School of Freaks

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

As usual, Darke Sorrow and Onyx Paine were harassing the angels, who were sitting in the far corner of the room and looking bored. The demons seemed to be frustrated that their enemies were painlessly ignoring them.

"Come to the dark side," Darke was saying in a low, creepy voice. "We have cookies."

"Yeah, burnt cookies," Halo Skye retorted. He was twiddling his thumbs to pass the time, his face completely blank yet serene.

"Hey!" Onyx said, "Hell isn't an oven, you know."

"No, it's not," the other angel, Precious Miracle, agreed. "It's a billion suns shoved into one massive oven in the middle of a fire pit the size of the Milky Way Galaxy."

I set my bag on the desk in front of them. "Hey, guys," I said.

Darke and Onyx looked at me like I just dropped down from the moon.

"Ugh, a human," Onyx said flatly, scrunching her nose in disgust. She turned on her heel and retreated to her seat, Darke following right behind her.

I sat down and swiveled my legs to the side, turning my upper body around.

Precious smiled at me, the halo floating above her head glowing brighter. "Tansy! How's it going?"

"Good. Except Griffin and Dameon argued again this morning."

Halo shook his head, sighing. "Those two need help, like serious help."

I shrugged. "Yeah, I guess."

"Have no fear, Joshua Kemp is here!"

We turned our heads in the direction of the sudden outburst. My friend Josh, who is human like me, stood in the doorway with his arms outstretched. He spotted me and plopped down beside me as the final bell rang. "'Sup, peeps?"

Before any of us could respond, Mr. Scarlet (our vampire teacher) walked in. "Sorry I'm late, class," he said, laying his trench coat over the back of his chair before sitting down. "Some kid's locker was jammed, and I had to help him."

The class just stared at him; most likey, everyone was thinking, And you probably ended up drinking the kid's blood while you were at it.

Mr. Scarlet continued. "Today, you'll be writing a poem-"

Groans broke out across the room.

"And it's due tomorrow!" he yelled over the noise.

"Man, this stinks," Josh whined. "I hate poetry." He turned to ask the angels for help, but they were already busy scribbling down ideas. He looked at me, throwing me his puppy eyes.

"No way," I said firmly.

"Aw, come on! Please?"

I shook my head. "Why don't you ask Griffin? He loves poetry."

Josh noticably paled. "N-no way. I'm not going anywhere near that guy again. Not after he went crazy and attacked my neck with those...those fangs!"

I sighed. "Josh, he said he was sorry. He didn't mean to do that."

"I'm still not asking him."

"Alright, then. Suit yourself."

Opening my notebook to a new page, I tapped my pencil against the desk while trying to come up with at least one idea. After about a half hour, I smacked the desk in frustration. "Argh! I can't think!" I glared at the source of my distress.

Darke shot me a smug look before spitting the fourteenth soggy wad of paper at my head. I ducked, and it flew over my head at the wall. Then I checked to make sure Mr. Silver wasn't looking before I crumpled up a sheet of paper and chucked it. It smacked Darke right in the face. Beside me, Josh sniggered. Precious and Halo were trying not to smile.