Sevs did not make it far past the front door of the school. As he crossed the threshold of the inner doors, he was stopped in his tracks. The entrance led to the cafeteria, and the vending machines were on the far side. Before Sevs made much progress in that direction, a familiar voice called out. “Yo, Sevs!”

Sevs’s head turned on a swivel as he scanned the group of students milling around, waiting for class to start. He stopped when he saw the face that matched the voice. Hank was waving at him. Sevs returned the wave gesturing Hank over as he continued quickly toward the vending machines. Hank stood up and fell into step next to him as Sevs passed by. He came up to Sevs’s shoulder. Compared to Sevs's more lanky build, Hank was a stocky guy built like a truck. Sevs could almost look Father in the eyes now, but Hank was at least a head shorter.

Despite his stature, Hank never seemed small. The force of personality radiated from him; he was the kind of outgoing guy everyone wanted to be friends with. Unfortunately, that didn’t always translate to the teachers.

“Ready for the first real day? Oh, that's right, you were homeschooled. So the first half week isn’t real school. The teachers don’t like to teach and try to keep summer going for as long as possible before they have to work again. I think they get yelled at by their boss that first weekend, and they have to start teaching for real now.” Hank explained.

Sevs was pretty sure that wasn’t quite right. Hank had a minor problem with authority. As much as teachers didn’t like him, he returned the favor.

“I figured we couldn’t spend the entire year going over syllabuses and introducing ourselves,” Sevs responded sarcastically.

“Yeah, yeah. Still think it’s just ‘cause they're lazy.” Hank grumbled.

Sevs grabbed a granola bar from the machine and started heading toward his locker. On the way, Hank caught Sevs up with all the gossip. Sevs tried to care, as this was why he was really here. But it was hard. It seemed so inane. High school romance was just not something he could bring himself to care about. Not even a week in, Sevs was considering abandoning his plan. The only problem is he needed to find a new direction to take this.

Eventually, they had to split up and go to their respective classes.

“See you at lunch!” Hank called as he veered left into the next hallway. Sevs headed downstairs, where his class waited for him.

The first class of the day for Sevs was English. Not his favorite, but something that could still be useful. Classes were honestly the worst part of school for Sevs. Even more than the people. It hadn’t always been like that. He could remember at one point enjoying learning. After you have taken every possible class a dozen times, little is left to learn. This pushed Sevs away from the classes he used to prefer. He found himself enjoying classes that he had not before. English was one of those classes. Originally, Sevs had a knack for math. He still did, but classes in high school can only go up to some form of calculus. If he wanted to stay in high school, there was a ceiling. That meant there was nothing new. Classes that required more creativity, even at a lower level soon became his favorites. That gave him a lot more flexibility to entertain himself.

For these reasons, Sevs had an atypical schedule. He loaded up on fine arts, English, and shop classes. He still had to take history and math classes, sadly. But the others were interesting, for the most part.

When he had gotten his schedule, he also got a few communications for a couple of his teachers. One of those was from his English teacher. At the time, Sevs hadn’t met or seen his teacher, but when they first met, Sevs was not surprised. Mr. Tart was an ornery, old man. He was strict and short-tempered and rarely smiled. The school knew him for his reputation for being a hard grader and pedantic as anyone could be. Despite that, he was still loved. Sevs wasn’t sure if he understood why yet. However, even Hank didn’t despise him. And having been here for only a few days, Hank had already seemed to develop animosity toward every other teacher.

Sevs and Father had received an email from Mr. Tart a month before school started informing them of their first assignment. It was required that Sevs would read two classic books and write a 2-page report on each, summarizing the plot and analyzing one character per book. One of the books needed to be Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. The other could be chosen from a list provided. The list contained a hundred books, but a half dozen were recommended for readers new to the classics. The reports were due on the first Monday of school, giving anyone a chance to not have to work during summer. Sevs thought anyone who waited for classes to start before beginning work on the project was in for a rough time. Reading two classics and writing four pages in a week is not easy. It was epically hard for the average ninth grader.

Sevs had scanned the list. He had read every one of the books on it. This was honestly not too surprising. Around that time the tutorial was taking place, the rate at which books were being published far outstripped the rate at which books could be read. However, Sevs was stuck in time, so that list wasn’t growing. That is not to say he had read every book. Not even close. But the top 100 lists of classics were an obvious place to start when looking into reading.

Sevs had looked at some of the books he had picked up during Father and his latest trip to the used bookstore. These were a couple almost classics that he hadn’t read yet. Or at least he didn’t remember reading. He responded, saying he had read all the books on the list. He asked if he could read The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan instead.