Set a Purpose

Find out how a big adjustment affects the narrator.

The morning wind felt like a sharp knife on my legs, like it was carving me. How could it be so cold when the sun was shining?

Would I get used to this and would I ever get to like Connecticut? I doubted it, but here I was, on my first day in an American high school and I had to make the best of it.

I went from class to class trying to be ignored. I was mostly successful, except for algebra. In that class, I sat in the second row, and, without thinking, rested my feet on the metal basket of the desk in front of me.

This cute guy (Jerry, the teacher later called him) moved the front desk forward and my feet suddenly dropped.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said and pushed the desk back so I could comfortably rest my feet on the basket again.

The thank-you didn’t come out of my mouth and I wondered what he thought of me.

Lunchtime came after algebra class and I sat all by myself at a cafeteria table, looking out the window. Glass windows! This surprised me because there was no glass in the windows in my school in Puerto Rico.

The Connecticut trees were dressed-up, as if they were going to the carnival. There were yellow, orange, purple, red, and bright, bright leaves.

I noticed, however, that there were no palm trees anywhere.

I’d made a mistake. Actually, I’d made a huge mistake! I’d left Puerto Rico and my