PARTI was Wade Madison and had papers to prove it. Son of Jack and Carrie Madison. New residents of Whitestone, Indiana. I had a new backpack and a class schedule and the totally wrong clothes. Alaska is all about flannel. Indiana looked to be all about long-sleeved tees. I had the wrong shoes. At least I was prepared to be wrong.I figured nothing new happens often in Whitestone, Indiana, because I got the total stare down when I got on the bus. It didn’t help when some kid that looked all of ten stuck his foot in the aisle and I tripped over it. My first thought was to break his leg off at the knee and let him carry it in his backpack, but I kept it together while some of the bus riders laughed and others continued staring. I sat at the back, so they had to work to look.By the time I found my locker, my totally wrong clothes and shoes had moved from the abstract to fact. “Do you think he’s homeless?” was one of the nicer snippets of conversation I picked up in the halls. I couldn’t get the combination lock to work until my fifth try, and I was red-faced and sweating when I stood like a dumb ass in the hall trying to figure out where the hell corridor C could be.I finally blundered into my first class ten minutes late: English I.
