Philadelphia High was exactly what I expected. The building was bright and shiny, students in the parking lot. We had to wake up quite early to get here. And all the way, we had been stared at. It's pain to keep yourself this calm. Ignoring something like this is not easy. I could tell Cleo felt insecure. At some points, we'd break into a run. We were running when we arrived at school. Both of us stopped, stared ahead at the bright and shiny building.
"So this is it, right?" Cleo said, mostly to herself.
"Yeah, no backing out now."
We walked.
The environment in there was, well, the usual sort of environment that there's always been. Cars driving in, some would walk in. Most of the cars were expensive, of models that I don't even remember or know the names of. It was funny seeing dwarves in there. They'e small but well-built. They're mean.
The centaurs are the only one who sympathize our race. When war broke out, they even helped us. I was helped by one. You never had a chance of survival till a centaur helped you.
Leprechauns seemed a bit weird to me. They're all red-heads with surprisingly bright and sharp green eyes. But their skin is beautiful. It's like someone sprinkled golden glitter on them. They can easily convince you t do something. I once passed this cafe made separately for them. It was weird, since it looked like there was fire in that little cafe.
I kept having second thoughts when I reached the entrance, I'd completely forgot about Cleo. But I never backed off.
For now, no one recognized us. Our features aren't much different from elves or mermaids, mermaids were given special ornaments to help them change their flippers in t feat when they traveled on land. No-one paid much attention, everyone was busy in talking or waiting or writing or whatever.
A group of dwarves sat near a flashy car, all of a sudden, they started laughing loud. I despised that laughter. It brought back painful memories.
The front office was a small cube shaped room. It's door opened up to the parking lot. A plump woman walked about in there, her height was short. A dwarf.
She pulled out our schedules when we told her our names, with a tight-lipped smile.
Unfortunately, we had only two classes together. Literature and History. Looking down at my schedule, I addressed Cleo, "Promise me you won't get into trouble."
She murmured a reluctant, "I will." And walked off to her class. Some time alone in tough situations help. It'll probably take her a few days to get used to coming here, but we're pretty sure that we'll never really like this place. Once the other students found out who we were, they would definitely do something to irritate us. I had Trigonometry first. I was good at it. I was always good at Maths and my future career would be in engineering.
Trig class was empty, except for a man sitting at the teacher's desk. I knocked at the door twice before entering.
"Are you a new student?"
I nodded my head.
"Pull a seat here for yourself."
I threw my bag next to a desk and pulled out a seat for myself. He was probably the teacher. The man had long black hair, longer than mine and prettier too.They They were dead straight. I couldn't really describe his skin but it made me think of sun and peaches. The tip of his ears peeked at me from his hair.
"Introduce yourself."
"My name's Skye Millar. I'm seventeen, human'-I expected his face to twist in disgust but it didn't-'and I've transferred to this school with my neighbor Cleo Clark to finish our senior year."
He simply stood up and walked to the cabinet, pulled out a textbook and handed it to me.
"Now Miss Millar, you may sit where ever you want. I won't stand trouble in my class, I know that's a lot to ask but I expect you to understand. Oh and my names Dmitri Crawford. You'll probably like this class than the others since kids prefer to bunk this class. Anyways, bell's about to ring...Take a seat."
And just as he said that, the bell rang. I pulled my seat back to one of the front desks. The teacher's politeness surprised me. Besides centaurs, no one treated humans as equals. We were trash as far as they were concerned. Just like he said, only a few came to class. I busied myself by guessing everyone's race. A total of five centaurs, three dwares, one elf, no mermaid, no wizard, two pixies, zero leprechauns entered the class.
Mister Crawford started his lecture with an introduction of me.
"Now class, I sure you're all well aware by the new rules that the government has set out for humans. They're allowed to study next to us. Ms Skye Millar'-he pointed at me-' is here to finish her last year of school with you. She's human. And I don't want any of you troubling her. Same goes for you Ms Millar. Got it everyone? Good, let's start"
Everyone stared hard at me. That introduction wasn't necessary. The centaurs had an expression of pity which disgusted me. The elf just stared. The pixie and the mermaid looked like someone just threw shit in their faces. The dwares stared furiously. In some way, Cleo resembles dwarves. Both act on impulse. But Cleo's taller. I was worried abut her. Hopefully, she'll be on her best and try not to fight.
I started writing notes about the lecture. Occasionally, someone would stare at me or a hate note would arrive on my desk, I would just throw them away without reading them.
Dmitri was right about other classes. Hate mail doubled, glares doubled, insults doubled. Basically anything bad towards us doubled. It annoyed us. Lunch was the worst and after a while I ust walked into the empty halls and sat beside the lockers with Cleo.
"It's so annoying Skye. They're all just....jerks. A friggin pixie blocked my way to class during fourth period cuz you know why? I'm human." She narrowed her eyes with a bored expression and I chuckled.
"Don't worry, we'll get used to it.Things'll tone down after a bit. They always do."
"Yeah right whatever. Just this whole year right?"
I loved her sarcastic tone, it always made me smile.
"Yep, just this whole year with the hypocrites! Calm down will ya?"
The bell startled me and I started looking at my left. Cafeteria door...
I heard them coming in this direction. After saying a silent 'see you' to Cleo, I walked on to History which was increasingly difficult for me since I had to study the history of all these creatures too. He was nice to me and now I have to stay at school for about 30 minutes late so he can help us catch up. I glared at Cleo when she opened her mouth. I knew she'd say nothing good.
That day, it was a relief to be back, to have a break from all the hate. Nothing interesting happened. It was quite boring and same as my old school if you put all the hate mail aside. We obviously didn't make friends. Maybe we'll go through after all.
