Chapter 2: My First Day
The next morning, I woke up early and got dressed, put my contacts on, touched up my hair with a special cosmetic stick I'd bought with black pigment on it, brushed my teeth, washed my face and put my green cape on. I was ready for the day.
At 7:30, three buses (one blue, one purple and one green) pulled up in front of the school and kids in blue, purple and green (respectively) coloured capes poured out. Everyone was chatting and greeting each other until they all passed through the front hall; they all fell deathly silent. I presumed that it was a rule to be quiet in the halls and blended in with the crowd of girls going to the dormitory to put away their stuff. A girl in a purple cape and rainbow hair talking to a blonde haired girl in a green cape seemed nice, but I didn't say anything since I was supposed to be drawing no attention to myself.
We headed back downstairs to the cafeteria and got our breakfast from the green canteen. I walked back to an empty table and sat down. Soon, though, I noticed a boy with unruly brown hair eyeing me from the queue at the blue canteen. I thought nothing of it until I saw him out of the corner of my eye heading over in my direction, along with a shorter boy with white hair and red eyes. An albino like me, I thought. The boy with brown hair asked me politely, "Is anyone sitting here?"
I looked up and their eyes widened a bit when they saw my pure black ones. "No," I said indifferently.
They sat down and introduced themselves. "My name's Charlie Bone and this is Billy Raven," the brown haired boy said, pointing to himself and then the albino boy, who added shyly, " Hello."
I nodded and said, "I'm Aaliyah Crowe. Nice to meet you," before continuing to eat. I felt their stares on me, so I looked up again with a questioning glance.
Charlie seemed aware that he'd been caught staring, so he asked, "Sorry, but are you endowed?"
"Yes," I replied simply. I did a quick scan of his mind and found he was going to ask next what endowment I had.
Sure enough, he asked, "Do you mind telling me what it is?" God, he sure was polite.
"You'll find out soon enough," was my cryptic answer. He was about to say something else when Dr Bloor, sitting at the High Table overlooking the entire cafeteria, stood up and announced, "Welcome to another year at Bloor's Academy. I'd like to introduce a new endowed student this year. Aaliyah Crowe, please stand up."
I groaned inwardly at all the stares I would get but stood up anyway. I scanned the room and expectedly, the students were staring at my eyes and wondering what my endowment was. I stared back unflinchingly, daring them to continue. All of them abruptly dropped their gazes and I sat back down.
Assembly went by uneventfully, then I went to my first class, which was double history. I groaned inwardly again; I hated history. I walked into the classroom to most of the class already sitting down at their desks. I chose a spot in the second row to the side and sat down. I felt eyes on me again, but this time I ignored them. It was like that all morning until I got to lunch.
I once again sat down at an empty table, only to find that Charlie Bone boy, Billy Raven, a tall boy with spiky, electric blonde hair, a tall dark-skinned boy with black hair, the girl with rainbow hair I'd thought was nice, a blonde haired girl (possibly the one I saw the rainbow haired girl talking to), a boy with short dirty blonde hair and a boy with unkempt brown hair approaching the table.
"Hello again," Charlie greeted me. I nodded at him and let my gaze stray over the new arrivals. "These are my friends," Charlie said, nudging the spiky-haired blonde boy.
He gave a start and introduced himself, "Tancred Torsson."
The blonde girl with a green cape I was now sure I'd seen talking to the girl with rainbow hair said, "Emma Tolly."
The dark-skinned boy spoke up. "Lysander Sage."
The girl with rainbow hair smiled and said, "Olivia Vertigo."
"Gabriel Silk," said the boy with unkempt brown hair.
Lastly, the boy with short dirty blonde hair said, "Fidelio Gunn."
"Aaliyah Crowe," I introduced myself, even though they probably knew that from Dr Bloor's announcement this morning.
They all sat down and I noticed Manfred frowning at them out of the corner of my eye. I turned my gaze back towards the group of friends as Olivia (who seemed very energetic) asked, "So what's your endowment?"
There it was again. I'd planned on telling them only one of my endowments (telekinesis, since that's what I told the Bloors). They'd flip if I told them that I had six endowments. "Telekinesis," I responded. They looked all at once amazed and wary; amazed at my telekinesis (it is pretty cool, if I do say so myself) and wary of what it could mean at the same time because of the Branko twins. There were polite nods, then they started telling me their endowments. Charlie was a picture traveller, Billy spoke to animals, Lysander could call up his spirit ancestors, Tancred could create storms, Emma could fly and Gabriel could feel peoples' emotions through clothing. Fidelio and Olivia said they weren't endowed, but I noticed the anxious look on Olivia's face and dug a little deeper with my mind reading ability. She was actually endowed too (an illusionist) but was keeping it a secret from the Bloors. I decided not to comment on that lest I reveal myself to be a mind reader. No one ever really trusts a mind reader, especially one that can control your mind, shape shift and is Manfred Bloor's cousin.
We made small talk while we ate, then Charlie invited me to join them outside. I hesitated, as I had been dead set on not picking sides, but the thought of hanging out with Manfred made me sick, so I said sure.
We headed out into the fresh air, dozens of other differently coloured capes walking past us and around the yard. Our group walked over to stand next to the castle ruins, which seemed to be a regular meeting spot for them. Olivia and Emma chatted about movies (it seemed Olivia's mother was an actress), Tancred and Lysander were laughing over some failed sculpture attempt in art class (they both wore green capes), Gabriel and Fidelio just talked quietly while Charlie and Billy spoke about me, although they didn't know I could hear them and I wasn't about to tell them that.
"She's a bit strange," Billy whispered. "Did you see her eyes? They're pure black!"
"Keep it down, Billy! And yes, I saw her eyes. What I'm more interested in is if she's on our side or their side. She seemed friendly enough, but she's a bit reserved," Charlie answered.
I thought about this. Sure, I come off pretty emotionless and quiet, but if you get to know me, I'll talk for hours if it's something I care about. I interrupted their gossiping and asked, "So what's the King's Room?" since I still needed to know.
Charlie answered me. "Well, it's the room where all the endowed children go every evening to do their homework. There's a painting of our ancestor, the Red King, in there."
"Oh, cool," I said absentmindedly, zoning out like I always do when I'm bored. No one said much after that, and I was glad to escape the awkwardness that had set in when the bell rang and students started heading inside. Afternoon classes were uneventful. At 6 o'clock, we all crowded into the cafeteria to get dinner. I sat alone again but I noticed Charlie and his friends having an intense discussion a few tables over, and figured they were debating who's side I'd take. I sighed and decided to listen in by going inside of Charlie's mind and just observing everything he observed. Soon I was hearing the entire conversation, along with Charlie's thoughts.
"But she seems nice!" protested Olivia.
"Yeah, but odd. Like somethin's off about her," said Tancred.
Tancred is always so suspicious of everyone, thought Charlie. He then said, "Why don't we just wait until we go to the King's Room for homework? We'll see who's side she picks when she sits down."
I was surprised that he had such an open mind. Well, when homework time came around, I'd sit in the middle and with nobody just to make my point that I was a neutral party here.