The Seraphim Project

Chapter Nine

“Now, how old are you?” the woman who I assumed was a teacher asked us.

“Beast and Falcon are seventeen,” I told her. They raised their hands. “The rest of us are fifteen.”

She handed us tests, and told us to take as much time as we needed and answer each question to the best of our ability. The test was horrible. I didn’t know the answer to a single question, and I could barely read the dang thing to begin with. Eventually, I just gave up and turned the blank test in to the teacher that was supervising us. The other misfits turned in their test too, all blank.

She shook her head and tried to give them back. “You have to answer the questions,” she told us.

I shook my head. “We don’t know the answers. We’ve never been to school before.”

“But that’s impossible—”

“Look, lady, I lived the first eight years of my life in a crate, and the next seven in a house in the middle of nowhere, cut off from civilization. You’re lucky I made everyone learn how to read, even if it was a long, painful process that didn’t work very well. We don’t know the answers to those questions, and making us answer them will not help you in the slightest.”

She stared at me for a few minutes before, finally, she shook her head and led us back to the building marked Administration. She told us to sit down in the little waiting area, and a few minutes later, she came back with schedules.

“We put you in the lowest level classes of your grade levels. You’ll still be way behind, but that’s the best that we can do.”

She failed to mention that we didn’t have any classes together. It was almost as if she’d done it on purpose. And she’d put us in the stupidest electives. I had physical education and choir. Really. Choir.

I shook my head and headed off to my first class, Algebra. I could tell just from the name that I wouldn’t like it, and I was right. It was math. I could barely add and subtract, and now they wanted me to solve for x? I could already see where this was going, and I didn’t like it.

Not that I could really pay attention to the teacher with every eye in the classroom on me. Or, to be more specific, my wings. I’d felt so confident in the gym earlier, but now, when I was trying to actually concentrate and maybe learn something for once in my life, I couldn’t seem to focus. I kept my wings tucked in tight, but I could still feel their stares and hear their whispers.

In fact, I could hear every word they said about me. Some of them were positive. “That’s so cool!” etc. But then there were others. “What a freak.” “Did you see those wings? So weird, right?”

Finally, I just could take it anymore. I stood, turning my eyes to the class. The teacher fell silent at the front of the classroom as my glare swept over the room, silencing the rest of the class. “I would appreciate it if you would stop staring and talking about me behind my back. It’s very rude, and I can’t concentrate on the lesson.”

My gaze found one of the girls that had been making rude comments just as she snorted and turned to her friends to whisper something. “I wouldn’t suggest saying whatever you’re about to say,” I said, narrowing my eyes at her. “I’m not playing.”

She laughed. “Really? Well, you see, the thing is, I really don’t care. I’ll stare if I want to stare, and talk if I want to talk, and I don’t think you have any right to tell me otherwise.”

I took a menacing step forward when the teacher intervened. “Please take your seat. And class, she is right, it is very rude, the way you’re treating her. I expect you to do better. Am I clear?”