by Bob Dattolo
“How is it compared to your prior school?”
“Umm…more kids? That’s for sure.”
“Really? How many were in your last school?”
“42.”
I swear if he had been chewing gum, he’d have lost it, “Uhh…what? Not in your home room, in your school?” He waved around the space, as if I wouldn’t get it.
“42. Total. There were 12 that were arguably juniors. 12 freshman, 12 sophomores, and 6 seniors.”
He whistled, getting looks from some of the other kids that came in, “Daaaaang, that’s crazy. I’ve never been in a school that small.”
“I can’t say. It was big to me. I’d been homeschooled my entire life until then.”
More people came in, interrupting him. I started to get an idea of why I was sat here when Rhett moved into the seat behind me and then other shifters joined us.
A good-looking guy not too much taller than I am that smelled like a tiger smiled wide as he sat in front of me and spun around, “New girl! I’ve been hearing about you already!”
“Oookay? Yeah, I’m the new girl. Or a new girl. I guess there could be others.”
The hyena from calculus laughed and sat in another seat nearby, “No doubt, but you’re the only one with the cool eyes.” The others laughed, “I’m Ty.”
“Oh, hi. I’m Ceri. Nice to meet you.” His hair is so blond that it actually shines in the light, which is pretty cool.
The tiger nodded at that, “I’m Kiran.”
“Hey, Kiran.”
Another shifter that I can’t place nodded, “Barrett.”
“Nice to meet you, Barrett.”
He caught my nose flaring, “Warthog. I take it you haven’t encountered any of us before?”
My blush at being caught flared, but I fought through it, “Not yet. You’re my first. We didn’t have any in my last school.”
Rhett clapped him on the back, “Don’t let the fact that we have four of ‘em in school with us throw you. They’re rare.”
Barrett laughed, “We are. Or so it seems. No idea why.”
“Because no one wants to be a pig?” Eric’s soft voice was apparent to each of us, earning him a glare as his magic flared.
“His magic is out, so I wouldn’t do anything.” The magic wavered and sucked back in.
“No one can tell that!” His eyes were firm in his belief.
The shifters held pretty still, waiting for my response.
“Hmm, then maybe I was wrong?” The shifters could smell my confidence, but it’s not worth arguing about with Eric. Maybe another day.
The skinny kid from home room came in just before the bell, getting a nod from the teacher, “How nice of you to join us today, Dave. Please take your normal seat?”
He looked longingly at the other empty seats, then moved to the one empty seat pretty much bracketed by us.
Eric tried to trip him but missed. None of the shifters did anything towards him.
Mrs. Park took a quick roll call, then stood, “All right, welcome back! As you’ve seen, we have a new student. Ceri? Please join me?”
Every eye was riveted on me as I joined her. Except for Dave’s. He kept glancing up, then looking down as if scared or embarrassed.
“Now…we have all attended the various talks that we have had in school about students here. Things to do. Things never to do. One of the instructions that has been driven home to many of us, either through school or through our home lives, is to back away from someone if their eyes start to turn black.” She gestured at my face, “Need I say more? In light of that, I asked Ceri to introduce herself to everyone, tell a little about herself, and then answer questions. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that you need to keep your questions appropriate to the school setting?” A number of my classmates laughed at that, making me wonder if someone overstepped themselves in prior classes. “All right, Ceri? Take it away.” She sat down, smiling at me as I looked across everyone.
“Umm, hey everyone. My name’s Ceri. I’m not sure how quickly things spread here, but people seem to be hearing about me.”
Eric laughed, “You can say that again.” Some of the others laughed as well.
I worked to ignore him and tried to assume that the laughter wasn’t at me, but with me. “I’m 17. A junior. I was home schooled most of my life until about a month and a half ago. From there I went to a private boarding school, and now I’m here. I was recently adopted, so my last name changed. I’m still getting used to it. I’m getting used to quite a bit, frankly.”
Rhett raised his hand, “Can we ask questions now?”
The teacher nodded at my glance. “Sure?”
He pointed at his face, “Your eyes? You said in home room that you’re not human? Can you explain that? We’ve all heard about the black eye thing, yet you don’t seem angry?”
Others obviously had the same question, because hands started going down. “I’m not angry. Or hungry. Or, well, I’m a bit hungry, but my eyes are always like this. I’m not a vampire, but I won’t share what I am. To the best of my knowledge, I was born and always was a norm…but I’m not. As for my eyes? They’re just like anyone else’s. It’s not a sign of anything, so there’s no reason to try and hide from me or anything like that. Not like with Nathan.”
A girl to the didn’t quite raise her hand, “I saw you in the hallway with Nathan…I thought he was gonna kill you! How were you able to stay there like that? We were all told that we had to back away, never run, all sorts of things?”
“Umm, my last school was a boarding school. Everyone in it was a supernatural. We only had one vampire, but I’ve gotten used to Rachel. I’ve run into more, including the gang that took Nathan and turned him. I knew he wasn’t angry at me, he was just freaked out that I might have been from them.”
“But he could have attacked you!” The same girl said.
“He could have. He really could have. I’m not sure how many of you have ever seen a vampire attacking, but they’re very, very fast. I have high hopes that I could have made it through. It’s not a guarantee, obviously, but I’ve been in more than a few challenge fights in the past six weeks, so I hoped I could make it through if he went after me.”
Rhett whistled, “Wow, I wouldn’t have been cool with him coming after me!” That got a laugh from the entire class. Including me.
“Why do you smell like you do?” Barrett asked.
There’s no way I’m being straight-out honest about this one. “For those of you with normal senses, he’s asking why I smell a certain way.”
Another norm kid sniffed, “You don’t smell weird to me?”
“True, but how about now?” He held still as I put my arm under his nose. “Smell me again?”
He turned red.
“Don’t worry about it. Just sniff me. Do you smell anything?”
The other norms nearest him urged him on, most laughing. They laughed harder when I stuck my other arm out to another student. “How about both of you sniff?”
The girl next to him grabbed my arm, looked at her nearest friends, and sniffed my arm. Honestly, it tickled. The first guy finally did the same thing but didn’t actually touch me.
“I don’t smell anything?” He looked shocked.
The girl shook her head and then tried again, sniffing higher. “Uhh, I don’t really smell anything either? Some sort of body spray, maybe?”
She let me go and I moved towards the shifters, “I do have a body spray on. A summer scent. I forget the brand. But neither of you smelled me?”
“No? What was I supposed to smell?”
Ty and Kiran took my arms and sniffed closer, releasing me a second later.
“What do you guys smell?”
They shared a look and Ty shrugged, letting Kiran answer, “I’m not sure! You sort of smell like everything.”
The girl that sniffed my arm shook her head, “What does that mean? How do you smell like everything?”
“It’s…people smell the sam
e, sort of?”
More perplexed looks at his abortion of an explanation.
“What he’s trying to say is that people smell like what they are. Humans smell like humans. Humans with magic have a subtle difference that isn’t easy to pick up. A vampire smells like a vampire. Shifters smell human, but like their shifter animal. So Rhett is obviously a rhino to me. Kiran is obviously a tiger. Ty is obviously a hyena. I didn’t know what Barrett was until he explained it, but now I know it’s warthog.” I probably should have asked in case I was outing someone, but it doesn’t seem to be a worry for them. “Many supernaturals have stronger senses. Has anyone explained that to the rest of you?”
A few nodded, but the rest shook their heads. “A little? I’m not sure I understand it.” The same girl replied.
“Okay, this one is hard for me. Until six weeks ago, I had normal senses. They started coming in stronger the closer I got to 17. Now? Now I can hear voices from three and four classes away. I can tell that multiple people in this room have had sex in the past day. I can smell that three of the girls have their period and another two have it starting in the next day. The shifters and I could tell what everyone had for breakfast with only a little effort. Possibly for dinner last night as well.”
The same girl blushed hard, “You can smell if we’re…” She glanced down, telling me what she was concerned about.
“I can. Every shifter can. Most other supernaturals can as well. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about to them. It’s like being embarrassed that you have a cut on your arm. Having it come from your vagina makes no difference.”
Kiran laughed, “We’ve tried to tell our norm friends that, and they don’t get it. It means nothing to a shifter. Nothing at all. We could be having class naked here, and we’d all be perfectly fine with it.”
Disbelieving looks from most of the rest of the class had the supernaturals laughing hard. “He’s not kidding. Not at all. Shifters have to be naked to shift. Clothes or not, they’re very carefree and don’t care. I’m sure some of you have seen it while changing for gym? Let me put it this way, in my last school we had a defense class that taught us how to deal with other supernaturals. It was taught and practiced naked. Totally naked. They had cubbies to put our clothes in, not even a locker room. They didn’t even bat an eye at it. The teacher was naked as well.”
The kids died of laughter at that. Even the shifters.
“You’re kidding, right?” A new girl asked.
“Mrs. Park? Are there rules about getting naked in class?”
She stood up, “No nudity in class. This is something the teachers were warned about being a possibility. The shifter kids wouldn’t even understand what was wrong if they stripped down in class to change clothes. So…please, keep anything like that to the locker rooms?”
More laughter.
When the mirth died down, Dave spoke for the first time, “Where do you live?” his voice is so soft and tentative, but there’s a core of uncertain strength behind it.
I told them the street I’m on, not giving them the address.
Barrett hit the table, “Dang, there are some huge houses on that road!”
Mrs. Park pulled us back on track and allowed me to sit. Finally.
We went a bit off the track, but I think it was needed. The norm students here need to know what the rest of us can hear or smell or see. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that some norm kids had been smacked around or something because they were overheard and didn’t know it.
The rest of class flew by, and I was off to and then through history before I could blink. Seemingly. Only Destanee was in the class, but she stayed pretty quiet and on the other side of the room.
Gym was next, and I went into the locker room realizing that this is literally the first gym class I’ve ever had. Even defense wasn’t a gym class.
Destanee and Marisela were in the locker room when I got there. The registrar let me know that I should bring gym clothes with me and be prepared to change for class.
They caught me coming in and sort of twitched, before Marisela smiled, “Hey, there you are.”
They both had big smiles on their faces, so I moved towards them. “Hey.”
She patted her locker, “Want to share our locker with us? I’m not sure if you brought a lock?”
“Huh, yeah, no lock. They forgot to mention that part.”
Destanee pulled her shirt off, “You don’t have to have one, but too many things go walking, otherwise.”
She may not be more than an inch taller than I am, but she’s built. She also gets looks as she pulls her bra off and grabs a sports bra. I had one as well.
Most of the room watched me strip, making me smile as I caught the looks. “Hey, boobs!” I shook my boobs, getting laughs from most of them before they continued on with what they were doing.
Marisela undressed as well. I’ve only seen pictures of orcs in my book, so it doesn’t do them justice. They’re like a bodybuilding statue come to life. “You ready for this?”
“Umm…the way you say that makes me think that I am not ready for this. Isn’t this just gym class? I may never have had one before, but isn’t it like…basketball? Kickball? Something like that?”
They both snickered as we pulled our clothes on. Before they could answer, a girl at least six inches shorter than I am joined us. The regular girls gave her a wide berth, but she must be used to it since she didn’t respond at all. She has gray skin with little bumps in various places…and is obviously a goblin.
“Hey, Tara. This is Ceri.” Marisela smiled at the newcomer.
The new girl looked me up and down, “You’re the new girl?”
“I am. You’re Tara?”
“I am.” She didn’t offer me her hand, which I didn’t expect. She did strip off without delay, showing me another built girl. She wears her skin color well, working with it pretty darn spectacularly.
We didn’t talk again until she was tying her shoes. “So, what brings you to our lovely school?”
“Moved in with my new mom? She adopted me.”
Her hands stilled as she stuffed her clothes into a locker, “Jesus…really?”
“Yeah.”
“What happened to your family? Were you in foster care?”
“I was a ward of the FBI.”
She blinked a few times, then nodded, “I bet there’s one fucking huge story there.”
A coach of some sort poked her head into the room, “Let’s go, ladies! Time’s a wastin’!”
As much as the coach was pushing us quicker, we got out to the gym to find out that most of the other kids weren’t there yet. That being said, I was quickly introduced to an army of people. I met Laura, Angelica, Chris, Tatiana, Shaylyn, and Bruce. All wolf shifters. Mark, Chuck, Warren, and Eric, the four mages from home room. Alan, another orc, rounded out the group of supernaturals. Nathan, Destanee, Marisela, and Tara were names I already knew.
Dave was in the background, watching everyone while trying not to look like he was.
When the coaches came out, I quickly learned why I was asked if I was ready for this.
Why?
Because we were broken up.
The norm students were separated out, while the supernaturals were kept in their own group. Except the mages. They went with the normal humans. What the heck?
I watched Dave once I realized that was happening and caught him going with the norm group. He saw that I was watching him and blushed furiously before moving into a mass of kids. Even there, kids bumped him and generally treated him like shit.
The coach in our section smells like a norm when I approach her. She takes my papers without saying anything, then nods, “Can you hold your own against a bunch of shifters?”
“Uhh, yeah?”
Destanee called out, “I’m pretty sure she’s stronger than I am.”
She stared at her for a second before giving me a disbelieving look, “Is she serious?”
“Yeah? I don’t know that I
am, but it’s possible.”
“Oookay. In that case, thoughts on what to play today?”
Bruce, one of the wolves, rubbed his hands together, “How about team keep away?”
The coach smiled wide, “The rest of you?”
Everyone agreed as I raised my hand a little, “Can someone explain what that is?”
She grabbed a playground ball from a stand against the wall. “It’s simple. The goal is to keep the ball from the other teams. I’ll track possession. You have to keep the ball in your hands or under your control. That means you can dribble if you want to. Otherwise…pretty much anything goes. You heal quickly?”
“Yeah? Pretty quickly.”
If anything, her smile got bigger. “In that case, no intentional bone breaking, so keep it friendly.”
The coach looked across the 13 of us and smiled, “All right, instead of two teams, I think we should make this interesting. How about three teams of three each and one of four?”
The other kids looked kind of hesitant at that. Since I don’t know anyone, I wasn’t sure what to do or say at all. Rhett finally asked, “Who’d get the fourth person and who would it be?”
Coach nodded at me, “We’ll make it Ceri since she’s new. You guys pick your teams, and I’ll assign her through a random selection.”
Beyond our group, the others broke up into three different basketball games and were passing out balls.
Our group finally agreed to the approach and began picking people. It quickly dissolved into arguing about who goes on what team.
We ended up with Chris, Bruce, and Shaylyn on a team of wolves, with Laura, Angelica, and Tatiana on another. So the wolves stick together?
Marisela, Alan, and Tara joined up, creating a team that should be very tough to beat, which left Rhett with Destanee and Nathan. Since those two joined up immediately, I’m thinking they’re close outside of gym class. Maybe even outside of school.
The coach smiled at the groupings, “All right…my random number generator here,” she held up his phone, “assigns Ceri with Destanee, Rhett, and Nathan. Now…I’ll be throwing the ball into the ring in…30 seconds. No leaving the ring unless you’re pushed out. If that happens, you have a one-minute penalty before you can go back in. Now…get ready!”