by Cassandra
Chapter Eight
“I want to let both of you know that I’m always here when you need me.” Mr. Anderson escorted Jessica, Chad, and Roger to his personal office. “I’m the school counselor, so that’s what I’m here for.” He looked at the two young men. “I know losing parents is tough.” His gaze slid to Jessica. “And that goes for family members in general, of course. So, whenever you have a hard time, don’t hesitate to come see me. All right?”
They nodded.
“Good. How about we get your schedules together?” He took a seat at his desk and turned his computer on. “Let’s start with you, Chad.” He paused for a moment, stared at his computer screen, and frowned. “Hmm. Seems like the transcripts from your old school never made it over.”
“Really?” Chad asked, feigning confusion.
“Yeah. I wonder if Ms. Jones noticed?” The counselor paused for a second longer before he waved his hand dismissively. “It doesn’t matter. You can simply tell me what classes you took at your old school.”
He looked at Chad expectantly.
“Uhm…” Chad scratched the back of his head. “Just the regular stuff, you know?” He flashed a quick glance at Jessica.
“You were taking all the same classes I was. Right?”
“Right!” he quickly agreed.
Mr. Anderson stared from one to the other in surprise. “You two were at different schools, yet took the same classes?”
Jessica laughed nervously. “Strange coincidence.”
“And you?” Mr. Anderson asked Roger.
Roger raised his eyebrows and looked briefly at his fellow conspirators. They had inadvertently made him the odd man out because there was no way he could claim to take the same classes. Mr. Anderson already looked suspicious. If Roger echoed his friend’s story, it would be obvious that something was up.
A little nonplussed, he looked at the ceiling. “I took…geometry, PE, art history…” He continued to list various classes. Unlike Chad, he had gone to a normal, non-magical school.
Jessica breathed a sigh of relief at how believable Roger sounded. She presumed he had simply rattled off the classes he actually had taken during his high school years.
Far more satisfied with Roger’s answer, Mr. Anderson crafted a class schedule. “All right, here you are, Mr. Russell. If you have any problems with this schedule, let me know.”
“Thanks.” Roger barely looked at it.
The counselor turned his gaze to Chad and a suspicious gleam returned to his eyes.
Jessica wished fervently that her grandmother had remained with them for this. Why hadn’t she thought to conjure up fake transcripts for them as well?
“As for you…” the man began slowly. “What was your favorite class back at your old school?”
“Demonology,” Chad answered.
Jessica choked despite having nothing in her mouth. In the midst of a coughing fit, she glanced sideways at Chad and kicked his foot.
He thumped her on the back.
“Are you all right, Ms. Palmers?”
Jessica cleared her throat and nodded just as Mr. Anderson handed her a Kleenex. He then looked back to Chad. “Now what class was that you said?”
She stared at the man and wondered if he hadn’t heard Chad over her coughing, or if he actually had heard but thought his ears was mistaken. “Genealogy,” she ventured and hoped the word sounded close enough to demonology. She cast Chad a sideways glance that she hoped conveyed precisely what she thought, which was something along the lines of, What the hell is wrong with you? Are you trying to blow your own cover?
He looked puzzled for a second before he realized his mistake. Panic flashed briefly across his face as it dawned on him that the course schedule at whatever magical school he’d attended was drastically different from the classes offered at a normal high school.
“Genealogy?” Mr. Anderson narrowed his eyes. “We don’t offer that class here. I thought you said you were taking the same subjects as Ms. Palmer?”
“He is.” Jessica smiled meekly. “Genealogy…same as biology, right? So he should simply be placed in my biology class.”
Chad nodded vigorously. “Great idea!”
A bell rang to warn them that it was almost time for students to report to their homerooms.
Chad leaped from his chair. “What the hell is that?”
Jessica lowered her head and closed her eyes. This cannot be happening, she thought. In her peripheral vision, she saw Roger stare intently out the window. He either felt equally as embarrassed or tried not to laugh.
“The bell, Chad. It’s just the bell,” Jessica explained.
Chad’s eyes darted around the office. “What bell?”
“Chad.” Jessica pulled him back down to his seat. “The bell! How are you serious right now? I thought you said you’ve seen high schools on TV?”
Mr. Anderson watched the whole exchange with openmouthed shock. “What kind of school did you come from? Was it out of the country?”
Jessica nodded and Chad shook his head.
The counselor scowled. “Okay, look. I don’t know what’s going on here, but I think I have to call—”
“Mr. Anderson,” she interrupted quickly. She rested her hand on Chad’s arm. “My cousin is not himself lately. Grief over the accident, you see? It’s messed with his head a little.”
Mr. Anderson’s demeanor instantly softened, just as she had hoped it would. She seized the opportunity to keep going.
“I think it’s best if you let him stick with me. I’ll watch him. And as for Roger…” She leaned forward to look at him.
“Oh, I’ll be fine,” Roger insisted. “Don’t worry about me, Jess. Just…er, help him out.” He clapped Chad on the back.
Mr. Anderson sat quietly for several long seconds. “All right. I guess that’s probably for the best. I’ll let him stay with you.”
He turned to his computer and typed. Moments later, the printer activated and another class schedule popped out. He handed it to Chad.
Jessica read it over his shoulder, pleased to see that it matched hers exactly. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” the man replied although he still looked suspiciously at Chad.
“So, should we leave then?” she asked after a prolonged pause.
Mr. Anderson checked his watch. “I suppose you should.” With a grunt, he rose from his seat to walk them to the door. “And I mean it. If any of you have trouble—especially you, Mr. Hollingsworth—come to me. As a matter of fact, you might want to consider regular sessions with me so that I can make sure you’re really…all right.”
Jessica nudged Chad in the stomach. She could tell that he was about to ask what kind of sessions Mr. Anderson referred to. “Thank you again, Mr. Anderson!” she called and pushed Chad through the door behind Roger.
“Dude! You have got to do better than this!” Jessica hissed once they were out in the hallway, which was noticeably more crowded now as students began to file in.
“So I didn't just imagine that that didn’t go well?” Chad asked and rubbed his stomach where she had elbowed him.
“You think?” Roger snapped.
Jessica rounded on him. “And you! How come you didn’t explain to him what school was like?”
Roger raised his hands defensively in the air. “How was I supposed to know he didn’t know what a real high school was?”
“I do know what a real high school is,” Chad protested. “It’s only that my school wasn’t like this. I didn’t realize mundanes had such a weird school system.”
“Mundanes?”
“Non-magical folks.”
“Shh!” she hissed again. A couple of freshmen had walked past and cast strange glances Chad’s way.
Another bell rang, and he jumped again. “Okay, what the hell is that about?”
“It’s how you know one class has ended and another is about to begin,” Jessica explained and shook her head. “Right now, it means you need to get to homeroom. Let’s get to y
our lockers, hang your coats up, and get to homeroom. Hold up.”
She snatched his schedule from him and swore.
“What?”
“We have the same classes, but different homerooms. They go by alphabetical order.”
“Uhm… What?” Chad asked.
Jessica swore again.
“Okay, you seem a little stressed out at the moment, so how about I take it from here?” Roger offered. “I’ll get him to his locker and homeroom. You pick him up from his homeroom once it’s time to start classes. Deal?”
She nodded. “Yes. Okay.”
“All right.” He gave her a salute and grabbed Chad by the arm to rush him down the hall.
What have I gotten myself into? she thought.
Worry made the homeroom period simultaneously go by too quickly and too slowly. Jessica’s mind worked overtime to figure out how she would tolerate babysitting Chad for the whole day. If she had known the job would be this tough, she wasn’t sure she would have agreed to it.
When the bell rang to indicate that it was time for the first-period class, Jessica would have given anything for five more minutes to gather her thoughts.
Nevertheless, the time away from Chad had been nerve-wracking. She’d anxiously watched the ticking clock and hoped he wouldn’t get himself into trouble during their time apart.
Jessica felt all too aware that she was already known as the girl with the crazy grandmother. Seriously, she didn’t want to be the girl with the crazy cousin too.
She rushed down the hall and caught sight of Roger on the way. “Did everything go okay?” she asked.
He shrugged. “As well as can be expected.”
“Oh, God.”
“He’s merely a little confused. But he’ll adapt quickly. He’s smart—it may not seem like it right now, but he is. But listen, uhm…” He lowered his voice, “Chad and I are following different leads here, if you catch my drift. So I’m afraid I probably won’t run into you guys much. I’ll catch you after school, though!” he added and headed down the hall to blend in perfectly with the other students.
Glad that she at least didn’t have to worry about Roger, Jessica turned and wished she could say the same about Chad.
She immediately saw him emerge from his homeroom. He seemed decidedly lost. She also vaguely registered the girls around him. They took long glances at who they inevitably thought of as the handsome and mysterious new kid.
Jessica shook her head, already exasperated even though they hadn’t made it through their first class yet. “Over here,” she called.
He noticed her and made his way over before he glanced down at his schedule. “Physics?” he asked.
“Yes. A science. Our first class.”
“Nothing like psychics, huh?”
“No, not quite.”
He fell into step beside Jessica as they headed to their first class. “Would you believe that I’m actually a professor?”
She raised an eyebrow. “No way. You are too clueless to be a professor. No offense.”
“Some taken,” he murmured, glancing sideways at her. “Anyway, I teach… Well, you can probably guess that the classes I teach are nothing like what you have here.”
Jessica’s eyes widened. “Oh! You mean you teach…that stuff?”
He nodded. “Roger is one of my students.”
“Wow.”
“Yep. You’ll probably be like him. You know, once you’re done with this.” He waved his hand around to let her know he meant done with ‘mundane’ human schooling.
She swallowed, not entirely sure she liked the sound of that. Instead, she tried to imagine attending a magic school to learn to be a witch and how to fight demons.
Somehow, that included her teaming up with her professors to investigate supernatural crime.
Would her near-future really come down to a choice between regular college and demon-hunting training?
She shuddered.
“What’s wrong?” Chad asked.
“Nothing,” she lied.
Everything.
By the grace of God, Jessica had almost managed to get Chad through his whole first day of ‘regular’ high school. Now, they had one class left. History.
The second she walked in with him behind her, she felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room.
In all the chaos of the previous twenty-four hours, she had been able to push those girls from her mind. Now, the three of them screeched back into view.
If it was any consolation, they seemed to look right past her and had eyes only for Chad. Their jaws literally dropped, and Jessica hoped and prayed more than she ever had in her life that three flies would magically appear and go down their throats.
Maybe she should have had her grandmother teach her that worm-puking spell after all. She looked sideways at Chad and wondered if he knew it.
“What?” he protested. “I’ve done better, haven’t I?”
“Yes,” she admitted and forced away the thought of worm-puke. “You’re fine. Sit here.” She led him to her table.
Immediately, the girls began to whisper to one another and stared at Chad all the while.
One more hour, one more hour, one more hour, Jessica chanted in her head.
“Hmm,” he muttered, his mouth pressed into a tight scowl. He took a quick glance in the girls’ direction. “That must be them.”
“Obviously.”
Their teacher walked in and began to take attendance quickly. She paused, as Jessica knew she would, at the name Chad Hollingsworth.
“Mr. Hollingsworth? Please stand.”
“Here we go again,” he muttered.
This had happened to him in every class, and each time, he began to feel more paranoid.
“If they keep calling attention to me like this, someone will probably notice I’m well over eighteen. I mean, I shaved extra carefully this morning, but still,” he had complained to Jessica after the third time.
Jessica suppressed a snicker that unfortunately caught the attention of the girls at the next table. The ringleader narrowed her eyes at her for an instant before she returned her gaze to Chad.
“Nice to meet you, Chad,” Ms. Mitchell intoned. “Class, let’s give him a warm welcome.”
Tired and ready to leave for the day, a few students offered scattered applause before Chad sat once more.
He leaned over and whispered into Jessica’s ear. “Okay, now I see your point. High school of this kind is ridiculous. I don’t blame you for wanting out.”
“Told ya,” she whispered back, and then became painfully aware that the girls continued to look at them. “It looks like we have more of a captivated audience than usual this time,” she mumbled irritably.
“Are they always this nosy?”
“No. They usually make fun of me. Or of my grandma.” Jessica grimaced. “Their interest today is clearly in you.”
“Mr. Hollingsworth,” Ms. Mitchell called.
“Huh?” Chad straightened in his seat, clearly startled.
“She only wants to give you your book,” Jessica whispered.
“Oh.”
Once he had retrieved his book, he sat beside Jessica again and began to flip idly through the pages.
One of the other girls at the table coughed. Jessica looked up to see that it was the ringleader. To her dismay, she wasn’t really choking but merely tried to catch their attention.
“So, Jessica,” she teased, “how’s your grandmother doing after…you know.”
Jessica clenched her teeth and stared at her book. Chad, on the other hand, looked boldly at the girls.
“Please, don’t engage them,” she pleaded under her breath.
Unfortunately, Chad seemed in the mood for games. He rested his chin in his hand and looked at them. “What’s wrong with her grandmother?” he asked.
The ringleader, relishing his attention, smiled widely. “Oh, she had a little adventure in a cemetery last weekend. Jessica can tell you all about it.”
Jessica rolled her eyes and flipped the page in her notebook a little too forcefully.
Chad tilted his head. “Those murdered cops? Surely you can’t believe that had anything to do with her grandmother.”
The girls snickered.
The ringleader shook her head and adopted an expression of mock sympathy. “You’re new around here, handsome. You don’t know any better. But I wouldn’t be so keen to sit too close to her. Something bad might happen to you if you upset her grandmother.” She leaned forward and placed her hands over her mouth. “Rumor has it that she’s a witch.”
The other two girls fell into hysterical giggles.
“Ladies!” Ms. Mitchell reprimanded from the front of the classroom.
“Sorry,” the girls offered in unison.
“So you girls like to follow rumors, huh?” Chad whispered once Ms. Mitchell looked away.
“I personally would rather follow you,” the ringleader cooed, a flirtatious grin on her face. “What are you doing after school today?”
Chad shrugged. “I don’t think that’s any of your concern.”
“Oh yeah, why not?”
“Well, as it turns out—I happen to only date witches.”
The smirk instantly slid off the ringleader’s face, and the other two girls blinked, stunned.
This time, Jessica didn’t bother to hide her snicker, which only seemed to upset the girls more. She turned to Chad. “Good one.”
“Well, it’s true.” He favored her with a wink.
The girls resumed their intense scrutiny, and Jessica finally realized that the expression that now gleamed in their eyes had turned to jealousy. They could hardly contain their fury over the fact that Chad talked to her and not them.
After all, they didn’t know who he was or the fact that he pretended to be her cousin.
From their point of view, it looked like something else.
Hmm… Jessica looked at the side of Chad’s head. She had no interest in him that way and she knew he didn’t see her that way at all either.
But what’s the harm in playing it up merely to piss them off? she thought.
Ready to put on a show, Jessica leaned over and whispered in his ear. “You’ve really pissed them off, you know that, right? They hardly know what to do with themselves, seeing you talk to me instead of them.”
