2 In My New School

“Ugh, Jade, can you hurry up?! We’re going to be late for school!” Harry called from downstairs, sounding increasingly annoying with every syllable.

“I said I’m coming! And shut up already!” I yelled back as I drew a perfectly winged eyeliner.

“Come shut me up,” he snarled, sounding like the little spoiled brat that he is.

“Don’t tempt her,” I heard Dad warn him. “She’s been trying to get rid of you since you were a baby.”

“No, she’s not,” Harry said, but he didn’t sound so sure. As soon as I appeared on the landing, he asked, “Have you?”

I shrugged nonchalantly, “If Dad says so, then it must be true. Come on, get out of my way. You were the one shouting about going to school, so can I please pass?”

He moved out of the way, but not before sticking his tongue out at me and flipping me off.

I lunged to grab his finger, but the little snake was too fast for me. I ended up chasing him outside while Dad called out for us to be careful, but as soon as I crossed the threshold, I acted all cool, my eyes immediately going next door.

Their driveway was empty, and there was no sign of the cute boy next door. I hid my disappointment as I got into the front passenger seat before Harry could get in it.

“You didn’t take a sweater?” Dad asked as he started the car. “The weather forecast says it might snow.”

“I’m pretty sure the snow can wait until we get back from school, Dad,” I groaned. I was 17. I didn’t need to be babied by him anymore. Harry was the baby, and he still acted like it.

Even now, at the back of the car, he shoved into the huge coat that Dad had gotten for him last Christmas.

Well, at least I know that I have to avoid him in school. A look like that will definitely not go unnoticed, and the last thing I want is having too much attention on me. I told you, I am used to being in the shadow.

As Dad backed out of the driveway, I looked back at the neighbour’s house. There was movement in the room upstairs, but I couldn’t get a good look because we were soon driving down the road.

The drive to John Manheim was quick, and I was very surprised by how large the school was.

Dad had already warned Harry and me that the school was one of the best in the state; apparently, more than half of the school’s population made it into Ivy League colleges.

As Harry and I got out of the car, he leaned over the driver’s console, “Remember, try to be on your best behaviour.”

“Did you hear that, Harry?” I nudged him.

The idiot nudged me back. “Walk 5 feet behind me, I don’t want anyone to know that Doom and Gloom is my sister.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty embarrassed too since you’re dressed like Sherlock Holmes.”

“Kids!” Dad sighed.

Harry and I turned to him with the sweetest smiles on our faces. “We will be on our best behaviour, Dad,” we promised.

As soon as Dad drove off, I walked up to the school, keeping as much distance between Harry and me as possible.

He didn’t really stand out as much as I thought he would, since many kids wore sweaters and a few even wore coats.

I, on the other hand, stood out like a thumb.

Someone didn’t tell me that John Manheim was the modern version of Miss Poppin’s school for Special Kids – or is that Miss Peregrine?

Either way, everyone was dressed well, gracefully. In uniforms.

Back in Sunders, we wore whatever we wanted to wear to school, and no one batted an eyelash.

As I passed one hallway, my eye caught a poster of students in uniforms, under it was a quote: Our Uniform Is Our Pride.

Ugh.

The uniform was alright anyway; plain pants for boys and for girls, a knee-length skirt. The shirt was a long-sleeved white shirt for everyone.

I wasn’t sure where I was supposed to be, so I swung my bag over one shoulder and started to dig inside it for my schedule when I bumped into someone coming from the opposite direction.

“Hey, watch it!” came a shrill tone.

It was a redhead with pink gloss over her pouty lips. She took one look at me, her mouth turning down at the corners. “Freak,” she added.

I wanted to say something back as she swept by me, while students stared and gawked after her disappearing back, but my whole deal is to be invisible, so I just pressed my lips tight and went back to searching my bag as I walked until I bumped into someone again.

Two people, actually, a boy and a girl who looked as out of place as I did, even though they wore the black and white uniforms complete with navy blue blazers.

“Oh, sorry,” the boy said as he reached out to stop me from stumbling back.

The girl did the same thing, too.

“I’m alright,” I told them as I shrugged their hands off. “I wasn’t looking where I was going…” I looked up to see two identical faces watching me with concern. “You are twins.”

“So we were told at the hospital,” the girl said sassily as she rolled her eyes at her brother, who waved at me with a friendly smile. “And you are new.”

“Yeah, I’m the new kid. Excuse me.”

I started to walk away, but apparently, Tweedledee and Tweedledum weren’t done with me just yet.

“Wait, you’re not that new kid that’s supposed to join us this month, are you?” the girl asked.

“Uh…I am.”

“See?” she said to her brother. “I told you we had a new student in our class, but you didn’t believe me.”

“Well, it’s hard to believe you when all you do is tell lies,” her brother retorted.

“I don’t tell lies…”

“Oh my gosh, I have literally never told a lie in my life…”

I wasn’t about to stand there and watch them go back and forth with it, so I turned to leave, but right as I was about to take a step away, the girl reached out to hold my hand.

“Hey, you don’t have your uniform yet. I’m guessing you haven’t been to the Guidance Counsellor’s office yet?”

I feigned a smile, wishing I could just shrug off her hand like I did the first time, but she held on with surprising strength.

“Look, I don’t want to get in between you and your brother’s…” I stopped myself from saying something salty. “I see you both are busy. I’ll just find my way to the Counsellor’s office.”

“Oh, don’t worry, we’ll take you there. Come on, Leo.”

She practically pulled her brother and me along down the corner they were coming from.

I didn’t miss the way students stared in our direction as we passed, especially at me, since I was the only one not looking like a minion. My eyeliner also stood out, and my black nails also stood out.

I tried to blend in with the shadows like I always did, but with this girl and her brother dragging me down the hall, it was hard.

We got to the administrative part of the building.

Harry was just coming out of the Counsellor’s office with his uniform over his arm.

He looked from me to the twins and back again, his mouth into the beginning of a very annoying smile, and I shot him a deadly glare, warning him with my eyes not to say anything to me.

For the first time, the little rat actually obeyed. He passed us without a word, but when I turned to look back at him, he stuck his tongue out.

“Here we are!” the girl said in a singsong voice.

We were in front of the office.

“Thanks.”

“Anytime. We can wait for you if you want, assembly is not until…”

“That won’t be necessary, I can find my way.”

“Okay. Leo, let’s go.”

I turned to see Leo smiling at me as he joined his sister down the hall. I faked a smile of my own as I waited for them to disappear out of sight. Only then did I open the door.

The Guidance Counsellor was a woman in a black suit. Her brown hair was pulled so tight into a ponytail that it put a strain on her brows.

She looked me up and down as soon as I entered the office, her mouth pressed into a thin line of disapproval.

“Good morning…”

“Your father did say you were different from your brother. I’m surprised you’re the one with the better grades,” she said in a nasal tone even before I could finish my greeting.

“Come on in. I have your uniform in the backroom.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She stood and walked off tightassed to a room adjoined with her office. While she stayed there looking for my uniform and the other things that I needed, I looked around at the office.

It was better than any of the offices back at Sunders High, but one thing stood. This office had so many posters telling students how bad sex was.

I’m serious, there was probably about 100 of it occupying every inch of the wall with various scares like teenage pregnancies and STIs graphically displayed on the posters.

I had seen some of them in the hall when Tweedledee and Tweedledum dragged me along.

I guess Ms. Counsellor hates sex, then.

A minute later, she returned with my uniform in a bag, a stencilled school bag and some white socks.

“You wear your uniforms always. Those are the rules.”

“Yes, Ms…”

“Harden.”

That was a fitting name, I wanted to tell her, but I doubt she would have taken it as a compliment.

Instead, I said, “Yes, ma’am.”

“Now go change.” As I went off to find a bathroom to change in, I heard her call out. “And wipe that hideous thing off your eyes!”

I didn’t plan to. So who cares if I look a little different from the rest of the drones?

I found a bathroom on the second floor, which apparently belonged to seniors.

I had just put my hand on the knob when the assembly bell went off.

“Fuck!” I drawled, turning the knob and pushing the door open, only to stop dead in my tracks at the sight in front of me.

“Argh!”

There was a blonde girl and a guy in what I was very sure was the girls’ bathroom.

The girl was the one who screamed, and she immediately slapped the boy’s hand away from under her skirt.

Judging from the smudge of her lip gloss, I had just interrupted some intense make-out session.

“What the fuck are you doing?!” the girl screamed. “Get out!”

“Uh… yeah sure…” I hurried to close the door, eager to get the image of what I had just seen out of my head, but not before looking at the guy’s face and getting another big shock.

It was the cute boy from yesterday.

My next-door neighbour.