.”  Jake turned to the two boys who had come with Tarben. They’d gotten dragged into this whole fight and that wasn’t fair.   “Gahbor and Vee?” he asked.

They looked at each other before nodding.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Jake Newhouse.”

“Nice to meet you,” Gahbor said and then Vee repeated the exact same words.

“I don’t want to be in a compartment with a Stewart,” said Tarben, “and I won’t put you in a difficult position, Jake, so we’re going.  I hope to see you at the Alexes’ table for dinner tonight. Even if you don’t officially declare, you and your gray tunics would be very welcome.” Tarben gave a half bow before he retreated, taking his friends with him.

When Jake turned back around, Alicia was staring at him, her face etched with confusion.  “Why were you nice to him?”

“Because he was nice to me first.”

“But he’s a Garcia. They’re only nice when they want something. And you’re a Newhouse, so you have to be extra careful not to get used by people.”

“Why do you assume they would use me? Svala Garcia is my cousin. Maybe they just value family.”

Alicia snorted.  “You don’t know much about that family if that’s what you think.”

Jake thought back to how the three of them—Gunne, Svala, and Tarben had stood close on the platform. He suspected they valued family a lot. But most of the other parents and kids had avoided them, so maybe they had been less than innocent in the previous war.  That was possible. But now that Alicia had pointed out that other people might want the boy who had helped kill Hardrada instead of Jack, he wondered if Alicia was doing that.  Maybe none of the kids at school would treat him like Jake.

“Whatever,” said Jake wearily.  He sat down and stared out at the ocean even though it was getting dark now.  They’d been riding for what felt like house. It might have been hours. He wasn’t sure anymore.  But he felt like the bubbles were slowing. He picked at the bottom of his gray tunic. Maybe he should stay undeclared until he met more people.

Maybe he could get on the next bubble back to New York City and he could run away from home and live under a bridge.  He’d been taking care of himself long enough that he could probably figure it all out.

At least then he wouldn’t have to deal with people.

An announcement warned that they were arriving at Chumhouse in five minutes, so Jake took a deep breath.  He knew how to handle a new school and meeting new students, and this was no different, at least if he ignored the magical bubbles and feysoul stuff and the idea of ivy that ran away and spells that would enslave someone. Ignore all that, and he knew exactly what to do.  He just needed to  make friends, get on the teachers’  good sides, figure out whose homework he actually needed to finish, avoid bullies, find out which cafeteria foods were edible, and not make himself vulnerable when he hadn’t figured out who to trust.

Yeah, no problem.

No problem at all.