Johnsonsville's Whimsical Academy for Gifted Youths

Please be courteous and un-newbly.
Thank you, and have fun!

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The Next Morning

D'aron scratched his eyes free from sleep with a yawn then noticed the clock and nearly leaped out of the chair. "Oh crap! I'm going to be late!"

May had been awake for nearly an hour, when she heard her roommate stir. May tied her shoes, grabbed her books, and headed out the door, leaving early so she could visit Kita in the nurse's office.

Keira and Kade stood against a wall, waiting for passersby.
When May passed through, Kade chucked a pen in her direction, then darted around a corner and hid.
Keira rolled her eyes and walked away.

May had let her thoughts drift while she was walking. She saw Keira walk around a corner, but when she was about to wave, a pen hit her in the nose. "Ouch!" she cried, holding her nose. May scowled and walked a little faster towards the nurse's office.

D'aron whom had just grabbed his stuff from the dorm room shook his head as he saw the incident.

Keira gasped, looking back at her brother with disgust, then chased after May. "May, wait! I'm sorry... My brother is an idiot...."
Kade squinted his eyes and walked on to class, arms crossed.

Jayne yawned in her room, brushing her hair lazily and dressing. She knew her first class was starting soon, but she just didn't really want to go. She shouldered her backpack and began heading to class, passing a scowling May.

May stopped at what Keira said. She smiled, suddenly forgiving the thrower-of-the-pen. "Oh, Kade threw it?" she asked, blushing. She then saw Kade walk to his class -- within earshot. "Er, tell him not to do that again!" she said. May abandoned the nurse visit, forgetting about Kita, and headed toward her first class with Keira.

D'aron was already on his way into the classroom, intending on visiting the nurse's office to check up on his classmate after class.

Keira smiled and nodded. "I will. He can be pretty childish." She looked up at May's red face and tilted her head. "Do you like.... Oh, nevermind." She looked back ahead and walked into the classroom.
Kade sat in his desk, feet propped across the aisle, doodling on the desk top.

May looked directly at the floor as relief washed over her. She was glad that Keira hadn't asked the question she was about to. When they came to the classroom, May looked up. Her eyes scanned the room, looking for what seats were available. She saw a few seats in the back, one next to Kade. May hung back, though, undecided as to where to sit.

Keira picked a seat in the back and plopped her books down. "Ah, sit by me, May." She looked up at her brother. "Kade, come back here, I want to sit by you, too."
Kade looked back at his sister drowsily. "Fine." He stood up and slinked to the back of the room, seating himself beside his sister.

May nodded and sat down. She smiled tentatively at Kade, hoping he would notice.

Kade furrowed his brow in confusion, and waved hesitantly at May. Freaky, is what he kept thinking.
Keira grinned contentedly and sat back in her desk. "Soo, May.... How are you today?"

Meanwhile, Derek entered the classroom and frowned. He could've sworn he'd never seen some of these people before... but then, it was always possible this was a new class or something. It was too early to think of anything like that. Too early to think, period. What were people thinking, requiring him to get up before he wanted to? Derek didn't function well, or even at all, until at least nine. Preferably later. At this rate, he might even let slip that he had a talent for cleanliness. It was way too early in the morning for any sort of interaction at all.

Opening gently, the classroom door revealed Lotti on the other side, quietly entering the room; well, as quietly as someone prone to clumsiness can be. She stumbled over what could only have been the toe of her shoe. Letting out a "phew," Lotti gratefully stood firmly on booth feet, avoiding the fall. She carried on as if nothing had happened at all, finally clambering to some vacant chairs in the middle of the room.

Jayne slipped into the class after a bit, rubbing her eyes. She was a little sleepy, but not by much; she had gotten to bed earlier. She slid in near Lotti, still wearing her bandanna, a little paranoid about last night and hoping the headache stays away.

Lotti smiled at the newcomer. The only thing familiar about the stranger was the headband. Slowly, the name came to her. "'Morning Jayne."

May noticed Jayne enter the classroom aswell, and was going to call out to her, but then her normal diffidence washed over her, and she stared at some graffiti on her desk.

Keira looked up and around at the three newcomers, shrugged it off and went back to looking at May. "Soo.... I'll need to ask you something later... 'K?" She smiled.
Kade Yawned and propped his feet up again, tossing a paper wad into the air.

May nodded, still staring intently at the graffiti.

Derek walked/stumbled toward a random seat. Desk. Whatever. It was, naturally, dirty. Well, it was a piece of furniture for public use, of course it was dirty, especially as it was in a high school. In fact, it was a cleaner desk, with no real obvious dirt; but he could feel it lurking underneath the surface, the whole grimy, disgusting, germy nastiness. He glared at it waspishly and felt satisfied as the invisible yick disappeared. Maybe this whole cleaning thing wasn't so bad, at least not in the early morning.

"Good work," Ms. Talnez says to Derek as she walks past, patting the student on the shoulder, feeling him use his magic but not really knowing how. She just knew it was controlled quite nicely.

Jayne smiled back at Lotti, straightening up as Ms. Talnez gets to the front. "Alright, students," she says, writing a word up on the blackboard: Magic. "Since this is a class in the principles of magic, let's get down to talking about it. If you think of it as a thing, you could almost compare magic to imperceptible water, and you being in an ocean. It's flowing all the time around us." From behind her desk, Ms. Talnez got out a huge stack of books, passing them to the front of the rows to pass back. "If magic is like invisible water, then, some people have this water flow through them and not even know it. Some people can grab the water out of the air and push it into reality. You are the latter. Open the books to page 13."

On page 13, a diagram of a simple circle is drawn, with no explanation. "Some of the people here have problems with control," Ms. Talnez states. "How would you think to control your power?"

"Erm," Lorenzo suggested, having 'magically' slipped into the classroom without being officially there until this point, "make yourself into a circle?" He guessed, looking at the book. "That would explain why it never works for me."

"Make yourself as simple as the circle..." Lotti mumbled half-heartedly, her eyes fixed on the figure.

"Excellent guesses," Ms. Talnez says, nodding at the class. "Circles are the key." She turned around and drew a circle on the board, next to the word 'magic.' "Circles have been a fundamental element in magic since the first practitioner began to take magic seriously. The shape itself has been found to be magical in properties, either keeping magic in or out of the ring." She started adding properties to the circle, like symbols along the ring in the middle and lines connecting the sides in a complicated pattern. "You can make a circle more complicated for a specific purpose, such as this one to ward off Voudou attacks, but a simple circle with a bit of concentration can ward off outside stray magic." She turned back to the class. "Some more practiced magic users can do this mentally. Please turn to page 16."

Ms. Talnez then began to talk about the history and uses of circles, as the class was the Principles of Magic, which included history.

May actually paid attention to Ms. Talnez for the entire class. She was rather proud of herself for doing so, for May usually nodded off once or twice during classes.

Keira and Kade both were busy taking notes on Ms. Talnez's teachings, but Kade would still tend to draw doodles on the edge of his paper between speeches.

Lorenzo did try to pay attention, and take notes, but it just wasn't his thing. Besides, he was busy thinking about whether curling into a ball would increase his chances of making an intentional Blinking. Or maybe some of these symbol things would work, but he wasn't sure what any of them did. It was worth a shot. Next free period, he'd copy some of the symbols out of the book and try a Blinking with them.

"...of course, Lord Bechin did more than just discover the containment properties of circles in regard to storing energy," Ms. Talnez said. "He was the one to find the mental aspect of circles, rather than drawn versions. Details are in the book, of course, and since I am not the teacher to teach you using exercises, you'll have to wait."

"Please do the questions at the end of the first chapter and be prepared to turn them in tomorrow," Ms. Talnez informed the class, somehow just making the bell, which rang at that point.

Jayne got out of her chair, slowly. She was thinking about last night, after classes, when hanging around magic-users had caused an outbreak in sneezing. She had paid attention in class, sure; Jayne had maintained a 4.0 average in her last school. But her thoughts had been elsewhere.

Keira folded her notes and neatly placed them in her text book, closed the book, and stood at her desk. Kade rose, stretching, after doing the same as Keira with his work.
Keira looked at May, waiting.

May stuffed her notes into her binder, grabbed her books and hurried over to where Keira and Kade stood. She linked arms with Keira and walked out of the room. "You..wanted to ask me something?" May asked Keira once they were safely out of the room.

Keira nodded and shooed her brother away.
Kade rolled his eyes and walked off in the opposite direction.
"So, " Keira said, stopping and grabbing May's shoulders.
"How old are you?"

"14," May mumbled in answer to Keira's question. "But, I'll be 15 next month!" she added.

Keira smiled and nodded. "Cool. I was just wondering. Because you seem to have your eyes set on my brother, and I was hoping you were old enough. In case he ever might like you too, you know?" She smiled, knowing May wasn't expecting any of those words. "Kade and I are 17, by the way."

As her eyes widened with surprise, May let her jaw drop. Is it really that obvious? she thought desperately. She wanted to deny it, but all she could manage was, "_Ohmygosh..."

Jayne's gossip sense was tingling, and she didn't know why, as she was already headed for her next class. She looked around and saw May talking to one of the weird twins she had seen the other day, shrugging that off and going to her classroom. All she cared was that, so far so good in the headache department. She settled herself down in a seat, opening up her notebook and started doodling.

Keira giggled. "Uhm," she said, patting May's shoulder, "I won't tell anyone, alright?"

Lorenzo figured that the time betwen classes was the perfect opportunity to try his new theory. So it was a rubbish theory. He didn't care. He plopped down in a seat, opened the book to the page that listed all those runes, and looked through it. Oooh, he liked the look of that one - what did it mean? Destruction? Cool. And this one over here, with that neat squiggly, and those swirls over there, and he ought to have a few triangles and squares like that to balance the complexity... he scribbled furiously in a notebook, lining the symbols up in a neat circle.

Lotti scrambled to pick up the mess on her desk, finally deciding to grab whatever could fit in her fists and shoving them in her bag. She couldn't afford to be late to her next class.

May nodded meekly as the two started walking again to their next class together.

Keira turned and called for Kade over her shoulder.
Kade let out an exasperated sigh and turned tail to head back to his sister and May.

Right. He didn't have much time between classes, so that would have to do for now. Lorenzo laid his notebook on the floor, diagram side up, and considered how to use it. Then he shrugged, curled himself into a ball per his suggestion in class, and worked at producing a Blinking with the help of his runic circle.

The problem was, the building just wasn't big enough for the lizard that emerged. Something had to give, and the building was just not prepared for this sort of force on it.

As Keira and May walked into the classroom together, May heard a loud crash coming from across the hallway. "What was that?" she exclaimed, shocked.

"It worked!" Lorenzo shouted, briefly happy. Then he stopped. Blinkings weren't supposed to stick around this long, they never did. And this one was... was... well, it didn't look happy. It looked like it was about to go on a destructive rampage. "Go away." Lorenzo told it. "It worked, that's good, you can go now. Blinking over. Erm, scoot. Abracadabra. Something." The lizard ignored him and started making the hole in the building bigger so it could crawl out.

Jayne curiously peeked out of her classroom to see what the crash was all about. In the building nearby, she saw a large hole forming. Out of that hole stuck a huge reptilian head. Jayne screamed before she could help herself.

Ms. Talnez walked into the room very calmly, as she was the first on the scene. In one glance, she saw the huge lizard, Lorenzo curled up on the floor, and his open notebook. She whipped out a pencil, slid in under the animal's thrashing tail, and smudged a small bit of the outside of Lorenzo's circle. The lizard shrunk in size to what Lorenzo usually conjured, then popped out of existence.

Keira sighed. "Don't try magic when you don't know what you're doing...."
"This happens every year," Kade mumbled as he mosied into the classroom. "Stupid new kids..."

Lorenzo was quite pleased to see the lizard gone. It was nice to know he could make it come, but he didn't want it to stay around being huge and nasty like that. He didn't know what to say, though, so he sort of blushed since a bunch of people were looking at him for making a giant lizard, and picked up his notebook to investigate the smudge Ms. Talnez had made very closely. For future reference, of course. Not hiding from all the stares.

The noise had finally jolted Derek properly awake; and, running to investigate, he was horrified. Not by the destruction. Not by the accidental and sloppy (mis)use of power. Not by the casual attitude this was treated with. Oh, no, Derek was horrified by the amount of... general uncleanliness having a giant lizard around made, even if the lizard was only around for a little bit. He stopped himself from screaming, and started cleaning instead. And the bits of building lying all over! Maybe he could do something about that...

Ms. Talnez plucks the notebook from Lorenzo's hand, looking it over. "The overall structure of the circle is a good one," Talnez reports. "However, your use of symbols is random at best, and their placement shows me you had no idea what you were doing. Overall, you're lucky you didn't summon a powerful demon or start a natural disaster." She gives Lorenzo a cold gaze. "You have no idea how close you came to killing us all. Detention for three weeks, every day for an hour after school, my room."

Lotti, whom had been one of the students closest to the damage without sustaining any real damage, stood there, looking upon the utter wreckage of the school property. Her vision of the scene itself, it seemed, to zoom in from a great distance, then back out again before spinning at a dizzying rate. Barely able to gasp, or make any sound at all, Lotti suddenly fell to the floor, any consciousness drained instantaneously.

Reluctant to return to her seat, Jayne stood at the door entrance, also looking at the damage when she saw movement and happened to see a girl collapse. She recognized Lotti. For a second, she looked from the girl to the mess, remembering Lotti's problems with spills. Then Jayne was running to Lotti to see if the girl was alright, kneeling by her. She looked fine, but she could have hit her head when she fell.

Weeeellll... Lorenzo supposed the teacher really did have a point there. He had no idea what was going on with the Blinkings, so he might very well have summoned a demon. He supposed that, logically, he deserved the detention, and to not try to summon anything for some time. But the automatic 'that's not fair' feeling surfaced anyway, popping up above his mind like a formerly submerged flotation device that just got free before it settled down to let him simmer and try to come up with some reason why it wasn't fair. In the meantime, Lorenzo pouted.

Taking just the page with the circle, Ms. Talnez handed Lorenzo back his notebook. "Now get to class," she said, sternly. "We'll get someone to clean up this soon."

Lorenzo nodded, accepted the notebook, and hurried off to class, wondering if there was someone that could make him sort of ooze inconspicuously through the cracks of the school for a while. This would help him avoid not only people talking about him and the big lizard, but also, and especially, detention. Alas, he hadn't heard of anyone like that.

Clean? Derek heard. That horrible little thing inside him that liked this perked up, rearing its ugly head once again. He could help with that. In fact, the horrible thing thought it would like to help, and even help manually. Derek squashed that thought especially hurriedly and instead decided that, once everyone had cleared out, he'd help with the cleaning. Except that all this mess was so tempting...

Opening her eyes meekly, Lotti came to. At first, her vision was blurry, but the hazy outline finally settled into something solid. She saw a girl with a bandana in her hair kneeling over her. Lotti searched her face, but nothing about it rang familiar to her, and for a moment, she panicked. All around her there was nothing but wreckage. "Where...am I?" She was finally able to manage.

"Er, school," Jayne replied. She wasn't confused that Lotti didn't seem to recognize her, but the ignorance of the school was new. She looked around for a teacher, a pleading look on her face. She certainly wasn't trained to deal with this.

Ms. Talnez, however, stopped by Derek as she walked down the hallway. She frowned, feeling a special affinity coming from him and linking him to the mess. "If you're going to do something, and you're pretty sure it won't destroy anything else, just do it already," she said, her voice still cold from the wanton destruction of school property. With that, she walked away. Let someone else deal with the remainder; this was almost her free period.

Seeing that everything was taken care of, May decided to go back to her desk and doodle. She pulled out her notebook and her favorite purple gel pen and started to draw. When she realized that she was drawing a giant lizard, she decided to take a break. May layed her head down on her desk, and closed her eyes for a quick cat nap.

What was this teacher, a mind reader? Derek wondered sourly. She seemed to always know whenever that evil, uncool thing in him wanted to do something. And now it had permission, too... Derek gave in, and tried to just funnel it so the changes were subtle.

"Oh..." Lotti said, as if agreeing with something she wasn't entirely sure about. "Then... I'll just... go to class?" She looked to Jayne for approval as she searched her pockets for some sign of a schedule.

"I suppose," Jayne murmured, a twinge developing behind her eyes. She was pretty sure the headache had nothing to do with Lotti, not this time. "You have my class next," Jayne said. The air was getting oppressive quickly, like a wave had generated at the site of the mess and was spreading out towards her.

"Are you...alright?" Lotti cocked her head to the side. The girl whom she was apparently going to class with had a strange look on her face.

"Mhm," Jayne mumbled, trying to compose her face. She was even getting the same feeling from Lotti, or at least the area they were in. "Just a little headache. Let's go." She hurriedly helped the girl up, almost not even waiting for the girl to accept her help. She was starting to be desperate to get away from that particular spot when the headache mounted and she sneezed into a petite, lithe African girl.

Derek was not sure precisely what he was doing or where he was going or whether he had any say in the matter. He was just sort of watching while he looked around at things, and saw that they were clean. Come to think of it, he rather thought he did not have a say in the matter. Once he started cleaning the place, it just would not stop. He'd been able to hold it back for a while - but it was like trying to keep a snowball from rolling down hill. It was already big, and it kept getting bigger as he lost ground until he was almost part of the snowball. He watched as the wall started to re-shape itself, becoming neater as it did so.

Lotti jumped back, reluctant to follow this new girl. "Hey...you weren't the girl that was here a second ago!" Her grip loosened, but did not release. If she were going somewhere, she didn't know where it was anyway.

"Erm, yeah," Jayne said, barely able to hear Lotti over the ringing of her ears. "Fancy that." She could almost feel the direction her headache was coming from, if that makes sense. She looked up, confused, and her gaze focused on Derek.

Derek watched as the wall carefully brushed itself off and stacked itself back together. The dust that had come off of it scurried off into a corner to make a neat pile with the other dust, and waited for a dustpan to come and find it. It was not the best situation, but there was too much dust to just make it disappear.

May yawned and stretched, waiting for the teacher.

"Excellent work." Ms. Tayant said quietly, coming up behind Derek. "Since your new you probably didn't know, but if you use your magic to do some sort of service for the school we have a reward system." she handed him a slip of paper. "Here's your no homework pass, you can use it twice." She smiled at him and looked over at Lotti and Jayne, they both seemed somewhat lost. She laughed internally, how typical of her colleague to let the kids clean up themselves.

As Derek is distracted, the pressure in Jayne's head lifts enough for her to see the teacher standing next to him. "Oh thank God," she mutters. "Ms. Tayant! Lotti... she can't remember things," she says, weakly.

At first, Lotti's eyebrows scrunched together from Jayne's words, before the look melted away into a cheeriness, and a smile cracked upon her face. "Of course I don't." If anything, that was about all that she remembered: that she remembered almost nothing.

"Its allright." Ms. Tayant said. "You're all just reacting to so much magic in the air." With the ease of long practice and familiarity with the school, she gently redirected the scattered energy back into the walls. "I'll take Lotti to the nurse. With such uncontrolled power like hers she seems drained." 

Jayne blinked. Whatever Ms. Tayant did helped, a lot. In fact, a sneeze she felt building just went away.

Derek was also in a blinking mood. He had had absolutely no intention of assisting the school. In fact, he'd had no control over what he was doing at all. He wasn't entirely sure what to do with the pass, and might have been tempted to give it back since it was a mistake anyway, but he wasn't that sort of person. Instead, he pocketed it, figuring he might as well take credit for the mistake, and decided he was grateful to Ms. Tayant for interrupting him. Maybe he'd go see what class was next, and burn the no-homework ticket on it or something. This thing was COOL.

"It's okay...really!" Lotti exclaimed to Ms. Tayant. "I'll be fine. It's best if I just continue on with my day."

May tapped her fingers on the desk, waiting impatiantly.

Ms. Tayant shrugged. "As you wish. Just make sure you eat something, students are allowed to eat in class after they've done magic so your next teacher probably won't mind." She shrugged. In this place nothing was certain of course. She turned walked off again. She hadn't had breakfast yet.

Jayne lifted an eyebrow. That was a useful fact to know. Since she'd been routinely using magic, eating in class shouldn't ever be a problem. Sweet, she thought.

Nodding cheerfully, Lotti jogged up beside Jayne. "I'm sorry...I don't know you. I don't even know if I have known you...but I'm Lotti." She held out a friendly hand.

Jayne nods. She feels a lot better, so she accepts the hand. "We've met," she states. "The name's Jayne. I, er... change appearance a lot, so if the issue ever comes up, I wear this headband so people could recognize me." She points to the black-and-white striped piece of cloth.

"Oh..." Lotti rummaged through her bag, producing a previous picture of Jayne. "I guess we have met." the girl smiled, giggling. "Well, I'm glad we've met again." She looped an arm through the crook of Jayne's arm, in an act of familiarity as they went to their next class.

Jayne almost flinched from the contact. This was too weird. She walked with Lotti into the room, taking a seat again at the spot where she had left her notebook and backpack. Someone had stolen her pen. Jayne growled and took another from her backpack.

Lotti took a seat next to her "new" friend, sitting up straight with anticipation.

May twisted in her chair to face Jayne. "I've just got a lovely idea! Come on, it'll be fun!" she said, grinning.

Jayne gave the girl a skeptical look. "O... kay," she said. "Sure."

May's face lit up, she loved scrapbooking. "We could make a scrapbook of all of your many...er...'faces'! Every time you sneeze, we could snap a picture of you. Wouldn't that be fun?" she asked, almost jumping out of her seat. For a reason she couldn't quite put her finger on, May didn't feel in the least bit shy when talking to her friend, Jayne.

"Oh!" Exclaimed Lotti in excitement, "And we can use my polaroid camera!" She held up the object in triumph.

Jayne started, surprised at the suggestion. "Er, alright," she said. "That... actually sounds like an interesting project." She frowned. "Should we start with this one?"

"Smile!" said Lotti cheerily, clicking the button of the camera.

Jayne smiled. She even laughed a little. She couldn't help it, not with their enthusiasm.

"Hey, when d'you think that'll get developed? We'd better get a back-up camara, just incase that one runs out of film, and then she sneezes!" May exclaimed, rumaging through her things. "AHA! I found my old digital camara. It doesn't work too well, but at least it gets the pictures! Jayne, you can keep this one," she said, then explained hastily, "In case you sneeze when we're not around."

Jayne nodded. "I was going to buy myself one soon, but I'll borrow this until I get that one," she said. "Er, what would I do about repeats?" She glanced down at the camera. "Sometimes I'm the same person more than once. Should I just ignore that?"

"Well, if it's a repeat, then it's already documented, right?" Lotti asked, shaking the polaroid and holding it out for the other two. "If it were me, I wouldn't take another picture of the same face."

May made a face. "Umm, Lotti, no offense or anything, but I think maybe someone else should take the pictures of Jayne with your polaroid. I mean, you do have a knack of forgetting things..." she mumbled the last bit, feeling overwhelmingly like she just wanted to turn into a tiny little flea and crawl under the table.

Lotti's brow furrowed with confusion. "No offense?" She lowered her polaroid camera, "It's my camera. I've been able to handle it so far." The girl looked at May for a moment longer, then turned on her heal, her bag shouldered haphazardly, then hurried off. "I'm tired of people thinking I'm incapable of things."

"L-lotti!" Jayne says as the girl starts to leave. "Class hasn't even started!"

May gasped, and followed Lotti with her eyes, until the girl was out of the classroom. "Ohmygosh! That is not what I thought would happen at all!" she mumbled, turning a deep red. She quickly hid herself within a shade of dark hair, so she would not have to make eye contact with anyone.

"Don't worry about it," Jayne said, placing a hand on the girl's shoulder. "You didn't mean it."

Lotti rushed amongst the crowds of people, bumping into a body or two. It's always been this way -- because of her condition, she became babied, and no one ever trusted her. With ANYTHING. Everything she's done has been her way of keeping track of things, yet no one believed her when she said she was able to handle it. Without even realizing it, she had led herself to her dorm room (admittedly, she consulted a polaroid photo). She unlocked the door with her key and set down her things. By the luck of the draw, she had her room to herself: the roommate she was meant to have ended up not coming to JWAGY. Lotti decided that this would be a good time to review the text from her classes.

Just then, the door burst open, revealing a short, pudgy man by the name of Mr. Byrd. He shuffled over to his desk, dropping papers as he went, mumbling about something like, "Wife thought I'd like waffles this morning. Huh! Told 'er I'd be late, but she didn't listen to me did she? Huh!" He slammed his briefcase on the desk, flinching as he did so. He cleared his throat, brushed a piece of hair out of his eyes, and scanned the room with his eyes. "Well!" he boomed, filling the rectangular room with his voice. "Let's jump right into the lesson, shall we?"

Jayne flinched at his arrival, her hand leaving May's shoulder and automatically adjusting her headband. She scowled just a little and settled into her seat, staring at the teacher.

May giggled slightly at Mr. Byrd. This class is going to be tooeasy, she decided, grinning widely.

"...and so, I will need volunteers. Anyone?" Mr. Byrd looked around the room. "Wait a moment. Where is...ah..." he checked is attendance sheet, "Miss..." he paused as he tried to figure out how to pronounce Lotti's name, "Lottay? Is she absent today?"

"Lotti," Jayne corrected. "She's... not feeling well."

"Oh, that's too bad..." Mr. Byrd said as he x'd off Lotti's name. "Now! I will need volunteers, preferably with good handwriting. Anyone?" Seeing as no one raised their hands, he clapped his hands together and got ready to pick random people. "How about the nice young lady that told me where Miss Lott...Lotti was. Hmm? How about it? Please, step up here," he indicated that Jayne should stand next to the chalk board.

Jayne narrowed her eyes, glowering at the teacher, but didn't say anything as she got up and stood next to the chalkboard with a defiant posture. If I'da known I was volunteering myself... she started to think before sighing and resigning herself.

May grinned from ear to ear at seeing her friend in such dispair. In a matter of mere seconds, though, that grin turned into a gasp of horror as Mr. Byrd then pointed to May, and motioned for her to stand next to Jayne.

Lorenzo watched this with minimal comprehension; he was primarily engaged in staring at the teacher's mohawk. And then down to where the rest of him was absolutely, stereoptypically, normal teacher. And then back up to the orange mohawk. And then back down. And then back up. And down. And up. He had tried, once or twice, to think of something else, like what the teacher was doing or to feel embarassed about the whole giant lizard thing, but it just didn't work out.

Mr. Byrd straightened the tips of his neon-orange mohawk and looked at the two girls standing by the chalk board. "What are your names, girls?" he asked politely. He nodded and smiled quickly as both of them answered quietly. "Now, then. This year we are going to begin our lessons of "Stepping into the Past"," he paused, waiting for a reaction. When there was none he whispered to one of the girls - the one named Jayne - to write that down. "Today, we are going to talk about Hauntings in the past, and what they mean. We are going to ask questions like, - write this down! - Are ghosts real, or are they merely human inventions conjured from the miasmic air and foreboding presence of certain dwellings? Or, are they simply a prankster wizard or witch? Some psychical researchers have suggested that ghosts do haunt houses, if only as nebulous afterimages of particularly strong feeling and portentous events," he took a breath, checking the chalk board to make sure Jayne was getting this. "Jayne, when you get a hand cramp, just hand the chalk to May, and let her take over, okay?"

Jayne was writing the word 'nebulous' as quickly as possible and wondering how in the world to spell 'portentous.' No way is his handwriting too bad for him to write this down himself, she grumbled in her thoughts. How the hell am I supposed to be taking my own notes? She guessed at the word 'portentous,' shook her hand after finishing it up, and handed the chalk to May. Her arm was getting tired from holding it up that long. Whoever's body she had not hadn't been working too much on upper body strength.

May sighed, took the chalk, and prepared for a lot of writing.

"All set? Good," Mr. Byrd smiled at the two girls before he carried on his lecture. "The physicist Sir Oliver Lodge, for instance, proposed in 1908 that hauntings were a 'ghostly representation of some long past tragedy.' Sir Oliver believed that violent emotions might somehow imprint themselves on their environment for later transmission to people sensitive enough to tune them in. Perhaps it is not surprising, therefore...." he talked on and on, hoping that at least some of the students would be actually absorbing all that he said. Having the unnatural power to remember anything and everything said or read to him or by him, he never had a problem with lectures given him by any of his previous teachers in the past. "....or a thirst for justice or a need to play out endlessly the tragedy of thwarted love," he finished.

Jayne winced at the amount of writing May was doing. She raised an eyebrow at the teacher, looking from him back to the blackboard, to her desk, and back. Instead of saying anything, she just grit her teeth and waited for May to pass the chalk.

May shook her hand several times during the writing process. When she was finally finished, she passed the chalk, which was now just a short stub, back over to Jayne.

Mr. Byrd checked the chalk board, nodded a few times, and then ushered the girls back to their seats saying, "That's all now, ladies. Thank you!" He then returned to his desk, straightened the tips of his mohawk, and carried on. "Take a good look at these notes. Did anyone understand any of that, or is it just a whole lot of blabber? Raise your hands for questions. Come on now, I haven't got all day!"

Jayne actually wanted to ask the question of whether or not there is such thing as 'closure' for an imprint of violent emotions, or whether removal of the imprint through religious means like 'exorcism' was actual or a myth, but she was frantically writing down everything on the board that she had missed out on writing while in front of the class.

May had lost her pencil. Great, she thought. Then she spotted it up by the chalk board. Darnit! I'll have to actually walk up there... May tried to quietly slink out of her chair to get the "missing pencil", but miscalculated how far she would have to step in order not to step on her books, and she ended up face flat on the floor with a loud thump. She grunted as she hoisted herself up and mumbled, "Pencil. Chalk Board. Need. To. Write," before shuffling up to the chalkboard to retrieve the pencil, wishing she could just turn into an ant and crawl underneath her desk the whole way.

Jayne covered her hand, trying not to laugh. "You alright?" she whispered to May, giggling a little.

May glowered at Jayne, trying not to laugh herself, and smacked Jayne on the arm softly. "Shh!!" she whispered back, giggling.

Lorenzo tried writing the same stuff Jayne and May were, but it was just too much for him. He left it at 'girls write really fast' and got to the more general stuff, such as, "Ghosts real? Scientific speculation. Emotional afterimage? Ooh, nice. SOliver Lodge 1908 tragic imprint, emo knight." Overall, he thought it was pretty interesting, the idea that strong emotions could be imprinted on space, or time, or warp them somehow or something. He was more interested in the psychology of it than physics; but then, he'd be going after becoming a psychologist if it weren't for the Blinkings.

Derek thought it was all dead boring. He hated history. He sat in his seat and tried to go to sleep, which was far preferable to cleaning the teacher's mohawk. If he couldn't sleep, he reasoned (which was doubtful, considering the interest he had in the subject), there was bound to be something interesting to be done in the classroom. It was a room full of teenagers and school supplies, after all.

Mr. Byrd clapped his hands together, waking up anyone who was starting to fall asleep. "Now," he announced rather loudly, "We are going to do an activity. As I am sure you have noticed, there are small containers with a liquid-like substance within them. Please, do not remove the lids! Young man, please, put the lid back on. Young man in the back!" he hollered to a student sitting near the back row who was fiddling with the lid. "Thank you. I will come by with this dropper, and I will open your lid, drop the liquid I have into it, and let you do the rest. After I come by and give you permission to proceed, you with gently take the container, and, one by one, fling the substance onto the wall and see what happens. We are bringing science into class today, as I'm sure you've noticed," he grinned broadly, extremely proud of himself that he thought this activity up all by himself. "What should happen, is the the substance will drip quickly onto the floor, and form a shape. This shape will be the shape of your...how should I put it? "Inner ghost", I suppose, should you become a ghost. Most people's blobs are animals, while there are some rare cases where it is something else entirely. I will now pass out Polaroid cameras to each of you, and you are to take ONE picture of your blob, take the container, gather up the blob, and sit back down at your seat. You will notice that the blob stays in that shape when you pick it up. It may even react to your touch. This is normal. This blob will be your familiar for the rest of the year, until you find one of your own." Mr. Byrd bustled about to quickly carry out what he was to do so the students could carry on with the activity.

Jayne furrowed her forehead, trying to figure it out. Familiar? she asked herself, taking the Polaroid camera when passed to her and looking at the container suspiciously.

May tapped her pencil on her desk impatiently while she was waiting for Mr. Byrd to come around with the camaras and the dropper. She wondered what her "familiar" would look like. Euch, it's probably going to be something gross, like a spider or a snake! she decided, poking the container and laughing when it jiggled around lazily.

Derek wondered what his would be. This activity could actually be realy cool. Some animal that fit him. Maybe a wolf, or a bear, or a tiger, or something like that. Something tough and fierce and undeniably cool. He needed that, after this whole... fiasco with his power. It was truly disheartening, and turning him into someone he had never intended to be. He was fighting it with all his might, but this whole cleaning thing... despite all his efforts, he'd sanitized half the desks in the classroom already.

Wondering what your blob would turn into was probably a popular trend at the moment, Lorenzo decided. He bet his would be analytical, since he tended to be; but what sort of creature was analytical? Animals weren't analytical, as a rule. Maybe it wouldn't be an animal, then. Maybe it would be one of those something-else-entirelies, like... like... a clipboard. Great. He'd not thought a full minute and the idea of a clipboard as his familiar had already come up.

Mr. Byrd hummed a little tune as he dropped the liquid into Jayne's container, and gave her permission to fling her substance onto the wall.

Jayne hesitated for a moment before throwing the contents of her container at the wall in front of her. She peered at the substance quizzically, watching it melt to the floor and then start building up on itself. Jayne suddenly furrowed her eyebrows and stared as what looked like a beaked hedgehog emerged. "An echidna?" she asked, surprised she knew the animal.

The door to the classroom slowly creaked open, and Lotti stepped inside. To her horror, she saw many goo-like substances flinging about the room. She immediately sat down in the chair closes to the door and slammed her head down, in fear that the splatterings were going to make her see a vision of the future. As she sat, she raised her hand in the air, in attempt to get the teacher's attention. Inwardly, Lotti cursed her poor timing for deciding to go to class after all.

Mr. Byrd made his way over to Lotti's desk, chuckling under his breath. When he finally arrived there, after dodging many flying-blobs, he explained the activity quickly to Lotti. "Oh," he added, "I received word of your 'power', so I inserted a chemical into the mixture to insure that you "saw" nothing in our activity today. So don't worry, Lot-" he paused for a moment, smiling apologetically, "Lottay! Everything is under control!"

"Lotti." she replied, smiling. She leaned in towards Mr. Byrd, "and thank you." she picked up her container, hand on the lid. She looked to Mr. Byrd for further word.

Jayne picked up her own animal. "Look," she said to May, then turning to include Lotti. "I think it likes me." The echidna kept wriggling in her hands, trying to cuddle closer.

May giggled at the little animal in Jayne's hand. "It's so cute!" she exclaimed. She glanced at Lotti, trying to decide if Lotti was still mad at her.

Mr. Byrd nodded and smiled, encouraging Lotti to go ahead. "It's May, right?" he asked the girl standing in between Jayne and Lotti. "Well, my dear girl, you had best hurry and start flinging! Else we run out of time!" he said, motioning to the clock.

Lotti smiled curiously at the jar in her hand before flinging the goo at the wall. What she saw...was no surprise to her. To others, it would just appear as a dog - but to Lotti, it was her childhood dog; the same dog that she had always seen right before a vision.

May stepped up to the wall, container in hand. She was surprisingly nervous. Whatever this little blob-character was, she was going to be stuck with for the rest of the year. She sighed and thought, Well, here goes nothing! before shutting her eyes tightly and flinging her blob onto the wall. It took her a moment to open her eyes again, but when she did, she cried out in shock and pleasure. What she saw shuffling towards her, was, in fact, an Angora Rabbit. May delightedly picked the animal up, expecting it to be heavy, but to her surprise, it was uncommonly light. Probably because it's all just fur in there! she thought, nuzzling her nose into the soft fur of her familiar.

Derek, tired of all the cute animals around him, decided he would change the trend. It was time. Time to, among other things, prove himself. So he took his container, hefted it once (partly to be cool and partly to get the feel of it) and threw it against the wall. It was a good strong shot, but not as strong as he might have made it, since he didn't want to hurt the undoubtedly terrifyingly huge and powerful creature that would shortly emerge. He was quite satisfied with the toss, and watched, attention making the time long, as the blob hit the wall, slid swiftly down, and became...

"I'm doomed." Derek moaned, trying to sink into the background and ignore the result of his blob. No way was he taking a picture of that. Seriously. This was so uncool. First his power was to clean things, now his blob, which was supposed to express his, what was it, inner self or something - now his blob, out of all the millions of creatures it might have picked, most of them cool or at least weird enough to be considered, had become a little black cat. Not even a cat, really; it was small enough it could be mistaken for a kitten. And it was coming for him.

Jayne spies the kitten. "Awwww," she said, leaning down to get a closer look at it. "It's adorable."

Derek slunk behind a desk and hid, trying to pretend he did not exist. The cat was so not coming for him. It was humiliating. Go away, kitty. He thought. Not me. Nope. No. I am not who you want. Pick some girl who wants a cute little fluffy thing. I am not yours. The cat, undeterred, continued toward him.

Jayne looked up at Derek, almost annoyed at the guy's attitude. "Um, it could be a baby panther," she said, thinking instead, is this guy THAT insecure?

"Right. Baby panther." Derek tried, still looking glum. I'm not a kitten inside, am I? He wondered. He supposed there wasn't much to be done about it. The teacher hadn't, after all, told them how to destroy the blobs, and since they were magical, they were doubtless difficult and strange to get rid of. He'd just have to get used to it, he supposed. Somehow.

Right, then. Something inside him which was not the part that forced him to clean things cheered as Derek reached forward and picked the kitten up - stiffly, reluctantly, but he picked it up. It was warm and fuzzy.

May was so happy with her familiar, she hopped on one foot all the way to where Derek and Jayne were talking. "Hey guys! Look! Isn't it just the cutest? I s'pose this little guy is going to need a lot of maintenance, because of all this fur, but wowee! Can you believe it? I think I got exactly what I wanted. Well, I mean, I didn't really know WHAT I wanted, I just knew that I didn't want anything gross. Or mean. Or carnivorous," she smiled and paused for a moment, thinking. "You know, I think that was the most I've ever said at one time," she pointed out, giggling.

"It's... uh. Fluffy," Jayne said, looking at the rabbit, looking surprised. "I've never seen anything with that much hair." She looked down at her spiny monotreme, instantly thinking that the echidna was a pretty good fit.

May nodded grinning happily. "So, um, what is yours?" she asked politely. "Can I pet it?" she asked, wondering how exactly she would do that without poking herself with one of those needles.

"It's an echidna," Jayne said. "It's like a platypus-lays eggs but is a mammal and whatnot." She holds it out. "As long as it's not agitated, the spines should lay flat... Then it's easy to hold and pet." The small pet chirped up at May, eyeing the rabbit with confusion.

The rabbit wiggled what May thought to be a paw, but she could not be sure due to all of the fur surrounding it. May smiled and gingerly, despite what Jayne said, rubbed the prickly animal. "That's cute!" she said, after petting the creature a few times. She then wandered back to her desk, feeling her normal shy nature sink back in. But it had felt so good to not have to be so shy for a few moments! she thought, desperately trying to stay outgoing if only for a little while. Alas, May ended up sitting at her desk, covering her face with shiny, straight black hair, immersed in her own thoughts.

Lorenzo had no mercy on her social aptitude and promptly sat down near her. "It's a rabbit? Cool." He babbled. "I want to try it, and it should be interesting, but it's really scary too. Especially because he said they're not all animals. I mean, any animal would be cool, even if it were a snail or something, because animals are just like that, but if it's not an animal, what is it? A plant? Even a plant wouldn't be that bad, but I've gone through all this in my head and now I'm just about positive if I throw a blob at the wall it'll turn into a clipboard, so I'm procrastinating. Seriously. I do not want a clipboard for a familiar. Handy, but I'd rather it were not an expression of my inner self. Or whatever. It's a scary thought, that your inner ghost might express itself as a clipboard, and it's got me cowed. I'm babbling, aren't I?"

"Throw your stupid blob already," Jayne called out towards Lorenzo, granting May a mercy.

May gave a shy smile to Lorenzo and replied, "I don't think it would be a clipboard, because I think familiars can only be something alive. But, hey, only one way to find out," she added quickly, "Right?!"

"Oh, that's very reassuring..." Lorenzo commented. "And I guess I'd better do it soon. Now. Right." He raised a hand, aimed at the wall, tensed... and lowered it. "Or not. How about... now?" He tried, and failed, again. "Sheesh. It's as bad as when my sister tried to jump off Rabbit Rock. Just throw the thing! Third time's a charm! Fairy tales, repeats twice and changes on the third time. Same in music, most of the time. Third throw. Gonna do it this time. Really. I mean it." He almost reared back and made a mighty toss, but decided he'd chicken out if he tried for that, and just threw it at the wall.

It almost didn't make it, which was pathetic, and worse than even the girls had done. Not that girls didn't throw well, he supposed, they just threw like girls. Obviously. In any case, the blob hit the wall about six inches above the floor, which meant it did not take long to drip down to the ground. To make up for that, it spent some time trying to form its shape. Lorenzo watched helplessly as it wriggled, becoming ball-shaped, lumpy, and then flat on the ground. Colorless, still gooey, but with a lump that could only signify a clipboard. He couldn't look, and buried his head in his hands.

Mr. Byrd made his way toward Lorenzo, who was the last to throw his blob. Mr. Byrd looked at the famniliar wriggling on the ground, picked it up, and said a little gruffly, "Well, isn't this interesting! I daresay I have never seen this creature before!"

"Oh no..." Lorenzo muttered, looking up. But the blob was still rather blurry, uncolored - and as he looked, it shuddered a little, went blobular again, and coalesced properly into a red panda. It looked very pleased with itself as it surveyed the room from Mr. Byrd's arms.

May gasped delightedly. "Oh, isn't it darling?!" she exclaimed excitedly.

Jayne gave a quirky little grin. "Heh, it's a brat," she said. "I like it."

Lorenzo grinned, only partially with relief, which was surprising, because he was very, very relieved. "It's a little trouble-maker." He agreed. "Silly." He went to get the panda from Mr. Byrd. What did this say about him, he wondered. He didn't know much at all about pandas. He was surprised he even knew it was a panda. Maybe the blob told you, on some level, what it was. Maybe it couldn't be anything you didn't know about. Maybe it had nothing to do with it.

Handing the animal to Lorenzo, Mr. Byrd clapped his hands and addressed the class. "Good! It seems you are all pleased, and this gladdens me. I believe it is time for this class to be over. 3..2...1.." Just then, the bell rang, and the normal rush to the next class started. Mr. Byrd smiled to himself. He always loved that trick.

A teacher with a mohawk. The mind boggles, Derek thought. And I am a kitten inside. Will wonders never cease. He looked down at the feline in his arms. It mewed correction at him. It was a cat, not a kitten. Just a rather small one. And it refused to be carried, as it soon proved by digging its teeth into his thum` and climbing up to his shoulder as he hopped - it was small but it had good teeth - and cleaned his thumb. The cat looked very pleased with itself. "Stupid kitten." Derek commented, taking pleasure in using the wrong word since the cat objected. The pleasure was brief as the cat bit his ear in retaliation. "Ow!"

Jayne's echidna settled down from its happy dance in her hands and instead was leaning out from the safety to twitch a long nose at its surroundings. Jayne placed it on her desk to shove her things into her backpack, glancing at Mr. Byrd. Her head had felt tingly at times, but she hadn't even felt the need to suppress a sneeze. She then glanced to the door. As the door opened and closed, she could just faintly feel waves of... something making her sinuses hurt. Jayne crinkled her nose and started off to her next class.

May gathered her things, and, with the Rabbit on top of her books, she hurried up to Lotti to try to patch things up. "Hey, um, I didn't mean anything by what I said earlier," she said, blushing furiously, but forcing herself to continue. "You can totally do the photographing, um, okay? And, um, well....D'you forgive me?"

"Yeah. It's fine." Lotti said, only half listening as she pet her once childhood pet. "I just wonder how often we're going to use our spirit friends..." she trailed off. She knew she used hers more often than the others could ever know. He always led her into her visions.

Jayne walked out into the hallway, clutching her things as her head began spinning. It hadn't been this bad on the first day, right? It was like there was a powerful smell in the air. Jayne held her breath and hurried to her next classroom. It wasn't that far away but it seemed like ages until she slipped into it, panting and looking terrified at what was happening. Her echidna squeaked in her hands, nuzzling her in an attempt to pacify her.

May nodded and hid her face in her hair. Her rabbit squeaked rather loudly, which startled her, causing her to drop everything except for the rabbit. "Oh drat!" she exclaimed, frowning at her temporary familiar. "Now what'd you have to go and do that for, eh? You're just like one of those candies. First you're sweet, and then you're sour!" she babbled on, picking up her books. "You know, I really do need a name for you. Hmmm...." she wondered aloud, "You really are like those candies...How about Candy, then? That's a cute name, I like it. Candy it is!" May decided. With her books and her newly-named rabbit, she walked to class.

Lotti stood frozen as May picked up her things. The dread feeling came on...and then the plunge. 'Candy it is!' brought her back to the present time. Lotti shook her head. She looked May in the face, knowing full well that she was May. Shaking her head, she headed to her next class, already knowing what was in store.

May sat down in a seat more towards the front of the class. Since she had had such a successful and wonderful class previously, she decided to be bold and try something different.

Jayne did exactly the opposite, running to the back of the class. Her headache only faded a little as she buried her head in her hands, rubbing her forehead.

"Hey Jayne...are you alright?" came Lotti's voice. She had also chosen a seat at the back of the class.

Jayne looked up, squeezing her eyes enough to see Lotti. "Er, yeah," she said. "Just... a headache." She shook her head, trying to make it go away, but it really only worsened the problem. "I might need to copy notes from you later," Jayne murmured to Lotti, laying her head on her desk.

"Don't worry about it." Lotti smiled. She already knew what they were doing...she might as well start her notes now...and with that thought, Lotti pulled out her notebook and pencil, beginning to jot a few things down.

Keira and Kade trudged around the corner and into the classroom, simultaneously setting their books on two desks beside each other, Keira's near May's. "Hey, chick," Keira waved, yawning slightly. Kade propped his legs on the desktop, whipping out the latest Stephen King novel.
"Whatcha up to?" Keira questioned, resting her chin in her palms.

May sneaked a glance toward Kade before answering. "Um, you know, the, um, usual, I guess," she said quietly. "Oh, um, we got these cute, um, animal things in our, um, other class, and um, I've named mine Candy...wanna see it?" she asked hesitatingly.

Kade sighed and set the book down, closing his eyes. Keira snickered quietly at May, and answered, "Sure!", scratching Kade's head lightly.

May grinned proudly as she handed over the newly made familiar. "I think, maybe, you'll make it in your next class," she added.

Jayne grimaced as the two other kids came into the room; she couldn't see them but it was almost like their presence intensified her headache. Her familiar, the echidna, seemed to sense this, coming closer to her head. The closer they came, the more the pressure built up in her head until finally she sneezed, twice. For a second after she sneezed Jayne could swear that the pressure went totally away, but it then began to build up once more. Jayne groaned and sniffed. She looked down at her familiar and was surprised to see that it had transformed into a horny toad. "You change, too?" she asked her familiar, who cocked its head at her. Jayne looked in the mirror and noticed that she had taken on the features of a Native American, her long black hair going down to mid-back.

Lotti looked up from her pre-note-taking to see Jayne's new form. She rummaged into her pack and pulled out her Polaroid camera. "Cheese!" She pulled out the photo and shook it. "Your familiar changes shape, too?" she asked, astonished.

"Looks like," Jayne confirmed, still shocked. She had tried to smile at the camera but had probably been a second too late. As it was, she leaned over to look at it. "We need a scrapbook," she said, frowning. In the back of her mind she wondered if she was actually getting into it.

"Yeah, we should!" Lotti said cheerfully, writing Jayne's name on the Polaroid picture, as well as adding 'and her ever-changing familiar' underneath. "It could be our thing, ya know? Something to do around this place after classes." she displayed the photo proudly. Jayne was one of the few people around here that Lotti could actually see herself being good friends with.

May turned around to chat with the girls behind her and grinned. "Hey, I love your familiar! That's so cool that it changes too!" she said, astonishing even herself at her sudden outgoing moment.

"Yeah!" Jayne said, agreeing. "I just hope it doesn't change into something ugly." The lizard cocked its head and nipped at the tip of her finger, as if insulted by such a suggestion. Jayne eyed the empty front of the classroom, wondering when the teacher was coming in. She was going to the nurse's office after this class to see about her headaches.

Keira took the rabbit in her arms and cuddled it to her breast, crying, "OHMYGOSH! I'ts sooo cute, May!" She scracthed its fuzzy ears and spoke to it in baby talk. Kade rolled his eyes, and chuckled a little. "You're such a girl, Keira..." Keira huffed and shoved it in her brother's face. "But it's SOO cute!!"

May smiled apologetically to Jayne as she turned back around in her chair to face Keira. She chuckled at the look on Kade's face. "Yeah, I guess it is," she said.

Suddenly, a woman burst into the room, carrying an armful of books and papers, which were falling out of her hands. Her hair was mess, though it looked like she had at least tried to fix it up a little. Her lipstick was too red, and was smeared down her chin. She had messed up when applying her mascara, which was smeared down her left eye. Practically throwing the books and papers on her desk, she smiled at the class, revealing some lipstick-covered teeth. "Sorry, my car broke down on the way here. Old, stupid thing, had it for years..." she chattered on, organizing her desk as best she could. After a few minutes, her eyes seemed to focus on the class, as if she had forgotten them. She looked up suddenly, her eyes wide. "Have you been there the whole time?" she asked quietly. Then she burst into laughter, shaking her head. "Course you have, 'course you have. I've just been a little-" she paused, "...out of the loop, lately. I'm Mrs. Daxter and I will be your teacher for this class."

Jayne blinked, hard, at this womans appearance. She almost took it personally how bad her makeup was applied, it was so insulting. Jayne didn't wear a lot of makeup, seeing as how her complexion changed at least once a day, but she at least knew how. She frowned and looked down at her books. Maybe the headaches were making her snippier than usual.

Mrs.Daxter clapped her hands and rubbed them together. "Alright, class. Let's start! Here are your new textbooks, please have them with you at all classes..." she babbled on as she walked around handing out the textbooks.

Jayne took the textbook and idly looked at the cover, then back up at the teacher. She just hoped they wouldn't have to do any more stupid exercises with the class. The last one felt like a coming out.

May looked at the cover of the book also. Interesting, she thought. This topic doesn't exactly fit the teacher's personality well.

Having passed out the textbooks, Mrs. Daxter returned to the front of the class, grinning broadly. "Our subject for this year will be..." she paused, as if in thought. "Well, to put it simply, Mind over Matter. The topics I will be teaching you will be very interesting indeed! Topics such as, Cosmic connections, Visions and Prophecies, Psycic powers, and much more," she explained enthusiastically. "Won't this be fun?"

"Nngh," Jayne murmured. It wasn't quite disagreeing, just a noncommittal noise.

Lotti laughed nervously. Visions and prophecies...I think I've had my fill of those already... She scratched the back of her head innocently, plastering a fake smile on her face. She didn't want to get off on the wrong foot with the teacher.

As if hearing Lotti's thoughts, Mrs. Daxter grinned towards Lotti and winked. She babbled on about their year schedule and what they would study tomorrow and other silly things. Several times she attempted to tidy up her hair, but it was in vain.

May grimaced. She didn't like the sound of this class, or it's teacher.

Jayne opened the book and laid her head on her hands, staring at the words idly. Her eyes began to close slightly, starting to drift off into sleep.

"....astrology's popularity is particularly evident in the Orient, where the ancient art never slipped into the general disrepute that was its lot for so long..." Mrs. Daxter went on.

May started to fall asleep as well.

Sensing the class' boredom, Mrs. Daxter decided to start the activity early. "EVERYONE!" she practically yelled, to wake anyone up. "Please stand up and stand by the wall."

Jayne's eyes snapped open only to narrow slightly, her mind muttering choice words. She wondered what would happen now. Maybe this teacher would throw makeup at them or something. Seems to be how she got ready in the morning. She slipped halfway out of her seat, waiting for somebody else to go first.

May popped up out of her seat, but then, realizing that no one else was up yet, she slowly sat back down, blushing madly.

"Oh come on, let's go," Jayne grumbled, standing up, not really wanting to wait for the others anymore. She shot a less-than-appreciative glance at the teacher, although she was careful to keep it from turning mean, and slunk over to the wall, leaning up against it haphazardly.

Lotti rose from her seat apprehensively, still confused by the wink that the teacher had given her earlier. She stood uneasily by Jayne.

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Back to Johnsonsville's Whimsical Academy - The main page, with a plot summary. Ask questions there.
The former, dead page, the title of which pretty much sums it up.
The Whimsically Gifted Youths - Student application forms, and a tad deeper description of the mechanics of the plot.
History: jwagy1, jwagy2