Seer

Chapter 2

Mrs. Tallman, despite her name, was a very short woman. She had curly black hair and thin-rimmed glasses around her deep brown eyes. She wore a plain yellow dress that complimented her golden, dangling earrings, and high heels that unfortunately didn't make her seem much taller than she actually was.

To Jasmine's disappointment, the Prophecy classroom looked just like a regular classroom, with regular desks, chairs, and windows. At the front of the classroom, Mrs. Tallman stood on a stack of textbooks to see over her podium. Behind her, the chalkboard had the words Welcome, students! written on it on the left side, and Mrs. Tallman written smaller on the right side.

Jasmine took her seat next to Zoe Bridges. Unlike Jasmine, who'd gotten up extra early to get ready for the first day of school, Zoe looked like she'd just rolled out of bed. To her left, another one of her friends, Lexi Riggs, plopped down her backpack and sat down. Nia Hartley, the last person in Jasmine's friend group, had manifested Reminiscence, so Jasmine wouldn't see her until later. Luckily none of her friends had manifested Telepathy, because that would have caused a lot of trust issues.

"Welcome, students!" Mrs. Tallman's cheery voice echoed through the room, reciting the words on the chalkboard. "I'm Mrs. Tallman, your homeroom teacher, and I'm so excited to get to know each and every one of you this school year!" She paused for a moment, then continued. 

"I'm not going to waste any time with icebreakers since I know you all want to learn about your gifts," Mrs. Tallman turned to the chalkboard and wrote Prophecy = Future. "The three gifts have been thought to represent the states of time: Past, present, and future. Reminiscence is past, telepathy is Present, and, of course, Prophecy is future. All of you in here should be Seers. If any of you are not Seers, the Reminiscence classroom is across the hallway, and the Telepathy classroom is one door down to the right."

A student in the front got up and left.

"Very well, I'll have to talk to the office about that," Mrs. Tallman sighed. "Every year. Anyways! How many of you can See on command?"

About a third of the students raised their hands. Jasmine was relieved to not be the only one with her hand down.

"Oh, a good number this year!" Mrs. Tallman pushed her glasses up, then motioned for everyone to lower their hands. "If you can't See on command yet, that's okay. It takes some time and proper technique. Even when you can See on command, your visions are often fuzzy and don't last much longer than a few seconds. That's why we have specialized classes here at school, so you can understand and use your gift to its full potential," Mrs. Tallman grinned at the class. "Any questions?"

***

By lunch time, Jasmine was significantly less excited about school than she'd been that morning. Jasmine entered the cafeteria with Zoe and Lexi, who were quickly met by Nia.

"So, how was Prophecy?" Nia scouted out a free table and sat down.

"Boring," Lexi muttered. "All we did was talk about visions. Like, nobody cares that Johnny had a vision of his sister falling off her bike," She examined the contents of her lunchbox, then picked out a slightly bruised banana. "What about you?"

"We didn't actually do anything related to Reminiscence. We just did icebreakers all class. And now I know way more about my classmates then I want to," Nia shuddered. "And the worst part is, I can't forget any of it."

"What about everyone's other classes?" Zoe asked, changing the subject. "My English teacher seems nice, but my math teacher sucks. And the band teachers are the same as last year."

Lexi peeled her banana. "I have English with Zoe, um, my art teacher is really old, and I guess I like my history teacher," She took a bite of her banana, then turned to Jasmine. "Are you okay, Jasmine? You're awfully quiet today."

"I'm fine," though Jasmine wasn't fine. She hadn't learned anything in Prophecy. She hadn't even been called on to share her vision. "Math was fine. History was also fine. And the orchestra teacher is the same as last year."

Nia shuddered again. "The orchestra teacher scares me. And all my classes were good. I think I'm gonna like my teachers."

Lexi was still staring at Jasmine. "You know it's just the first day of school, right? You'll learn more Prophecy stuff soon."

Zoe put down the sandwich she'd been eating and placed a hand on Jasmine's shoulder. "Just because I can See on command doesn't mean it's actually useful. All I can tell is that I'm doing something triangle related in math tomorrow. At least I think it's tomorrow."

Jasmine tunned out her friends' voices and picked at her lunch. She hadn't gotten any visions since the egg salad incident a week ago, while most Seers had visions daily. Hopefully she would learn how to control her visions in class. 

The rest of the day was uneventful. 

"How was school?" Jasmine's mom asked when she got off the bus in the afternoon. 

"It was fine," Jasmine couldn't wait until she was old enough to drive herself to and from school so she didn't have to ride the stinky, sweaty bus. 

"Did you learn anything?" Jasmine's dad asked from the kitchen. Unlike most families, Jasmine's dad stayed at home and her mom worked, though she worked from home on Mondays.

"It was the first day of school, of course we didn't learn anything," Jasmine grumbled, kicking her shoes off and dropping her backpack by the front door.

"Any visions?" Her mom asked, seemingly oblivious to her mood.

"No," Jasmine started to trudge up the stairs to her room, but her dad's voice stopped her halfway.

"Jasmine, are you okay?"

She paused.

"You know it's just the first day of school, right? Nobody wakes up one day with mastery of their gift. I couldn't See on command right away either."

"Yeah, I guess," Jasmine's mom had already returned to typing away on her computer, and her dad didn't say anything after that. This was how her parents were most of the time. Supportive yet distant. 

In her room, Jasmine flopped onto her bed and resisted the urge to scream into her pillow. "It's the first day of school, did you really think you'd learn everything in a day?" She muttered to herself since there was nobody else to mutter to. If Jasmine had a sibling, she'd mutter to them. Her friends all had brothers and sisters, and most of the time they weren't nearly half as annoying as her friends described them.

Jasmine wondered, if she had any siblings, would they be Seers like her?