The Soot Princess [Hiatus]

42- It's High School, Your Highness!

Prince Dean Eingall

My homeroom teacher started with the last name Wilkins. He went through the alphabet backwards reading from a list on the podium. After every last name, there would be a call back from a student with a variation of the word "here." I wonder what Eevon's is? I don't know it.

"E-Evan?"

"Eevon. Here," she corrected him.

"I apologize, Eevon and if you don't mind me asking, why is there not a last name listed?"

"I do not have one..."

The classroom exploded into chatter on why she has no last name. Is it because of the orphanage?

"Settle down!" Mr. Brunswick hollered over the chatter. Silence followed his command shortly after. "One last name, Charles Eingall."

"Here," I hollered out.

He put a mark on his sheet and said, "You may now talk."

The room suddenly became quite loud. Many people were talking all at once. A hoard of classmates surrounded me. "What class do you have next?" "Are you dating anyone?" "Will you go out with me?" a bold one asked. I immediately shut that one down. I didn't know how to respond. All of my "people" training and public events had nothing on a swarm of teenage students with ulterior motives.

The bell rang to signal for the class to end. It was my savior... Oh! Now I know where that saying comes from. Saved by the bell, literally.

I followed the stream of classmates out the door. Everyone was watching me make my way down the corridor. I stopped in the hall and knelt down to get my schedule from inside my backpack. The next thing I knew, my bag was flying away from my hands. It only went a few feet towards the wall.

"Move it prissy boy! This is high school. No stopping in the middle of the hallway."

I glanced up and saw no one recognizable towering over me. Is this the school bully? A voice in my head and a sensation from my fingertips? I picked up my bag and moved to crouch against the wall, heeding the advice.

After digging in my backpack for the folded sheet of paper, I rezipped it and stood to merge my way back into traffic. I heard an announcement through the intercom, faintly, over the racket. I did not hear my name in the list, Mason's was. I wonder what he got himself into, this early?

I walked into my math class behind a group of students. They were chatting about a cell phone app. One of them had it out; it was a trivia type game. There were six different categories for information and you spin a wheel to determine your choice. They chose to sit in front of me. The bell rang and Mrs. Young welcomed everyone, then called role. She started with a and went on from there.

She drew three shapes on the board. "Can anyone tell me what this shape is?"She pointed to the first shape.

I raised me hand in the air.

"Prince Charles?"

"Me?" I asked.

"Yes."

"A triangle."

"And how many degrees does it have?"

"Huh?"

"How many degrees?"

My desk mate slipped a piece of paper to me. It read 180. "180!" I yelled before she had time to ask someone else.

"Correct. Now this is..."

I took my own pencil and wrote "Thanks" on the back and slid it toward her.

She bobbed her head in response. Several times during class I spotted her staring at me. She turned her attention back to the board as if she hadn't been looking each time I caught her.