I awoke to the sound of my mother's bombastic voice ringing through my ears. "Get up, it's time for you to get ready for school!"

I opened my eyes and looked at her. "In five minutes," I replied. I proceeded to close my eyes again, but this ended up being a terrible idea. She took my wrist and began dragging me towards the edge of the bed.

She continued to speak. "I did not raise you so you could ignore your elders, get up!" My body tried to resist her firm grasp on my wrist, but it was no use. For a woman who is only 5'1", your grandmother possessed Herculean strength. Although I was fairly skinny, which didn't really help the situation.

As I felt my body shift closer towards the edge of the bed, I figured it was time for me to open my eyes again. I wanted to avoid any broken bones that would result from me slamming into the floor. Here's a word of advice – personal injury is one of the few things in life that isn't worth a few extra seconds of sleep.

"Okay, okay. I'm up," I replied, in a monotone voice. See, appeasing your grandmother also proved to be a Herculean task. She was very adept at picking up fake enthusiasm, which is the only other emotion I could ever muster that early in the morning.

However, talking with minimal inflection allowed me to disguise my true feelings of hatred. She loosened her grip on my wrist, and began speaking in a much softer tone. "I know it's not been easy for you, but hang in there. You'll make new friends here, I'm sure of it."

I nodded, but I didn't really agree with her statement. Making new friends was a challenge I wasn't up to face. I wondered if I could trust these new friends with the problems I faced, and if they shared my interests. Would they be as devoted to video games as I was? This internal monologue plagued my thoughts for the last two weeks, but I quickly concluded that the answer to these questions was a resounding no.

As my mother left the room, I got up from my bed. My feet landed on the soft, grey carpet beneath them. Strangely enough, the soft embrace of the carpet still felt less inviting than the cold, hardwood floor at the old apartment. As I walked towards the bathroom, I noticed a light shining through a crevice in the door. I saw a small figure standing next to the door, which I recognized as your Aunt Isabella.

 Since moving into the Giordano household, I had to deal with two annoying stepsisters, and it was a change I wasn't quite comfortable handling quite yet. 

"Hey Isabella," I said as I walked closer to her. Out of the Giordano family, she was the only one I could stand, at least initially.

"Hi Malik," she replied. As she turned towards me, the sunlight radiated off of her tanned skin. Her brown eyes lit up as we began to talk.

"I'm guessing you're waiting for Rachel?"

"I'm surprised you need to ask," she replied, rolling her eyes in disgust. "She said she'd take 20 minutes, but in Rachel time, that's like an hour."

I laughed. I decided to divert the topic of conversation away from her older sister. "So, are you excited to start the sixth grade?"

"It's whatever, I just hope I get a good teacher. I heard that Mrs. Akintola gives out candy and has field trips to the movies, so I want her to be my teacher."

"I would love it if my high school still offered field trips to the movies," I replied. "Enjoy it while it lasts, kid."

Her expression became slightly more serious, as she said, "Is high school as stressful as Rachel says?"

"It's only stressful if you want to go to Harvard or something like Rachel does. But for everyone else, it's not that stressful," I replied, while smiling at her. I was being sincere of course, as I didn't think school was stressful at that point in my life. But, it wasn't that intriguing either, which made it difficult for me to invest my time into it.

"When I get older like you and Rachel, I want to still have fun," Isabella said.

"Don't worry, I know you will," I replied. I smiled again in the hopes that it would reassure her worries. Based on what I had seen over the past week, she was more relaxed than Rachel was. She resonated more on my wavelength, which made it easier for me to have a conversation with her.

However, nothing reassured her more than hearing the bathroom door open. "Finally!" she exclaimed, as her sudden high-pitched shriek caused my ears to ring.

Considering our heartfelt conversation from before, I decided to ask her if I could use the bathroom before she did. "Hey, do you think there's any chance I ---"

"Not a chance," she said. As soon as Rachel stepped out of the bathroom, Isabella ran towards the door. Once inside the bathroom, she quickly closed and locked it. Well, it was worth a shot.

"I taught her well," Rachel said as she stroked her damp, smooth, jet black hair. She acknowledged my presence by turning towards me, grinning, and sticking her tongue out. Even today, there's moments when your Aunt Rachel acts less mature than her younger sister, Aunt Isabella. This is in spite of the fact that your Aunt Rachel and I are the same age.

In response to this, I did something equally as immature. I stroked my hair. It didn't have the same effect on my mini-afro, but I think it worked well enough to piss her off. Rachel was not the type to outwardly display her emotions when someone did annoy her, so she simply grinned and walked away.

Thankfully, Isabella finished using the bathroom at a lightning quick speed. Before I knew it, she was walking out, allowing me to use the bathroom.

As soon as I was inside, I looked in the mirror. The fluorescent lights brightened my caramel skin tone, making it look paler. My blue eyes also looked slightly bloodshot, probably due to a lack of sleep.

I looked at the clock on the wall, and figured I needed to get out of there pretty fast to avoid being late. I quickly got ready and went downstairs to eat. When I stepped into the kitchen, I noticed my stepfather cleaning the countertops. He looked directly at me and smiled, with his thick mustache furrowing upwards. "Good morning, Malik," he said.

"Good morning, Rob," I replied. I glanced at the countertop, and noticed a grey, deformed pancake with raisins on it. It looked like a science experiment gone wrong, and I was not ready to eat it. I didn't know if this was how they made pancakes in America, but if so, they were clearly doing it wrong.

I paused and scanned the kitchen for my mother. I couldn't find her, so I asked Rob. "Have you seen my mom?"

"Your mom left home early, she's really nervous about having to teach in a new school system. So, I took over cooking for today," Rob said.

"Oh, okay," I replied. Internally, I contemplated skipping breakfast. If I left now, I could probably buy something on the way to school. I figured there had to be a Tim Hortons restaurant in Boston somewhere, so I decided I would Google the directions to one.

I turned my back away from the kitchen, and began to head towards the stairs. However, before I could leave the room, Rob started to speak. "Malik, you should try my pancakes!"

I groaned. I was pretty sure that thing wasn't healthy. Although, maybe that was a part of the plan. He was a professor, so he could have tried to use me for one of his experiments. While that would have been illegal, I still didn't want to risk it.

"I promise you'll like them, just try them. I saved a plate for you!" he replied, pointing towards the plate on the countertop. I've always wondered how your Grandpa Rob managed to sound so enthusiastic about everything he did. It wasn't even 9AM, yet he sounded like a tour guide who had a gargantuan dose of caffeine.

I considered continuing my plan, but there was one flaw. If I rejected his food, he would likely tell my mother. I couldn't face the backlash that would result from that, so I decided to give his lumpy raisin pancakes a shot.

I grabbed my plate and walked towards the kitchen table. I couldn't quite hear what they were saying, but they seemed to be laughing quite a bit. When I sat down, I tried to find a spot on the pancake that wasn't covered in raisins, but I couldn't find any. I decided to drink my orange juice first.

"It's really not that bad Malik, try it," Rachel said. At this point, you could probably understand why that statement only made me want to deny the food even more. If a nemesis of yours wants you to do something, it's probably a trap.

"Yeah, it's pretty good," Isabella said as she stuffed another forkful of the pancakes into her mouth. While she could have been conspiring with the enemy, I trusted her word a bit more.

I cut a piece of the abhorrent piece of sludge and placed it closer to my mouth. Strangely enough, it smelled similar enough to a pancake. As soon as I put it in my mouth and started to chew it, I noticed something else peculiar. My taste buds started to cry out in joy, as I became immersed in the rich flavour and texture of the pancake. The raisins mixed in with the doughy filling lifted my senses to new heights, as I realized the pancake actually tasted good.

"Wow, you were right," I said, stuffing another mouthful of the pancakes into my mouth.

"I get that a lot," Rachel replied.

After I finished my food, I grabbed my stuff and walked towards the Giordano family car. It was a small, silver Lexus, although I forget the specific model. I'm not a huge car fanatic, so I ask that you forgive me for the non-descriptiveness here.

This new school only took around 15 minutes to walk to, but Rob decided to drive us there since he was going to a doctor's appointment near the school. As we got there, I was taken aback by the sheer size of the school. There were large, tinted glass panels near the main entrance, and along the sides of the school. Grey bricks surrounded those glass panels, creating a blend between modern and classical styles of architecture.

Contrary to my expectations, the school looked stunning, which made me a bit more hopeful that the day would go smoothly. I just wanted to go to school, come back out, and spend the rest of the day doing what I actually wanted to do. On the first day, that's mostly what happened.

For the majority of the day, all of my classes went by at a quick pace. I introduced myself as the gamer from Canada. Some people asked me if I knew who Avril Lavigne was, and I told everyone that I met her once at the mall. That was a lie, of course. I didn't ever get to meet the famous Canadian popstar, but it felt cool to have something that differentiated me from everyone else. That was, until lunchtime.

Lunch was my favourite part of the school day by far. It was an hour that I could spend simply hanging out with my friends, without needing to sit through classes about things I wasn't all that interested in. When I moved to Boston, there was one difference when I stepped out of my History class to head off to lunch. No one was there with me.

People were talking amongst themselves in already established social groups, and that made me feel alone. I wished I could talk with Angus, Melissa, Chad or Ryan, but they were hundreds of kilometers away. Even as I got my food at the cafeteria and tried to look for a place to sit, every single group that I saw looked so close. It was intimidating to go up to any one of those groups, since I worried about them rejecting me. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to connect with any one of these new people. So, I decided to sit on a table by myself near the edge of the cafeteria. I could eat there without feeling like I would be bothering anyone.

After lunch, I had three more classes. Out of these three classes, the first two consisted of more trivial icebreakers, who I played with more people who I don't remember at all.

The last class, however, was slightly different. I had always viewed English as a fairly easy subject. While it was also boring, it didn't involve an ounce of memorization or studying. The hardest part was reading the online summary before I started an essay. The rest was easy, since good marks were awarded as long as you could write coherently.

This saved me tons of time, as I could write an essay the night before and get a decent enough mark. However, when I walked into this class, the atmosphere was different. When I went to the back of the class to sit down, I overheard two people in front of me talking about the teacher.

"I don't know why we got stuck with her."

"Yeah, I really wanted the other English teacher. I heard this one marks super hard."

"She does. I heard she has an English degree from Yale."

"If that's true, we're all screwed. I'm switching out of this class tomorrow."

These words certainly weren't reassuring, but I doubted she could be that bad. Regardless of her academic achievement, she was teaching English. Which was an easy subject, or so I thought.

As she stepped into class, the conversations within the classroom abruptly stopped. She had a presence that displayed wisdom even beyond her years. She was dressed in formal attire, which was fairly odd clothing for a high school teacher. Furthermore, her stern face invoked a sense of fear into the eyes of my classmates and I. She wrote her name, Mrs. Chung, on the board. Afterwards, she turned to the class and began to speak.

"Everyone, please take out two sheets of lined paper. I don't have any to give you, so you'll have to borrow from a friend if you don't have any."

While everyone got two sheets of paper, she started to write on the chalkboard. Her cursive penmanship was nearly unreadable, as the letters were too small and close together.

"Before anyone comments on it, I've heard it all before. If you can't read my writing, learn to. If you want to switch out of this class, you're welcome to do so. If you end up hating me by the end of the year, I'll move on, believe me.

At this point, I'm going to assume that you all know the basic fundamentals of English. I'm not here to teach you about grammar or punctuation, although I will help you with that if you need it. Instead, I'm here to teach you how to write."

At the time, I was confused by her statement. I thought that if you wrote with good punctuation and grammar, it meant that you were a good writer as well. But, I quickly learned that wasn't necessarily the case.

"All you're going to do for me today is write a short story on anything that you want. Obviously, there are some things you can't write about. Sex, excessive violence, or anything that would be inappropriate in a school setting is off the table. However, everything else is fair game. The length of the short story must be exactly two pages long. If you don't finish it today, you can take it home, and hand it in to me tomorrow. And no, this will not be graded."

This sounded easy enough. I decided to make my story fairly similar to the plot of Finding Nemo, although I decided to have the adventure take place on land. I replaced Nemo with a seven-year old kid named Bob, and I replaced Dory with a wandering conspiracy theorist. The story would follow Bob's dad and the conspiracy theorist as they tried to find Bob.

It was fairly basic, I know, but I just wanted to finish the story before the bell rang. I didn't want to spend additional time working on it at home, since that would detract from the time I got to spend gaming.

I finished up my story as the period ended, and handed it in to Mrs. Chung as soon as the bell rang. Looking back at it now, it was fairly bad. I could go on and on about the flaws within that story, but if I did that, I wouldn't get to finish the story I'm trying to tell now.

However, I have that story framed on my wall today. I put it up there as a reminder. It's a personal reminder of how far I've come from that crudely written Grade 10 short story, and a reminder of how influential of a figure Mrs. Chung ended up being to me. Without her, I wouldn't be a writer today.