Birds of a Feather - a MPHFPC fanfiction

#1 - Messy Morning

The presence of birds is a thing we're used to in my hometown. Oh, I mean homecity, I beg your finest pardon for calling the capital of Ugaria a "town" (even if it's the size of one).

What I was saying is Ugaria -- my country -- is known for its diverse natural life, specifically birds. Since the anti-hunting laws have been revoked, many of them were pushed to the verge of extinction (thanks, Mr President), but they still aren't a rare sight to see.

One of them even nests on the balcony of my room. It had crossed my mind that this had something to do with my unusual habits, but there is no proof of that yet.

My red bird roomate is an unusual one. She doesn't have a mate and barely spends time in the messy little nest she built. Even when she is there, she doesn't rest, she just stares at me. Adorably curious. I call her Gertrude, after a figure from an ugarian children's tale, who is a lonely old lady with a bunch of songbirds for friends.

Just like every morning when she was present, I tried to feed her this Monday too, this time with crumbs from my grandma's homemade bread. Gertrude just stared at me with her brown eyes and tilted her head in a way that made her expressionless little birdy face look unimpressed.

"Someone is really picky." I smiled at her. "Not even the homemade bread? What, are you a gourmet?"

Gertrude looked at me disapprovingly. I'm seriously being judged by a bird? That's a new level of pathetic.

I sprinkled some of the crumbs on her head, hoping that she would eat them, but all I got was another death stare, so I gave up and left her to be. I went back inside and resumed packing my bag.

When I was done, I said goodbye to the empty flat (my parents headed off to work hours ago), locked the door and left for school.

I wasted my time trying to feed Gertrude instead of packing my lunch, so the thirty-five-minute journey to school was lengthened by a ten-minute side quest of buying lunch in a Smart-Aid, the nearest supermarket. Since I left home at 07:15, I arrived at the school gate precisely at 08:00, when the first class started.

It took me approximately five more minutes to climb the stairs and run through the corridors to reach our classroom on the third floor, so, needless to say, I was late.

We started with literature, my favourite subject, and I really didn't want my favourite teacher to be mad at me, so I ran like my life depended on it. You can imagine my surprise when I bumped into a red-haired, tall woman, who happened to be the teacher in question -- Miss Reneè Delacroix, or, as we call her, Miss RD.

If I weren't so surprised by the fact that she, the most dedicated teacher we ever had, was late, I would have regained my balance easily, but since I was caught so off guard, I stumbled over, bumped into the wall and landed on the floor on my butt.

"Fuuuu-...." Miss RD's eyebrows knit together warningly. "-uudge." I corrected myself before the word could have slipped out.

"Are you all right?" Miss RD's expression changed to a worried one and she extended her hand to help me up. I accepted gladly and she pulled me to my feet with ease. Next to teaching, she was a swimming coach and a quite strong one at that. One could say she was straight up buff.

"Aside from a few bruises, yes." I nodded. "And you, Miss?"

"I'm fine." she ran a finger through her messy hair, in a poor attempt to make herself look more presentable. As my eyes instinctively followed the movement, I noticed some dustlike thing there. She was really messy that morning.

"You've got something in your hair." I warned.

She shook her head and brushed her hair out with her hands.

"If the others ask, we were discussing a poem by Rimbaud and lost track of time." she winked at me.

She was late, and now she was asking me to lie?

"Wait, what?"

Instead of answering she grabbed my arm and practically dragged me to the classroom. I didn't really protest against lying to the class, because that meant I wasn't gonna get in trouble for being late, and that my favourite teacher and I had a funny story we shared. As much as I despise favoritism, I like to think that I am her favourite, and events like this just make me more and more sure about it.

Before we reached the classroom, Miss RD let go of me. I noticed something on the arm of my black hoodie, and at first I thought it was the same dust she had in her hair, but upon taking a closer look I noticed it was in fact bread crumbs. That made me think of Gertrude and distracted me from this weird little interaction.

After literature we had P.E., then Spanish, double maths, digital studies, geography, and English (as a foreign language, since Ugaria isn't an English-speaking country. We speak Ugarian). The day felt endless, but at 16:00 the bell rang for the last time and it was over. We were free.

As I made my way towards the exit, I slipped on something and fell -- again. This time there weren't any teachers nearby, so I let out a loud "fuck".

I looked around to see what object I could blame the incident on, and spotted a book right next to me. It was neither thick nor thin, and had a dark cover, just like our math textbooks. I flipped it around to see if there was a name tag on the cover, and when I read the title, I realised it wasn't what i first thought it was.

Big, golden letters decorated the simple black cover. It read: Miss Peregrine's Museum of Wonders.