Misfits

Chapter 1

            Dusk opened her eyes, feeling groggy. Yawning widely, she reached over and pressed the silent mode on her alarm clock, silencing it. Stretching, she kicked the sheets off of her then got to her feet. She didn’t want to go to school, knowing exactly what to expect when she got there. She ran her fingers through her hair, feeling the reason she hated her life on the top of her head as she did so; feeling the ears pricked up on the top.

            She stretched again, arms above her head, and she felt her tail straiten hard then relax. On the top of her head was what appeared to be the ears of a fox, and her white capped tail added to it.

            No one at school nor anyone outside the house knew about what she hid under a hat and under a dress. When she was young, and the ears and tail first appeared, her parents took her to a doctor, hoping to see if they could be removed. When the doctor had done an X-ray, however, they had found that her entire skeletal figure had changed, making it impossible to do any surgery and have it be safe. According to the doctor, her skeleton didn’t even appear to be human. Dusk’s parents had agreed at that point to leave the ears and tail, and refused to have the doctor preform any tests on her.

            The result of her parent’s refusal had been that she now had to constantly cover her head and wear a dress to hide the ears and tail, the only evidence that she wasn’t normal. Her parents had contacted the school and told them that she would be wearing a Yarmulke to school for religious reasons, though neither she nor her parents were Jewish. The doctor was forbidden to speak due to Doctor-patient confidentiality laws.

            Dusk got dressed, her tail poking through an added hole in the back of her pants, then slipped on a small day dress going down to her ankles, hiding her tail. After straightening her hair, she slipped the Yarmulke over her years, flattening them. Thankfully, she still had her normal ears on the side of her head, though the ones on the top still heard better than anything.

            Dusk sighed as she opened her bedroom door. She really didn’t want to deal with everything today. She grabbed her school bag, threw it over one shoulder, then went down stairs. Her room was connected directly to a staircase, which leaded to the front room and door. When she reached the bottom, she saw to no surprise her dad passed out on the couch. She could smell the hard liquor he had spilled when he had finally passed out.

            She set her bag down then crossed to her father. He had a scruffy beard and alcohol stains down his shirt, though thankfully there was no sick. Dusk tugged a blanket from underneath his feet and threw it over him to keep him warm.

            “See ya, dad,” she said quietly, knowing he couldn’t hear her, then she collected her bag and exited through the front door.

            Many people thought that she had a bad father, but she didn’t think so. He had done his best to raise her after her mother had died. They were going to have a second child, but she had died giving birth, and her would-be brother didn’t make it. That had been when she was eleven, and her father had been stuck with nowhere to go. He had only started hitting the liquor hard lately, and he wasn’t a violent drunk, just a sleepy one. He never drank in front of her either, only when she was asleep or at school. He worked from home, organizing online files. It brought in a fair sized paycheck, so they weren’t poor. Dusk could hardly blame him for wanting to sleep all the time; dreams were a way to escape from everything.

            Dusk lived close enough to Bingham High that she never had to drive or ride the bus. She always was to school within ten minutes, come snow or rain. Without fail, the parking lot of the school came into view within the first few minutes. It was a nice day, not overly cold, only slightly cloudy. Who knows, maybe today would be a good day.