We stealthily snuck towards the bathroom, Emma making sure that no-one was walking in the hallway up ahead so my eyes wouldn’t freak anyone out.

“It’s all clear.” She signed to me to get into the bathroom.

We both ran in and checked the stalls were empty before continuing our conversation.

“Do you know how much time we have left before the lessons start?” I started patting off the dust from my uniform. Emma would need to help me with my back though, as it has some pretty dusty handprints all over.

Emma took her phone from her pocket and showed it to me after looking at it herself. “We-are-going-to-get-yelled-at-O’clock.”

“I will take the blame for it, you didn’t do anything wrong.” After having patted myself down I moved over to Emma’s back to help get rid of her dusty evidence.

“It’s not like you could just tell me you were a vampire… I can say it was a panic attack and you were trying to comfort me, or something like that.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want you to lie for me.”

“Yeah, I’m sure, Auro. I shouldn’t give Miss Edwards even more reasons to dislike you. She already has it out for you as is.”

“Thanks Em.” I smiled and finished dusting off her back.

“That’s what best friends are for.” I could swear I heard a hint of pain in her voice when she said that, but it must’ve been my imagination. Because the smile I could see in the mirror was so devastatingly pure.

“Can you help me with my back too?”

“Sure thing.”

After my eyes had turned back to normal, having cleaned up our uniforms and washed our faces and hands it was time to head back to class and face the deluge of Miss Edwards head on.

“You ready, Em?”

“As ready as I'll ever be.”

“Alright.” I took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

“Come in!” Miss Edwards’ voice rang out clear as day.

I cautiously opened the door and walked in, with Emma right behind me.

“Ah, it’s Miss Beaumont and Miss Meier. What graces us with your presence at this beautiful time of day?” She was clearly mocking us and a couple of the other students started giggling.

“Miss Edwards, I can explain.” Emma started our defense. “I got a panic attack before the lesson started and Aurora was trying to help me calm down.”

Miss Edwards looked at us sternly, trying to find any holes in our argument. Back in the day, the Spanish Inquisition could surely have used her as one of their most fearsome weapons.

“It’s true, Miss.” President Rosehip stood up from her seat. “I saw Emma running away while crying and Aurora following her immediately after.”

The teacher’s attention turned to the pres. “Is that so?”

“Yes, Miss.”

“Well, who am I to question the word of one of my best students?” She smiled. “Come in and take a seat. Don’t let this happen again.” She didn’t even look back over to us before turning back to the blackboard to write down some kind of vague grammatical rule.

“Thank you, Miss. It won’t happen again.” Both me and Emma answer in chorus before going to our seats. I definitely should buy pres some tea to thank her - she’s really a good person who cares about us, even if she doesn’t always show it.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

The rest of the lesson period progressed as usual with Miss Edwards calling me to the blackboard multiple times to practically humiliate me in front of the class. Although this time, thanks to the lessons Ria-chan has been giving me after school, I actually managed to give a couple of correct answers.

“I see someone finally has started paying attention.” Miss Edwards nodded in approval after my third correct answer in a row.

“You can thank R..Corelia for that, Miss.” I winked at Ria, making her blush quite badly. From where I was standing I could see Claire was teasing her with it as well.

“Thank you Miss Du Bellay for bringing this wayward sheep on the good track.” The attention she got from our teacher didn’t help her blushiness go away, as Miss Edwards finally sent me back to my seat.

“That’ll do it for today. Don’t forget to revise your lessons for tomorrow as there might be a pop-quiz. Especially you, Miss Beaumont, let’s try not to fall from grace again.”

“I’ll definitely try, Miss.”

“See you tomorrow, students.”

“See you tomorrow, Miss Edwards.” The entire class stood up from their chair and only sat back down again after Miss Edwards had left.

“Panic attack, hmm?” Claire swung around my neck the moment Miss Edwards was gone.

“We talked it out, everything is okay now.” I clarified.

“Well, I got to say you both look a lot better than before. Suspiciously so, my little birds.”

I glanced to my right and saw that Emma had difficulties hiding a blush.

“I-it was just good talk, that’s it.” Emma replied.

“I’m glad the harmony has returned to the forest.”

Karin looked over to us and tilted her head. “Forest…?”

“The forest of life, our biome, our habit of course!”

“Aaand there she goes again.” I sighed while Claire was getting deeper and deeper into her theatrical rabbit hole, sucking Karin into it. Though at least this did get Claire off our case.

“I’m glad you two made up.” Pres’ said, appearing right next to Emma while sipping her tea.

“When did you get there?” The surprise made my voice crack a little. “And where did you get that tea from?”

Pres shrugged. “Two minutes ago.”

“You weren’t when I just looked over!”

She shrugged again. “Sounds like a you problem. Tea is from the tea kettle over there by the way.” and pointed towards an electric tea kettle at the front of the classroom.

“Did you notice a tea kettle before?” I turned towards Emma who was equally surprised as me.

“No?”

“I’ve been making and drinking tea from it since the beginning of the school year.”

“First time I’ve seen it.”

President Rosehip sipped from her tea again without saying anything else.

“Anyway, thanks for the help earlier, pres.”

“No problem.”

“I’ll buy you some tea in return.”

“Rosehip?”

“Of course.”

Pres smiled. “I do adore a good cup of rosehip.”

“I know.”

The clock of the school’s chapel announced the start of the next lesson period and right on queue Miss Russo, our human sciences teacher walked through the door. Claire was still holding her little show when she walked past.

“What is this about, ladies?” She stopped next to me, Emma and pres, looking at Claire’s performance.

“Some theatrical performances about trees or something like that.” I replied.

Miss Russo tilted her head. “Ah yes, I see…” and after a couple of seconds continued her walk to the front of the class.

The lesson started shortly after Miss Russo finally managed to get Claire off her theatrical horse. Unlike last lesson period with Miss Edwards I didn’t get singled out. Human Sciences was arguably one of my better courses, which even made me one of Russo’s favourite students. This was quite the rarity in my academic career at St. Katherine’s. Apart from her not a lot of teachers really liked me. There were a couple but they definitely weren't that numerous. So our Human Sciences class for today flew by without any noteworthy events, unless you count Karin almost sliding from her seat as one of them. Luckily Ria-chan managed to catch her just in time. Karin tended to doze off at certain subjects, although on tests she’d always perform really well nonetheless. That was probably why most of the teachers didn’t reprimand her for it.

After the lesson Miss Russo did come over to Emma to ask if her sister was alright because almost falling from her seat was not a regular occurrence.

“She spent too long reading her books yesterday evening, Miss. Don’t worry about it.”

“I know we should encourage students to read more but please do make sure she doesn’t stay up too late reading them. If she were to

fall asleep in some other places it could get pretty dangerous.”

“I’ll try, Miss Russo.”

Miss Russo gently smiled. “Good.” and left the classroom after.

It was a shame we only had her a couple of times each week because she was an extremely kind teacher who was concerned with the wellbeing of her students.

“Finally a fifteen minute break.” Emma stretched herself before taking a drink out of her bag.

I looked over to the milk bottles in mine. -Luckily I won’t be needing you anytime soon…-

“How are you feeling?” She whispered in my ear.

“Still pretty darn good.” I whispered back. “Not hungry or thirsty whatsoever.”

“Great.” Emma smiled but quickly backed off away from me and I instantly found out why.

“Rooraaaa.” Ria whined, “I’m low on Rora-power.” and she clung to my arm.

“Okay, okay.” I smiled and opened my arms.

She immediately accepted my invitation and started hugging me while I was slowly rubbing her back. Ria-chan was often very physically affectionate during our breaks, especially after classes where Karin had fallen asleep.

“Sheesh, get a room you two.” Emma joked.

“I know a couple of empty ones.” Pres appeared next to us again making Emma almost spit out her drink.

I hugged Ria-chan closer and thought to myself. -I hope that was a joke and not pres suspecting anything. Pres is way too clever.-