Okay, I've had this in my head for a long time, and I've really always wanted to just write a fic about the troubles mutant bird kids go through at school. I can assure you there will be Fax, and most likely Niggy, perhaps some Sax and Lang (Lissa/Fang), and whatever other pairings I can think of. The trials of middle school. This is my version of the Flock's time at school during MR2.
Of course, most of them hadn't wanted to do it. Actually, the only ones who had agreed readily were Nudge and Angel. Gazzy had been reluctant, Iggy and Max had disagreed, and Fang had… well, Fang hadn't cared one way or another. He's just like that. But whether they had been the excited, the wary, the neutral, or the reluctant, they had been forced, and as of now, there was no way to get out of it.
The six of them stood outside the large brick building. Students streamed into the front doors, chattering and giggling joyously. Max scowled at all the kids; she really wasn't liking this whole "school" thing. Of course, there was one other person who wasn't liking it either; Iggy. Only, Iggy wasn't only not liking it… he was hating it.
"You guys ready?" Max asked through a clenched jaw. Nudge and Angel and Gazzy nodded, excitedly and vaguely. Fang shifted, a movement which translated to 'sure.' Iggy shook his head, but no one noticed. "Okay then. Let's do this."
The principle's office was stuffy, loaded with uncomfortable hard-backed wooden chairs, probably invented for the specific purpose of causing anxiety in new pupils. The Headmaster, as he had introduced himself, had his pudgy hands clasped on his desk.
"So, you are Maxine, you say?" the fat man states. Max nods. "And, these are..?"
"Um… Ariel, Nick, Zephyr, Krystal," Max started, gesturing at each Flock member in turn. Nudge waved slightly as her codename was uttered, and Angel smiled widely, revealing her stunning white teeth.
"And this one?" the Headmaster sneered, gesturing to Iggy, who was, at the moment, leaning back in his chair and trying hard to concentrate on not freaking out.
"He's… Jeff," Max answered shortly. The Headmaster nodded, baring his teeth in a vicious smirk.
"And he will be… learning with the 'special' students?"
At this, Iggy tenses furiously, and the rest of the Flock frowns.
"No," Max states firmly. "Anne made sure he'd be with either me or Nick."
"I see. Well, than we'll place him in the care of Nick."
Iggy still seems angry at the way the Headmaster had treated him, like he needed to be taken care of. As if he were a child.
The Headmaster stands heavily, and steps around the desk to stand in front of the six bird kids.
"Now, my secretary can escort you all to your individual classes," he starts, then turns to address Angel. "Ariel. You will be in Ms. Anderson's first grade class. Room 332." He turns then to Nudge. "Krystal, correct? You will be attending Mr. Smith's fifth grade, room 453. Maxine, you can be in Mrs. Jonson's eighth grade… room 461. Nicholas? Or is it just Nick?"
"Just Nick," Fang answers dully.
"Very well, Nick. You'll go to Miss Jaime's, room 345 for homeroom."
Then, the man turns to Iggy and speaks to him. "Jeff? Is that right? Is your name Jeff?"
His words are uttered slowly and clearly, with defined pronunciation, as though Iggy was mentally impaired instead of just blind.
"Yes," Iggy mutters.
"Well, Jeff, you will be going with your brother, Nick, to Miss Jaime's room, room 345. Is that okay?"
Iggy scowls. "Yes."
"Very well then," the Headmaster finishes, straightening and shuffling back to his desk. "Stephanie? Please take these students to their rooms."
"Yes, sir," his secretary responded, standing from a small desk just outside the office and gesturing to the Flock. Fang taps the back of Iggy's hand and he stands, still scowling, to follow the footsteps of his family.
The lady drops Angel, Nudge, and Gazzy off first, then leads the remaining three to outside Max's homeroom.
"Here you are," she says kindly, and Max waves a sad little goodbye to Fang, muttering a short "Later" to Iggy before entering the classroom.
The footsteps in the hallway echo distantly as they walk down to Fang and Iggy's classroom. The echoes are rather annoying to Iggy, as it makes following them a small bit more complicated, though it was a big improvement since that morning; the halls had been so packed with screaming students that Iggy had needed a hand on his wrist the entire time so as to not drift away from the Flock and risk getting trampled. But, besides the annoying echoing, the secretary had somehow got it into her mind that he needed her to hold his arm and lead him down the hall. He tried vainly to pry loose, but her grip simply tightened and her carefully manicured fingernails dug into his arm. Iggy thought that if anyone saw him being dragged down the hallway by what he supposed was a heavily make-upped middle-aged woman, his rep would be wrecked for all eternity. He wished Fang would come to his rescue, but the jerk was probably smirking at Iggy's obvious discomfort.
"Here we are," the lady finally says, yanking Iggy to a stop in front of a heavy wooden door. She pulls the door open, the hinges squealing slightly, and pokes her head through the opening. "Miss Jaime? I'm sorry for interrupting, but I have two new students for you."
"Thank you, Stephanie," a voice from inside the class answers, and footsteps growing louder mark the person's nearing to the door. It is suddenly pulled all the way open from the inside to reveal a radiant woman with a glowing face and warm smile. Her hair was almost black and straightened to just above her shoulders. She looked nice enough to Fang, and he tapped Iggy's index finger to convey this feeling.
The kind woman smiled at the two of them. "And what are there names?" she asks. Her voice was fun, happy.
"This is Nick and Jeff," Stephanie answers, pointing to each of them. Apparently, though, even after having forcefully 'led' him through the school to this room, the secretary had forgotten about Iggy's blindness, as she did not mention this. Iggy was glad for it, as he could tell by the silence inside the room that the other students were clinging to every word of this subtle conversation.
"Well then, Nick, Jeff, why don't you come in? There are several empty desks, you are welcome to pick two."
Fang steps into the room with Iggy on his heels, and edges his way through the maze of student-occupied desks to two free ones at the back. Once they reach them, Fang grabs Iggy's hand and places it on the top of one of them, leaving him to sit while Fang takes the desk next to it.
"Class, the two new students who just came in are called Nick and Jeff. Please try to make them feel at home. If either of you have any questions, feel free to talk to me after class." After her little introduction, Miss Jaime begins her lesson again.
Anne had thoughtfully gone out the day before and bought the whole Flock mounds of school supplies, and they each had a variety of folders, notebooks, binders, pencils, pens, and erasers within different book-bags; Iggy's was blue, Max's green, Nudge's purple, Angel's yellow, Fang's black, Gazzy's orange. Fang got a notebook and pencil out of his pack while Iggy fumbled with the zipper and retrieved his. Miss Jaime was diagramming a sentence on the board; Fang began to copy it, and then looked over to see Iggy sitting with his notebook and a pencil, looking utterly lost.
"I'll make copies for you. Here, give me your notebook," Fang intones, holding his hand out to Iggy. Iggy starts and turns at Fang's quiet statement, then nervously hands the notebook across the gap between desks. Fang took it and began to write. Iggy then simply sat back to listen to the lesson as Fang scribbled speedily into the notebooks.
"Jeff?"
Iggy was jolted out of his intent and concentrated reverie by Miss Jaime's voice calling his name. He had actually been pretty into the lesson, having never known anything previously about simple subjects and predicates and 'understood you's.
"May I ask you to repeat what I just said?" Her voice sounded nice, and at the moment her tone was humorous.
"Um, you were talking about the 'understood you', and how it's always the subject and you put it in parentheses when you diagram…" Iggy starts, trailing off.
"Well, however much of an astonishing memory you may have, I still think you might find it beneficial to take notes on my lessons." There was still no hostility or anger in the teacher's voice, and Iggy was grateful for that, but still a bit anxious.
"Uh," Iggy starts nervously. "Um, Nick's taking them for me."
Iggy can hear Fang nod in the desk next to him, and a rustle as he held up both notebooks.
"That's all very well, but shouldn't you be doing your own work? It may be a bit harsh to have your friend do it all for you."
"I can't take the notes, ma'am," Iggy says miserably, realizing that he was going to have to admit to his inability to see in front of the whole class.
"Why is that?" Instead of annoyed, Miss Jaime sounded curious to hear what Iggy's reason was.
"I'm, um, I'm blind," he stuttered quietly. Iggy bowed his head and gritted his teeth as he heard kids giggling around him, and new that everyone in the class was now staring at him.
"Do you mean you need glasses?"
"Uh, no ma'am, I, uh, actually can't see. I, uh, got into… an accident a long time ago."
Iggy's long hands twitched in his lap, as they always did when he was nervous. He wished Fang would come to his rescue, though he really didn't know what that would accomplish.
There's a pause.
"All right, then, if it's no trouble for Nick. I do expect you, however, to pay close attention."
"Yeah, I will," Iggy murmurs softly. He can hear whispers throughout the class now, and can almost feel the stares. It's hard for him, now, to attentively listen to the rest of class, because he can hear murmurings around the room. Miss Jaime obviously notices them as well, and tries hard to distract the class's attention away from him; for that, Iggy is very thankful.
Fang stares around at his classmates. A few of them are sweetly copying down the notes from the board, but he can see that most of them are barely paying any attention to the lesson now, rather throwing interested, pitying, or amused glances back at Iggy. Iggy himself appears to be trying to melt into his seat, shrinking so far back that Fang knew that it must be uncomfortable for his wings. He notices that Iggy is averting his blind eyes, simply because of the fact that everyone is trying to get a glimpse of them. Fang knows just what they must be thinking; I wonder what ever a blind guy's eyes would look like? He knew that people probably had some bizarre impression that Iggy's eyes would be all white or something, but the truth was Iggy's eyes were a clear, distinct yet slightly clouded ice blue, with faded pupils. That was it. They weren't freakish or anything; but Fang got the feeling that some students wouldn't think Iggy so "normal," even if they didn't know about the wings.
He catches a group of boys near the front, who are all staring pointedly at the trying-to-become-invisible Iggy, snickering at his obvious discomfort. Fang shot them a dirty look and the finger, and they backed off a bit.
Max was loving this class. History and her… they just clicked. And the teacher was awesome.
The students too! It was almost like she was being swamped; kids were surrounding her, talking to her, asking her where she got her hair done, how she got such perfect teeth, what lotion she used to have "pore-less" skin. Guys were flirting with her like nobody's business, and even thought Max had… um… semi-unrequited love towards Fang, she still enjoyed the attention.
She actually made some friends in those first forty-five minutes of school; three girls---Sandra, Beth, and Cassidy---and two guys, Connor and Michael. Max walked out the doors with them as they led her to their next class.
But Max knew something up when she heard snatches of whispered conversations as they chatted down the halls: "… blind guy…" "… weirdo eyes…" "… man, he's in my class, blind as a bat…"
"Hey, guys, will you excuse me for a sec? Gotta go find, um, a friend…" Max trailed off at her friends' enthusiastic nods, and rushed off to look for Fang and Iggy.
Max found them in the halls outside the music class. Fang was glaring at passersby as they stared at Iggy, who was trying to fall through the wall and looked utterly miserable.
"Uh oh, guys, what happened?" Max asks, stepping forward. Fang looks up, but Iggy doesn't even move.
"Some of these teens are stupid," Fang replies, shaking his mop of black hair out of his dark eyes. "They don't know more than what they can see with their own two eyes."
"Guess I'm lucky I don't just know what I see with my own two eyes, or I'd be screwed, wouldn't I?" Iggy asks in a bitterly sarcastic voice.
"Aw, come on, Iggy, lighten up," Max tries to cheer. "Just try to get through the day and we'll see what happens, 'kay?"
Iggy sighs heavily. "Yeah. Sure. I never wanted to come here in the first place."
Now it's Max's turn to sigh. "Listen, I gotta catch up with my friends. Seeya two later."
"Yeah, see you," Fang replies, lifting his hand in a wave.
"I won't," Iggy mutters.
There's the first chappie. Hope you liked it. REVIEW. Thanks.