Strong Allies

First Day

"The friend matching process is simple.

1) Meet everybody in your school

2) Figure out which kids don"t have friends yet

3) Talk to them and figure out why they don"t have friends yet

4) Introduce them to a person or group of people that you met in step 1

5) Repeat until your client finds an acceptable group of friends

Meeting everybody is tricky and usually takes some time. You don"t need to become friends with everybody, but you need to figure out what they"re into and what they can tolerate. Once you know everybody, it"s easier to get on with your friend matching, but you still have to meet any new people right away and keep tabs on all the people you already know. You can"t place your clients if there"s nobody to place them with."

The first day of freshman year was a writhing zoo of hope, energy, and people trying too hard. Kids from a dozen different grade schools were starting at St. Francis, some Catholic, some public. The first day is easy mode for meeting people, so I got to school nearly an hour early, before the doors had even opened yet, and sat down on a bench, armed with a clipboard and a poll.

Polls are key. You have an excuse to approach people but only talk for a few minutes. Also if you choose them carefully, you can get a bonus peek at people"s personalities.

I kept my pitch simple. "Hi! I"m Philio and I like to make polls. If you were a superhero, what would your superpower be?"

"Hi!" said a girl with green eyes. "I"m Carly. Wait, I guess that"s on my nametag now, isn"t it?"

I laughed. "Oh yeah, I forgot we have those now."

"I was actually home schooled," she told me. "So I"ve never worn a uniform or a nametag or anything before in my life!"

"We didn"t have nametags in grade school," I said. "Of course it was a lot smaller then. Everybody knew everybody."

"That sounds nice," she said. "I hope that happens here, too, after awhile."

Carly reminded me a bit of a very bouncy puppy. She had this inappropriately huge grin on her face, like high school was the most wonderful treat she could imagine. I wrote down her name on my sheet, with "homeschooled" in the "grade school" column. "So, your superpower?"

She smiled. "I think I"d like ... a singing voice so beautiful that it could heal people."

"That"s a good one!" I said. "Very useful. Well, I"m going to go ask that guy about his superpower."

She looked at me with doe eyes. "Can I come with? I could be your assistant."

I made another mark next to her name, a smiley face with two dots on the cheeks. I have a whole code of smiley faces, after a disastrous incident a few years ago when somebody found a list of names and not-so-flattering personality notes. Of course, there"s nothing wrong with being shy, awkward, clingy, or overly loud, but I need to keep track of these things to help the friend making process.

"Hi!" I said to a guy named Jonas Borgaard. "I"m Philio. If you were a superhero, what would your superpower be?"

Jonas looked down and regarded me with a bored expression. Jonas was not a puppy. He was a full grown Alaskan Timber Wolf. A tall, ruddy faced, broad shouldered man with close cropped golden-red hair and furry biceps to match, he would have intimidated anybody. Having classmates who basically looked like grown adults was going to take some getting used to.

"Are you a freshman?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said.

He smiled pompously. "I"m a junior."

"Cool story bro," I said. "Now about that superpower ..."

Jonas laughed. "Fair enough. I"d go with super speed. That would come in handy on the football field."

"Oh, you do football?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said.

"Wow, you must know everybody!" I said, because a contact on the varsity football team would be very valuable.

"No," he said as we filed into the building. "High school football teams are, like, huge, Phil. Like ninety guys."

"Oh, well," I said.

"Why, do you have a fetish or something?"

For reasons I couldn"t explain, I felt my face getting hot. Jonas was looking at me as if he knew something about me that I didn"t. I wasn"t really sure what a fetish was; something to do with s*x? Even for a Catholic school kid, my knowledge of dating stuff was limited: at fourteen years old I had yet to experience my first kiss. I had plenty of girls as friends, but I"d never really felt like any of them was special to me. Honestly, when people told me about their crushes, I felt kind of confused and left out.

"No," I said. "I just like knowing people I guess. Helping people make friends. It"s kind of a hobby."

"That"s really cool!" said Carly.

"See you," said Jonas, walking away.

"Wait!" I said. "Can you help us find our homerooms?"

I held out my schedule. "Oh yeah," he said. "You guys are that way." He pointed us toward the north end of the building. "All the freshman stuff is in those two hallways. Have fun." And he walked off in the other direction.

A few people had arrived already. "This is going to take forever," I told Carly. "I don"t know any of these people yet and I need to know all of them."

"Great!" she said. "That"s a really great mission. I"m glad I met you!" Together we approached an extremely short girl with a very large book bag.

"Hi!" I said. "I"m Philio. If you were a superhero, what would your superpower be?"