"Come along, Gabe! Don't you want to meet your new teacher?," Mr and Mrs Coleman dragged their seven-year old son, Gabriel Coleman into the classroom.
"Nooo!" Gabe whined, "I wanna go home!"
Mr Coleman looked down at him in frustration. "That's enough. No more sulking."
He walked further into the classroom, holding rightly onto his son's arm.
"Ew, what is that smell?" Mrs Coleman asked, sniffing the air.
The teacher, Mrs Lorraine held her hands up and whispered, "Shh, Mr Coleman, please!"
"What did I say wrong?"
Mrs Lorraine pointed at a small boy, Gabe's age, with curly black hair and dark brown eyes, sitting alone at a table in the corner.
"It's the Carrelli boy. I don't want to embarrass him," Mrs Lorraine explained, "I don't think he's had a bath in a while. He and his elder sister were just- er- removed from their mother's care. Apparently she had a drug problem. His aunt and uncles have been granted custody. Good people, but they're struggling to make ends meet. They haven't paid his activity fees for this year, so I'm not sure he'll be going on our field trip-"
"Mrs Lorraine, we would be happy to pay the boy's fees on their behalf." interrupted Mr Coleman.
"That's very generous of you, Mr Coleman, but if you're not a relative, I-"
"We insist." said Mrs Coleman. She turned to her son. "Gabe, go play with the nice little boy in the corner."
"You mean the stinky one?"
"Oi, don't say such a rude thing ever again." Mrs Coleman took Gabe's arm and led him to the table where Ryan Carrelli sat.
Awkwardly, Gabe sat down at a chair next to the table.
"Hi." Gabe said.
"Umm.... Hi," Ryan looked up at Gabe. "You don't have to sit here, y'know."
"It's okay."
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Since school had to be closed for a while to repair the damage caused by the fire, the principal decided to hold the annual school trip earlier than usual.
Every year in the fall, our school holds a high-school trip in Los Angeles for three days and two nights. The kids rest in log cabins with large bunk beds. Every night there are campfires with s'mores, as well as long hikes in the woods and the hills of Los Angeles.
The morning of the trip I woke up early. It was still dark inside my room and even darker outside, even though I knew it would be morning soon. I tried to go back to sleep, but this usually happens every morning of an exciting day. The room slowly started brightening as the sun rose outside. I rubbed my eyes and got out of bed.
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The bus ride to Los Angeles was over four hours away from our town in Sacramento. As the bus speeded across the homogeneous environment of rocky hills and herbaceous fields, I glanced at the time on my phone. We had left at 9:00 AM. At the moment it was 10:27.
I groaned. More than an two hours left. Unfortunately, Ryan was put on the other bus, the one behind ours, so I didn't really have anyone to talk to except Nakia Bahadir, who was literally the most unsociable person I ever met, which is saying a lot, because everyone calls me an introvert.
Finally around 1:50, we had arrived at the campsite.
The first thing we did was to put our stuff down in the log cabins. Each cabin was rectangular, had four sets of bunk-beds, and the carpet smelled dank and sweaty. The walls were peeling, and there were mosquitoes buzzing everywhere.
