Present Day, January

Steve Dodson was busy doodling in class, drawing shapes on his tablet rather than typing notes. It was a Friday afternoon, right after lunch, and it was also a really cloudy day outside. The topic of the period was ‘The Difference Between Isotopes and Ions’, which was being delivered by a really old, obviously bootlegged video. It was completely uninteresting, since the presenter was a British man with a dull, boring voice who was quite clearly only doing the video for money. The subtitles at the bottom were in a language Steve couldn’t understand, and were no help.

Steve worked on his picture some more. He wasn’t really a good artist, but the ‘Undo’ function compensated for that. At least you could tell what the picture was: a crude portrait of one of his friends, Princess Rachel.

Now, as for why he’d have a friend who was also a princess, even though he lived in a world with hardly any monarchies anymore, well, that was a bit of a secret. Actually, it was a big secret. A few months before, Steve and his close friend Hannah had been taken away to another world entirely, a medieval fantasy world called Charminia, by an evil Emperor. Steve had had to defeat the Emperor to come home, although he remembered little of it, making him a Hero. One of his companions on the journey had been the Princess of Marisia, Princess Rachel, whose kingdom was enemies with the Emperor’s. The Emperor had impersonated one of her best friends and started hitting on her for reasons nobody really understood, so Steve’s arrival had been most opportune.

“Hey Steve!” a voice called suddenly. It was a girl’s voice, and Steve looked around the room for the source, especially since the voice was loud. However, none of the other students seemed to have noticed the call, which meant it had been a mental communication.

“What is it, Nadine?” Steve responded back silently. It was basically telepathy, a trick he’d picked up in Marisia during his trip there. Nadine, another friend of his from Marisia, had come back to Earth with him when he’d returned, and since they both knew magic, they tended to use telepathy a lot when people were around or they weren’t next to each other. The telepathy in particular was handy because it was much faster than simply texting each other, and you still got all the nonverbal cues from a face to face conversation. Plus, it was impossible to monitor with modern technology, so they could have whole conversations in complete secret.

“Teresa just asked me if I’d seen the movie George the Boar, and I said no, but now I’m kind of curious as to what it is.”

Despite Nadine having no knowledge of Earth when she’d first arrived, she’d learned quickly how to act and behave, and especially liked the Internet since it answered most of the questions she had. She was very inquisitive, so it had helped a lot.

The more pressing problem was that she would be expected to go to school since she couldn't wander the city by herself and would go stir-crazy being at Steve's house all day. After some thought, Steve had decided to try a version of the Mind Merge he and Rachel had done last fall in order to share all his school knowledge. This allowed her to be in seventh grade while skipping every grade before it while not being left in the dust by her classmates. It was a cool fix, but it also led to problems since Nadine frequently didn’t realize she knew an answer to a question and looked quite silly when the answer suddenly popped in her head. It made her look a little ditzy, to be honest, which had actually helped her school popularity since she was also fairly pretty and sociable.

“It’s an R-rated comedy about this guy named George who wants to make a name for himself with women,” Steve replied, not going into too much detail about it. He’d told Nadine before that the rating systems for movies, TV shows, and video games were there for a reason, and she’d learned he was right the hard way when she’d accidentally watched a horror movie filled with blood and gore and had passed out from shock. That experience had taught her to respect the rating systems regardless of her curiosity.

“Wait, Teresa’s been watching that kind of movie?” Nadine said in surprise. “I’m going to ask her about it!”

There was silence for a moment as Nadine and Teresa talked in real life. They were in another part of the school, so Steve couldn’t hear their conversation. “She said her brother had watched it, so she was curious what it was about,” Nadine reported after a moment.

“Tell her it’s a movie geared for guys and that she shouldn’t touch it,” Steve responded.

“Sure! Thanks!” Nadine responded, before shutting off communications. Steve went back to his picture, but the conversation had distracted him enough that he hadn’t noticed the teacher, Mr. Dawes, had come up behind him.

“Well, it seems someone had a good reason for zoning out in my class,” Mr. Dawes said, looking at his picture. Steve quickly tried to delete the picture before any of his nosy classmates saw it and started spreading rumors, but Mr. Dawes used his teacher’s wand, which was basically a remote that controlled every electronic device in the classroom, to lock the computer, keeping Steve from doing anything. Then he did something even worse by hitting another button, causing Steve’s display to suddenly show up on the front screen, overriding the still-playing movie.

The class took one look between Steve and the picture before simultaneously bursting out laughing. Steve fumed, his face flushed. Mr. Dawes wasn’t really a jerk teacher, but he was well known for using public humiliation as a punishment instead of more traditional punishments like writing students up. He was also a little kooky, so he probably didn’t even notice the movie was as bad as it was. Some of the other students took pictures of the front screen to put on social media, which he naturally didn’t notice.

There were two people in the class who weren’t laughing. The first was his friend Hannah, who had gone to Marisia and met Princess Rachel, so she was actually more alarmed at the picture going online than amused at Steve’s predicament. The other person was Steve’s ex-girlfriend, Clarissa, who looked completely stunned. While their break-up the previous summer hadn’t gone over well with Steve, he knew she still had feelings for him and wanted to keep going. Problem was, after what had happened, he wasn’t sure whether he wanted it to keep going, even after she’d explained that she’d acted so cruelly because of several deaths in her family and her inexperience with relationships. They were on amicable terms, but Steve still didn't really trust her.

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Once the laughter had died down, Mr. Dawes shut off the screen and turned the classroom lights back on, which made the students blink from the brightness. “Now that I have your attention, I have an announcement to make. There will be a Valentine’s Day Dance on Saturday February 13 at 7 PM in the Gym. Tickets will go on sale next Monday. They’ll be thirty dollars per student and twenty-five each for a couple. The theme is, let’s see-” He pulled out his phone and checked his email “-Romeo and Juliet! It says here that it’s a ‘medieval masquerade ball,’ whatever that means. Masks will be provided, but costumes will not.” He used his teacher's wand to transfer his email on to the big screen so people could see the details. “You can ask the teachers in charge if you have any questions. There will be a contest partway through and the best dressed couple will receive five points extra credit apiece in a class of their choosing. And with that, you’re free to go!”

There was a loud scraping of chairs as the students gathered their belongings and headed for the door, chatting excitedly about the dance. Steve was still furious about being publicly shamed, but he knew better than to make a fuss about it, because that would mean even more people would learn about it than if he did nothing. He hoped the dance notice would keep people from talking about it, and it worked to a degree. Unfortunately, it didn’t work on his friends, as he found out a few minutes later.

“Well, if it isn’t Mr. Casanova!” his friend Alan exclaimed, coming out of nowhere and clapping Steve on the shoulder. “Who’s the supermodel?”

“Really, you think she’s a supermodel from that crappy picture?”

“Well, yeah, because I know your type!” Alan responded cheerfully. His other friend, Jamal, was standing behind Alan looking just as amused by the situation as Alan.

“Oh really? So what’s my type?” Steve asked coolly, opening his locker and taking the stuff he needed out.

“Pretty, smart, super-bossy,” Alan responded immediately.

“Clarissa wasn’t bossy,” Jamal pointed out.

“Oh, are you kidding? She was always telling me to shut up!” Alan retorted.

“That’s because you talk too much and when you talk to girls you don’t think with your brain,” said Steve. Jamal cracked up at this while Alan looked annoyed.

Before Alan could retort, they were distracted by a guy being kicked into a locker. “Next time I’ll aim lower!” Hannah shouted, looking absolutely livid, as the guy she’d just kicked picked himself up.

“You don’t know what you’re missin’ out on, girl,” the guy said. He and his friends quickly left the area, though. Hannah made a rude hand gesture to their backs as they left.

“Screw those…jerks!” Hannah exclaimed hotly, coming over to the three guys. “Like I’d go to the dance with those losers! They’re just like Alan, not thinking with their brains!”

Steve and Jamal both cracked up at this, since it came out of nowhere and was so close to their own conversation. “Says the girl that turns into a huge fangirl whenever a cute girl shows up!” Alan retorted.

“Oh, I’m not falling for that trap,” said Hannah, changing the subject. That was one thing about Hannah; she was always happy to talk most of the time, but bring up something personal and she’d quickly change the subject. Or anything regarding a case she was working as a wannabe high school detective; she always kept mum about those, too. “Alan, Kirbi wanted me to give you this.” She reached into her bag and pulled out an ink pen, which she gave to Alan. “She says you left it at her desk earlier.”

“Oh, thanks,” said Alan, putting the pen in his pocket. Then he quickly left the scene.

“What was that about?” Steve asked in surprise.

“Relationship troubles,” said Hannah. “In other words, don’t ask.” Then she turned to Steve. “The girl in the picture earlier – is she someone you know?”

Hannah knew perfectly well who Rachel was, as they both knew. The only reason she was feigning ignorance was because Jamal was there. “Yeah, we met last fall,” said Steve.

“Well, if you’re drawing pictures of her in class, that must mean you think she’s cute or something, right?”

Jamal made to record their conversation for posterity, but Hannah wordlessly stopped him, all the while not taking her gaze off Steve. Then she gestured for Jamal to leave, which he quickly did. Hannah had gotten in trouble before for physical violence, so he knew better than to cross her. The only reason she hadn’t been suspended for the bus fight last fall was because Steve’s dad, Eric, was a cop, and he had vouched for her the same as Steve. “All right, he’s gone,” said Steve. “Now quit it with the teasing.”

“I’m not teasing,” said Hannah. “I’m legitimately curious. Have you been taking secret trips back to Marisia over the weekends or something?”

“No.”

“OK, maybe I am teasing,” Hannah admitted. “When a guy draws a picture of a girl that generally means he’s interested. So here’s my question: are you interested or is there something else going on I don’t really need to know about?”

“I was just bored is all,” said Steve. “And I wasn’t about to draw a picture of someone everybody knows. That would be super awkward.”

“You don’t want to draw a picture of me?” Hannah teased. She stepped back and ran her hand through her hair.

“Not unless there’s something you want to tell me first,” Steve shot back.

“Wow, you’ve gotten better at comebacks,” Hannah remarked. “Well, we’ve got to get to class, so I’ll let it go for now. But I don’t think she will.” She jerked her head over Steve’s shoulder before walking away. Steve looked around to see Nadine standing there, arms crossed.

“What’s with the Rachel impression?” Steve asked, approaching her as Hannah left.

“That was careless earlier,” said Nadine, no longer sounding cheerful, which was a major red flag. She was almost always cheerful and perky. That was probably why she had her dirty blonde hair up in a ponytail and was wearing a fashionable mid-winter outfit. Her gaze, though, was like ice, which actually scared Steve.

“I wasn’t expecting to get caught,” Steve admitted.

“Naw, really?” Nadine said sarcastically. “Anyways, be more careful, all right? How do we know they don’t have some database somewhere with Rachel’s picture in it?”

“You are seriously overreacting,” said Steve. “Besides, didn’t Teresa catch you surfing the Internet using magic last week?”

Nadine considered this. “OK, fair point. But Teresa’s not very tech-savvy, so she believed me when I told her it was a script I downloaded. The picture’s a whole different matter.” Suddenly her stern tone dropped and she returned to her normal happy-go-lucky personality. “Steve, just be careful, all right? I like living here, and if I have to leave I’d rather it be on my own terms.” Then she turned around and went back to class, twirling the hall pass on her finger.

“Note to self: be super careful around her,” Steve thought. That girl was always trying to tease him, so it was sometimes difficult to tell when she was actually serious about something. When she was, well, it was best to disappear somewhere.