“You call this high school in America?” Levi pointed at the view outside the car window and turned to Don Quixote, who was smoking.
“If you hadn’t told me I would’ve thought it was some kind of military base.”
From everything Levi knew about American high schools, he expected green lawns and red-brick buildings like something out of *High School Musical* or *Gossip Girl*.
Instead he was staring at a concrete fortress wrapped in three-meter-tall chain-link fencing topped with inward-curving razor wire.
The design looked like it was meant to keep people from climbing in—or out.
Besides the crooked “Franklin K.
Lane High School” sign above the entrance, the most noticeable things were the two NYPD patrol cars parked at the curb.
“This is the only place that’ll take you right now,” Don Quixote said, flicking his cigarette butt out the window.
He clapped Levi on the shoulder.
“Come on.
This place smells like shit and I don’t want to stay any longer than we have to.”
They got out and walked toward the main doors.
If the outside looked like a prison, the entry process made it official.
It was peak arrival time and a long line had formed.
Levi got closer and realized everyone was going through security.
“Beep!”
A Black girl with dirty braids got pulled aside.
“Open the bag!” a massive security guard barked.
“You know the rules, Tanisha!”
“Fuck!
I only brought a curling iron!” the girl snapped, dumping her stuff on the table.
A cheap folding comb clattered out.
“What the hell is this?” The guard picked it up, glanced at it, and tossed it straight into the trash.
“Point’s too sharp.
Confiscated.”
“That’s my comb, you bitch—”
“Next!”
After a quick check-in, Levi and Don Quixote were waved through into the main building.
The second they stepped into the hallway a thick smell hit them—weed, old mop water, and cheap cologne all mixed together.
Most of the lockers on both sides were dented in and covered in layers of graffiti.
Half the ceiling lights were dead.
The other half flickered weakly and buzzed like angry insects.
“I thought American schools were supposed to be nice,” Levi said, feeling the curious stares landing on him.
“Do I actually have to go here?”
Most of the looks were curious with a hint of interest, mostly from Latina and Black girls—the two biggest groups in the school.
A few came from guys who didn’t look friendly at all.
They muttered in accented Spanish or street slang, pointing and laughing.
“No choice,” Don Quixote muttered.
“State law says you have to.”
They wound through the building until they found the main office tucked in a corner on the first floor.
Walking inside only made Levi’s opinion of the American education system worse.
There was even half a pizza box sitting out.
The woman at the front desk looked like she’d just woken up.
Her multiple chins were squeezed by a thin necklace and her ass was the size of a small planet.
“What do you want?”
She didn’t even look up from the Candy Crush game on her screen.
“I’m Don Quixote Cervantes… Ms.
Palmer, this is my nephew Levi.
He just got to New York,” Don Quixote said, handing over the paperwork.
“I’m here to enroll him.”
Ms.
Palmer took the papers like she was moving through molasses, pecking at the keyboard.
“Brooklyn… foreign… no prior records.
Here’s your schedule.
School starts in a month.”
The printer let out a dying screech.
She printed the schedule without asking Levi what classes he wanted.
He took one look at the paper and felt his blood pressure spike.
“ESL Beginner English?
My English is basically native.
And Basic Algebra?
I did harder stuff than this in junior high back home,” he said, slapping the paper on the desk.
“Why the hell am I in Woodshop Basics?
I didn’t come here to become a carpenter.”
“What do you want instead?” Ms.
Palmer kept playing her game without looking up.
“Horseback riding?
Sailing?”
“I want AP classes,” Levi said firmly.
“AP Calculus BC, AP Physics C, and AP Macroeconomics.”
In the American system, good colleges—especially the Ivies—expected students to take at least four to six AP classes to prove they could handle real academic work.
Without AP credits on his transcript, Levi would basically be looking at the worst community colleges or nothing at all.
Calculus even had two levels—AB and the much harder BC.
If he wanted any shot at Yale he needed BC.
The office went quiet for a second, then a few teachers who had been listening started laughing openly.
“AP Calculus BC?”
Ms.
Palmer finally took off her glasses and looked him over like he was insane.
“Kid, do you know where you are?
This is Brooklyn.
We only offer AB.”
“And we don’t have the budget,” another teacher with a receding hairline added, holding a “World’s Best Teacher” mug.
“Physics textbooks are ten years old and the lab equipment got stolen and sold by the little shits.
You want AP Physics C?
We doing experiments on the blackboard?”
Levi took a deep breath.
“Then at least register me for the exams,” he said.
“I’ll self-study.”
In the American system you could self-study AP classes and just sit for the official exams in May.
But that meant Ms.
Palmer would have to create new testing codes, order materials, and arrange proctors—extra work she clearly didn’t want.
She started to refuse.
“Register him!”
Don Quixote suddenly roared and slammed his palm on the counter hard enough to make the pizza box jump.
At six-foot-something with bloodshot eyes and zero sleep, he looked intimidating enough that even Ms.
Palmer flinched.
“Fine, fine, shut up,” she muttered, typing fast.
“AP Calculus BC… but we can only put you in the AB class.
AP Physics 1… textbook’s in the basement storage room.
Go find it yourself.”
…
Ten minutes later they walked out of the moldy basement storage room carrying a stack of dusty textbooks and headed back to the car.
“Thanks, Uncle,” Levi said, brushing dust off the books.
“For backing me up in there.”
“Since you refuse to listen to reason,” Don Quixote said, lighting another cigarette, “you might as well see how fucked the American school system really is.”
He reached into his waistband and handed something to Levi.
“What’s this?” Levi took it.
A hard plastic spring knife.
“Don’t get excited,” Don Quixote said, starting the car.
“It’s my old backup piece.
I’ll sell it to you for a hundred bucks.
It got through security just now because their metal detectors can’t pick up plastic.”
“Don’t look at me like that, kid,” he said, merging into traffic and nearly clipping a honking cab.
“Once you’re in there, don’t start shit.
Don’t make friends.
Even if you see other Asian or Chinese kids, don’t get soft.
Keep your head down and study.
That’s it.”
After they left the school, Levi asked Don Quixote to drop him off in the Upper East Side—the place the system called the Noble Courtyard.
It was still early.
He wanted to check out the Dolores Resale Boutique the rich woman had mentioned.