Synopsis: Alfred and Matthew are just two not quite normal teenagers trying to live their lives (and afterlives) in peace. When they receive a mysterious letter, they decide to check it out, but they encounter far more trouble than they bargained for.

Alfred's POV

Mattie seems to have a habit of disappearing.

Being a ghost might have something to do with it, but searching around the house and screaming 'pancakes' was apparently not going to help. I flipped a few of the American flag pillows off the couch, as if he might be hiding underneath one of them. Mattie, being a merman, died of asphyxiation, which is considered totally normal for us. What wasn't quite so normal was when he returned as a slightly purple ghost.

"Alfred..."

"GHOST! Oh God..." Matthew was standing (drifting?) just behind me as he tapped his foot impatiently in the air while attempting to look angry.

"There's a letter here, eh? It's addressed to us both." It still weirded Alfred out that Mattie could occasionally make himself known and be able to touch things; him being a ghost was a rather new thing to them both.

"Let's see this letter then bro!"

Dear Mr. Jones and Mr. Williams,

It has come to our attention that you aren't quite human. Please do not be alarmed, we have no intentions of hurting you! Quite the opposite in fact, we wish to invite you to attend our school, Hetanatural High, a safe haven for those like you, and those who aren't quite like you! We would appreciate a reply, whether positive or negative, so please don't hesitate to contact us!

Headmaster Romulus Vargas

The writing style was like that of an over excited ten year old, with lots of exclamation marks all over the place. Following the signature was the address of some place I'd never heard of. After holding it out for Mattie to read to save him wasting energy, my brother paused.

"Do you think it's a trap?" Wow. No beating around the bush from Matthew.

"I dunno dude. I'll Google this place!" Despite Mattie's protests that it was secret, so wouldn't be on Google, I drew out our beaten up laptop and booted it up. Several minutes and cusses later, I finally got the damn thing working. Hetanatural High, I thought. Why does that sound so familiar? I chewed on a pencil while I thought; no point wasting printer ink if I can write this stuff down!

"Nothing!" I wailed to Mattie, or maybe thin air- he had a habit of leaving at times like this- "there was nothing! Jeez Mattie, there's a whole crap load of stuff on the Illuminati and the CIA, but nothing on some high school for freaky dweebs like you?" It did seem as though my brother had left the room, as he returned with some maple syrup, sighing.

"Alfred, I could probably hear you from the other side of Wyoming. Go have a bath or something, you're probably dehydrated and stressed." I hated to admit it, but he was probably right. It had been a while since I last had a bath, and even longer since I'd been for a proper swim in the sea, but there was a reason we lived in Michigan, and that was because of those God damn awesome lakes! I hurried out of the room and grabbed my awesome red towel and ran the bath, being careful not to touch any of the water. The only problem with being a merman was that even a little water could set you off if you're not careful. The pros were seriously worth it though.

I was happily splashing around in the massive tub when Mattie burst in. Now, he may be my brother and I may be sort of chill about him seeing my merjunk, but he didn't even knock!

"What the hell dude?" I half yelled.

"The school. The place. Uptown. The return address, I wondered why it seemed familiar!"

"Mattie, you're not making sense. Chill out bro." He took a few deep, ironic breaths, until he was calm enough to form a coherent sentence.

"The address on the letter. It's the address of the Kirkland's bookstore down the road!" I sat up, alarmed.

"Kirkland? Like the pale, British kid who went missing in the seventh grade? Awesome bassist?" Mattie nodded solemnly, before his eyes widened.

"What if that's where he got taken?" We yelled at the exact same time.

We were creeping around outside Kirkland Books, like the pair of awesome heroic creeps we were. We weren't sure whether this was the best idea, and I had to come close to dragging Mattie along with me, not that it would've helped very much. The shop was old, for sure, with a dark wooden façade and a layer of dust on the glass windows.

"Should we go in?" Mattie whispered. Or said. I raised a hand and held up three fingers. Two. One. We fell into the building and I started sneezing almost immediately. This is why I prefer using Kindles, I thought darkly as I surveyed the shop. It didn't even seem like it had been used in quite some time, yet the door was unlocked.

"Mattie, we need to get out-" Oh damn, was that chloroform? I heard Matthew yelling my name, but I blacked out before I could even comprehend what was happening.

When I woke up again, I had a monster headache and no idea where I was, or what had happened. Tentatively, I probed the back of my head and flinched as I poked a large lump. I looked around us and it seemed as though we were on an aircraft of some sort. There were a lot of seats, but only one other was occupied besides my own.

"Mattie!" I stumbled over, "Mattie, you wake your ghostly Canadian butt up right now or I'll-" my head hurt too much to come up with a half decent threat, but Mattie was waking up, so I could play it cool.

"What's happening?" He asked, his Canadian accent becoming more defined in his sleepy haze. Wait, do ghosts even need to sleep? This was just getting weird.

"I don't know! I don't even remember what happened or why we're here but you were conscious and you're a ghost so is that even possible and what if-"

"Calm down, eh? Al, you need to relax." We seemed to be going through a déjà vu moment, when there was some kind of turbulence. By turbulence, I mean the whole freaking plane did a 360. I fell with a manly yelp and Mattie snickered from his levitating position in the chair.

"How the fuck do I calm down when whoever's driving this thing is a lunatic?" I wailed. There was a crackling noise coming from one of the speakers and a calm, British voice came through.

"I'm terribly sorry about that gentlemen, my copilot decided he was going to try and win a bet-"

"And I won it! You owe me a hundred and fifty kro-" a thickly accented voice cut him off, but started howling mid sentence.

"As I was saying, we should be arriving very soon. We apologise for the delay." Said the clipped British voice. By the sounds of it, the pilot had maimed the copilot after an attempted hijacking.

There was a confused silence, until I broke it.

"They sounded a bit young to be flying something like this." I muttered. I wasn't sure if the pair in the cockpit could hear us, but I damn well wasn't going to let them hear us easily.

"Well, we can't do much about this now, eh? Just get some sleep. I feel like you're going to need it." I didn't argue with his logic. After all, I was shattered and this headache was worse than having a hangover, so I slid into the plush black seat and fell asleep.

I woke up, confused yet again. I was in a dimly lit room and the sound of a heated argument could be heard from down the hall. One voice was French, the other sounded like the pilot from the journey here. Then, Alfred jolted back into reality.

"Mattie? Mattie, where are you?"

Well well well! Welcome to my new story! I have no idea where my other stories are going, but this one fell quite neatly into this. I have each chapter planned out too, so yeah. I hope you enjoy this, I think it's going to be fun to write, and I'm sorry about my other stories. I'm trying to get past this block I'm having but no such luck with that.

Is it sad that Michigan was the only state that I could name and luckily is basically Atlantis?

So yes, do enjoy this story, it's a Gakuen AU with a slight twist and pairings including but not limited to GerIta, Spamano and some other super secret ones for later on! For now, Hasta la pasta~!