Witches in Training (#2 in the Witches Trilogy) [rewrites ongoing]

Chapter Three: Kieran in the House

VERA

I sit in the room, really bored, Jamie left ages ago and my next class doesn't start for ten minutes. I resort to digging out a scrap of paper and playing Tic Tac Toe by myself.

"Hey," someone says. A girl with impossibly straight dark hair pulled into a low ponytail that I vaguely recognise comes in, slinging her bag onto one of the desks. We have the same people in every class so the number of people we get to know is limited. "You're so early."

"My last class was cut short." I say.

"Lucky." The girl says. "I'm Charlotte."

"Vera."

"Vinni's sister, right?"

"Yeah."

"Cool." Charlotte says as another girl comes in. She has a dirty blonde pixie cut and looks the oldest among us three. There's another thing. We aren't sorted for classes by age but by ability. "Paige." She introduces, popping the'p'. "I didn't see you here last year. Did you move up?"

I nod. "Cool." Charlotte says again. "Paige, did you see Anne yet?"

"No," Paige says, "why?"

"She's gone and dyed it." Charlotte says. "It's brown."

Paige rolls her eyes. "Her red hair was awesome. I think the hairspray's killing her brain cells." Charlotte sees my lost expression and laughs.

"Sorry. See, we were all in this class last term, so we know each other. Annabelle was our resident sports girl till she started falling in love with makeup." Charlotte explains. Then, addressing Paige, she says, "are Shaun, Kieran and Jon still with us?"

"Yep." Paige answers, popping her p again.

"Okay, so, Shaun is our jock, Kieran's our artsy guy and Jon's our musician."

I tick cliques off my fingers. "So what are you guys?"

"Paige is our bad girl, I'm the nice one, and you're the new one."

"We're a magical stereotypical cliched American high school." Paige remarks.

"Cool. So-"

"Kieran is in the house!" A boy shouts, grinning wildly, cutting me off. He has floppy blonde hair and a mischievous look. "Hey girls. Miss me?"

Charlotte laughs. "You trying to do Shaun's job, Kieran?"

Kieran dumps his bag on a desk and pulls out a pack of twenty markers and a Nerf gun. He starts doodling on the foam bullets. "Hey, new girl. I'm Kieran."

"I kind of got that. I'm Vera."

"Nice to meet you." He says.

"I'm glad to see someone new." Another guy, maybe thirteen or fourteen, with brown hair, dark highlights and blue eyes says as he walks in with a girl with brown curls and way too much makeup.

"Hey, Anne." Paige sighs.

Annabelle waves. "Hi, Paige." For a girl who looks like she's got half of Sephora loaded on her, her voice is surprisingly un-bimbotic. "Hi Charlotte, Kieran, and..." her voice trails off as she looks at me. "Uh..."

"Vera."

"Vera." She acknowledges.

The guy, who I assume is Shaun since he seems like the jock type, holds out his hand and surprises me by introducing himself as Jonathan.

"The musician?" I say.

"He's crazy good." Charlotte tells me. I raise my eyebrows at him.

"I specialise in ten different instruments and I can play about seven more."