Chapter 1 - The New Maths Teacher
"What's the meaning of this?" Headmaster West demanded.
Dani scuffed her shoes against the tile floor and wound a finger through her blonde hair uncomfortably, looking everywhere except at him. She was in trouble. Trouble of the "tried to go to the library to look up about the spaceship she saw last night, only for an off-duty policewoman to ask why she wasn't in school and personally escort her there when she couldn't find a good enough excuse" sort.
"I asked you a question. I expect an answer."
Obviously, there would be no way out of this except to answer.
"I didn't want to come to school," she muttered, not taking her eyes off the clock on the wall opposite her.
"And why not?"
"I didn't feel like it."
The headmaster sighed. "I see. Well, effective immediately, you're in detention -"
West was cut off when the door was thrown open with such force it hit the wall with a crash, startling him so much he knocked over several stacks of papers. Dani jumped violently and spun round. The boy responsible for all the commotion stood in the doorway, looking as surprised as she was and considerably embarrassed at the disturbance he'd caused.
"Sorry, the front door was open and the draught blew the handle out of my hand," he said by way of explanation.
"Try to be more careful in future, please," West said coolly. "I'll speak to you in a moment. As I was saying, Miss Tamari, you're in detention for the rest of the week. You can leave. Cross, what kept you? You're almost an hour late."
Dani turned and left, glancing curiously at "Cross", as West called the boy. Well, "boy" might be stretching things a bit. He looked like he was in his early twenties, maybe twenty-one. He also didn't look very healthy - his skin was white - not merely pale, white - there were dark circles around his grey eyes, and he apparently hadn't had a decent meal in several weeks. She also thought he could do with a haircut - his dark brown hair reached almost to his shoulders and clearly had not been combed for a while.
I wonder who he is and why he's here, she thought.
Dani was too late for Geography, the first lesson of the day, something she was extremely thankful for. Anahita Avalon, who taught that subject, was not her favourite teacher. Quite the opposite, in fact. However, she wasn't lucky enough to avoid English, which was taught by Anahita's mother, Angerona, who was if anything an even stricter teacher than her daughter.
"You're late," Angerona said sharply.
"The headmaster wanted to talk to me," Dani said as she took her seat next to one of her best friends, Gareth Brown.
"Where were you?" Gareth asked as soon as class was dismissed and the students filed out to get the books they needed for Science, the next lesson, and then proceeded to the Science classroom. "The headmaster couldn't have wanted to talk to you for that long."
"I went to the library," Dani said. "I wanted to see if I could find - Oh, never mind. I'll tell you at dinner."
"All right. I'll hold you to that, though. By the way, have you heard about the new student? Her name's Celeste LaMorgan and she's the daughter of a famous French actress. Apparently, her mother's here with a film crew working on her latest movie or something."
"Really?" She was hardly listening, so wasn't sure what to say. "That's... interesting."
On the way to dinner, Dani was elbowed, shoved, tripped, knocked against, pushed and had her feet trodden on by every student in the school, or so it seemed. Almost everyone wanted to get a chance to speak to the new girl and ask if she could introduce them to her mother, and those who just wanted to get their dinner didn't find navigating the crowded hallways an easy task.
Finally, she gave up her efforts at struggling towards the main dining-room door and went back to take a longer route past the music classroom and school library. Someone happened to be leaving the library just as she walked past the door, and they collided.
The sounds she made as she gathered up her books and nursed any bruises she might have received in the fall were not distinct words, and if they had been, they would not have been the sort of words her devout Catholic parents would have been pleased to hear from one of their children.
The someone she had walked into knelt down and helped her pick up her books. "Are you all right?"
"Yes, I'm... fine..." Dani trailed off as she realised she was speaking to the person she'd met earlier, who the headmaster had referred to as "Cross". Who is he? she wondered. Is he helping out at the library or something?
The best plan to find out would be to ask him, a little voice in her head said.
What would I say? she retorted mentally. "Who are you and what are you doing here?" or something like that? Because that would sound rude.
"You should watch where you're going," Cross - she still didn't know his first name - said before pushing past her. Was it her imagination or did he look slightly amused when she started arguing with herself?
I didn't say any of that out loud, did I? she thought, a bit alarmed. No, if I did, he'd have called the nearest asylum.
"You've met the new Maths teacher, then."
"Maths teacher?" Dani repeated, turning to face the newcomers.
Gwendoline, Guinevere and Geneva Messina gave her matching looks of surprise. They were identical triplets, with pale skin, brown hair tied back with ribbons of various colours (supposedly indigo for Gwendoline, turquoise for Guinevere and pink for Geneva, though it was a well-known fact they often switched colours) and green eyes that sometimes looked yellow. Telling them apart was impossible; even they weren't always sure of which one was which.
"You haven't heard?" the first girl - was it Gwendoline? - asked. "Well, come on or we'll be late for dinner. We'll tell you on the way."
"Professor Smith's retired and he's the replacement," the second girl said as the four of them headed down the hall towards the dining room.
"His name's David Cross," the third girl finished. "He's a bit odd, I think."
"Say, are you all right?" the first girl said. "You look confused. Oh, wait, you're trying to work out which of us is which, aren't you? Well, I'm Geneva. That's Gwendoline, and that's Guinevere."
"For pete's sake, you of all people should know us apart!" the girl referred to as Gwendoline said, rolling her eyes. "I'm Guinevere, that's Gwendoline. And Dani, have you even been paying attention to what we've been saying?"
"You said that's the new Maths teacher, his name's David Cross, and you think he's a bit odd," Dani said tiredly. She liked the Messina triplets, but telling them apart always left her feeling like she'd just run the London marathon.
Dani hardly had time to sit down at a table with her dinner before Gareth joined her, quickly followed by his older brother, Steven. "You said you were going to tell me at dinner why you went to the library," Gareth said, looking at her as if he thought she was trying to get out of keeping that promise. "Well, tell me."
"All right," she said, setting down her knife and fork with a sigh and giving Steven, who was busy eating his macaroni cheese and chips, a slightly envious look before she started. "Last night, I was out stargazing, and..."
When she finished, both Steven and Gareth were staring at her with eyes as wide as saucers.
"You saw a spaceship?" Steven said, his voice several notches higher than normal with excitement. "And you took photos of it?"
"Legina did. She's got them on her phone. Hey, Legina!"
Her sister, who was sitting next to the new girl at a table on the other side of the room, looked round when she called. "Yes?"
"Lend me your phone for a moment."
The older girl looked confused, but shrugged, set her phone on the ground, and gave it a gentle kick that sent it flying across the room. Unfortunately, someone happened to be walking past at this moment and almost tripped over it.
Dani was horrified. Steven froze with his fork half-way to his mouth. Gareth cringed. Of all the people who could have fallen victim to the phone, it had to be the new teacher, David Cross. Most of the other teachers would have known it was just an accident, but to him it was bound to look like Legina had deliberately tried to trip him.
"What's the meaning of this?" he asked ominously, looking at Legina.
She paled, obviously thinking the same thing Dani was. "My sister asked if she could borrow my phone so I tried to kick it over to her and you happened to be in the way," she said all in one breath.
"And, of course, you are incapable of getting up, walking over to your sister, and handing it to her like a normal person would," Cross said sarcastically. "I am confiscating this machine of yours until school is over. Hopefully by then you will have learned not to be so careless."
Dani and the two boys exchanged dismayed looks, and Legina looked like she was seriously considering murder.
"So much for seeing those pictures," Gareth said glumly. "And if he gets this mad over an accident, I hate to think how he'll react to my Maths answers."
Since Gareth was not known for being a brilliant Mathematician, he had a point.
Maths was the last lesson of the day, and Dani had already decided she wasn't going to like it. Not that she ever did like Maths (who did?), but she would like it even less now. Everyone else, however, was interested to see what kind of teacher Professor Cross would be.
What he did first startled everyone. He handed out sheets of paper with Maths problems on them.
"Now, these are tests to tell me how much you know about Mathematics. I want you to do as much as possible in the time we have. Any questions?"
Gareth's hand went up.
"Yes?"
"Sir, some of this material is too advanced for us."
"I know that. I already said that the purpose of these tests is to show how far your knowledge goes." He appeared to say the last part through gritted teeth.
Dani frowned. It looked like this teacher was going to become Anahita's rival for first place on her "most hated teacher" list.
Another hand shot up; one of the triplets, this time.
"Yes?"
"Sir, didn't Professor Smith tell you that?"
"I prefer to find out for myself. It may be that Professor Smith's ideas of advanced Mathematics differ from mine."
Dani didn't like the way he stressed Professor Smith's name. Smith had always taken the time to explain things to students who were having difficulties. She doubted this teacher would be the same.
Celeste, who was sitting behind Dani, muttered something that sounded like "Cross by name, cross by nature". The Professor, who appeared to have very sharp hearing, turned on her at once. "Care to repeat that?"
"I was just solving one of the problems here," the new girl lied.
Cross stared at her, a look on his face that boded no good towards anyone. "For some reason, I sincerely doubt that."
He returned to his desk, looking. "Get started!"
Dani picked up her pen and started writing, thankful that, no matter how much she disliked it, she was at least good at Maths.
~~~~
"There's no way into it, sir."
Colonel Jackson Brown frowned as he stared at the spaceship. "What planet is it from, anyway?"
Sergeant Biff O'Hara looked at it carefully, then shook his head. "Damned if I know, sir."
"Hmm."
Jackson took a step closer, trying to find any recognizable symbols that might indicate its planet of origin, and so what kind of creature had crashed in Enniskillen or a way in. There had to be some entrance - the pilot had to get in and out, after all.
"What do you think?" He turned to Gadget, the team's computer expert.
She was scanning it with her hand-held computer, her green eyes fixed on the screen. "No sign of life on board. Planet of origin..." she trailed off and looked up at it, an unreadable expression on her face. "Vampiru?"
A cold chill ran down Jackson's spine at that word. Vampiru? That's where the creature that landed here's from? There's one of those... things on the loose? Oh god, are we in trouble.