onyx: poltergeist

ten

ADAM

For the past few weeks I seemed to be starting to get used to life as a student again. It's been quite some time since I graduated from high school, fourteen years to be exact, but I was thankful for being able to adapt from my life being a working-class figure back to life in high school, at least when I'm stuck in the body of one of my top students. The only difference between me back in high school as compared to me hiding in my student disguise is that I felt that I've become more grounded and confident of who I am as a person; fourteen years ago I had spent a number of years trying to find myself, but now I know clearly how to take charge of my life.

I could still sense a bit of nervousness from Jayda though. Poor thing, only seventeen and already has to teach so many classes in my shoes, thanks so much to whatever shenanigans happened overnight. Day by day I could see her gaining her confidence to speak up more fluently in front of her Creative Writing class, and I could tell she was slowly rubbing off of me. Not only was she authoritative especially when speaking about projects and assignments as well as running our class chat groups, she also kept my light-hearted spirit in check. Part of me, however, could tell that she was also dying to switch back into her own skin; I guess that was what both of us and Celine were all concerned about, when and how the curse would reverse and everything would revert back to normal.

Two weeks had already passed since Jayda gave out the class' first project work on behalf of me. It wasn't a graded one though, I could tell from secretly logging into my email on Jayda's phone and looking through this semester's lesson plan for my Creative Writing class with the junior batch. Still I could tell that the group I was in was working hard, as seen through the messages they exchanged with one another through the emergency cum project group chat. Hats off to Celine who came up with merging those two situations together into one chat group, having to take on Jayda's role as a student in disguise means I had to figure out what was going on in the project so I could properly blend in.

Apparently everyone else in the group chat decided to research on Lewis Carroll, and they managed to come up with an extremely long message including points about his writing style and genre of his works. It's been quite some time since I last studied Alice's Adventures in Wonderland or Through the Looking Glass, so that long cheat sheet floating around in the group chat was practically my saving grace in case Jayda pulls us up to present. Within that life saver of a message were scraps of information about the literary devices used within his works, points about the use of short sentences and also evidences of fantasy writing, it was practically a home-based literature lesson.

I had to cram everything from that one message before Jayda decides to use her new teacher privileges against me in class. At the same time I was conveniently running late for class, so I was frantically brisk walking up the stairs while staring straight down at Jayda's phone. I was halfway through reading about the use of parody when I walked smack into someone slightly taller than me, or at least Jayda's body.

I instantly recognised my new student's sea foam coloured eyes. Martin.

"Sorry," I heard him hastily whisper under his breath with a slight accent, before briefly watching him quickly sprint off in the direction of the gents. I might have also seen his face suddenly flush red from the run in, strange.

I shrugged it off and quickly leant against the classroom door and pushed it open, stumbling into the empty seat beside Celine. I should ask her about how to be early for class soon, she's always waiting right in her seat patiently while I can never seem to get out of the house on time.

"You think Jayda's gonna make us go up to present?" I bent over to the left and whispered to Celine, who turned to lean over to me and listen.