Thorunn

2-2

"Whoever said I wanted to start over?" Laine muttered as he navigated  the dusty streets of Thorunn towards Ethaba High. The sun–nicknamed Sól  if he remembered the in-flight guide correctly–had just risen, casting the  town in hazy sepia tones. "Everything was fine until this stupid move."

At least it was going to be, but with how quickly they'd fled Earth,  Laine hadn't had time to settle his debts. He'd never be able to show his  face out West again.

It still stung, the way his parents had bundled him into the car when  he'd gotten home from school one day, driving for hours and refusing to  answer questions about where they were going until the Nevada  Interstellar Spaceport had loomed into view. By then it had been too late  to make good on his threats about jumping out, and they'd packed all his  belongings into the back of the car anyway.

He wouldn't be surprised to learn that Gordon had actually engineered  that plan, since his parents' usual method of attack was to try talking  first. Mom he could stand to hear out for a few minutes, but Dad had a  way of going on that got under Laine's skin, nagging and digging at him  'til he had to blast the music on his clip at max volume and bang up  the stairs to his room. The door never quite shut anymore, not after  he'd slammed it one too many times, cracking the supporting plaster  and dislodging the hinges. That had been a real shame. But at least  he'd had a door.

Ethaba High emerged from Thorunn's orange-rust haze, gleaming white.  Despite only being a little past eight o'clock, the iron gated grounds  were quiet. He'd ended up late on his first day after all, disappointing  himself, Mom, his new teachers. But if he was already going to be in  trouble, and everyone else was already occupied with class, why shouldn't  he take advantage of the stillness and scope out the place and  especially whatever passed for a computer lab. It never hurt to know how  to get into school records.

So it was that Laine stepped foot into his homeroom class a full thirty minutes late on his first day.

"I got lost," he said in response to the raised eyebrow of the  teacher, who then welcomed him to Ethaba High before presenting Laine to  the rest of the class. He pointed Laine to his seat, and with a muttered  "thanks," Laine made his way over and slid behind his new desk. The  chair's hard plastic dug uncomfortably into his legs, a testament to  where the money in Ethaba wasn't going.

The teacher–a Mister Kim, going by the name neatly written on the  board under the word "homeroom" continued to ramble on and Laine's  classmates were creepily hushed. It was first period, for goodness' sake!  A little rowdiness was expected. Good thing really, that he'd come in  late. He didn't know how he'd have survived a whole forty minutes  of mind-numbing quietude his first day in.

The bell rang, and Mister Kim gathered his things and left, upon which  chaos erupted. The sudden change baffled Laine, but he began to pack his  things, ready to move to his next class.

"Yo, where'ya off to?" The kid on his right was sandy-haired, with gapped teeth that a round or two of braces could surely fix.

"Next class?"

The teen shook his head. "Nah, we don't do things the traditional  American way. Principal Kim set up the classrooms how he remembered from  when he was a kid, and it's worked pretty well, so the board allows it.  You've gotta stick here'til the next teacher comes in."

"All day?"

The teen nodded.

"We're here in this room all day?" Laine stressed the last two words,  brows scrunching together as he failed to hold back his disapproval. One  at a time, he took his things back out of his bag and placed them with  slow, sullen movements on his desk. He'd hoped to run into Andy at some  point, but he wasn't in the class. A class Laine was stuck in until  school let out. With a very chatty neighbour between periods.