Freya Snow Pup Trilogy

by L. C. Mawson

  Freya pulled on her uniform before making sure she had sufficiently filled her backpack. She added a couple of mangas she’d gotten for Christmas. She’d read them a thousand times already, but she was sure she could read them a thousand more without getting bored.

  As soon as she was sure she had everything, Freya headed downstairs, hoping to reach the kitchen before anyone else was up. She knew drinking coke for breakfast would be frowned upon, but she needed the caffeine, and she detested tea and coffee.

  But when she got downstairs, Margaret was already in the kitchen. She wore a dressing gown over her pyjamas and had a mug of coffee in one hand, and a tablet in the other. She seemed to be checking her email.

  “You’re up early,” Margaret noted.

  Freya shrugged.

  “Too anxious to sleep, huh?”

  Freya nodded.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “I’m alright,” Freya assured her. “Just normal first-day nerves. I’ll be fine.”

  “Well, okay. What do you want for breakfast? We’ve got bran flakes... or toast. With margarine. Sorry, Ryan and I don’t really have breakfast beyond coffee. I’ll pick you up something on the way home from work. Cheerios, maybe?”

  “Coco pops?” Freya asked, hopefully, too dazed from her lack of sleep for her anxiety to stop her.

  Margaret snorted. “Yeah, no. Nothing with chocolate for breakfast.”

  “Not even Nutella? Technically it has milk and nuts as well.”

  Margaret smiled at Freya’s attempt at a joke. “I will allow jam or honey for the toast, or any no-chocolate cereal.”

  “Lemon curd?”

  Margaret pulled a face. “Disgusting, but allowed.”

  Freya nodded with a smile as Margaret gave her an odd look.

  “What?” Freya asked after a moment.

  “Nothing. Just... You’re more talkative this morning. I’m hoping it means you’re settling in.”

  Freya nodded, deciding not to reveal that her talking was down to her being too tired to concentrate on shutting up.

  AS MARGARET DROVE FREYA up to the school, Freya couldn’t help but be intimidated by the massive structure. Nothing about it looked inviting. It was old, blocky architecture, all hard edges and fading white paint. Chain-link fences surrounded the building, imprisoning the students.

  It looked like a prison.

  “Well, this is it,” Margaret said as she pulled the car to a stop outside the gate. “Do you have everything you need?”

  Freya nodded.

  “Okay, well, the school said to go to reception. They should have everything you need there, just tell them who you are. I’ll be back after school to pick you up.”

  Freya nodded once more. “Thanks.”

  Margaret indicated to the large doors at the front of the school. “I’m guessing reception’s through there. And you have my number if you have any problems?”

  “Yep.”

  “Then I’ll see you this afternoon.”

  Freya nodded. “Thanks,” she said before getting out of the car. Once she shut the door behind her, Margaret waved, and then drove off.

  Freya made sure her backpack was secure, reaching back to check that the zippers were closed before heading towards the school. Bullies unzipping them so her supplies fell out had made her paranoid, but she was used to walking to school and having her bag filled with library books. She needed a backpack to avoid hurting her shoulders.

  Freya took a deep breath before heading through the large doors. At the end of a rather large hallway was a desk which Freya figured was reception. She hurried over to it.

  “Out!” the receptionist barked at her before she had the chance to speak.

  Freya froze up, her jaw clenching shut.

  “Out,” the receptionist repeated. “You know you’re not supposed to be in here.”

  “I- I’m new,” Freya squeaked. “I was told to go to reception.”

  The receptionist rolled her eyes, her look of irritation and disgust not lessening. “Student reception. This is main reception. Now leave.”

  Freya nodded, hurrying back out of the school as quickly as possible. As soon as she was out of the door, she found a corner and hid as she hyperventilated, tears streaming down her face.

  She hated that she cried so easily. She wasn’t even really upset, just frustrated and confused. But as soon as she was overwhelmed, the tears would come.

  She felt like a baby which only frustrated her further.

  Freya closed her eyes, pulling her headphones from her bag and hooking them up to her phone, though her finger fumbled with the wire. She clamped the headphones over her ears, blasting J-rock songs as loud as possible.

  Irum always told her off when she did this, telling her she would go deaf one day. Freya couldn’t find it in herself to care. She had to calm herself down, and she would take any solution.

  She focused her breathing to the beat, finally grounded once more. When she wiped away her tears, no more came to replace them.

  After the third song ended, she put her headphones away. She wiped her eyes once more, knowing they were probably red and puffy, but she was running short on time, and there was nothing she could do about it.

  She found herself glad she didn’t wear makeup. Even if her eyes were red and puffy, at least she didn’t have eyeliner smeared across her face.

  As Freya left the little corner she had found to hide in, she found there were plenty of other students milling around. She spotted some going into a door at the side of the building and decided to follow. Once inside, she was rewarded with the sight of a little hole-in-the-wall, with STUDENT RECEPTION written above.

  “Hi,” Freya greeted as she approached. “I’m Freya Snow. I’m new.”

  The receptionist didn’t look up from her computer.

  “Excuse me?”

  She finally glanced up. “What do you want?” she asked.

  “I- I’m Freya. I’m new.”

  “What’s your last name?” the receptionist asked, as if that should have been an obvious addition.

  Freya’s blood boiled with fury. She had given her last name, but the receptionist hadn’t been listening, and she had gotten too inside her own head and tripped over her words.

  Stupid bint, Freya thought to herself, despite knowing it was unkind. And kind of sexist and disableist. But she didn’t care. She wanted to tear this woman’s head off.

  “It’s Snow,” Freya bit back with a glare.

  The receptionist’s eyes grew wide.

  “What? Is there still a problem? Just give me the stuff I need.”

  The receptionist quickly thrust forward a planner. It had a sticky note on it with Freya’s name and form class on it.

  “Thank you,” Freya said, calmer. The receptionist was clearly terrified, and Freya found that fact oddly enticing...

  She shook off the thought, wondering what was wrong with her. Usually, she hated seeing people scared or in pain, feeling their pain more strongly than she felt her own. Only this time, she didn’t feel scared. She felt... replenished. The night with no sleep seemed like a distant memory, and she was as well rested as ever.

  Freya ignored the strange new feeling. There was no making sense of it, so she let it go. There was no use in puzzling over it if it made no sense.

  FREYA APPROACHED HER classes the same way she always had. She picked a seat in a far corner, as far away from anyone else as she could manage, and read under the desk.

  Not having any friends left her with a lot of free time, and it was easier to study at home, anyway. Whenever she tried to concentrate, she failed, so she had given up on trying long ago.

  None of the teachers seemed to pay her much mind, and she figured they probably didn’t care as long as she wasn’t disrupting the other kids. They would have her high marks on file from her last school, and they had far too many other kids to worry about.

  At least, that’s what she thought until biology.

 
; She read her manga under the desk, just as she had in her earlier lessons. She was onto her second read-through of the books she had brought with her, but she didn’t mind.

  And then, out of nowhere, she felt a tugging on her sleeve.

  She glanced up at the girl sitting two seats away from her, who had leaned over to tug on her sleeve. The girl in question was pretty, short and skinny, like many of the girls in the class. Though she had her hair pulled back into a plait and was wearing bright pink glasses that somehow perfectly framed her face.

  Freya blushed a little, wondering why this girl had caught her attention. Pretty girls didn’t really associate with her.

  The girl nodded over to the teacher who was glaring at Freya.

  Freya’s blush deepened, though this time it was with embarrassment.

  Before that moment, Freya would have doubted her biology teacher could look intimidating, with his floppy brown hair and young face, but she found herself corrected in that moment.

  “Give me your phone,” he told her, holding his hand out as he approached the desk.

  Freya raised an eyebrow. “My... phone?”

  “Yes, your phone. The one you’re looking at under the desk.”

  “It’s not my phone,” Freya said, raising her book above the desk so it could be seen.

  “Is that a biology book?”

  She shook her head.

  “Then it has no place in my classroom. Now, I don’t suppose you can answer the question I asked you?”

  Freya stared at him, having not heard the question.

  “Where does photosynthesis take place?”

  “The chloroplast,” she answered.

  The teacher’s eyes widened, but he didn’t miss a beat. “I suppose you already covered it in your last school?”

  “No, I read ahead in the textbook.”

  Her eyes flew across the room as she spotted movement. Her heart momentarily stopped, expecting to see the man with the red eyes. But all she saw were a group of girls, whispering among themselves as they stared at her.

  Freya suppressed a sigh. The last thing she wanted was attention.

  “Regardless,” the teacher said, “you can’t learn everything from a textbook.”

  Freya wanted to argue, to point out that the textbook did, in fact, contain everything in the syllabus for the exams, but she just nodded. Arguing wouldn’t be smart.

  She put her manga back in her bag, giving the girl next to her a smile of thanks, though she had since looked away. Freya pulled out her notebook, pretending to make notes as she doodled tiny drawings the teacher hopefully couldn’t see from the front of the class.

  BY THE TIME BIOLOGY finished, Freya was starving. She hurried to the dining hall, hoping to not have to stand in line for too long.

  Luck, however, wasn’t with her, as her biology classroom was all the way at the other end of the school. By the time she got to the dining hall, the queue was all the way out of the door.

  Freya took her manga back out of her bag, keeping her nose buried in it as she slowly moved up the line. The last thing she wanted was for anyone to try to talk to her.

  The boy standing behind her bumped into her once, but she responded with a scathing glare before returning to her book. He didn’t so much as brush up against her again, allowing her a little relief, though she still felt suffocated between everyone’s eyes potentially looking at her, and the oppressive sound of chatter.

  By the time Freya got the front of the queue, she bought herself a sandwich and a carbonated apple juice. She wanted something she could eat quickly.

  She glanced around the room, finding it full. There were no quiet corners she could see, just cramped spaces jammed with other people.

  She eventually spotted the end seat on a table become free as well as the seats next to and opposite as a group of three friends left. She sat on the end seat and put her backpack on the seat next to her. She then wolfed down the sandwich in three bites before downing the can of pop as swiftly as possible.

  As soon as she finished, she got up and left, deciding to try to find the library. She wanted a new book to read that afternoon.

  Freya left, only to see three girls follow her out. They hurried in front of her, blocking her path and trapping her in a corner. After a couple of moments, she recognised them as the girls that had been whispering in biology.

  “Do you need something?” Freya asked, trying to keep her voice calm as panic rose through her.

  “I just wanted to let you know,” the ginger girl in the centre said, “you shouldn’t eat that fast. That’s how you get fat, you know.”

  The blonde at her right sniggered, and Freya figured it had been a jab at her weight. She rolled her eyes. The three girls in front of her were stick thin, but they were also barely five feet and as flat as cardboard. Yes, Freya was bigger, but that was only because she had a woman’s body, rather than a girl’s.

  Or, at least, that’s what she tried to tell herself. But it didn’t stop the twisting in her stomach.

  “Anything else, or can I go?” Freya asked, hiding her hurt behind a thick wall of nonchalant sarcasm.

  The ginger girl looked a little put out by Freya’s rebuff but didn’t walk away. “So, Mr Thompson seemed to like you in biology.”

  Freya raised an eyebrow. She’d thought she’d annoyed him.

  “How did you get so smart, anyway?”

  Freya froze, recognising the question. It wasn’t a real question, it was a trap. And one Freya hadn’t ever figured out how to get out of.

  Freya shrugged. “I just am.”

  “So, like, what? You’re some kind of weird genius?”

  Freya shrugged once more, wanting them to let it go. They were making her claustrophobic, unable to get away from them. Every time she spoke, it was like defusing a bomb. One wrong move and they’d have all the ammo they needed. If she stayed silent, they’d accuse her of being rude, which would also give them the ammo they needed.

  There was no winning, Freya knew. They would keep pressing until she slipped up, and they had their story about the freaky new girl.

  “Well, are you?”

  “Maybe?” Freya said, her mind caught between blind panic and trying to figure out an escape route.

  The ginger girl snorted. “So you don’t even really know? You were going to let us think you were some kind of genius, weren’t you? How pathetic.”

  “Genius isn’t even a real term anyway,” Freya blurted, her mind latching onto her first thought. “There’s no real measurement besides IQ tests, which are notoriously racist and can be gamed with training.”

  The ginger girl kept laughing. “Sounds like somebody didn’t make the cut.”

  “No, I’ve never been tested.”

  “Yeah, like we’re gonna believe that. You’re just some freak who wants us all to believe you’re smarter than you are. I can’t believe you’re such a liar.”

  “I am not a liar! I haven’t told any lies!” Freya’s hands were bouncing up and down, and she knew she was shouting.

  The ginger girl stepped back, but quickly went back to smirking. “Looks like somebody’s off their meds. I can’t believe the new girl is crazy. Is that why you lied? Because you’re crazy? Was it for attention?”

  Freya felt tears prick in her eyes and knew she had to run before she started crying.

  She strode forward, doing her best to get past the girls without touching any of them. She had enough experience to know even the lightest of pushes would have her excluded for assault.

  As soon as she had broken free from them, she legged it to the nearest bathroom, cursing the swing door for not letting her slam it.

  Mercifully, the bathroom was empty, and Freya didn’t have to worry about anyone seeing her as she paced back and forth, tears streaming.

  She was just so furious. She wanted to hit something or break something or do something to make herself feel better.

  Freya jumped at a loud bang at her side. The tap closest t
o her blew apart, with water bursting forth to soak her.

  The next tap went as Freya jumped. Then the next one.

  Soon enough, all five sinks were spraying water up across the room, soaking Freya.

  Freya knew that should only upset her further. She’d have to change her clothes, and explain to the teachers that it wasn’t her fault, despite her being the only one in there. And yet, all she felt was a strange sense of calm. She was almost numb, in fact, as she looked over her jumper, thankful she had bought a new one.

  “Are you okay, Freya?”

  Freya jumped at the voice, having not heard the door open. As she jumped, several streams of water from the ground jumped up to coil around her, as one lashed out towards the voice.

  The owner of the voice dropped to the ground as the water hit her, and Freya recognised her as Ms Pearson.

  Before she had a chance to ask why Ms Pearson was at her school, or why the water was acting so strangely, she heard a different voice behind her.

  “Well, that’s unfortunate.”

  Freya spun around, another stream of water lashing out at the new woman, but it went straight through her.

  The strange, new woman looked to be in her mid-thirties, and she was about Freya’s height, though she was much slimmer. She had brown eyes, olive skin, and black hair tied in a ponytail. She was wearing a green, silk shirt, and black trousers.

  The strange woman simply ignored the water, walking back around from Freya to Ms Pearson.

  “Well, she doesn’t seem harmed, at any rate,” she said as she looked the unconscious woman over. “You just scared me out of her body.”

  Freya frowned. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Amber,” the strange woman explained before stepping back towards Freya.

  Freya took a step back, the water coming around more to protect her front than her back. Despite the water in front of her, she still got a good enough look at Amber to see that she didn’t even really seem there. She was translucent.

  “Freya, I need you to relax,” Amber told her. “Everything’s fine.”

  Somehow, Freya believed her. She didn’t know why, but she felt as if she had known Amber her whole life.