Mia sat down at lunch across from Anna and Carmine. School hadn't even been in session for a whole month, but it already felt like it should be close to over. Mia reached down into her backpack and grabbed her math book. She figured she may as well get a head start on her homework. She knew she probably wouldn't even glance at any of the problems – she'd be too busy talking to her friends. But at least she was going to make the effort. This way, even if she didn't do it, she could at least say she thought about doing her homework. That was almost as good, right?
Carmine had already gotten out her English book and was trying to read something while unwrapping her sandwich. When she saw Mia get her book out she sighed, a worried look on her face.
"What's wrong?" Anna asked before Mia had the chance.
"We have a lot of math homework tonight, don't we?" Carmine said, sounding depressed.
"It's not that much." Mia told her. "I think it's only fifteen problems."
"I know. But it'll take me almost an hour, and I still have to do all my English homework."
"How much English do you have?"
"I have to read four chapters by Friday. Mrs. Boyd got behind again, so now we have to hurry and catch up to the other classes."
"You have Mrs. Boyd?" Anna asked, surprised. "I thought she only taught freshman English."
"Apparently she has one sophomore class and a junior or senior class. Lucky me, huh?"
"Hopefully she'll forget all that's due this week, and you can go back to watching a movie or whatever she thinks is fun." Mia said.
Mia'd had Mrs. Boyd last year, and apparently she was known throughout the school for being incredibly forgetful; Mia remembered going over the same lesson for days on end. It had been nice to not have to worry much about English, but it got so boring! Mr. Glasco might give them more homework than Mrs. Boyd ever did, but at least he actually taught something instead of telling the same half-made-up stories every chance he got.
Mia sat thinking about her teachers as she absentmindedly tore her sandwich into smaller and smaller pieces. She was sitting in front of a pile of breadcrumbs and jelly when the she felt it – she was being watched. She glanced sharply around the courtyard, unable to shake the horrible feeling. It didn't take long to spot that auburn-haired girl from her history class. She had been walking out of the cafeteria with her friends, but as soon as she saw Mia, she got that same icy stare that Mia had seen almost every day in history. Mia stiffened, matching the look. Just before she walked out of sight, the girl smiled a quick, knowing smile that sent shivers up Mia's spine.
"Who is that?" Anna asked.
"Her name's Heather." Mia told her. "She's in my history class."
"She doesn't seem to like you very much." Carmine said, looking sideways at Mia.
"I know." Mia said. She could tell Carmine was waiting for her to continue, but she didn't. Some girl in her class didn't like her; Mia didn't think she needed to say anything else. Besides, the only reason she could think of for getting looks like that was the one topic she didn't want to discuss.
"Why doesn't she like you?" Anna asked, furrowing her brow. Mia sighed.
"I don't know." she said honestly. "Ever since the first day of school, she's been staring at me like that. She'll be perfectly happy one minute, then glaring at me the next. I've never even met her."
"You should be careful." Anna told her. She had a look on her face that Mia could read all too clearly; as far as Anna was concerned, there was only one reason someone would be acting like that. Mia hated the fact that she secretly suspected her friend was right.
"Don't worry. She doesn't know about me." Mia tried to sound more confident than she felt. After all, she'd gone out of her way to be careful; not only had she vowed to never have a repeat of what happened in her hometown, but watching vampires from Anna's past come back last year had been a reminder that she needed to keep on her toes. She was positive no one had found out about her except Anna and Carmine. And even though they were both ok with her being a vampire, Mia was pretty sure they were the only ones at the school who would be.
"I hope she doesn't." Carmine said, cutting into Mia's thoughts. Mia glanced over and realized Carmine looked like she might actually be even more worried than Anna.
Mia tried to act confident, but those doubtful looks she was getting made her start to wonder if she'd made any mistakes. Suddenly, she was really starting to second-guess herself. She was just about to break down and ask if either Anna or Carmine had heard any rumors, when a look of excitement flashed across Anna's face.
"Oh!" she said, grinning from ear to ear. "Guess what I did last night?"
"What?" Carmine asked. She looked glad for the change in topic.
"I got a telephone." Anna said, her eyes shining.
"Really? That's great." Mia told her.
Last year, Anna had told her friends that she didn't have a phone. Mia could understand why she hadn't bothered with a phone when she first moved here, but it had been really inconvenient to try to do anything with her. If she finally had a phone, trying to get in touch with her wouldn't be nearly the pain it was before.
"Look." Anna reached down into her backpack, and pulled out a small black phone. "It's a cellular telephone."
Mia stared pointedly at the phone, trying to ignore Anna's last comment. But Carmine decided to say something.
"Most people just call it a cell phone." Carmine told her.
"Oh. I see." Anna said looking thoughtful for a minute. Then she brightened and asked, "Do you like it?"
Mia and Carmine spoke up at the same time.
"It's nice." Carmine said.
"I do." Mia told her. "Now we can make plans a lot easier. Let me give you my number."
"Here, you do it." Anna said. "I know how to make calls on it, but it's really difficult to do a lot of the other things."
Mia nodded, taking the phone from Anna. Sometimes, it was easy to forget that she was like three hundred years old and hadn't grown up with any of the technology that Mia was so used to. It took Mia less than two minutes to add her number into Anna's phone and call herself with it to get Anna's number. She handed the phone to Carmine so she could do the same and turned back to Anna. There had been only one number in the phone before Mia'd gotten it, and she was curious.
"You got Luke's number?" she asked Anna as casually as she could.
"Yeah. He's actually one of the people who convinced me I should get a phone." Anna said. "Why?"
"I was just wondering."
It wasn't the fact that she had Luke's number that was bothering Mia. It was how soon she had it; she hadn't even gotten her best friends' numbers, and she already had Luke's? Mia guessed she just didn't realize how close they'd become. Still, she tried to look on the bright side. If she had Luke's number, it'd be that much easier to get in touch with him, wouldn't it? And that meant that maybe Anna would be able to arrange more things with him and his friends. Mia felt her face flush just a little; she did kind of like one of Luke's friends. Not that she would ever admit it – especially not to her own friends. But suddenly she realized that this could work out very well for her.
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