Overload

Chapter Eleven - Livewire

“Miss Park, a word.”

It wasn’t hard to get to Mr. Whik’s desk at the front of the class since the rest of her classmates were more than eager to escape his beady-eyed, all-knowing stare.

And June was no different. Just before she could clamber through the door with everybody else, she was forced to hang back. She reluctantly trudged over to her history teacher who was putting together stacks of papers into his folder.

June couldn’t help but notice that everything on his desk was ridiculously neat, as if he needed a way to keep track of every single sheet of paper that existed in his possession. Not that he needed to, considering he could probably remember where everything was if his things were a complete mess.

In fact, Mr. Whik had managed to remember every single one of her classmate’s names and surnames, right down to some of their weird middle names too, including June of course.

She cringed at the introductions he’d taken the moment everybody was settled in their seats.

“Juniper Jun-Hee Park. It says you prefer June or Junie or just Juniper. Which are you most commonly called?”

It was bad enough she’d chosen Juniper as an English name when she was little. He didn’t need to blurt the name out to everybody in the class.

Then again, it hadn’t been nearly as embarrassing as that one girl whose name had consisted of six different ones – and the teacher had read out every single one of them systematically.

It was like Mr. Whik didn’t have any feelings, like he operated as if he were a robot.

June eyed him warily as he took a moment to compose his things before addressing her. Maybe he secretly was part robot. That would explain his photographic memory than just it being a freakish superpower.

“Your father is one of my colleagues, Mr. Samuel Woo Hyun Park.” The sentence should have been a sort of confirming question but it came out more like a statement, like he was confident in his own knowledge and that it was June that needed the reminder of who her own dad was.

“Y-Yes,” she mumbled.

“I hope that you do not expect any special treatment from me.” In that robotic tone, June thought Mr. Whik wasn’t lightly warning her but rather commanding her to bear it in mind instead.

“Of course.” June nodded timidly and tried to avoid his calculating beady black eyes. They were eerily observant, as if he knew every detail about June’s life, right down to her record time of keeping her breath underwater.

“Dismissed.”

June straightened up. She wanted to ask if that was really the only reason for holding her back but then she thought better of it.

She was already going to be late for her specialised class, the one she’d been looking forward to all day.

The one where she’d find out more about her powers.

By the time she managed to find her last class for the day, June was immensely lucky that the class was rowdy and full but the teacher was absent.

June slithered into a back seat and pulled out a notebook and pen.

“Hey! Danni said you’d be in my class.” Josh greeted her with a friendly smile and straddled a chair in front of her. “I didn’t know you were that skilled.”

“Skilled?” she echoed in confusion. “What do you mean by that?”

“All these classes are put together by skill and talents,” he explained. “And I don’t mean to brag but –”