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.
I turned back to stare at the still-blank piece of lined paper in front of me. I mentally smacked my forehead repeatedly, willing my brain to spit out some ideas.
No luck.
Briiiing!
"Finally!" Josh yelled, jumping out of his seat. He raced towards the door, calling, "See you later, Tansy!" over his shoulder.
I quickly grabbed my things and bolted out the door, eager to get away from the demons. I'd had enough of them for one day.
***
After school hours were finally over, I headed over to the human dorms. The doors opened up into a huge lobby. Tables were set up under the windows, four chairs to each. A forty-two inch TV was mounted on one wall, couches forming two rows of semi-circles in front of it. A few boys were sprawled across them, going through the channels until they found one showing a baseball game.
A group of girls were clustered at a long table in the center of the lobby. They were giggling and gossipping about their boyfriends and the "super cute vampires" in the dorm next to us. I rolled my eyes and entered the hall marked "Girls Only."
My room is number 186. I share it with two other girls: Jessica Marley and Mina Burton.
Jessie is a nature lover. She always wears her brown hair in a braid or ponytail, and her ocean-blue eyes have flecks of brown in them. I don't really mind rooming with her, but I want to tape her mouth shut every time she starts talking about trees and flowers - which is almost always the reason her mouth starts running.
Mina is a whole different story.She thinks she's too good for everyone. Oh, she has friends alright, but they're all a bunch of copycats. They like to try and imitate Mina's long blonde hair by dying or bleaching theirs and using extensions. Some even go as far as using green contacts to match her emerald eyes. They follow Mina all over the campus, catering to her every demand. Mina will probably be a temporary infatuation, if you ask me.
I opened the door marked 186 and found both girls inside. Jessie was pressing leaves and flowers, humming a show tune. Mina was sitting in front of her huge mirror, coating her face with makeup.
"You're gonna get wrinkles if you keep putting on so much of that junk," I said as I dropped my stuff on my bed.
Mina rolled her eyes at me in the mirror. "Whatever. You could use some makeup to cover up that plain face of yours. I'd be happy to help with that."
I gave her a look of disgust. "And end up looking like you?"
She glared at me without replying.
I didn't bother saying anything to Jessie; she'd probably find some way to connect whatever I said to nature. With a sigh, I changed into my two-piece swim suit. The top was purple with black stripes, and it provided comfortable coverage. I hated bikini bottoms, even with a skirt, so I had a pair of black boy shorts as a substitute. I tied my red hair back into a ponytail. As I left the room, I quickly glanced in Mina's mirror. My green eyes contrasted nicely with the purple top. I walked out into the hall without saying goodbye, taking my phone and a white cover-up, which I pulled on as reentered the lobby.
The school's pool was a three-minute walk away. I passed a few vampires and fairies along the way but didn't stop to say hi. I just wanted to relax in the heated pool for an hour.
The pool building was empty, much to my relief. I pulled off my cover-up and threw it on the chair closest to the shallow end of the pool. I sat on the edge of the pool's perimeter and slid in. The warm water felt great!
I sighed and sat on a ledge that jutted out halfway down the side of the pool's wall, leaning my head back on the tiled floor as little waves washed over my shoulders. I relaxed and let the soothing motion wash away all my fears and insecurities, all of the worries I've had since coming to this school. Since finding out about the paranormals.
After a little while, I rose off the ledge and swam over to the deep end. I swam to the bottom of the ten-foot-deep part of the pool - something I've always liked to do - and pushed myself up as hard as I could. The surface of the water exploded, and my head popped up.
"I was beginning to think you'd drowned."
I whipped my head around. "Chess, you moron! You almost gave me a heart attack."
Chess was sitting on the edge of the pool, his lean legs pulled up a little with one arm wrapped around them and the other stretched out across his knees. His head rested on the outstretched arm, cocked to the left. A cat-like grin was plastered across his face, and his intense violet eyes stared at me with a strange gentleness I'd never noticed before.
"Sorry, Alice," he said softly. "I didn't mean to frighten you."
I swam over to him and grabbed the pool's edge. "What are you doing here? Gonna take a dip?"
Chess shook his head. "I hate water. I only came to see you."
"Why?"
He shrugged. "I guess I just...wanted to..."
I laughed. "You're weird, you know that?"
"Aren't we all?" he chuckled.
"Hm. I suppose so."
"So why are you here?" Chess asked.
"Mostly because of stress. But it doesn't matter, I'm fine now." I re-adjusted my grip and kicked my legs to push myself up more. "Are you sure you don't wanna come in?"
"I'm sure."
"But if you hate water so much...do you ever take showers?"
Chess blinked at me, his face reddening. "Of course I do! Why wouldn't I?"
"Then why are you all flustered?"
"Because I don't shower with water. I..."
"You what?"
He looked away, but I could see his ears turning a darker shade of red. "I clean myself in cat form."
"Oh, okay." Then it registered in my head what he meant. "Oh! Nevermind, then. Sorry I asked."
We fell into an awkward silence. I dipped down so my nose was underwater and glanced up at Chess. He was rubbing the back of his neck and looking at the tiled flooring. I was about to ask him something else when the doors flew open and Ceelah raced in.
"Water!" she exclaimed. She jumped and shifted into a mermaid in mid-air, landing in the pool with a loud splash. A wave of water was thrown onto Chess, and he shot up into the air.
Heh. Just like a cat.
Ceelah soon resurfaced and saw a very drenched, very distressed werecat. She covered her mouth with both of her hands. "Oh crabs, I'm so sorry, Chess!"
He shook his hair and looked down at his water-logged form. "Uh, don't worry about it. It'll dry off," he said after a moment's hesitation. "I guess I should go now." He crossed the floor and pushed open the doors, letting it shut behind him.
"Wait!" I shouted. "I'm coming with you."
Ceelah pouted. "Aw, you're going to leave me by myself when I just got here?"
"I'm sorry, but I wanted to ask him something. Maybe next time, okay?"
She stuck her tongue out at me. "Okay, fine!" She flipped her hair dramatically and dove into the water, flicking her ice blue tail with sassiness.
I pulled myself out of the pool and put on my cover-up. Then I bolted after Chess, who'd already made it across the lawn.
"Hang on a second," I called. He slowed to a stopped and looked back. "I wanna go to the hole."
Chess squinted in confusion. "The what?"
"Our Path to Wonderland. Let's go see it."
"Sure." He grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the giant tree's direction.
I blushed as I noticed the warmth that his hand was passing to mine. I felt strange. I mean, he's never held my hand before. Maybe that's the reason. But I allowed him to hold it; after all, I didn't want to pull it away and have him get the wrong idea.
At least, that's what I told myself.
The tree was only a hundred yards ahead of us now.
Something tugged at my heart, and I stopped abruptly.
Chess looked back at me. "Alice? Is something wrong?"
Yes. Something is very wrong.
"Hurry!" I ran towards the hole, afraid of what I'd find. When I finally reached it, I gasped at what I saw. "Chess?"
"What is it?" He came up beside me and froze.
We both stared down the hole. Not much was different from the other times we'd come to look into it. The cupcake and bottle, the rabbit and the pocketwatch were all there, along with the other Alice in Wonderland merchandise. Nothing had been taken.
But something else was mixed in with the toys, lying in the middle of the sea of plush Wonderland characters.
Someone.
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Sorry it took so long for me to update. I've been busy with homework (especially art homework) so I couldn't find the time to write.
I hope you enjoyed Chapter Two of School of Freaks!! *(^v^)*