The hidden

Sighing, I twirled a strand of my curly brown hair around my index finger. Mr. Hanger's yells of complete outrage made me sink lower into my poorly made leather chair, my forearms scraping the bubbled material. I was in trouble - yet again- for something I didn't do.

'And to think, even imagine, we let you into our school, and you violate our property -again!!!!" He screamed. I flinched.

'' Mr. Hanger, I didn't do it. I haven't done anything but try and fit in and be good since i got here!'' but he wouldn't believe me, I could see it in his eyes, set so coldly into his pudgy little red face. I came from a bad past, a broken home, a druggie mom and a dad I'd never met. I was sort of new here. I'd been here for three months exactly, today, three months ago I was just a bad id. I kid no one would associate with because I was different.

Sure, the last school I went to, I was kicked out of, because i was caught stealing money, from teachers nonetheless. That's why I was here.

Hanger's school for unruly teens. A school filled with pot and liquor addicts, thieves -true thieves, thieves who wanted to steal, for fun- and bullies. I didn't belong here; I hadn't wanted to steal that money. But I had to eat!

''Miss Lasow! Are you even listening to me?'', Mr. Hanger's voice snapped me back to his dismal office, the brown, fading walls and desk and chairs, and it was ugly..

''Wha...?'', I looked up, worried, preparing for the slap across the face that never came. ''Yes, Sir'' I said, putting on my most adult, Military face. I didn't want any more trouble. Trouble was the enemy.

''Good, as long as we're on the same page, as I was saying...." I droned him out again, but making sure in the back of my mind was still listening to him, and good. It hadn't cost my mom anything for me to go here, and I sure wasn't going home to her. I had begged for her to send me here, pleaded that I needed a better education, and a good mentor. She said that she was sick and tired of my crap anyway, that I wasn't worth the time and energy she gave me.

Which wasn't much. I had to steal money to eat, while she was spending big bucks on the drugs she kept promising me (when she was sober.) she would quit. I had come home several times in the past few months to her being gone, with a note telling me she would eventually come home.

On the long drive to Maine, My mom had told me things she had suppressed for years. As we rode past Florida's state boundaries, she told me about her hatred for my father. Why she left him. She said he never loved her, but she did love him. She said he put her under a spell.

As we drove over Virginia's carst, rugged mountains she told me everything that was wrong with me. She told me I was going to be a low down, no good, lying, cheating scoundrel, just like the father I had never known. She said all I ever did was drag her down, and now, with me gone, She  could be lifted back into the life she had once led.

Finally, we reached Maine. I was happy to leave Miami for Maine. Miami was crowded and overly hot, while Maine was a place for Writers, artists and thinkers. Musicians could play freely, with out being criticized. I was a place to start over. Or so I had thought.  The school was a good thirteen miles to the next town, you could literally get lost in the woods and lakes and mountains that surrounded the school.

The school it's self was amazingly beautiful. Built with rust red bricks, Ivy grew up one side and large, off white, colonial windows set off the whole affect. On a front porch that I presumed wrapped around, sat rocking chairs and tables, that I could just imagine sitting in, sipping sweet tea and playing chess with a new best friend.

Mom dropped me off, scowling at how pretty the school was. She told me that she had asked, and I could stay here throughout the summers, so we would probably never meet again. I was fine with that. Even though I was saying goodbye to my mother, to the woman who raised me, I felt no regret. The good bye was carefree, and short. We didn't hug, and then she left.

I trudged towards the school, the autumn wind nipping my nose. I smiled to my self, thinking good thoughts of how this was my home for the next two years, and i had to make the best of it. Then I walked inside, and my entire resolve about this place changed. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all gray. All the windows were barred from the inside, And as a fellow school kid scurried by, head hung low, I saw that our uniforms were also gray.

I was dumbfounded. How could such a pretty place on the outside be so ugly on the interior? I wandered around the halls for a few minutes before finally finding a mahogany door with a gold name plate that stated this was the principal's office. I let my self in, with a sly knock, to find a short, pudgy man nose to nose with a student, yelling silly accusations and trembling head to toe. I cleared my throat quietly, and he spun around, his face beet red and pointing his finger at me.