This ain't a diary, this is a - mirror?

Chapter 23: My DT Teacher's Apparently a Dragon... and Graphics

"Alright! I assume you're all done, so, time to learn about safety in the kitchen!" Ms Derin abruptly exclaimed. She padded over to the whiteboard and picked up the marker. "Now, what dangerous things are there to look out for in a kitchen?" She asked.

"Fire," one student called. "Hot ovens," another student chimed in.

Ms Derin wrote the words down on the board with shaky paws. "Okay, anything else?"

It was extremely quiet for a few seconds. Suddenly, Ms Derin's eyes glinted and seemed to glow. She shot over to a student on the table to Samantha's left impossibly quickly with a serpentine hiss. Her wings unfolded - to Samantha's shock, they were much bigger than before - and her tail appeared to be more serpentine. Her tail thrashed and she hissed something into the student's ear.

The student grew pale. She slithered back over to her seat - her arms and legs had vanished, must to everyone's surprise, and her pupils had become slits.

Her legs and arms slowly slid out of her sides and fur sprouted across her feathered and scaly body. Her pupils widened and became normal and she sighed. "Oh dear, I might've lost control there. It's been a long time since I've had to encounter rude students." She smiled back at the class. "Anyways, where was I again...?"

Samantha spared a glance over to the still petrified student. To her surprise, it was Oscar - the very student who had transformed into a dragon in Art class.

She spent the lesson quite distracted. She hardly heard the bell signalling the end of class and only started packing up when someone jostled her as they were standing up.

Samantha watched as Oscar bolted out of the classroom before anyone else. "Huh. I wonder what that's about." She said to herself as she put her books back in her backpack.

As she exited the classroom, she caught various murmurs and whispers: "Do you think she threatened to kill him?" "What did he even say?"

As Samantha padded out of the classroom, she felt something wrap around her ankle. The action sent sudden chills through her and she spun around to check. There was nothing there.

The student behind her - the extremely short pup - barked with annoyance as Samantha abruptly halted. "Don't just stop there!" She yelped in a high pitched voice.

"Fine, fine, sorry," Samantha grumbled, turning back around. "Who even let a pup into a high school anyways?"

The short dog's hackles flared. "Ex-cuse me, Ms High and Mighty, I'm not any 'pup'! My name is Lily Cresient - you better remember that name - and I'm just as smart - in fact, smarter - than all of you! I just have PPS syndrome, that's all - in fact, I bet I'm older than some of you!" She stormed away, her sudden outburst leaving some students gaping.

Samantha stared after her, feeling very confused indeed. "Well, I just scolded by a... pup," she said to herself.

---

"Welcome to Internet Technology," the grey furred dog said quietly as they paced in front of the room. They were dressed surprisingly casually - they wore an oversized, blue Christmas-themed sweater and a 'wolf' hat that Samantha had to admit was cute. He squinted at everyone through his thick glasses. "My name is Mr Grey Pix. We will be starting with Photoshop techniques. First, open your computers, and open Photoshop..."

Elena leaned over to Samantha and whispered, "How was DT?" as she opened her computer.

"Well... interesting." Samantha replied, as she opened and switched on her laptop. "You know, uh, him?" She nodded towards Oscar, who still looked petrified.

"Uh, he transformed into a dragon in Art, right?" Elena asked, looking confused. "Yeah, what happened?"

"Apparently, according to the teacher, he said something rude and she immediately went full on dragon mode and said something into his ear. And now he's just like this." Samantha replied.

"Weird," Elena commented. "Maybe it's a dragon thing?"

"A... dragon thing?" Samantha echoed. "I didn't think of that... that actually might be the reason. Do dragons have their own language?"

"I assume so, yeah," Elena quickly opened Photoshop. "In DT, we're doing Electronics, which is apparently... something about soldering and circuitboards. Boring stuff."

"Food tech with my class. We're going to be making lots of food, like pancakes and cupcakes." Samantha answered as she opened Photoshop as well.

"Lucky... sounds delicious," Elena began, but she was interrupted by Mr Pix.

"Now, class, we will be learning about resolution... what can you tell me about resolution?"

Vivian's paw shot up. "Yes, Ms... Blackwood?"

"Resolution is the number of pixels in an image... or a computer monitor. It determines how pixellated or sharp the image is." Vivian replied. Mr Pix nodded. "Correct. Now, the less pixels an image has, the more pixellated it appears, and the more pixels it has, the less pixellated it appears. Now, try finding a image will a low resolution and high resolution, then try resizing the smaller image - usually the low resolution image - so it becomes the same size as the larger image. Write about it in your IT document..."

Samantha sighed and got on with the work. She chose the first images that came up when she searched high resolution image and low resolution image. She put it in her Photoshop document and resized the smaller image.

"It says... er, it's a 'smart object' and I have to... do something with it?" Samantha squinted at the text.

"Just find the Rasterise button, then press 'Smart Object'." Vivian said immediately.

"Uh... thanks." Samantha replied, surprised at the suddenly response. She did as Vivian had said and tried to move the image again. "Hey, it works!"

"You're welcome." Vivian replied, her eyes focused on her own screen. Samantha continued with her work, rubbing her eyes in between to try relieve the sleepiness she felt.

She typed out a relatively short paragraph and saved the document. "You done yet?" She whispered to Elena.

"I need to find a nice, aesthetic image for my IT document... just give me a second," Elena said, scrolling through the pages and pages of images.

Samantha sighed and looked over to Mr Pix. He seemed to be tapping away at his computer, taking sips of coffee in between as he did so.

Samantha pulled out her diary and stared at the blue ombre cover for a few seconds. She retrieved her favourite dark blue pen and opened it to the next blank page, then began to write.