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

Chapter 42: New Students

Samantha rolled out of bed as her alarm sounded. She groaned and slapped the 'off' button as she reluctantly untangled her paws from her blanket.

She went on to doing her daily routine of shaking Elena awake, washing up, changing and checking if Elena had gotten out of bed. Fortunately for Samantha, Elena had somehow managed to wake up on Samantha's third try of shaking her awake and had sleepily padded into the bathroom to get ready for the day.

Samantha checked her schedule - English, History, Free Period, PE, and Maths - and quickly packed for the day.

"You're surprisingly early," Samantha remarked as Elena exited the bathroom. "What's with the new change?"

"Probably because I slept earlier." Elena replied as she pawed through her drawers. "Ah, found it. I just need to touch up and we can go get breakfast."

Samantha watched as Elena trotted back into the bathroom. After a minute or so, Elena exited and tossed whatever she'd been holding back into her drawer.

"You look... absolutely the same." Samantha squinted at Elena. "Did you... do something to your face?"

"It's called a natural look for a reason." Elena smiled. "It may look like I've done nothing, but the makeup just adds and extra... hue to it."

"Hue? Makeup? What?" Samantha squinted at Elena's face and finally noticed the slightly pinkish tint on her cheeks. "Oh."

Elena giggled and picked up her bag. "Well, there's no need to stare. Come on, let's go!"

---

"Oh, great, it's Abbey." Samantha whispered as they entered the canteen. To their surprise, a few tables had been moved over to create a large corridor of space in the middle. Abbey herself was standing at the front, holding a clipboard as usual, and flanked by a sleepy Riley and a nervous Kiera.

"So Sharon was right!" Elena whispered back as their eyes travelled along to the line in front of Abbey. It was made up of mostly other species and was significantly shorter compared to the line they had to partake in barely a week ago.

The two quickly grabbed meals from the counter and sat down nearby to discretely watch.

"Name, hobbies and powers?" Abbey's voice floated through the near empty canteen.

"My name is Serena Pepper!" A sweet, high pitched voice replied. "I love to sew and create plushies! If you're interested, here's a plushie I made a while ago - meet Cali!"

"You... named your plushie?"

Samantha craned her neck to see who Abbey was talking to. There was a petite but very pretty butterfly wolf cuddling what appeared to be a cat plushie at the very front. Her butterfly-like wings - which were nearly as large as the wolf herself - was a rosy brown-pink and streaked with pale green. Her thick, fluffy tail was striped with brown, pink and green, and a red and white flower on a green headband were perched in front of her ears.

"Of course I did! I name all of my plushies, after all." Serena giggled. "And my power?"

There was a moment of silence and a short giggle. Abbey's voice - suddenly sounding rushed and tense - floated over to the two. "Rank 2... and your dorm is..."

"Wow, a butterfly wolf! I've only seen them once or twice in my life... do you think butterfly wolves are descendants of wolves or foxes?" Elena whispered, drowning out whatever Abbey was saying.

"Er, I don't know. I mean, they are called butterfly wolves, so, er, wolves?"

"But they have such tiny, delicate features! And how did they become a species anyways?"

"I don't know." Samantha replied honestly, her attention already drawn away by the next person in line.

———

"Hey, Sam, stop staring. We have to get to our next class." Elena prodded Samantha with a paw. "Saaam...."

"Hm...?" Samantha snapped back to reality and glanced up at the clock. Her eyes widened with shock and she leaped out of her seat. "Oh, shoot, we're going to be late!"

Elena stood up as well and picked up her tray. "Didn't want to wake you. Well, let's go."

"I wasn't sleeping!" Samantha retorted, but Elena had already bounced away to put away her tray.

———

"Now, we are going to analyse - achoo! - how the characters are portrayed in the first scene, starting with the three witches..."

Samantha could hardly hear what Mr Carter was saying. Her attention was drawn away by several of the new students in the room - two ponies - or horses, she wasn't too sure - a butterfly wolf lacking... well, actually butterfly wings - and a bat. The bat was so tiny that she'd originally thought that the desk had been empty until the little furred creature had jumped onto the table.

I wonder what their powers are...

"Sam!" Elena hissed into Samantha's ear. Samantha jumped in her seat and snapped back to reality. "Hm? Yes? What?"

"We finished reading that page ten minutes ago," Elena replied in a hushed voice, "and he's giving out worksheets on the first scene right now!"

"Oh." Samantha skimmed through the rest of the pages on Scene 1 and shrugged. "Well, at least I have the book with me. I'll just... You know, guess through it or something."

Mr Carter put down several sheets of paper on Samantha's table. Elena grabbed two and padded one to Samantha. "Here."

"Thanks." Samantha read through the questions and shrugged. "Well, at least most of it's multiple choice. That's not too bad."

She snuck a peek at the rest of her classmates to see how they were doing. Most had already finished four of the multiple choice questions and were moving on to the next page.

"Better catch up then..." she muttered to herself as she scribbled down her name at the top.

———

"Please put your worksheets in the middle of the table before you leave the room. Dismissed - achoo!"

Samantha quickly scribbled down a random answer for the last two questions and dropped her sheet on top of the steadily increasing pile of papers in the middle.

"Ah, er, Ms Parker, would you mind...?" Mr Carter's eyes flickered over to the black and white furred pony by the window.

"Actually, I do mind. But it's not like it matters anyway." 'Ms Parker' sniffed haughtily and trotted over to the papers. She picked them up carefully with her teeth and clopped over to Mr Carter.

She dropped them on his desk and trotted back to her seat with a bit of an indignant air to her. Mr Carter seemed very taken aback by her attitude and could only stare after the pony.

"Ah... er..."

"Dismissed?" Vivian offered helpfully. After a three second delay, Mr Carter nodded. "Er, dismissed."