Witch in Hiding (#1 in the Witches Trilogy) (EDITING)

Five: The Nadran Classification of Etc Etc, Also Known As Witch Supremacy

"Did you do your literature homework, Vin?" Van asks, frowning at her assignment. "Because I haven't done it. I have time to do it now, but I also have to do my maths homework... and then there's that essay for history..."

I look up at her. "How much homework did you not do? No, I didn't do it either. I thought it wasn't due today."

"Well she didn't exactly say it wasn't and you know she likes to collect the homework the day after she gives it."

The people sitting around us start looking up to listen in to the Great Homework Debate. They probably haven't done theirs either and they want to know if they have to rush out something now. Among them was Abby, but she, unlike the others, doesn't seem worried.

"You'd better do it now, Vinni." She says severely, writing out a last bit on what looks like her history essay. "She's going to collect it."

"How do you know?" I say, frowning as I reached over to my bag to slip out my worksheet and some paper.

She shrugs. "I just do. Now please shh, I need to finish this." She returns to her essay, which I've already done at home, thank God.

I look at Van, who shrugs at me too. "It won't hurt," I tell her.

Van drums her fingers on the table. "Okay, but I could maybe skip PE and do it then." She eyes the sky hopefully. We're supposed to go on a run outside today. "Do you think it'll rain?"

It's bright, sunny, and without a breeze to be felt. "No."

"Optimism," Raelynn chides from next to me. She's in the middle of a fantastic drawing of Captain America. "There's still time before the bell goes. It could rain."

"I could also pass math, but from experience, that's unlikely."

"No wonder you're failing," she mutters, "with such bad statistics."

A bolt of lightning splits the sky.

Van lets out a little scream. Another flash of light illuminates the sky, followed by a tell-tale roll of rumbling thunder.

Then, naturally, it starts to pour.

I stare out the window for a good ten seconds. "No way." I say, peering out. I can see the running track from here, and it's good and properly soaked. The sky, which was an azure blue not a minute ago, is now steadily turning black with large, foreboding rainclouds. "How on earth..."

"Flash flood," Rae muses, her eyes bright at the prospect of no PE. "Are you also failing geography?"

I passed the last term, I'll have her know.

An unnecessarily loud series of gasps interrupt my retort. We all turn around. Remiko is standing there smugly with her arms folded, while her minions—the gaspers—ooh and aah over something Gale is lifting out of a box. It's a gorgeous butterfly figurine that looks like it was carved of stone, delicate wings extended, poised to fly. It's amazing, I admit to myself grudgingly, even if they're being incredibly noisy and fuelling Remi's incredibly insufferable rich-girl ego.

"Wow, Remi." Gale marvels. "Where did you get this?"

"A little shop I know." Remi says vaguely, but with a smile. "I saw it and absolutely fell in love with it. It's practically real, don't you think? You can almost see it taking flight."

The first thing I think is, well, don't be modest, Remiko. The second thing I think is, that's a dang pretty butterfly. I don't have time to think further, because then Remiko, busy appraising her own gift, says proudly, "it's a perfect stone replica, if I do say so myself."

"Oh, shut up," I murmur under my breath. I glance at Van and we both roll our eyes.

"The minute my eyes fell on it, I knew it was the perfect gift."

Sarah, Gale, Esther and Wein do not share my opinion of Remiko. They giggle and ooh some more.

See, the thing about Remi that irritates me most is not, amazingly enough, the fact that she's by herself got the personality of a snake (one I haven't killed—yet) or the fact that she's both rich and pretty and it makes me want to strangle her, but the fact that she wears sunglasses. Indoors. All the time. I've never seen her without them, and they're apparently for some eye condition, but even now she's wearing glasses with tinted lenses. They probably cost something like my mom's monthly paycheck, but if there's one thing I'll give to Remi, as attested to by the butterfly, is that she's got good taste. A combination of that and a deliberate attitude makes the sunglasses thing not weird. Obnoxious, but not weird.

I scoot closer to my friends and we huddle instinctively. "Could any of you have made it rain?" I whisper.

"None of us are weathermen," Jess says casually, with a cautious glance over my shoulder at everyone else. "But you could be."

I blink. "You think I made it rain?"

She shrugs. "You could have, subconsciously. Because you really, really didn't want to run. Or maybe you just encouraged a storm that was already coming. I don't know."

"But theoretically..." I trail off, getting excited. If I can make it rain at will, or stop raining, imagine what I could do! I could get out of so many things, I could make rainy days free for outdoor barbecues and swimming, I could make it rain to chase people away and then stop the rain whenever I wanted.

"Theoretically, you could summon typhoons. How are your teacups doing, by the way?" Jess arches her eyebrow.

Touche.

"So my mom told me about, like, a structure, like, an order of magic ability. But she also said that all the communities were mostly segregated. So why would they all follow the same structure?"

There's a pregnant pause. Then Deanne says slowly, "you're talking about the body-self-others theory of classification."

"It's the Nadran Classification of Magical Functions," Jess says. "But, Vinni—it classifies our powers, but not us. There are lots of fairies who could be overwhelmed by superstrength, and lots of ghosts that could be taken down by enhanced reflexes. The Classification only talks about potential—not how good you are at that skill. So it doesn't define society, not when the power structure it potentially proposes is so easily debunked."

"But I'm apparently made of energy. How does that work?"

"Body-self-others-universe," De amends.

"You," Jess says dryly, "are the perfect example. You have the potential power to create typhoons, but since your most impressive party trick is lifting teacups you might want to wait it out before you start declaring yourself above everyone else. I know six year olds with stronger telekinetic powers."

Ouch.

"I'm kidding. Kind of."

"Guys." Mel interjects. She leans forward on the desk. "We should introduce Vinni to all the hot spots around town. This weekend, we can take her to the market."

"E-gic!" Van claps her hands together. "Sounds great. I need a new—" she gets elbowed in the side by Jess; her squeal attracted the attention of the butterfly squad. We hurriedly cover it up with normal conversation until they look away.

"Actually," Mel says, after a few minutes of talking about boybands, "Vin, how do you feel about having lunch at my place?"