Snow White and Seven Devils (rewrite) ✅

(6) A collection of strange people

6.

The orientation had to be the most boring sitting that existed. I was so pumped up in the morning, even before all the first years filed up in the hall, things looked promising. With new faces and the familiar school environment, I was pretty excited and looked forward to it. As soon as our principal Mrs. Thatcher took the mic and started describing school rules from scratch, things began to go downhill. Mrs. Thatcher was a tall and slim woman who was dressed formally for the 'occasion' and had a very raspy and breezy kind of voice that suggested that either she forgot to have her coffee this morning or had something stuck in her throat.

According to my calculations, she spent thirty minutes on code of conduct, thirty minutes on talking about the academics and then the last twenty minutes on describing the clubs and societies. Even while I was listening I immediately decided that I would go for drama club, we didn't have that in school at New York, that time I was the part of book club some girls started together.

''Wasn't it a bad idea to come here?'' Carmen asked me, she was sighing every now and then, showing she was just as eager to get out as me.

''Intelligent question there.'' Daniel replied sourly. Why was he so cranky? I had begun to notice that Daniel was almost always cranky, except when he doing nothing productive - like hanging out with us or being cooped up in his room with all sort of comics. I was beginning to worry about him.

Carmen threw him a sharp glare, though at first it looked like she was glaring at me since I sat between them, ''Thanks, I use my mind.'' I knew this was the start of another tongue spat. Once again I found this hard to believe that these guys were once dating each other. After reading so many romance novels, opposite attract was a common thing. But Carmen and Daniel were more like we-will-fight-till-our-last-breath kind of people, they were always arguing, over every simple thing. Were they naturally like this? Because I was starting having doubts that both of them were doing this on purpose.

''Oi!'' I suddenly look over the next row where Lillian and Dale sat with each other, she held something tightly in her hand and Dale was trying to take it. They were certainly enjoying themselves and staring at them made me feel something warm in my stomach. It was a very bitter feeling. Suddenly Lillian gave up and then started giggling; she looked back towards us and waved at me.

I forced at smile for both of them.

''You met her?'' Carmen asked when they turned back,

''Yeah,'' I replied with a straight face, I had forgot to tell them anything, ''she hit me with a ball.''

It was Dale who walked me back home, Lee Adams was there was well but apparently he lived nearby as well. Both of them kept telling me stories about Lillian to the point where it started to irritate me. I kept listening about how once Lillian broke window of some lady called Sandra and it cost her a hundred pounds, or how she got into a fight with some poor kid called Harold and shaved his hair for revenge. To me, all these things were more intimidating than believable, like stories about monsters that parents often told to scare children.

''that's why you've got this!'' she exclaimed touching my cheek. The bruise was not noticeable enough, but it was still visible if you look closely enough. At least it wasn't hurting anymore.

''Yeah, Dale took me to meet them.''

''She's flighty isn't she?'' Flighty? I wasn't sure what was the best word to describe Lillian Fisher. She was a lot of things at once, one word couldn't contain her personality, and she was more like spilled stones from a jar, too many and too colorful.

''She's okay,'' I managed to say plainly, remembering her behavior from yesterday. Though her first impression wasn't the best, but she had been frank. Like I said; Lillian Fisher was a lot of things, but she was friendly in her own way. Maybe that's why she got along with Dale.