The Miscreants of Xiphoid Camp [NOT UPDATING CURRENTLY]

» 2130 « Chapter 10 - September first

September first fell on a Friday that year, which Avior found to be incredibly inconvenient, because it happened to be the first day of Xiphoid Camp's laughable imitation of an actual school.

"We call it an education center," Caryn had huffed irritably when Avior told her she ought to make the school more school-like, lest someone confuse it for something pleasant. If he had known that he would be expected to sit in a classroom for six hours each day at Xiphoid, he would have fought harder against it. Perhaps he would have thrown himself out of the bus, or run off into the forest and died, or done a really nasty sort of crime so he could get locked up in prison instead.

But, he thought resignedly, staring up at the building with a mounting sense of dread, he was here now, and there was no hope in getting out of it.

Arin tapped his shoulder. "C'mon," they said, leading him inside and through the first door to the right, "we're in here,"

The room was nothing short of unimpressive. It smelled like erasers and the lighting was dim. There were six rows of wooden tables, each with two chairs behind it. the back wall had two tall, overfilled bookshelves leaning heavily against it. It was sad.

He and Arin took the table second from the back on the far right. Avior had experience with these sorts of things, and he knew that this was where you wanted to be. Most people were right-handed, and spent significantly less time looking to their left, and while the very back of the room was notorious for housing all the worst students, nobody ever thought of the almost back of the room. He hoped that his teacher would be right-handed.

The rest of the tables slowly filled. It was a small class, but it seemed like it had more students than the other three did, and eventually, there was only one seat left, next to a blonde girl with a sleek, shiny ponytail.

Marcus ran into the room—of course he was late. What more could one expect of him—and paused, staring around desperately until his eyes landed on the only open seat. He sighed with relief, and then quickly tensed again when he realized that he would be sitting directly in front of Avior. He scowled down at his shoes and took his seat next to the blonde girl, who leaned away, mistaking his anger as being directed at her. He twisted around in his seat.

"Don't you dare mess with me or anything," he all but snarled at Avior. "I want to pretend like you don't exist,"

"That makes two of us," Avior snapped. "I don't want to look at your stupid face for any longer than necessary. This place is enough of a shithole without you in it." He had begun to use swearwords, after hearing other campers close to his age curse without facing repercussions for it.

Marcus huffed angrily and turned around to face the front of the room. Arin whistled, long and low.

"Is it just me, or is there some serious tension between you two?" they whispered. "What did you do to him?"

Avior shrugged. "He's terrible. Enough said," he whispered back. "We just don't get along. At all,"

Arin rubbed their hands together. "Ooh, a rivalry!" They grinned. "I wonder if—"

"Hello, hello, my lovely students!" a voice said rang out, cutting Arin off mid-sentence. A short woman with long, graying hair piled up in a bun on top of her head had entered the room. Oh no. She looked absolutely insane.

"You can call me Miss Buckley, but—" she leaned forward and spoke in a loud whisper— "my first name is Rosemarie,"

Rosemarie Buckley. A senseless name for a senseless person. She acted like she was the most fun person anyone had ever met.