Jackson Hole Junior High School

Jackson Hole Junior High School is the first school Jay attends after leaving his puma family and entering human society. His brief time there exposes both the strain of passing as an ordinary student and the possibility of a different community: Lissa Clearwater discovers him during a visit to give a lecture, leading to his recruitment to Clearwater High.

Jay’s First School

At thirteen, Jay has only recently begun seventh grade at the school in Jackson Hole. He starts late because he first needs private lessons at his adoptive family’s home to learn about the human world. With short sandy-colored hair, green-gold eyes, jeans, sneakers, and a backpack, he looks enough like an ordinary student to pass largely unnoticed. His new school routine is therefore also a performance of human normality, undertaken while he is still adjusting to life apart from his birth family.

Bullying and Exposure

Acceptance at school is incomplete. Some students speak cruelly about Jay when they think he cannot hear them, but his shapeshifter hearing makes their whispers clear. Kevin, one of the strongest boys at school, torments others; his girlfriend Beverly and their associate Sean are also part of the hostile group. On a September day that will change Jay’s life, the three wait for him outside the school with strange grins. The school is thus not simply a safe entry into human society: its ordinary social tensions make Jay’s difference vulnerable even as he tries to conceal it.

Lissa Clearwater’s Visit

A week before revealing herself to Jay, Lissa Clearwater visits his school to give a lecture about eagles, her research field as a biologist. She has already noticed him there. Lissa is herself an eagle shapeshifter, and her ability to outpace Jay on two occasions had puzzled him before he understood what she was. Her discovery at the school turns it into the point of contact between Jay’s human-facing life and the shapeshifter community. She recommends Clearwater High, where he can attend on a scholarship, and the offer quickly leads to arrangements for his transfer.

Place in Jay’s Transition

Jay’s stay at Jackson Hole Junior High School is brief, but it marks a distinct stage between separation from his puma family and enrollment at a school for shapeshifters. Here he tries to inhabit the visible signs of an ordinary seventh grader while privately carrying an identity his classmates do not know. Lissa’s visit changes the direction of that effort: rather than remain isolated in a human school, Jay is offered a place where his other nature can be understood.