"Miaka!"
At the sound of her mom calling her name, Mia tore her eyes away from the computer screen and glanced at the clock on her nightstand; she still had ten minutes before she was supposed to be downstairs. Sighing, she turned off the monitor and headed, fully dressed, out towards the kitchen. Even though Mia was obviously ready to go, her mom was not impressed.
"You need to hurry – today's the first day of school. You can't afford to be late!" she said, scowling at Mia. "You cut it too close. I should never have let you sleep so much this summer."
"Sorry." Mia said, trying her best to sound like she meant it as she passed her mom on the way into the kitchen. But as she opened the refrigerator door, Mia rolled her eyes.
Her mom had been making comments like this for as long as Mia could remember; she was used to it. And it was no good explaining that she hadn't slept in this summer – her mom wouldn't listen. She'd just get even more upset, and Mia would run the risk of getting grounded.
"Do you have your backpack ready?" her mom asked.
"Yeah – by the front door."
Mia grabbed the sandwich she'd made the night before and set it in her backpack on top of her books. She was still fuming silently at her mother as she headed out the door and towards the bus stop at the end of the street; she was tired of being told all the time that she was going to be late. Mia knew she would never be late to school because she was never in a hurry in the morning. Since she rarely slept, there wasn't a chance she would sleep in too late. And she always had more than enough time to get ready in the mornings; today wasn't any different than any other day as far as being ready on time was concerned. She tried to remind herself that her mom was always nervous on the first day of school, but it didn't make her feel much better. Sometimes she wished her mom would remember that Mia was the one going to school and try to relax!
The bus pulled up to the front of the school in what seemed like no time at all. Mia walked casually off the bus, trying to remember where her first class was. Her schedule had been mailed to her house almost two weeks ago, but Mia had only casually glanced at it. She usually needed to go to each class once or twice before she could really remember it anyway.
She walked through the doors, checking her schedule as she went. Her first class was math. When she was younger, she used to like math, at least a little. But as she got older, it just wasn't as fun as it used to be; it didn't hold her attention like it did in elementary school. Maybe that was why she always seemed to make so many mistakes. At least history was next. She actually liked history. Now all she had to do was get through math.
She'd gotten to school about ten minutes before class actually started, so she had more than enough time to find her locker and figure out the combination before heading to class. It took her four tries before the lock finally popped open – she always did have trouble with those stupid things. Mia threw her sandwich on the bottom shelf and double-checked that she had the right books before heading to class. Even with the locker troubles, Mia was still the first one there. She walked into the darkened room and hit the switch. The florescent lights flickered a little as they warmed up.
Since she had her pick of every seat in the room, Mia settled on one three rows from the back, on the side closest to the door. She'd thought about sitting in the very back row, but decided against it. She wanted to at least look like she might pay attention to the teacher, and she knew she never would if she was sitting too far away.
As the other kids started to walk into class, Mia glanced up casually, wondering if she would know anyone. She didn't have to wait long. The first couple of students Mia only recognized by sight, but after a few minutes a tall girl with deep copper hair walked in the door.
"Hi!" she said, grabbing the empty seat next to Mia. "I'm glad there's someone I know here."
"Me too." Mia hadn't realized how glad she actually was to know someone in class until Carmine showed up.
Mia had met Carmine last year. They'd had a mutual friend and ended up having lunch together. Even when the group split up, Mia kept hanging out with Carmine, and the two had become surprisingly close, considering.
When she'd first met Carmine, Mia wasn't quite sure what to make of the girl. She wasn't loud or obnoxious, but she definitely wasn't afraid to speak her mind. Last year, there had been an unusual amount of people falling asleep in strange places, waking up tired or weak. Carmine had announced to everyone she knew that vampires were responsible. She ended up losing several friends because of it – including half of her lunch group – but she'd refused to back down. It had been a tense couple of weeks, and Mia had to admit she was ready to drop Carmine as a friend herself. But in the end, she'd had to admire Carmine's conviction. It was pretty rare to find someone so willing to stick to their beliefs. And the fact that she'd been right had only further impressed Mia – though she would never admit that.
"Actually, I'm really glad you're in my class. You're pretty good at math, aren't you?" Carmine asked, interrupting her thoughts.
"I'm ok." Mia replied truthfully.
"I'm really bad at math. So I just want to warn you, I'm probably going to be bugging you a lot this year."
"I'll help you as much as I can." Mia told her. She suddenly remembered how much Carmine had struggled with algebra last year. And since the girl who'd helped her out was no longer someone they hung out with, Mia realized she might have her hands full.
It wasn't long before the rest of the students had taken their seats. Mia thought she saw a boy she knew from last year across the room, but she couldn't tell for sure. She was still studying the back of his head when their teacher, a tall, lanky man who looked slightly disheveled, walked into the room.
"Good morning, class." he said. "My name is Mr. Lowell. Now, I know it's early in the morning, but hopefully that won't prevent anyone here from learning. But because it is early, if anyone needs to bring breakfast, I will allow it – as long as you don't disturb other students."
As he continued talking, Mr. Lowell reached into his briefcase and pulled out a stack of paper. He walked over to the student seated closest to him and handed the stack to her. "I'm passing out a syllabus, and I want to go over it with all of you. But while that's going around, I'd like to take roll and fill out a seating chart. I have five classes this year with about thirty students each, so this'll help me to get to know your names as quickly as possible."
Mia groaned inwardly. She was already sitting next to Carmine, so it wasn't really a big deal that they'd have a seating chart. It was just annoying to have to sit in the same spot every day. And to have her teacher able to call on her by name on the first day of class just made it worse. At least he didn't seem to be too bad, as far as teachers went; after all, he was going to let students bring breakfast if they needed to, right? Mia had to admit, she didn't know many teachers laid-back enough to allow that, especially since it wasn't technically school policy. Mia just hoped the rest of her teachers would be as easygoing as this one was.
The bell finally rang, and Mia checked her schedule to see where her history class was. Unlike the school she would have gone to in Japan had she stayed there, here there were no wings designated for specific subjects. While the rooms were clearly set up for certain classes, they could be anywhere within the school. Because of this, Mia's history class was right across the hall from her math class. All this meant for Mia was three extra minutes of sitting there, waiting for class to begin.
Mia slunk down in her chair, earlier than even the teacher. Again. She hoped this wasn't the start of a trend. Mia was all for being on time to her classes, but she really didn't want to show up so early that she beat all her teachers. Maybe she was going to have to leave math a little later from now on.
As students finally started to trickle in, Mia glanced up to see if there was anyone she knew. But the longer Mia watched, the more disappointed she became. The class was about half filled up, and so far, Mia hadn't seen anyone she knew. She'd seen some students she recognized by sight, but none that she'd ever really hung out with. She was still scanning the students coming in when she saw a petite blonde girl walk through the door.
There was nothing particularly unusual about the girl, or even interesting really. Mia had only noticed her because she'd come in laughing along with an auburn-haired girl of a similar build. Mia had already moved her attention to whoever was coming in behind them when out of the corner of her eye, she saw their demeanors change. Being a vampire had taught Mia not only how to read people, but to notice certain things. And someone stopping abruptly in the middle of a room and going silent was one of those things. The two girls had looked happy when they'd walked through the door, but as soon as they spotted Mia, their smiles immediately vanished. The girls stood, glaring coldly for a minute before heading to the other end of the same row that Mia was sitting in. Mia's face remained impassive as she pretended not to notice.
Mia would never admit that she was bothered by some small girl staring meanly at her. She would have liked to think she was over things like that, but the wave of memories and fear let her know she still had a long way to go before she could say that. Mia tried her best to look busy as she watched the two out of the corner of her eye. She'd been stared at enough in her life that she could honestly say she was used to it. But, somehow, this was different; there was just something about this girl and her friend that Mia couldn't quite put her finger on. It took Mia almost a full minute to realize that unlike everyone who stared at her in Japan, there didn't seem to be any fear in these girls' eyes. Instead, the looks they were giving let Mia know that they were not girls to trifle with. Mia tried her best to brush the feeling aside as she stared at the old wooden ship painted on the cover of her history book.
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