LIGHTNOVELONLINE Interlude 46 – School Days Pt.3
=::= Melanie's PoV =::=
"It still feels kind of weird, you know?" Willow commented as we all emerged from Miss Hawthorne's class after the first period bell rang. She lowered her voice as she continued, "Knowing she's a goddess and everything, but she's still the same old English teacher we had for grades nine and ten."
After a second or two she added, "Then again, I guess it's not any weirder than knowing what the four of us are. This time last year I had no idea about any of this supernatural stuff. Like werewolves and demons and goddesses and witches and everything? All attending high school as if we're normal students, and pretending our English class is being taught by a normal teacher and all that."
My girlfriend shrugged, "I guess. I still kind of liked Ms. Fields better, but at least Miss Hawthorne seems to be acting nice again."
"Same," I stated. "Although I guess I'm not too worried about her, knowing we're friends with her daughter and all. And Sasha's said a few times that her mother knows Cass and Nina and their moms would tear her a new one if she tried anything."
Nina hadn't said anything yet, but she somehow managed to get even quieter as I embarrassed her with all that.
"Anyways I guess a friendly May Hawthorne isn't the worst thing that happened," I added as we all reached the gym and went into the girls changing room.
Willow made a face, "Ugh, don't remind me. You'd think the guy might have mellowed out a little after spending a couple weeks in hospital then having the summer off, but I'd swear he's even worse than before."
Cerys looked like she had something to say on that topic but there were too many other students around so whatever was on her mind would have to wait until we had some privacy. So we all got changed into our shorts and t-shirts and sneakers, before heading back out into the gym to see what Mr. Sanderson had in store for us today.
As soon as everyone was ready he opened up the doors and ushered us all outside. Then after a couple minutes of warm-up he got us all running laps around the field, which was about the most boring and least-imaginative thing he could do. It was only slightly better than running laps inside the gym itself.
Werewolfs could run all day long if we paced ourselves, but neither Cerys or I showed off with any unnatural stamina. We just kept going at a good steady rate, but we had a lot more in the tank if we needed to launch into a sprint at some point.
Nina was the same, despite her cuddly appearance. She ran slower than my girlfriend and I, but we both knew she was intentionally holding back. I was positive with her demonic strength and speed she could probably leave us wolfgirls in the dust if she felt like it.
Then there was Willow, at the other end of the spectrum. She was never very athletic in her original form, but as a skinny waifish girl she was even less so. And it didn't take very long at all before Mr. Sanderson was reminding her of that fact.
"Pearce!" he shouted at the ravenette sorceress from where he was standing in the middle of the field. "Pick up the pace! You ran faster than that last year!"
A moment later he added, "You too Ford! You were one of my top students three months ago, now look at you! Come on, move it! That's pathetic!"
Steph Ford's transformation was even more extreme than Willow's. I'd heard what happened but until school started last week I hadn't actually seen her. When school ended last June she was one of the biggest toughest kids in our classes, now she was even smaller than the sorceress. She was just as waif-like though, plus she had the cat ears and a tail.
The freakiest part was she looked like Willow's little sister. If not for the feline enhancements and the inch or two difference in height they'd almost pass as twins.
My jaw clenched as I glared towards the teacher, but his back was to me while he'd moved on to berating one of the heavier girls. I glanced at my girlfriend and grumbled, "I can't even tell if he's transmisic going after Willow and Steph like that, or if he's just misogynistic and going after all the girls. How the heck can he possibly compare Steph's and Willow's performance now to what they were like before?"
"I don't know," Cerys said as she frowned towards the guy. Then she added quietly, "I know I shouldn't say it but I can't help wondering how long before he runs into another unexpected swarm of bees."
That made me grimace, "Don't let Willow hear you say that. Not saying I disagree with you, but I think she's still sensitive about that stuff."
"Anyways," I added a moment later, "We could always appeal to our local chaos goddess. Maybe a couple weeks of the Danny and Kyle treatment would teach Sanderson to chill a bit. Like not everybody's an athlete, and not everybody wants to be either."
"Oh heck yeah," my girlfriend responded. She looked like she was trying not to laugh as she stated, "I'd pay real money to have our gym class taught by a tiny little Sander-bun."
Luckily we were too far and too quiet for the teacher to hear what we were saying, but he did finally notice the two of us were talking as we jogged along side by side. "Ainsley! Caetano! That's enough chatter out of you two, now let's see some hustle! Go, go, get a move on!"
I rolled my eyes but put on a burst of speed, until I'd caught up to Willow. Then I slowed right down to her pace. Cerys did the same, and a moment later the two of us were on either side of the sorceress. A half minute later Nina caught up as well, so the four of us could all stick together as a group.
"Me and Melanie were just talking about enlisting a certain chaos goddess's help," Cerys told the others. "We were thinking she might be inclined to do something about our misogynistic transmisic gym teacher."
Nina grimaced, "I'm not sure if that's a good idea? I know he's not a nice person, but it's not like he's actually hurting people."
"Of course he is," Willow stated. "He's damaging students' self-esteem, making them feel bad about themselves, and he encourages bullying. He always looks the other way when the tougher kids start roughing up the weaker ones. Sure he doesn't lay a hand on anyone himself, he knows he'd find himself out of a job and probably in court if he did."
She added, "I still feel bad about what happened to him last year, and it was way more than what I'd intended, but there's a reason Sanderson was the first one my magic lashed out at."
"So maybe we should bring it up with Cassandra after all?" I asked. "At least mention it, and see what she says."
My girlfriend started to respond when Sanderson started shouting again.
"Caetano! Ainsley! What did I say about talking?" he yelled at us. "That's fifty push-ups, from all four of you. Pearce, Underwood, that means you too!"
Willow groaned under her breath, "Aw man, I can barely do five push-ups let alone fifty."
All four of us slowed to a stop as we moved off the track and onto the grass. And even though fifty push-ups wasn't a big deal for me I wasn't in any hurry to actually do them. While both Willow and Nina slowly got down onto the ground and prepared to start, I just sat down on the grass as if I was planning on relaxing and enjoying some mid-morning sun. And Cerys followed my lead, she sat cross-legged next to me.
Then as soon as Willow and Nina noticed neither of us wolfgirls were doing push-ups they decided not to bother either, so all four of us were just sitting together as we waited for the next round of shouting to start.
I wasn't planning on getting myself expelled or suspended again, but I'd had just about enough of Sanderson and was kind of thinking about telling him off. Maybe even challenging him to a race or arm wrestling or whatever. I wasn't above cheating with my supernatural strength or speed, considering I was positive he was the kind of guy who wouldn't think twice about using his size or strength to his advantage any chance he got.
Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, before he had a chance to start yelling again there was a new distraction. The school principal showed up unexpectedly, with another official-looking guy in tow. The new guy was an older dude, like somewhere in his sixties maybe. He looked fit though, tall and slim, with short dark-grey hair. They were both dressed in suits and ties and stuff, the principal was in his usual tweed jacket while the other guy wore a black suit and black tie.
Even in human form I could hear better than most humans, so it wasn't too hard to listen in as the principal and the other guy headed over to chat with Mr. Sanderson. Apparently the new guy just started working with the local district school board, and was touring all the secondary schools in the area so he could get a feel for the people and places he'd be dealing with.
Maybe it was intuition but something about the guy seemed off to me. From what I could see and hear he seemed ok, talking with Sanderson and the principal as the three of them watched the other kids running laps while the four of us sat on the grass.
Eventually Sanderson finally noticed the four of us were all just sitting there. He wasn't as abusive with his bosses standing next to him, but it didn't stop him from yelling at us. "Caetano, Ainsley, Pearce, Underwood! If you've finished your push-ups then get off your butts and start running again!"
That was pretty much it for gym class, we just spent the whole time going around the field until it was time to head back in and get changed. We all had lunch next, so from gym we split up to visit our lockers, then met up again at the cafeteria. And since none of us bothered to bring our lunches we all had to buy something, before grabbing a table to ourselves off to one side of the dining area.
As the four of us got seated Willow commented, "I hope Steph's going to be ok. It's got to be a huge adjustment for her, going from one of the big tough guys to a small weak catgirl over the summer break."
"Looks like she's already finding a new place for herself," Cerys said as she sort of nodded towards another table off to the left.
We all looked over, and found three catgirls sitting together there. Apparently Steph Ford had made friends with Kirstie and Kimmie Winters.
Then Nina added quietly, "She can always pray to Cassandra again if she needs help. I'm sure she knows that too. I guess the same goes for Kirstie and Kimmie as well, all three of them know about Cass and chaos."
We were all kind of quiet for a bit after that, between focusing on our food and maybe thinking about what the demon-girl just said. I had a bite of my burger, then had to struggle not to make faces or anything. The school food was never that great, but compared to the awesome stuff we'd been eating lately thanks to the Tate Wolfpack the cafeteria stuff was like eating warm soggy cardboard. It was almost like they microwaved the whole thing, including the bun.
"Maybe we should start bringing our own food after all," Cerys grumbled quietly after a bite of her sandwich. "I bet I could figure out a way to grill some burgers with a flame spell. We'd just have to figure out how to do that without anybody noticing."
Willow suppressed a laugh, "That'd be pretty amazing. Why stop with burgers though? How about a couple steaks? Or half rack of ribs?"
My girlfriend grimaced, "Don't tempt me. It'd be pretty nice having that kind of thing instead of suffering with this cafeteria food."
"Honestly the more of this I eat the better that idea sounds," I added after another bite of my burger.
We all kept complaining and joking about the food while we ate, but only about five minutes later I spotted the principal and that board of education guy again. They came into the cafeteria then walked through to the far side while they were both talking, and as they passed within a few meters of our table I finally caught the stranger's scent.
Cerys noticed it too, and we both kind of froze for a second. She glanced at me and whispered, "You know what he is?"
"Yep," I nodded. "Not just what, but who."
I turned to look over my shoulder, the principal and the other guy were now standing by the opposite wall. As they talked the stranger was looking around the room at all the students. And I saw how he sort of stopped and stared for a few seconds at the three catgirls, before his eyes continued to sweep the room.
Then when his gaze got to our table his and my eyes met. We stared at each other for a second or two, before he just continued looking around as if nothing happened and as if he didn't recognize me and my friends. I kept watching him for another second or two, before turning to face my friends again.
"So who is it?" Willow asked quietly. "Or what, what did you two smell?"
My girlfriend stated just as softly, "That guy's a shape-shifter."
I added, "Not just any shape-shifter. That's Alison Sinclair, I'm sure of it. She's obviously here to spy on the four of us, maybe keeping tabs on any supernatural stuff that happens here at school."
Nina sighed, "We should probably let Cass know, right? Even if she's not going to do anything about it yet, at least she can keep track of all this stuff."
"Agreed," Cerys nodded. "We'll definitely be talking about Alison back at the clubhouse tonight. And maybe Mr. Sanderson too."
