Wings of Fire As Humans

Clay, Betsy, The Human Puddle and Other Things I Don't Totally Hate-Peril

When Peril said she hated everything, it was barely an exaggeration. Well, there were some things she didn't really despise, like fire, or her ex-foster-sister and her nephew, or leather jackets or dumplings. And she definitely did love Clay. But really, those were only a few things, and there were heaps of other things in the world that she did hate, so like six from a trillion seemed like the kind of ratio that you could easily rationalise to mean that she did, in fact, hate everything. Some things she hated especially though; and school was right at the top of the list. She shouldn't even be here at this point. She should be out in the world doing whatever the heck people who were finished with school did. And now she had Integrated Science, with Mr Tapir, who was like the second-most brain-numbing teacher ever (the first most brain-numbing teacher was Miss Palm, the Food Tech teacher, who, like NEVER SHUT UP about her stupid divorce from like twelve years ago that literally no students EVER cared about) and he had been talking for, like, hours or something.

"Today, I will introduce your project," Mr Tapir said, in his stupid cobwebby voice. His voice literally sounded like it had been stored in an attic for like, a couple of centuries, "You and a partner will be taking care of a fish between the two of you. Everyone find a partner." The class all moved away from Peril, clearly not wanting to partner with her (AND I DON'T WANT TO PARTNER WITH YOU EITHER, IDIOTS, SO FINE), with the exception of Turtle, who was probably lazy enough that he would rather pair with Peril The Terrible than exert the energy to move away. Or he was just too shy to risk making new friends, when he sort of already knew her, since they sat next to each other in form. 

"Well, I suppose we're partners now," Turtle said, chewing his lip nervously. 

"Yep," Peril grinned, "You're stuck with me now." She had no idea why she had to be like this, deciding to intimidate the only person who was being anything remotely resembling kind to her.

"Once you have a partner, come and get a fish." Mr. Tapir said. 

"I'll go and get it," Turtle said, getting up quickly, potentially trying to escape from Peril.  Suits me just fine, she thought, Who needs him. There's only one person in this world who I care about and it is certainly not this puddle of a human being. Or, potentially Turtle was just offering to get the fish because he was being nice. Or he just liked fish. Or a stack of other things that didn't directly correlate with Turtle hating her. Which would be nice, but also weird because everyone always hated Peril. Except Clay of course. Clay didn't hate her, or anything really, which didn't exactly speak highly of his judgement, and he was a little bit weird in terms of the way he just LIKED people. But weird as Clay might have been, Peril was pretty sure that Turtle was, like, WAY weirder. Turtle hadn't exactly given her very normal vibes. 

"I got the fish." He had returned, and rather than getting one of the cool-looking fish that were pretty colours, or had trailing fins or anything cool, Turtle had managed to grab the Most Boring Fish Ever. 

"It's a bit ugly," Peril told him bluntly, "Why would you pick that one?"

"I don't know, I didn't want to argue with anyone for it," he said in a characteristically drippy way, "I've mentally named her Betsy. Is that okay?" Why on earth would ANYONE name a fish Betsy is the real question, but fine, Turtle, fine.

"That'll do, I guess," She sighed. She did NOT care about this stupid fish business any more than she cared about anything else (other than Clay, she totally cared about him, a lot-lot). She also really had the song 'Ugly Heart' by G.R.L stuck in her head, and she had ever since she'd yelled at Winter in music a few hours ago, and it was beginning to really grate on her nerves.

"So..." Turtle was just as aware as Peril of the gulf of awkward silence between them, and he was deciding to address it. Badly. "We should probably talk about something."