Fandom Collision High (A PJO/HOO/TMI/Spiderman/HP/Lorien Legacies Crossover)

Chapter 7- Clary

I shouldn't have taken french. Shouldn't have done it. Yes, I wanted to do better on language evaluations. And yes, I wanted to be as good as Jace, but now I was doubting if it was worth being three years older than everybody else.

I walked in and almost tripped over the door frame. Get it together, you're a freaking shadow hunter for goodness sake, Clary. Get a grip! Jace would have laughed and then kissed me if he were there. Sadly, he wasn't, but I reminded myself I'd see him in a few hours.

Most of the seats were already taken, and every table had somebody sitting at it, which meant I'd have to sit beside somebody. I looked around, debating who would be the easiest to get along with, and my eyes passed over a familiar looking girl with choppy brown hair braided down the side.

Where did I know her from? Oh, she was one of the new kids from the office. Connor had mentioned her- Piper, I think.

"Mind if I sit?"

She looked up and smiled. "Yeah, go for it."

Her eyes looked slightly red and I wondered if she was having a rough start to the day. In my experience, though, it was usually better not to ask questions.

We sat there awkwardly, and I noticed that she was tapping her pencil to the same beat I was tapping my foot. Some of the kids were glancing at us. A few of the girls were downright staring. I even saw a boy look at Piper and then bump his friend, whispering something.

"I'm nervous," I blurted. I didn't know what to say, it just came out.

Piper smiled sympathetically. "To be honest, I'm a bit nervous, too. This is the first time I've taken french at school."

"Me too," I said, relieved, as the teacher walked into the room.

She took attendance by calling out students names, and then stood at the front of the class. "Since it's the beginning of the school year, we'll start out easy. We'll be doing review and speaking quite a bit of English. In a couple weeks, we should be full french. This is eleventh grade french, so I'm going to assume you've all taken ninth and tenth, but is there anybody new to the school?"

Piper and I were the the only ones who raised our hands. "Okay, well we won't be slowing down the curriculum, but if you need extra help, feel free to let me know."

With that, she started class. We had to write down as many conjugations we could remember for the verbs aller, avoir, voir, faire, pouvoir, and a few other words I vaguely remembered from lessons.

As I was finishing the first verb, Piper set down her pencil.

"Too hard?" I asked quietly. "Do you want some help?"

"No, actually. I'm finished." She didn't look offended, which I was thankful for, but I instantly felt like an idiot.

"I thought this was the first time you've taken french?"

"At school, yeah. I think I inherited a language gene, though. I'm fluent in Greek, too. We learned at summer camp."

Piper couldn't see, but I arched my eyebrows. If she was athletic, she could make a good nominee for the mundane track at the Shadowhunter Academy. If she was good with languages, it could be useful to have more people fluent in the demon tongues, especially if they'd be staying at the New York institute.

Most of class was easy enough. We reviewed adjectives, and I actually recognized most of them. Then the teacher asked me something in French and my mind went blank.

"Sorry, what?"

She repeated the question, but I just stared at her blankly. Some of the kids snickered.

"I see you have some studying to do. I would recommend reviewing everything we reviewed in class today, and maybe look up some common phrases to familiarize yourself with." With that, she returned to her desk. We must've been given a few minutes of free time.

The whole time she was talking, I was half listening to her, and half listening to a couple of boys sitting behind us. I caught a couple words like girl and she, but they were talking way too fast.

Piper startled me by whipping her head around and glaring at one of the boys. Then she hissed something in french and before I knew it, there was a whisper match going on between our two tables.

Eventually, Piper seemed to win, and the two boys looked away. Just in time, too. The bell went, signalling the end of the first period at Goode.

"What were you guys talking about?" I asked Piper on the way out the door. She had totally downplayed her french skills.

She seemed to be debating whether or not to tell me. Finally, she said, "let's just say they made a few uncomplimentary remarks about how old you look and about your french." She gave me a look that didn't say pity, but something closer to an apology, as if it had been her fault. Which it wasn't.

I sighed. "I guess you can't really blame them. I'm 19."

I looked beside me to try to see what Piper thought about that, but she'd been swept into the river of bodies moving through the halls. Oh well.