Sea To Land

Chapter Two

When Maire and I arrived at school I was amazed. The school was bigger than my town! It was tall too. The school it's self was on a higher platform than here I saw everyone talking. There was even elegent steps that lead up to the dull red school. There was even a water that shot into the sky! I thought stairs and water that moved like that was an old mer tale but here it was- in front of me!

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Maire asked, watching me take it in.

"It's lovely!" I shouted.

"Well I'm glad you like it since you'll be spending a lot of time here. Speaking of which, you should know a few things." I curiously turned my head towards her. "That girl over there," she pointed to a blonde girl, "from what I heard, she doesn't take kindly to new kids at first and makes sure that new kids know she's top dog."

"Top dog?"

"Right, your mer. Top dog just means she popular and wants to make sure newbies know it."

"We had a girl like that at our school."

"I'm pretty sure every school does." That made me laugh. I was so nervous about something going wrong that hearing that mer-school has something in common with this school, put me at ease.

Then a high pitched noise slienced everyone. Then like the flow of the tide, everyone headed towards the building.

"That's the bell. It lets everyone know if school or class is about to start." Maire explained as we started walking towards the building with everyone.

~

It was a while before I fully knew what was happening. Everyone was shuffled inside the building, then we were told "Get your class schedule." An half of every other word this woman said was like trying to hear Pearl talk underwater while I was above water.

"Uh, Maire. Can you dumb down what she said for me?" As I said this I was finally able to take a look at the inside of the school.
Where we were standing you could look up and see through to ceiling, exposing the sky. The floors had a color square pattern that would switch between a gray white color to the same color as my skirt. Two of the edges of the area we were in had more steps, and I could see they lead all the way the the top. And you could see the different sections of the building when you looked up. I loved it! It was better than mer-school's buildings. Also in the clearing area there was three stand things. There were like rocks only smooth tan and had signs. One read 'Schedule', another read 'Map', and a thrid read 'Help'.

"So what that lady was saying," Maire talking snapped me back into reality. "Was that we go to that desk over there," she pointed to the 'Schedule' desk, "and get what's called a schedule. It tells us sudents where to go and when. Then we'll get you a map and I'll mark the places you have to go and when. Oh yeah, the only way I could get you in was to say you were a cousin visiting for some time, at least a school year."

"OK. Well, now I'm really excited!" I had the same feeling in my stomach I had the moment my head broke the surface, years ago, a bubbling feeling that didn't feel bad but, exhilarating.

Together we go into the line behind the desk and waited. Maire filled me in on what the different classes were and what I had to do in them. She also warned me that P.E. could sometimes be a swim class but if I said I had a water phobia and couldn't swim, I would just sit on the side.

Finally we were at the front of the line. Maire said her name and the guy sitting behind the desk flipped through the thing in front of him, moved a small yellow thing across it, and gave Maire what he called a packet.

I got anixous as I went up to the desk. What if Maire didn't really get me into the school? What if in this moment every thing came crashing down? What if-