During the first day of school, we were simply shown around the school building. My classmates took the opportunity to talk to one another and form new bonds. Some of them walked up to me to compliment me on my performance during the entrance ceremony. One in particular stood out. It was a kid by the name of Alex Drossel, who ended up hanging out with me the longest. The kid was fairly athletic as well and he viewed me as his new role model.
"That backflip was awesome. Can you please teach me? I'll do anything," he pleaded.
I shrugged, "Sure, after school come see me." Having some friendly connections with a few of the children could always be handy later on.
Our classroom was nothing special. It had the typical whiteboard, neat rows of desks, and chairs. The sun and backyard of the school were visible from the row of windows. I took a seat at the back next to the windows because that was what I was most accustomed to in my previous life. Also bonus protagonist points. Our homeroom teacher was a strict-looking elderly elf woman. Fantasy stories have conditioned me to believe that elves are always ethereal beings of near-perfect beauty. The homeroom teacher Mrs. Sastro was a perfect example of the exact opposite. She was a slightly obese woman with horned glasses making her seem contemptuous by default. She had a reptilian snarl, her lips being merely a finely painted line and her hair was straight, white, and combed into a neat ponytail. Talk about resting bitch face. But I was judging her solely by her appearance. She was probably a pretty decent woman who just happened to look like... that.
"Everyone find a seat so we can begin," she bellowed. She gestured to the whiteboard where she had written her name. "How many of you can read what that says?"
A few of my classmates tried to answer incoherently over one another.
"In the classroom always raise your hands before you speak," she shouted.
Some of the class tentatively put their hands up including me.
"Good seems at least a fifth of you know how the read. It appears some parents still do know how to discipline their offspring. Let's see, you there, tell me what this letter is," She gestured at one of the girls to read the M out of Mrs. Sastro. The girl did so dutifully. She picked on all of the students who had their hands up to read one of the letters, thereby making sure that we could read.
The school day went on like that. Mrs. Sastro as I would learn was exactly how she appeared. By the end of the first class, she had already picked out her favourite students, which she regularly complimented and acknowledged. Those she deemed inferior on the other hand she would regularly denigrate and pick on them for any slight mishap. It's hard to understand how people like that make it into the teaching profession. I was kind of getting sick of her behaviour, so I raised my hand.
"I have a question. Mrs. means that you are married correct?" I asked in my most innocent voice.
"Yes," she answered.
"How? Is your husband blind, 'cause I don't know how he can stand the sight of you?" I really couldn't help myself.
She quirked an eyebrow, "Very funny."
"I was being serious."
"Principal's office now," she pointed.
"Because y'know, you look like a mop that had sex with a crocodile. I bet... that when you look in a mirror, the reflection is so terrified it screams and runs away. Other ugly people probably celebrate that they're not as ugly as you."
"Is that what your parents taught you?" She asked. "To insult your teachers? I think we'll need to have a serious talk with them. Go to the Principal's office now."
That is how I ended up in the Principal's office on my first day of school. When my mother and father came to pick me up they looked at me surprised. Unsurprisingly, until now I had been an exceedingly well-behaved child.
The principal was a laid-back man with shabby grey hair and a massive thick worm of a mustache. Mrs. Sastro was standing behind him, glaring menacingly.
"Dear Mr. and Mrs. Hill, thank you for coming," The principal began. "Your child insulted his homeroom teacher, with some unusually cruel remarks. I hope you understand how such behaviour is extremely problematic for our school."
My mother looked absolutely speechless, "Uhh yes, of course, I'm so so sorry. I swear he's never done something like that before."
The principal nodded, "I can see he is a good kid. You just need to be aware of any bad influences that could have done this. Unfortunately, I'll have to give him two strikes for this as per school policy. If such behaviour persists, he might get expelled and we wouldn't want that."
"I know, we will see to it that he's properly disciplined," my father chimed in.
My parents ended up apologizing a few more times and chastizing me after which we exited the office. My parents both agreed that my tablet was probably the source of my behavioural issues and decided to confiscate it. While that is exactly what I would do if my child had behaved like me, it still was painful to lose access to the Tablet. It was my best source of new information about this world, not to mention the countless skills I could learn from it while I was still growing up.
In my previous life, I had felt unsatisfied because I was living a purposeless existence. I was in a job I didn't like, creating value for a corporation that I didn't like, all while living a meagre existence. This new chance at life has given me the perfect opportunity to do things that matter and I wanted to abuse the shit out of it. I could develop into the best version of myself that I could be. Not for anything lame like becoming rich or anything. I wanted to achieve true freedom, true freedom not just being any arbitrary individual will, which goes against the natural and represents only the peculiarity of the individual, but being the actual realization of the social conditions for the true liberation of the individual to be free in reconciliation with the intersubjective understanding of nature.
But to achieve all of that I still needed a good source of information. I needed to learn the actual reality of my new life. Heck, I still needed to know how many of the axioms I took for granted in my previous world are still relevant for this earth. All my presuppositions needed to be questioned here. Sure this world was fairly similar to the previous one, but I couldn't be sure.
So I just thought about how to steal the Tablet back as quickly as possible. Alternatively, I could ask my parents every day to take me to the nearest library. I'm ninety percent sure they had computers there.
Before we left the premises of the school, Alex ran up to me.
"So can I come to your house?" He asked nervously.
I looked at my parents for approval, who just smiled and said, "Of course."
I ended up teaching Alex a few workout techniques that day.