Psyche's Wings

Chapter 4

The girls were called 'Lauren' and 'Avery.' Lauren had long blond hair, while Avery had black hair like many twisted ropes. Once they learned that I was 'new,' they insisted on showing me to my first class.

"What year are you?" Avery asked, frowning at the printed schedule I held in my hand.

"Three," I answered.

I had wished to start at the beginning, but Ari had said that seventeen was too old for a 'fresh-man' or a 'sophomore.' In that case, I would have pretended to be younger, but by then the documents were already made, and I hadn't wanted to complain. Ari and Soren had already gone to such trouble for my whims.

"Wait — how old are you?" Lauren gaped.

"I turned seventeen in June. On June the twenty-seventh," I added proudly.

This meant I was only just seventeen, and as I had never known the exact month or day of my birth, I was very pleased to have a real birthday at last.

"Shit. We thought you were, like, a lost middle-schooler, or something.

"I am quite small," I acknowledged. "Good nutrition has increased the average height over the past few centuries."

I had read this in a book, but in truth I had been small even for my time.

"Omigod — cute and smart? Can we adopt you?" Lauren asked.

I blinked in surprise. "Thank you, that is very kind, but I am already adopted."

Again, the pair burst into peals of laughter.

"Nope, it's official — we're adopting you," Avery said with a broad grin, linking her arm with mine. "C'mon — looks like we've got the same homeroom, even."

Lauren took my other arm, and together they marched me up the steps and through the great arched doors of the school.

By the end of the day, I would have to convince them it was no use: the false adoption records were already signed.

~ ❀ ~

Lauren and Avery had many friends. I tried to remember all their names and faces, but even my best tricks for memorization failed me. There was so much new and exciting, I found it difficult to concentrate.

The 'home room,' they explained, was a place to 'hang out' before the first class of the day. It was a place to catch up on 'home work,' which one had 'slacked on,' and to chat and make friends.

"A class for making friends!" I exclaimed, breathing the countless scents of strange people and strange things that surrounded me. "How wonderful!"

"What, they don't they have homeroom in London, or wherever?" Avery laughed as she sat slumped in her chair, watching something on her phone.

"I... am not certain," I answered honestly. "It has been... some years... since I last visited."

"So what's your story, anyway?" Lauren asked. "How d'you end up with a hot adopted dad and a cute accent?"

I had memorized my story carefully, but Lauren and Avery weren't the only ones paying attention now. A small crowd had gathered — it seemed my new friends were what Ari had described as 'popular' — and a ring of curious faces surrounded me. Beneath their scrutiny, I shrank as a snail within its shell, and could not remember what I meant to say.

"My... My parents..." I began, and tugged nervously at a lock of my hair.

Ari had combed it for me that morning, and set it with my favorite jeweled butterfly clips, which he said would bring me luck. I touched one for courage and tried to remember my 'backstory.' It involved Soren having a sister in England, and something about an accident, and guardianship, but I could not recall where to begin, and froze as I had once upon the stage—only this time, there was no one to whisper my line to me from the shadows at the curtain's edge.