Back to School

For the first time in three years, Stephanie Edgley - Valkyrie Cain? - put on her school uniform and ate breakfast with her parents, took the bus to school and was forced to mingle with her classmates for half an hour before class started. She was greeted by a group of girls whose names she didn't know, and had to pretend like she knew them while they chatted away about TV and the Irish test and boys whose names she didn't know either. It was only slightly less difficult than fighting a Faceless One.

'So how are things going with you and Gary?' a girl who Valkyrie thought might be Anna asked.

Valkyrie looked blank. 'Me and Gary?'

The other girls laughed. 'Yeah, your boyfriend since last year?' Sarah Rourke said, eyebrows raised. 'Honestly, you can be so dense sometimes, Steph...'

It was meant as a light-hearted jibe, but it irritated Valkyrie. She tried to stay polite as she answered, 'Oh, yeah. Um, they're going fine.'

'You're so lucky,' said Kate Butler wistfully, 'he's so cute...'

'Who would have thought you'd end up with the most popular guy in the year?' Amanda Smith said affectionately. 'It's always the quiet ones, isn't it?'

The others laughed.

'Look, he's coming over here!' Kate squealed under her breath, and all the girls looked over at the admittedly handsome brown-haired boy coming towards them. 'Hey,' he greeted them politely.

'Hi, Gary,' they all replied, with the exception of Valkyrie, who was going into panic mode by this stage.

'All right, Steph?' he said to her, slipping his arm around her waist and kissing her cheek. Valkyrie instantly stiffened.

'Fine, thanks,' she said coolly, trying to step away from him, but he held her fast.

He frowned. 'What's wrong?'

'Er... nothing. I've just got to, um, get to class, that's all...'

He looked bemused, as did Valkyrie's 'friends,' but she picked up her bag and hurried away without looking back at them. She headed to a random classroom - she was going to have to figure out her timetable all over again, oh joy - but class didn't start for another fifteen minutes, so it was empty. This fresh start thing was more complicated than she'd thought. She suddenly missed Fletcher. A lot. Would she really never see him again? And what about Tanith, Ghastly and Skulduggery? Kenspeckle and China? Did they even exist anymore?

She shook her head, annoyed at herself. They had never existed. She had dreamed them all.

Then why did they feel so real?

She gritted her teeth. She was being ridiculous. She would make this work. She would.

After a while, other people started streaming in the door, including Hannah Foley, her past nemesis, and Gary, who sat down in the desk across the aisle from Valkyrie's and grinned at her. She tried to smile back, but knew it probably looked more like a wince.

Then her English teacher entered and the lesson began. Valkyrie knew she was in trouble before she'd even opened her book. The teacher was yakking on about stuff she'd never heard of, and although she was still good at English, she had never even heard of the novel they were supposed to be studying. It was like there was a gaping void in her memory, which had been replaced by a load of stuff that her imagination had fabricated.

Maybe it WAS possible to go insane from boredom.

'Stephanie Edgley, can you tell me why Annabel didn't want the marriage to go ahead?'

Valkyrie, unaccustomed to being addressed with her given name, didn't look up.

'Stephanie Edgley?' the teacher repeated, looking annoyed now.

Anna Healy, was sitting next to Valkyrie, gave her a nudge. Valkyrie looked up, saw the teacher glaring at her, and blinked. 'Oh, sorry. What did you say?'

Valkyrie had never been popular with her teachers, even before this. She didn't like the way they demanded respect they hadn't earned, and therefore they'd decided she had an attitude problem.

'You mean, Excuse me, Miss Burke.'

'Excuse me, Miss Burke?'

'I said, why didn't Annabel want the marriage to go ahead?'

Valkyrie had no idea.

'Umm... because she wanted the groom for herself?'

Miss Burke's eyes narrowed. 'I don't think so, Miss Edgely. She was the mother of the groom.'

The class tittered and Valkyrie mentally kicked herself. 'Oh. Right. Yeah.'

'You need to concentrate, Miss Edgely. Extra revision homework for you. Write a nine hundred word synopsis of the plot and hand it in tomorrow.'

Valkyrie bowed her head and let her hair fall over her face to hide the angry flush creeping across her cheeks. She wasn't used to being ordered about or punished and she figured she would have a lot of adjusting to do.

The rest of the day passed slowly. Valkyrie spent break trying to avoid the girls and Gary. Gary was nice, and he was cute, but he wasn't Fletcher, and anyway, she hardly knew him - whether he was her boyfriend since last year or not. That thought scared her slightly.

The incident in English class had raised her spirits slightly and she was beginning to think that maybe this wouldn't be so bad. Every second thing seemed to remind her of the magical world though, and once she tried to close a door using air manipulation before remembering that she wasn't able to do it anymore. That had depressed her.

It also made her feel powerless - she felt weak without her magic, and vulnerable, even though, as she constantly tried to remind herself, it wasn't like she needed protection.

She felt more comfortable in a world of magic and skeletons than she did in a perfectly normal schoolyard environment. She didn't know what half the other girls were talking about most of the time, and she felt glaringly different, even though she knew that to her classmates, she was just the same as them. All in all, it made her feel pretty low.

Gary finally caught up with her as she walked to the bus stop when school was over. 'Steph, what was up with you today?'

She adopted a Who, me? look. 'Nothing. I'm fine.'

'You practically ran away from me this morning, and then you avoided me all through lunch. What's the matter?'

The bus pulled up and they both got on. She didn't have much choice but to sit beside him.

'I'm fine, Fletch - Gary.' She winced at the slip, but he didn't seem to notice. 'I'm just... tired, that's all. I've been, you know, helping my mum, because she can't do much anymore, being pregnant and all.'

'You could have at least talked to me.'

'I was going to, at break, but, um, I was in detention.'

'Who gave you a detention?'

'Eh... Miss Burke.' She smiled apologetically. 'Sorry about that.'

He still didn't seem convinced, but at least he didn't seem annoyed anymore, either. Seeming slightly happier he said, 'So, do you want to go for coffee after school tomorrow?'

She couldn't help thinking that she would rather gouge her own eyeballs out, but again, she didn't seem to have much choice. Feeling weirdly like she was cheating on Fletcher, she said 'Sounds great.'

'OK, then.' He smiled and played with a strand of her hair, making her feel acutely uncomfortable, and then the bus came to a halt at her stop. She rose quickly but just as she was about to hurry off, Gary said, 'Wait,' pulled her back down to his level, and kissed her.

She endured it for a few unhappy seconds, thinking about how much nicer Fletcher's kisses were, and then pulled away, her face burning. 'See you tomorrow,' she mumbled and rushed away, looking at the floor.

She walked the rest of the way home, burst through the front door, yelled a greeting to her mum, and then ran up the stairs, collapsed onto her bed and sobbed.

A/N: I FIXED THE PLOT! :DD

It'll get more exciting soon, I swear. Thanks to kathy, NerdySkeleton, Holly Swift, smileysgoboing and AngelOfTheUndead2 for your reviews :)