CHAPTER 1

Enzo Gallagher took the last book from the shelf and put it in the box. It was “The Will to Fight,” a book he loved and shared with students so often it was full of creases and earmarks.

He sighed, it had been what, four years since he arrived at Jefferson’s High? Yeah, four years this summer.

Maybe they’ll give me a bigger office. He snorted, he could always dream.

Someone knocked on the door, it was half open, meaning they could come in if they wanted, but people respected his space.

“Mr. Gallagher? Are you busy?”

Enzo opened the door to see Cameron Hall, a troubled senior that rose up against adversity and became one of the best students the school had seen.

“Hey man, nah, I’m not busy. Come on in.”

The teenager swaggered into the room, carrying a thin folder in his hands. He sat on the leather armchair and practically sank in it, sighing as he always did when he used to come for either small talk or counseling, just a year ago.

“How are you?” Enzo continued, “long time no see.”

“Pretty good, Mr. Gallagher, pretty good,” he replied, staring at the piles of cardboard boxes covering the floor.

“You going away, sir?”

Enzo chuckled, “hopefully not, they’re gonna use this office, I just need to take everything out.”

“Do you need help? I could bring—”

“Nah, don’t worry, I’m practically done, what brings you here? Haven’t seen you in a while.”

Cameron smiled, he was beaming, “came to say thanks.”

“For what?”

He gave Enzo the folder, “take a look.”

Enzo opened it, there was a single piece of paper in it.

“Dear Mr. Hall,” he read out loud, “we are pleased to announce that you have been accepted to...”

His voice trailed off, it took him a couple of seconds to fully understand what he was reading, then looked up to the student.

“I got accepted to MIT,” Cameron said, unable to hide his pride, “full scholarship and all.”

“Are you freakin’ serious?”

Cameron shrugged, “I’m gonna be an engineer.”

“God damn, Cameron, congratulations! I told you you could do it!”

Enzo offered his hand and Cameron shook it.

“Thank you for everything, Mr. Gallagher, couldn’t have done it without you.”

“You did it all on your own, man, you just needed to focus.”

Cameron started to shake his head when Darcy knocked on the open door, her hands full of papers, as usual.

As the secretary of the of the hardest, most impoverished school on the district, she played her part just perfectly. She’d seen it all, throughout the couple of decades she’d been there, she even had a pair of pointy glasses and a no-excuses attitude that helped her deal with the students

“Hi Cameron,” she said with a nod, then turned to Enzo.

“Hey, Darcy.”

"The new principal is about to arrive; you need to take everything out ASAP.”

“Sure thing, Darce, I’m almost done here.”

She rolled her eyes, “all right, sorry to bother you but I don’t want to start things out with the wrong foot. They say she’s pretty hardcore.”

“Just what we need, right?” Enzo said.

Darcy did not laugh, “exactly.”

Cameron spoke up.

“Are you sure you don’t need any—”

“I’m cool, Cam, go celebrate, you deserve it.”

The student chuckled, “I will, but not until after the interview.”

“You still need to do that?”

“Final step of the process, so yeah. I’m not officially in until I talk to them.”

“Do you need help? Some coaching or—”

Cameron pressed his lips, he was going to say no but changed his mind.

“You know what? That’d be great. I’m kinda nervous about it, not much of a people’s person, you know?”

“I’m here, just send me an email.”

“Will do, sir,” Cameron said already out of the office.

“That kid. What happened?” Darcy asked, her tone of voice completely flat.

“Nothing. He just got admitted to MIT, sharing the news.”

“MIT? That’s nice,” she said, adjusting her glasses.

Nice. That was more than nice, but this was Darcy, nothing ever fazed her.

“To think he was a gang-banger—”

“He wasn’t a gang-banger, Darcy, he just hung around with the wrong people.”

“Well, you sure straightened him up.”

“He’s smart. He did most of the hard work himself.”

“If you say so.”

Enzo picked a pile of heavy boxes and started walking out to the hallway, “thank you for your praise, Darcy, now let me finish taking this stuff out before the new principal arrives. We don’t wanna give her the wrong impression.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” she said, already walking away, “with the state the school is in, I don’t think there’s much we can do.”

Enzo chuckled out of politeness. The school did look bad, and some of the kids were troublemakers, but it wasn’t the worst place in the world to work at, even if it had the lowest grade average, the poorest students and was the least funded high-school in the state.