When I asked him for a ride, I could tell it hurt my dad’s feelings a bit, so I quickly changed my tune. “Actually, it’s okay. I don’t want to break my good luck tradition with dad,” I said. I could tell immediately that I had mended things. My dad reached for a hidden pack of GEM chocolate donuts in the pantry.

“Here, shhhhhh, don’t tell your mom,” he half-whispered. “You can eat in the car on the way.”

At 6:45, we pulled into the parking lot. The janitor was still pulling back the gate and locking it into position. I felt relief knowing I could slip from the Olds unnoticed and start scouting the locations of my various classes before others arrived.

As I walked to the back of the school where the lockers are located, I could hear the band practicing on the baseball field. The director was yelling at another man who looked like some sort of administrator. Something about how they used to march on the football field before his precious Bears started winning games and how he was single-handedly destroying the arts by relegating them to a baseball diamond.

I scanned the crowd and saw Sienna standing just above third base, her feet wet with freshly mowed grass bits. She tilted sideways a bit and gave me a wave, just enough to not draw attention and ire her already angry teacher.

Among Sienna’s many artistic talents was music. She played six instruments at last count. She elected to play saxophone for high school band because the teacher said he had just graduated four players. Sienna figured this was her best shot at first chair. Her competitive spirit was just as alive as mine.

I turned to the endless row of lockers and knelt down to pull the folder from my backpack that they gave each of us at orientation the week before. Orientation felt more like the cattle runs I see out on the big ranches than a real first high school experience. We had two hours on a Friday evening to squeeze through rows and rows of cafeteria tables with our parents, signing forms to participate in sports, registering for school lunch programs, taking flyers from every club on campus and reviewing our schedules with counselors who really didn’t care how happy we were with our classes but just wanted to make sure we didn’t have anything overlapping a lunch hour. But I studied the folder full of papers from orientation extensively, still wanting to be prepared. I checked and rechecked against my brother’s old year book to make sure the teachers I had were the ones with the honors program. I also made sure my lunch hour lined up with Sienna’s and Sarah’s. Pulling it from my backpack, I opened it to the small Post-It note I pasted on the inside with my locker number and combination written down.

I’m 317. The lockers are clustered in groups of 100. There are the ones, twos, threes, fours and fives. Fours and fives are saved for the juniors and seniors, and the others are spread among the underclassmen. My location was pretty good. Right outside the cafeteria; I would have plenty of time to stop there before and after lunch. It’s the only section without a sidewalk cover, though. Already the metal of the black combination dial was burning hot. “Just like the damn Oldsmobile,” I thought to myself.

I tested out the combination to make sure I could handle it. It opened easily, so I pulled out the heavy load of books and kept only a notebook and my algebra book out so I’d be ready for my first two classes.

I still had 30 minutes to myself. The bell doesn't ring until 7:30. A few people started to arrive. As I walked between the middle rows of buildings I came to the main area called the quad where the buildings form this large square cut-out filled with picnic tables and grass. You can see a few sad garden experiments along the north wall of buildings, the work of the agriculture club. Some things seem to be growing, but for the most part it doesn’t look like it’s been tended to in months. In the middle of the square is a large bronze statue of soldiers. There’s one from each branch of the military, and they’re all bowing their heads and holding hands. Most folks in Coolidge either end up teaching at the school, farming, leaving or joining the military, so the dedication of the bronze statue a few years ago was a big occasion for the town. Right next to it is the school’s flagpole. Every morning, members of the school’s Junior ROTC program, which is some type of pre-training military program in high school, hold a ceremony, marching in unison and unfolding, connecting and raising the flag. They take it down every day at 3:30. I stopped to watch as they prepared for today’s ceremony, their faces so serious yet so very young. I think how most of them will be graduating next year and will probably be sent to the Middle East for battle.

Ahead of me was the office, full of activity and packed with parents and students who missed orientation. I was glad that I was at least able to avoid that cluster. I was so intently watching the crowds and daydreaming that I didn’t realize the grassy area had ended, marked pointedly by the beginning sidewalk. My toe slammed right into the edge and I flung far forward, my hands bracing my body as I slid several feet across the concrete.