The Antagonist

2. Charming.

Logan flinched. I narrowed my eyes slightly; I had said it so quietly a normal human wouldn’t have been able to hear it, plus, I said it in my native tongue.

“I’m Midas,” Midas interrupted, taking Logan’s hand and shaking it hard. “This is Cassandra.”

Logan put his hand out to me. I went to grab it to shake it like Midas had, but Logan grabbed it and brought the top of my hand to his lips.

I pulled my hand from his before he could kiss my hand. The crowd behind Logan instantly started whispering. Midas gave me a look and I glared down Logan. What a human this was! He thought he had the audacity to act as if he was a gentleman? I held the hand he lifted with my other. I tried to act as if I was a human and he refused to shake my hand, but instead try to kiss it? Disgusting. I hate humans.

“Charming,” I spat at the human who was staring at me with wide eyes. “Midas,” I muttered. With a final glare, I turned on my heel and walked away from Logan and the crowd.

“I’m so sorry about her. It’s very different here from where we’re from,” Midas said to Logan. “She’s not used to it quite yet. Where we’re from, it’s impolite to refuse a hand greeting. Cass is very formal. I’m very sorry, really,” he apologized again before turning to follow me. “Cassandra,” Midas groaned. “What was that? We could have befriended him!”

“I hate humans.” I said shortly, my nose in the air.

Midas laughed. “I guess you’d better get used to them then, huh?”

Why did I agree to do this?

“This is our first class, I think,” Midas said. He looked at the stack of papers, then at the door again. “Yeah, I think so. Let’s go.”

Midas walked in and I followed. Posters about grammar lined the walls, reminding kids that “commas shouldn’t be everywhere or nowhere, but they should be where they belong.” I narrowed my eyes and made a face. These posters weren’t even clever. They didn’t even rhyme!

The teacher looked to be about forty-five years old, very tall (six foot five I believe), with a slightly bulging stomach. He wore simple, thin glasses and dark brown slacks. A word came to my mind: pedophile. Whatever that may be.

“You two are the new students, right?” he asked us.

“We are, sir,” Midas smiled.

The teacher nodded. “This is the seating chart,” he told us. “It is arranged by last name. Please sit at your assigned seat.” He then proceeded to show us a piece of paper on his podium in the middle front of the room and then walked to his desk in the back.

I raised my eyebrow.

My last name and Midas’ last name were completely different. The names, in our native language, didn’t translate into English so our Queen gave us names close enough but in different languages: Scandinavian for Midas and Hungarian for mine. Midas’ last name was translated to Engman while mine was translated to van Buren—two completely different first letters.

I gave Midas a look and carefully walked to my seat. Midas walked to his, which was on the complete opposite side of the room. Luckily enough for Midas and me, we had our Queen’s pills to help us with English.

The class was rather quick—I already knew everything the teacher lectured about, and I received a book the class was reading. They had only just started reading it the week before and the teacher said Midas and I were lucky we didn’t come later, because the book was long and complicated.

“That was terrible,” I told Midas.

“It really wasn’t that bad,” Midas answered me. “You just have to pay attention and do the homework and you’ll get an A on the tests and in the class. That’s what the teacher said.”