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One
Taranee Cook walked into the courtyard of her new school. She cringed as she looked at the sign looming over the entrance -- a big, green archway that read Sheffield Institute.
Institute. Taranee still wasn't used to that word. She remembered when her parents had told her the name of her new school.
Oh, yeah, Taranee thought, rolling her eyes behind her tiny, round specs. That was just before they made me pack up my entire life and move to a new city where the air always smells like salt water and the sidewalks are overflowing with skinny fashion models.
"The Sheffield institute's one of the best private schools in Heatherfield," her mother had said, nodding briskly.
"You're putting me in an institution?" Taranee had wailed back.
Turned out, a lot of schools in Heatherfield were called institutes. It was just one more way this city was totally different from Sesamo, Taranee's real hometown.
She shivered as she wended her way toward Sheffield's front door, tiptoeing around the puddles still left over from that thunderstorm the night before. It had been a wicked downpour. Taranee must have spent an hour watching the lightning bolts zapping the ocean just beyond her bedroom window. With every strike, the lightning had seemed to inch a bit closer to her new cliffside house. But for some reason, Taranee had barely flinched.
Scared of fire? she thought. Not even. Scared is knowing that the tofu stir-fry Mom packed for me is going to be reeking by noon. Which means the stylish Sheffieldians will have yet another reason not to sit with me at lunch. The first reason being, of course, that they don't know I'm alive.
Taranee hopped around another puddle. But for all the leftover rainwater this morning, one would never know the storm had happened. The sun was shining and the sky was so blue it didn't look real. The stream of kids trotting up the school's stone steps all seemed to be wearing the latest fashions.
Just looking at all those strangers laughing and shouting hello to each other as they rushed into the school made Taranee shiver again. It was only her third day of school, and she was already dreading it. She yanked the cuffs of her orange turtleneck over her hands and gazed up at the Euro-style pink stucco building, complete with a mottled green copper roof and a big clock. A big clock that read 8:08. As in, two minutes till she'd be late for history class.
By the time she made it into Sheffield's main hallway, most of the kids had rushed off to class. Taranee caught her breath and made a dash for the big marble staircase. She was just about to launch herself onto the bottom step when she skidded to a confused stop.
"Oh, man . . ." she whispered. "I have no idea where to go!"
After only two days at Sheffield, Taranee realized, as dread swirled in her stomach, that she still hadn't mastered the maze that was her class schedule.
She tore open her kente-cloth book bag and began pawing through it. Tofu in Tupperware. Lip gloss. Eyeglass cleaner. Two shiny, new notebooks. And her schedule? Nowhere to be found.
Just when Taranee was breaking into a cold sweat, she heard the familiar clomp-squeak-clomp-squeak of frantically late sneakers behind her. She glanced up to see yet another stranger. But this one was a skinny girl with half a dozen cowlicks in her red hair and a chest that was almost as flat at Taranee's. She looked lost, too. The girl dug her schedule out of her jeans pocket and blinked at it. Then she spun around looking for an arrow, a trap door, a sign from the heavens -- anything to save her from the dreaded first day of school. (How did Taranee know this? That had been her, forty-eight hours ago. She recognized the signs.)
Finally, the new kid's brown eyes flashed. She threw out her hands and screeched, "So, what does a girl have to do to get to room 304?"
Taranee grinned as the girl stomped her green sneakered foot in frustration.
"How to get to room 304?" she answered. "Hope to get promoted out of room 303, maybe."
The girl's skinny shoulders shot up to her ears as she spun around to stare at Taranee. Taranee tried to act casual. She didn't want the new kid to think she was too excited to be making actual human contact or anything.
"Two days ago, I had the same look on my face," Taranee said, tossing the longest of her randomly assorted, beaded braids over her shoulder. "I'm new, too. My name's Taranee."
"Nice to meet you," the girl said quietly. Slowly, her shoulders unclenched themselves. "I'm Will."
Taranee felt herself thrill inside. New-friend moment, she thought. Totally worth being late to class.
"Would you please explain what you're still doing out here in the hallway, young ladies?!"
Taranee cringed, and Will's shoulders shot back up to her ears.
"It's the principal," Taranee whispered to the terrified newbie, as the source of that very angry voice bustled toward them. "Mrs. Knickerbocker."
Copyright © 2004 Disney Enterprises, Inc.
