Girls & Gods [On Hold]

Chapter 3

The next morning, I got up and readied myself for another crappy day, though I had gotten zero sleep after my nightmare.  Usually nightmares didn’t shake me, but that one had a different feeling to it.  It felt too… real.  That scared me.  Big time.  Like, really big time.  In the major leagues of fear.

Nevertheless, I struggled out of bed, changed into my boring gray, blue, and yellow uniform, grabbed my messenger bag and headed off to the dreaded Mr. Smithley's class for another humiliatingly difficult lesson that would fly right over my head.  On the way to class, I prayed to every higher power I knew that Marilyn hadn't gotten sick overnight.  My life would be over if Marilyn wasn't there.  Seriously.  I would be eternally screwed.

Thankfully, she was in her spot when I arrived, with her nose once again buried in a book, this one called Assorted Spells To Mess With Your Friends.

"Hope you're not planning to use that on me," I said, taking my seat.  Marilyn looked up, grinning mischievously.  Her face strongly resembled a pixie's with that impish smile.

"You never know. Stay on your guard."  Her eyes fell back to the pages, and I didn't talk with her again until class started.  Mr. Smithley provided us with instructions for an activity involving spark spells, and though I knew a few of the basic ones, like snapping your fingers to light a candle, I needed assistance with this kind.  These were harder, as they entailed keeping a flame alight above your finger without burning yourself.  It would be the latter part of this assignment that would be a problem for me.

Marilyn got it almost immediately, of course, and I felt unbelievably stupid as she attempted to teach me how to perform such a slight wind spell that it didn't blow out the fire, but kept it aloft, away from my fingertip.  It took me until the very end of the period, but I eventually got it and had a flame for thirty seconds without losing it.  Surprise surprise, Mr. Smithley was displeased with me.  He claimed I should've been able to master it more quickly with my skills, but I didn’t see him going out of his way to help me.  I think he was just upset that I got it in the first place.  The stupid jerk was just too proud of his reputation as a "brilliant teacher" to admit it.

Soon after, we were released from class.  Nothing else happened.  No notes.  No mysterious glares or threats from Mr. Smithley or Jay.  No nothing.  It surprised me, almost scared me.  Were they plotting to wait until I grew comfortable in my new environment of the classroom and then strike when I least expected it?  If that was the case, they were outta luck.  My guard wasn't going anywhere in that classroom — anywhere but up.

Somehow, I made it to my next class without having a heart attack every time someone rounded a corner in front of me.  The rest of my day went similarly — failing miserably in anything my instructors attempted to teach me and trying not to flip out when I heard footsteps behind me in between classes.  Call me paranoid.  Go ahead, say it.  But think about this while you do: Wouldn't you be?  With my tragic past and history of increasingly bad luck, wouldn't you be terrified too?

Uh-huh.  That's what I thought.

…

After working on my Magical History essay for another three hours, getting it nearly done, I walked with Lavelle to dinner, holding my growling stomach as I did.  I'd skipped both breakfast and lunch that day, so food sounded really good right then.  I spotted Marilyn, sitting alone, and walked over, Lavelle following me, asking why I wasn't heading to "our friends," which translates to "her friends" since all they did was rip on me the entire meal.

"Can we sit with you?" I asked.  Marilyn looked up from her new book, titled The Art of Summoning Magical Creatures, and smiled kindly at me.