Jake Shofield lay on his bed looking up at the darkened ceiling that hung silently above his head. He looked over at the luminescent dial on his alarm clock that sits on his night stand. 4:33 a.m. Jake had now been staring at the same darkened ceiling for nearly six and one half hours. For when that alarm clock goes off at 7:00 a.m., Jake would be beginning his new life.

Jake’s parents had bought the spot of land that his new house sits on a mere four months ago. At that time, this ‘spot of land’ was the only vacant lot left on the main road in Mt. Lookout. His parents were in a hurry to move. They wanted a new house in a hurry, but didn’t want to settle for any cheap housing like a trailer or double-wide.

“Those are for trailer trash.” His dad, Carl, had told him when they were on the modular home lot. “No, we can buy one of these normal looking homes that the salesman says can be built from start to finish in about three months.” Jake looked at the one and two story model homes around him and didn’t think that what his dad had just told him would be possible.

Over the next three months, he was turned into a believer.

He watched as his new two stories home was brought in to the no longer vacant lot and put together right before his eyes. A little less than three months after Jake and his family stood on that model home site, his father received the keys to their fully finished home. Even though it had taken just a short time to build it, the house looked incredible.

Jake looked at his alarm clock for what must have been the one hundredth time this night. 4:47. The reason Jake was restless on this particular night was because he would have his first day of school at his new high school and he was extremely nervous.

Jake and his mom and dad, Cherie and Carl, went up to the high school one week ago the next day after sleeping in their new house for the first time to see about Jake’s attending school there. He met the Principal, Mrs. Matheney, and the football coach, Coach Dobbins, on that day. The school seemed like a nice little school. It was a smaller school than Jake was used to attending in some of the larger cities that he lived in.

Coach Dobbins seemed pretty excited about attending class at Nicholas County High School due to the fact that Jake was an All-State defensive back at this previous school, and he would be able to join the team and help out immediately. Coach Dobbins was the head football coach, he was also the Vice-Principal, and he taught a History class during the mornings. He was a very busy man, and his manic personality reflected on that.

Mrs. Matheney was a bit more reserved about Jakes attendance at her school. She comes from the old school style of teaching and disciplining that, if she had her say, would require all students to wear drab, gray, depressing uniforms, and would allow teachers do discipline their students with the sharp rap of a yard stick.

He looked over at the clock one last time. 5:01 a.m. He supposed that he would try to close his eyes for a few hours, so hopefully he could get a few hours of sleep before the dreaded alarm went off.