ANGIE. SIXTH PERIOD.
So in Art (Introduction to Fine Arts, technically) they were doing introductions: name, where you’re from, ‘one interesting fact about you.’
Art had three rows of these wide work benches, with three seats per workbench and seven benches per row. Angie had snagged the inside row seat of the far back table in the far row. The back corner had already been taken by a girl wearing a light-weight, dark blue hooded long sleeve blouse, slumped in her seat with the hood up, and there were a couple of awkward looking guys at the back table of the near row. Angie had chosen Blue Hood’s table, leaving the seat between them empty. Most of the seats in the class were full, but neither middle seat in the back got filled. No one had wanted to sit between either the weird girls or the awkward guys.
Beth Mishra was three tables in front of Angie. She’d smiled at Angie again when she’d come into the room, but she hadn’t come near. Instead, she settled herself at a bench with two other girls—one had turquoise hair, which was fun.
When the introductions reached Beth, she stood and said, “I’m Elizabeth Mishra, but you can call me Beth. I’m from Seattle. My grandparents were all born here as first generation immigrant children, and my paternal grandfather, paternal grandmother, and maternal grandmother are all elected officials in Seattle, while my maternal grandfather is a federal appeals judge.”
“Yes,” their art teacher, Mst. Iravani, said. She was in her twenties, and there were going to be kids with crushes on her. “Your paternal grandfather is Executive Councillor Chand Mishra, correct?”
“Yes, Mst. Iravani,” Beth replied, nodding.
Turquoise-hair was next. After standing, she said, “I’m Firuzeh Ma. I’m native to Seattle. I can step betweenspace.” That was cool! Ryan would probably want to see that in action. And Angie wondered if she would get on with Evan. She was pretty, and he seemed to like unusual hair colors.
The introductions wound back and forth around the room, until it was down to her and Blue Hood. She stood up. “Name’s Angie McMillan. Don’t call me Angela. I’m from Seattle too. I’m a crittertongue—I can talk to birds and small mammals.”
Another murmur rippled through the class at that. Blue Hood made a noise almost of disgust, and Angie frowned over at her, but she was still slouched, hooded, and facing forward. It’s not like it was super rare or anything, having magic, but a lot of people didn’t know anyone who was magical, innately or otherwise. Some people had dumb opinions about it.
“How marvelous,” Ms. Iravani said. “To understand the songs of birds!”
“Not really,” Angie replied. “They’re mostly vulgar, foul-mouthed little jerks. The only polite birds are the bigger, smarter ones, but they’re still creepy flying dinosaurs.”
Ms. Iravani, and most of the rest of the class, appeared taken aback at that. “Oh. Well, um.” She turned her attention to Blue Hood. “Aubrey, we can pass over you, if you’d like, but I would like you to take your hood off, please.”
Blue Hood was silent for a moment. Then, without standing up or removing the hood, she said, with a trace of a southern accent, “I’m Aubrey Balfour-Contois. I’m from New Orleans.”
For a moment, that seemed like it was going to be it, but then as Ms. Iravani was opening her mouth to speak, Aubrey said, “She’s right about birds.”
“Thank you, Aubrey,” Ms. Iravani said after absorbing that. “I’d still like you to take your hood off, though.”
Aubrey made another little noise of disgust, and, clearly unwillingly, reached up and drew back the hood, revealing long, straight chestnut hair. Angie thought she was beautiful, with full lips and a heart-shaped face, a dainty chin and prominent cheekbones. And she wasn’t even wearing any makeup, though that made the huge dark circles under her eyes easier to see.
Everyone looked at her for a long moment, during which Aubrey’s face flushed, her eyes on the table in front of her as she fidgeted, shifting and squirming as if the eyes upon her were causing her physical discomfort. Then Ms. Iravani said, “Okay class,” drawing eyes back to her, and a little bit of the tension left Aubrey, though her cheeks were still flushed red and her eyes still down.
“So,” Ms. Iravani continued, “We have a little time left, but not a lot, so why don’t you all—” and here she reached behind her desk and picked up a bowl of fruit, “—begin a sketch of this bowl of fruit. The still life is a good way for artists to practice fundamentals, and this sketch will allow me to gauge what skill level each of you currently possesses in drawing.”
There was a general rustling bustle as a roomful of teens produced drawing implements and started sketching fruit.
Angie caught movement in the corner of her eye, and turned to find Aubrey looking her way. Their eyes met. The girl’s eyes were pale—so pale that Angie couldn’t really tell whether they were blue or gray. They made her think of a cloudy December sky at midday—striking, lovely, but a touch startling as well. “Talking to birds was going to be mine,” she said quietly.
“That’s why you made that noise,” Angie said, smiling at the girl. “Sorry ‘bout that.”
The girl returned Angie’s smile with a faint one of her own, though she seemed unpracticed with the expression. “‘Sokay. I’ll forgive you this time.” She turned her attention back to the paper and pencil before her, bending over it and starting to work.
Angie watched her for a moment, but ultimately decided that, A, she didn’t know how Ms. Iravani felt about conversation while they worked, and B, the day had been eventful enough already. She would have time to learn what Aubrey’s deal was.
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EVAN. AFTER SIXTH PERIOD.
Katie Kay waited for Evan and Ryan outside their Japanese classroom. A ways down the hall, Evan spotted Nisha Twighs watching.
“Heeey, guys!” Katie said, walking up to them from the right, smiling widely. She was wearing distressed, besparkled low-slung jeans, a halter top that was just really boobs forward[1], and sharp looking gray heels that were at least seven centimeters tall, which gave her several on Evan. “How’s it going?”
[1] He’d not interacted with her since she’d developed those, but this seemed perfectly Katie Konigsmann to Evan.
Evan glanced at Ryan. Ryan rolled his eyes.
Evan looked at Katie and said, “Katie, you do realize it’s been close to three years since you last talked to us, right?”
Katie’s smile cracked. “Yes, well, these things happen sometimes,” she said, clearly only keeping the friendly note in her voice with effort. “It certainly wasn’t my idea. Not much you can do when a Bakili heiress wants a thing, after all. Still, seems like the winds are blowing in a different direction, so I’m willing to let bygones be bygones, you know?”
“Katie,” Ryan said, “Who the piss do you think you’re kidding? We know the impetus for everything came from your filthy lies.”
“You monster,” Evan added.
Now Katie was more or less just baring her teeth at them. Speaking through her teeth as well, she said, “Well, I just thought that maybe if we take a minute to talk, we could smooth things over. Have a fresh start, you know?”
“Katie,” Evan said, trying to put every bit of scorn in the universe into his words. “We know you hated us while we still hung out! You ruined the last three years of our lives! What the shit do you think you’re going to accomplish here? I’ll hate you forever and I hope you get eaten alive by ants, and then go to the coldest operating hell possible.” Katie hated the cold.
Katie closed her eyes, taking several deep, audible breaths through her nostrils, before opening her eyes again and saying, “I wouldn’t go so far as to say I hated you. You may not have been my favorite people but I didn’t hate you, and this whole thing was not my idea. And you know, people change, we’re all adults now, and it seems like Megan wants to reconnect with you guys, so I thought I’d be the first to say we support her, totally.” She tried one last, unconvincing smile.
“Katie, you may be able to fool the people you suck up to,” Ryan said, “But your terrible lies are obvious and insulting to us, and you’d be better off jumping in the lake with a cinderblock strapped to your back than trying to convince us of whatever you want to convince us. You’ll have more fun.”
“Gods damn it all,” Katie said, the last of her forced friendliness gone. “You guys are the worst. I can’t believe this. Everything was going so well.”
“You can’t possibly have believed your charade would have lasted into high school,” Ryan replied.
“I don’t believe it lasted as long as it did,” Katie said. “Couldn’t believe my luck, really. I didn’t really expect it to last, but I didn’t expect you just showing up out of the blue with Megan, either. Can’t believe we all dropped our fucking coffee.”
“What are we doing now, Katie? Are we just trading insults? Can we leave?” Evan asked, trying to sound bored, and hoping she would die of an aneurysm right there on the spot.
Katie’s spiteful expression slipped, and Evan could see fear underneath. She took a deep breath, and then, obviously being honest now, “Please. Please guys, please, please. I can’t lose their friendship! Megan and Lauren’s. My parents won’t ever forgive me. My mom will die if she doesn’t get to see Megan anymore, my dad will be furious about—if I’ve alienated Lauren and Nisha. I don’t even know what’s going to happen if they—” She cut herself off.
“If they what?” Ryan asked, raising an eyebrow halfway to his hairline. “If your parents find out what you did to us? Is that what you don’t know?”
Katie Kay said, “Please, guys. You don’t have to, like, forgive me, just… I don’t know. Tell Megan and Lauren I’m redeemable! I am! I swear, this was the worst mistake of my life—” Behind her, Nisha was slowly approaching.
“And now you’re lying again, come on,” Evan said. “You were so fucking happy when you said you couldn’t believe your luck that I know you were telling the truth. You don’t think it’s the worst—”
“I do! Because I don’t think Lauren or Megan will forgive me if you don’t… if you don’t help me,” Katie said, that real fear still there. “I can’t—I’ll do anything. Anything.”
“Anything?” Evan asked, raising his own eyebrow.
“Anything. I’ll be your slave, Evan, your toy, I’ll do whatever you want, whenever you want, I’ll—”
Evan made a face that shut her right up. “Ugh!” he said. “No! I was going to say—”
“‘Then perish,’ yeah, I get it, I’ve heard of memes,” Kay said, returning to her default state of annoyingly annoyed. “Fucking whatever. I’d do whatever you want, and you just want to insult me with interweb jokes. I’m utterly shitfucked.” Behind her, Nisha’s cheek twitched. She stood a few meters back, just one more thing to draw more attention to themselves.
Evan snapped, “Katie, take your pisstongue and get the shit out of here. I’m not going to take fucking advantage of you in exchange for lying and saying you’re not a monster. I’d never pull it off, for one. I’m as terrible a liar as you are. Worse, I’d guess.”
“Fine!” Katie said, with literal tears in her eyes. “Fine. Ruin my life. That’s just fine.”
“You ruined ours,” Evan and Ryan deadpanned together.
As was typical for her, she ignored them. “You’ll regret this, though. I could have been a powerful ally. I’m going to—”
“LEAVE,” Nisha Twighs said behind her. Katie spun around, and quailed at her expression. “GO.”
Katie went.
Nisha spent several moments taking deep breaths, looking at the ground. Then she looked up at them, whispered, “I’m sorry,” before she herself went.
They stood in the girls’ wake. Evan pursed his lips. “I would love to go more than like two hours without making a spectacle out of ourselves. We could have just ignored her.”
“Better to get it out of the way,” Ryan said with a shrug.